background. During these grades a great wealth of historical materials should be
stored up. Pupils should acquire much familiarity with the history of the ancient
oriental nations, Judea, Greece, Rome, the states of modern Europe and
America. The purpose should be to give a general, and in the beginning a
relatively superficial, overview of the world's history for the sake of perspective.
The reading should be biographical, anecdotal, thrilling dramas of human
achievement, rich with human interest. It should be at every stage of the work on
the level with the understanding and degree of maturity of the pupils, so that
much reading can be covered rapidly. Given the proper conditions—chiefly an
abundance of the proper books supplied in sets large enough for classes—pupils
can cover a large amount of ground, obtain a wealth of historical experience, and
acquire a great quantity of useful information, the main outlines of which are
remembered without much difficulty. They can in this manner lay a broad
historical foundation for the study of the social topics that should begin by the
seventh grade and continue throughout the high school.
The textbooks of the present type can be employed as a part of this preliminary
training. Read in their entirety and read rapidly, they give one that perspective
which comes from a comprehensive view of the entire field. But they are too
brief, abstract, and barren to afford valuable concrete historical experience. They
are excellent reference books for gaining and keeping historical perspective.
Reading of the character that we have here called preliminary should not cease
as the other historical studies are taken up. The general studies should certainly
continue for some portion of the time through the grammar grades and high
school, but it probably should be mainly supervised reading of interesting
materials rather than recitation and examination work.
We would recommend that the high schools give careful attention to the
recommendation of the National Education Association Committee on the
Reorganization of the Secondary Course of Study in History.