"When?" and "Where?" "What?" and "Who?" Information and reflection may
therefore be combined--with due regard to the pupil's capacity.


PRACTICAL DIFFICULTIES

We may speak of two difficulties. The first concerns the enormous amount
of historical material that exists. It is increased still more by the
intermingling of legend with history and by the partial narratives of
prejudiced writers. The legendary part may be taken up in the Story
stage; and the evils of one-sided accounts are often balanced by the
greater vigour and interest of the narrative, as in Macaulay's writings.
The difficulty connected with the great amount of material can be solved
by the selection (already largely made by the text-books) of the more
important parts, that is, those facts of history that have the greatest
influence on after times--"the points of vital growth and large
connection" without which subsequent history cannot be properly
understood.

The second difficulty has to do with deciding where to begin the
teaching of history. There are two principles of teaching that will help
to solve this difficulty: (1) The child learns by relating everything
new to his present fund of experiences; (2) A child's notions grow more
complex as his knowledge increases. To apply these, we must know the
child's experiences and his present notions. We cannot assume that the
present conditions of social life are known to the child through his
experiences. Our social life is also too complex to be understood by him
yet; he can understand an _individual_ hero better than he can the
complex idea of a _nation_. How many children would be able to begin a
study of history by having, as one writer suggests, "a short series of