subject. Of the 108 pages, it receives an aggregate of less than two. The
perfunctory assignment of work for the seventh grade is typical:
"UNITED STATES HISTORY
"B Assignment.
Mace's History, pp. 1-124 inclusive.
Questions and suggested collateral reading
found in Appendix may be used as teacher directs.
"A Assignment.
Mace's History, pp. 125-197.
Make use of questions and suggested collateral
reading at your own option."For fifth and sixth grades there is assigned a small history text of 200 pages for
one or two lessons per week. The two years of the seventh and eighth grades are
devoted to the mastery of about 500 pages of text. While there is incidental
reference to collateral reading, as a matter of fact the schools are not supplied
with the necessary materials for this collateral reading in the grammar grades.
The true character of the work is really indicated by the last sentence of the
eighth-grade history assignment: "The text of our book should be thoroughly
mastered."
In discussing the situation, the first thing to which we must call attention is the
great value of history for an understanding of the multitude of complicated social
problems met with by all people in a democracy. In a country where all people
are the rulers, all need a good understanding of the social, political, economic,
industrial, and other problems with which we are continually confronted. It is
true the thing needed is an understanding of present conditions, but there is no
better key to a right understanding of our present conditions than history
furnishes. One comes to understand a present situation by observing how it has
come to be. History is one of the most important methods of social analysis.
The history should be so taught that it will have a demonstrably practical
purpose. In drawing up courses of study in the subject for the grammar grades
and the high school, the first task should be an analysis of present-day social
conditions, the proper understanding of which requires historical background.
Once having discovered the list of social topics, it is possible to find historical