of school history must be presented as ready-made information, but that there should be illustrations of the historical method sufficient to indicate the general nature of the problems behind organized history, and sufficient to give some definite training in the solution of such problems. How shall this be accomplished? Here, let us say, is a teacher of a fourth or a fifth grade who is called upon by the course of study to discuss with her class some of the peoples of antiquity. She has discovered that for certain subjects Herodotus seems to be a mine of information, and that somehow he has mastered the art of telling a story so as to be interesting even in a translation. He is to be used mainly for information, but the teacher believes that the children's interest will not be lessened by raising here and there the question of how Herodotus gathered his information. The rôle of father of history, which he has played so long, lends, it may be, a peculiar sense of fitness to the idea of raising the question first with him. She begins with a few preliminary questions: What people are there in the world besides Americans? How do you know? Who are the oldest people in the world?

On one occasion a girl knew that there were Germans in the world because she had heard her mother speak of a German woman. The teacher wrote on the blackboard: "We may know of people by hearing about

them." A boy knew that there were Indians in the world because he had read about them in a book. The teacher wrote: "We may know of people by reading about them." Another boy knew that there were Chinamen in the world because he had seen a Chinaman. He spoke with an air of conviction that seemed to express disapproval of hearsay or books as evidence, and a new look of intelligence swept over the class. They had all seen a Chinaman. The teacher wrote: "We may know of people by seeing them." Before this last statement had been put on the board the children were discussing the relative merits of the three ways that had been suggested of knowing about people. It was unanimously agreed that the Indians were the oldest people in the world, on the ground, as one member of the class put it, that "they are the first people we read about in school." This was the crudest piece of reasoning developed during the lesson. The children were told that the question was one which appeared to have been raised a long time ago in Egypt, for a traveler who went there has told us a story about it. A line was drawn on the blackboard to represent ten years, the average age of the pupils. With this as a unit the line was continued to represent a century. It was then extended century by century across the blackboard of three sides of the room until the twenty-five centuries

back to Herodotus had been measured. In this way the children were at least made conscious that Herodotus lived a very long time ago. They had already heard of Egypt and had formed some impression of where Egypt is. The story as told by Herodotus was then read.

The Egyptians before the reign of their king Psammetichus believed themselves to be the oldest of mankind. Psammetichus, however, wished to find out if this was true. So he took two children of the common sort and gave them over to a herdsman to bring up, charging him to let no one speak a word in their presence, but to keep them in a cottage by themselves, and take to them food and look after them in other respects. His object herein was to know, after the first babblings of infancy were over, what word they would speak first. The herdsman did as he was told for two years, and at the end of that time on his opening the door of their room and going in, the children both ran up to him with outstretched arms and called, "Becos." When this first happened, the herdsman took no notice; but afterwards when he observed on coming often to see them that the word was constantly in their mouths, he told the King and by his command brought the children into the King's presence. Psammetichus himself then heard them say the word, upon which he proceeded to ask what people there were who had anything they called "Becos." Hereupon he learned that Becos was the Phrygian word for bread. The Egyptians then gave up claiming that they were the oldest people in the world and agreed that the Phrygians were older than they.

Children, even in a fourth grade, will readily anticipate the later steps in this story, if given the opportunity.

In a fifth or sixth grade they are almost sure to raise on their own motion objections to the conclusion which the Egyptians are alleged to have drawn from the experiment. Discussion is almost sure to lead some one to suggest that the story is probably not true, and to ask if Herodotus really thought it was true, or expected anybody else to think so. This raises naturally the question of where Herodotus got the story anyway. The reading is resumed :

That these were the real facts, I learned at Memphis from the priests of Vulcan. The Greeks told other stories of how the children were brought up, but the priests said that the bringing up was as I have stated it. I got much other information from conversation with these priests while I was at Memphis and I even went to Heliopolis and to Thebes expressly to try whether the priests of those places would agree in their accounts with the priests at Memphis.1

The children thus see at once that Herodotus knew of the experiment credited to Psammetichus only through "hearing about it." With this introduction children so fortunate as to be allowed to travel for some weeks afterward with Herodotus are found to be more or less on the alert to discover when he is talking about things that he has really seen and when he is talking about things that he has merely heard or read. Work thus begun with Herodotus may easily be extended so as to

1 Herodotus, Book II, 2, 3. Slightly adapted.

include along with information about the Greeks and Romans some impression of Thucydides, Xenophon, Plutarch, Livy, and Tacitus.

For an initial exercise in American history in raising the question of how we know, the adventures of the manuscript of Bradford's History of Plymouth Plantation furnish material of similar grade for devising an introduction to Bradford's work, which may then be followed somewhat after the manner proposed for Herodotus. The story of the manuscript is told in the edition published by the state of Massachusetts and, more briefly, in the edition included in the Original Narratives series published by Scribner's Sons. Materials for extending the work to other writers of the colonial period may be found in Higginson's Young Folks' Book of American Explorers.

When the stage is reached at which children begin to use formal textbooks, these may serve as the point of departure for occasional illustration of how histories are made. It is the duty of teachers to point out recognized errors. Incidentally this may be turned to account in showing what is really involved in getting at the truth about a matter in history. In the seventh grade the colonial period is usually treated for the first time with some degree of seriousness. Probably no subject of equal importance in that period has been