Such educational reforms in history teaching as have already won
acceptance confirm the existence of this vital relation between current
social interests and the learning process. The barren learning of names
and dates has long since been supplanted by a study of sequences among
events. The technical details of wars and political administrations have
given way to a study of wide economic and social movements in which
battles and laws are merely overt results reinforcing the current of
change. History, once a self-inclosed school discipline, has undergone
an intellectual expansion which takes into account all the aspects of
life which influence it, making geographical, economic, and biographical
materials its aids. All these and many other minor changes attest the
fact that a vital mode of instruction always tends to accompany that
view of history which regards the study of the past as a revelation of
real social life.

The author's suggestions will, therefore, be of distinct value to at
least two groups of history teachers. Those who believe in the larger
uses of history teaching, so much argued of late, will find here the
procedures that will express the ideals and obtain the results they
seek. Those who are not yet ready to accept modern doctrine, but who
feel a keen discontent with the older procedure, will find in these
pages many suggestions that will appeal to them as worthy of
experimental use. It may be that the successful use of many methods here
suggested may be the easy way for them to come into an acceptance of the
larger principles of current educational reform.




THE TEACHING OF HISTORY