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It is useless to expect a teacher to instil into the minds of his pupils a love of historical reading and research, unless he himself appreciates and enjoys the study, and is fully alive to its educational and political value. The apathy or distaste so frequently exhibited by pupils when called upon to master the most elementary historical facts is largely due to the superficiality of the teacher’s knowledge. Without a good acquaintance with the subject he can make it neither profitable nor interesting.

“History is past politics.” This may be accepted as a History and its value. fairly correct definition, if we enlarge the ordinary conception of “politics,” so as to comprehend all the facts connected with the moral, intellectual, and social life of a community. History deals with something more than the struggles of contending princes for power and fame; its main incidents are not battles and sieges. Nor is it limited to the discussion and explanation of the varying fortunes of great political parties. It includes these things; but it includes also many other matters of equal or even greater importance. It aims to reveal to us the joys and sorrows, the triumphs and defeats, the virtues and vices, of the different classes that make up a nation. It tells us how rude, semi-civilized tribes and peoples develop into powerful commonwealths, enjoying the advantages of good government, pure morals, high culture, and literary excellence. It tells us, too, of the gradual or rapid decline of great monarchies and strong republics; and shows us the reason why one nation prospered and another suffered ruin or disaster.

History also gives us ample opportunities of studying human character as manifested on an extended scale. The wise and the unwise, the just and the unjust, the cruel and the merciful, the pure and the impure; all kinds of actors on life’s stage are placed before us for moral discrimination and judgment. Rightly studied, history teaches us to admire and esteem the brave, the honest, and the self-denying; and to despise and condemn the cowardly, the base, and the selfish. We are led to see that virtue preserves and strengthens a nation, while vice inevitably causes decay and weakness. Not the least of the important uses of history is its tendency to broaden our sympathies and to enlarge our views of human life and action. History, then, is a great teacher of morals. It is, also, a powerful means of developing the intellectual faculties. It leads us to compare nation with nation; institutions with institutions; laws with laws. It prompts us to discover the links that connect events apparently isolated; in other words, to find causes for effects. It helps us to estimate the value of proposed laws and constitutions; for by careful reading and wide generalizations we are, to a certain extent, able to discover the character of the customs, laws, and systems, that produce beneficial results, or the contrary.

In particular is the history of England and her self-governing Colonies of value to us. England, it has been well said, surpasses all nations “in the unbroken continuity of her national life.... That to which the mind of the nation has been turned from its birth ... is the working out of a political constitution combining Roman order with Northern liberty, and harmonizing the freest development of individual mind and character with intense national unity and unfailing reverence for law.”

If, then, History is such an important study, how should it be taught and what should be taught to enlist the interest of students and induce them to pursue it successfully?

As to the subject matter of History; customs and habits, How History should be taught, and what should be taught. character and its influence, laws and forms of governments, causes and effects, must all be thoroughly discussed and elucidated. The physical, mental and moral qualities of races; the influence of climate and geographical position; the development of religious and civil institutions, cannot be neglected in any philosophic treatment of history. But it does not follow that all these topics should be taken up with young pupils at the outset. On the contrary, many of the most important questions with which a philosophy of history deals must be deferred until the teacher has succeeded in arousing the interest of his class, and until sufficient mental power has been acquired by the pupils to enable them to grapple with comparatively difficult problems.

As to methods of teaching, one remark applies to them all. It is of the utmost importance that history should be made interesting, and, if possible, fascinating. To do this, all available means must be used to produce vivid impressions. Tales, anecdotes, poems, maps, portraits, wood-cuts, may be employed with good effect to quicken the imagination and excite the sympathies. Descriptions of the traits of character and personal appearance of remarkable men and women, vivid narratives of their deeds and achievements, generally arrest the attention of the young. Draw from your readings in poetry and fiction illustrations of the subject in hand. Shakspeare’s historical plays; Scott’s Waverley Novels, especially his Ivanhoe, The Talisman, and Kenilworth, are examples of works not strictly historical that throw strong side-lights upon important characters and events in English history. But the teacher is not confined to anecdotes and illustrations drawn from fiction; abundant material is to be found in the records of the romances of real life. No more thrilling or absorbing narratives exist than Parkman’s histories of the early settlement of Canada.

