the culture-epoch theory, or in some other theory or principle that removes responsibility for any general inquiry into the conditions presented by the field as a whole.

The doctrine of natural tastes and interests has been pronounced "pedagogical bed-rock." Strictly interpreted this seems to imply that history is to be considered available for school purposes so far as it relates to conditions and activities analogous to those which children daily on their own unobstructed initiative either favor with their attention or create. An ideal history for children, it has been seriously suggested, would be a history written by a child. By the same token no doubt an ideal history for boys would be a history written by a boy, an ideal history for girls would be a history written by a girl, and histories written by college professors should be read by college professors, a fate perhaps at times deserved.

The natural tastes and interests of children can be inferred from psychology, they can be observed in operation, they can be tested by experiment. The problem of building a program upon them ought, therefore, to be relatively simple, and such a program ought beyond question to meet with the approval of children. These are important, and to those who are seeking the line of

1 New York Teachers' Monographs, Vol. V, No. 1, p. 90.

least resistance, conclusive considerations. But "historical mindedness," it should be remembered, is not itself a natural state and therefore not likely to be a product of natural tastes and interests, even in manhood. It is something that comes to most of us, if it comes at all, through conscious effort. We do not grow into it simply by growing up; we are trained into it. A program based upon the natural tastes and interests of children, it should also be remembered, is not necessarily the only kind of program that is interesting. There is a learning to like, as well as a learning to do, by doing. There are acquired tastes and interests as well as natural tastes and interests.

A more adequate basis for a school program in history than that supplied by the doctrine of natural tastes and interests is, in the opinion of many, found in the cultureepoch theory. According to this theory, the individual in his mental progress passes through epochs or stages similar to epochs or stages in the mental progress of the race. The individual, that is, in a sense recapitulates the mental experience of the race. From the point of view of the culture-epoch theory history is, then, to be considered available for school up to the point reached by the pupils in their recapitulation of the experience of the race. The conclusion has been happily phrased by Professor Laurie. "The childhood of history," he says,

"is best for the child, the boyhood of history for the boy, the youthhood of history for the youth, and the manhood of history for the man.'

The culture-epoch theory as applied to history programs admits of two interpretations. According to one interpretation facts are to be so selected and arranged as to keep children at each step of the way occupied with stages of race culture corresponding to the stage which they have themselves attained. Knowing, as advocates of this interpretation seem to know, that children in the first three or four grades of the elementary school are primitive beings, that in the fifth and sixth grades they are medieval, and that in the seventh and eighth grades they are becoming modern, the program maker has only to provide primitive civilization for pupils in the primitive stage of development, medieval civilization for pupils in the mediæval stage, and modern civilization for pupils in the modern stage. Such a grouping of facts does not, it should be carefully explained, imply chronological continuity in the history program. Usually, indeed, chronological continuity is specifically repudiated. In a program recently published, for example, the work of the second grade is outlined as follows: "The early Aryans; life in ancient Egypt; the tent dwellers, nomadic life, period of shep1 School Review, IV, 650.

D

herds, especially among the Hebrews; the early Phonicians; primitive life among modern Afrikanders, primitive life in the far north; primitive life in Japan, the Philippines, India, Hawaii, etc.; primitive life among the North American Indians; primitive life of the white man in America." Even in the work outlined by this program for the sixth grade the French Revolution and Napoleon precede the American Revolution.1 The particular facts selected under this interpretation may be quite "historical" so far as they go, but usually the effort to keep them so is slight.

The other interpretation involves a somewhat different procedure. It looks, not to the general cultural stages in the development of the race, but specifically to the development of the historical sense. Assuming that this unfolds in children after the manner of its unfolding in the race, the conclusion is reached that those conceptions of history which came first in the experience of the race should come first also in historical instruction, and that those conceptions which came late in the experience of the race should come late also in the history program. The earliest manifestations of the historical sense in the race being expressed in myths, legends, and fables, it follows that the introduction to school history should be through myths, legends and

1

1 Bliss, History in the Elementary Schools, 27, 47-48.

fables. As these give way to semi-historical sagas, and these in turn to more or less critical narration, so must. the history program change from one to the other on and up to, but not inclusive of, scientific history, a development so recent in the experience of the race as plainly to suggest the "manhood of history." The stage indicated as proper for beginning instruction of this kind ranges from the kindergarten to the fourth or fifth year of the elementary school and the rate of progress varies considerably. Some programs literally pass in the first four or five years from fable to saga and reach in the upper grades of the elementary school matter-offact history. Others are dominated throughout by the spirit of romance and poetry. "History," says Professor Laurie, "cannot be reasoned history to a boy; even at the age of seventeen it is only partially so, but it can always be an epic, a drama, and a song." The inference is obvious: "We must teach history to the young as an epic, a drama, and a song." At the beginning of the course outlined by Professor Laurie, with boys of ten, "it is a story to be told, and the wandering minstrel of old is our model teacher." Even at the end, with boys of eighteen, the historians especially to be commended are apparently Shakespeare, Browning, and the historical novelists.1

1 School Review, IV, 656, 660