The order of treatment of the various topics with which history deals must be largely left to the individual teacher. The following suggestions, however, may be of some service:—

(1). On the first reading of a period, minor events, names and dates, should be passed over, and attention directed solely to great facts and personages. The reason for this course is obvious. Too many details overload the memory, produce confusion of thought, and destroy the perception of historic proportion.

(2). The leading features of a period having been mastered, the teacher may proceed to show how events are connected as cause and effect. In this work the pupil should have an important share. He should not be told what are the causes and what the effects of certain events and actions; but he should be encouraged and assisted to draw conclusions for himself. This encouragement and assistance can best be given by a judicious system of questioning. Questions of a thought-provoking character, simple and concrete at first, but gradually leading up to wider and wider generalizations, should be given after the story of the chapter or period has been learned.

(3). When the pupil has obtained a thorough knowledge of the principal facts of a period, and has acquired some power of connecting events in their chronological and causal relations, the teacher may go on to explain the origin, the growth and influence, of those laws and institutions that have materially affected the national life and well-being. This will be found a difficult task, especially when the pupils are young; and it cannot be accomplished at all if the teacher has not a clear and well-defined knowledge of the subject. The only way that ideas, such as are involved in constitutional history, can be brought home to the mind, is by drawing illustrations from familiar facts. Fortunately, English institutions have been of slow growth, and have never undergone radical change. “The same habits of local self-government, which are so much at the root of our political character now, held together English society in the county, the hundred, the parish, the borough, when the central government was dissolved by the Civil Wars of Henry III., the Wars of the Roses, and the Great Rebellion.” The institutions under which we now live do not differ so widely from those of the Anglo-Saxons as to render it impossible to explain and illustrate the systems of government possessed by our forefathers.

(4). Descriptions of the social life of the masses—their material, moral, and religious condition at various stages in the national development—literature, and its relation to the thoughts and tendencies of the age—poetry and politics, how they act and react on each other, are topics of great educational value. Discussions having for their object the elucidation of the reflex action of the literature and the tendencies of the age may well be deferred until the pupil has acquired considerable maturity of thought; but descriptions of the customs, habits, and social condition of the people at any given period may be interwoven with the thread of the history, and, like tales and anecdotes, may be employed to give the pupil vivid and permanent impressions. In dealing with these latter topics, Green’s “History of the English People” will be found invaluable for purposes of reference.

(5). History abounds with more or less important details. These, if time and circumstances permit, may be gradually supplied after the framework has been thoroughly put together. But they should not be taken up until a clear and orderly conception has been acquired of the bold outlines that mark an age or an epoch.

To assist the teacher in selecting the most important facts, and to suggest topics for explanation and instruction, hints and references have been prefixed to each chapter of the following pages. The teacher must not, however, conclude that full directions have been given as to the subject matter and method of treatment. Much has been and must be left to his judgment as to what topics can be treated with satisfactory results. In addition to hints, it has been considered advisable to insert questions based on the different chapters. These questions are, by no means, exhaustive of the contents of the chapters with which they deal; they are introduced to assist the teacher in choosing the proper kind for examination purposes. It will be noticed that many of them are of considerable difficulty, and require powers of generalization not possessed at the present time by the great majority of Fourth Class pupils. The Authors are, however, of the opinion that too little attention is paid to the development in this particular of the minds of Public School pupils. They believe that comparatively young pupils can be taught to deduce general conclusions from the historic facts placed before them. The process of mental development is, however, often slow and tedious, and the wise teacher will not, as a rule, make use of such questions as are appended until after a great many simple and concrete questions have been given and answered.

The maps and cuts, it is hoped, will aid the teacher in his recitations, besides giving the pupils more realistic and vivid conceptions of leading events and personages.

It is almost unnecessary to say that in the following pages only the merest outline of the history has been attempted. In the Canadian Primer, especially, is this the case; the narrative being confined, in the main, to events occurring in what are now the Provinces of Ontario and Quebec.

THE AUTHORS.

Toronto, May 1st, 1886.