Books

to be sub

ordinate to oral teaching.

and is, indeed, very helpful to the utility of the book considered as a work of reference, it destroys its value as a book to be read. Nobody acquires a knowledge of historical facts in this formal way. To begin with classification of this kind, is to begin at the wrong end. It is only after a general interest has been awakened in the story of the reign, and after some of the important facts have laid hold upon the mind, that the use for such classification arises, or the necessity of it is felt.

In spite, however, of these drawbacks, the use of textuseful, but books is a necessity, if you would avoid vagueness and teach history methodically. Let the book, however, be treated as supplementary and wholly subordinate to oral lessons, and be used for reference and home study mainly, and then it falls into its proper place. But if it be used in class at all let it be read aloud, explained, amplified, commented on, and made vividly interesting, before you require any of it to be learned as a lesson. Then by way of giving concentration and definiteness to what you have taught, it is not unreasonable to expect the bare facts as given in your school manual to be got up, copied out and remembered, though not of course to be learned by heart in the precise words of the book.

Tivo distinct aims.

These two objects (1) To make history stimulating to the imagination, and suggestive to the thought of the scholar, and (2) To furnish a good basis of accurate and well arranged facts for future use and generalization, will be before you. To care about the first object exclusively is to incur the risk of a relapse into slovenly teaching, and vague picturesque impressions. To be satisfied with the second only is to incur the yet greater risk of turning the most interesting and humanizing of all studies into a dull and joyless mnemonic, and so of giving your pupil a distaste for History which will last for life.

The Bible, a Model History.

373

Has it ever occurred to you to ask how it is that so The Bible many of us have a much clearer knowledge of the history a model of history. of the Jews, than of our own annals? Is it not because the Bible is in one respect the model of all history? Look at it without reference to its higher claims, simply as a piece of narrative. Consider how it is that it conveys to its readers so clear and full a knowledge of Jewish history during many centuries. There is, for example, a period of about one thousand years, from Abraham to Rehoboam, and how is the history of the time told? We have first the story of the patriarch's personal career. We are led to understand his character and his motives; we see him as the centre of a scene in which pastoral life is attractively portrayed, and which affords us glimpses of the patriarchal government, of life and manners, and of the social and domestic conditions of the time. In like manner we see Isaac and Jacob with their families and their environments; and then the narrative, disdaining to go into details about lesser matters, expands into a copious biography of Joseph, whose personal history and fortunes make us incidentally acquainted with the state of Egypt, its government, its political economy, and many facts of great interest, which, had they been tabulated in a book of outlines, we should not have cared to learn. The history then passes over a long uneventful period of nearly 400 years with scarcely a sentence, and again becomes full and graphic about the Exodus and the journey in the wilderness, investing even the details of legislation with a special interest by connecting them with the person, the character, and the private life of the lawgiver, Moses. And thus the story is continued, sometimes passing over a long interval of inaction or obscurity with a few words of general description, or a list of names; but fastening

Because it

concentrates

attention

points.

here and there on the name of Joshua, of Gideon, of Samuel, of Saul, or of David, and narrating the history of the times in connexion with the circumstances of his life. The current of human events, as it is described in the sacred writings, is not like that stream of uniform breadth and depth which text-books seem to describe, and which we see often depicted in chronological charts. It rather resembles a picturesque river, diversified in its aspect as it glides along; now feeble and narrow, now broad and swelling; hemmed in at one part of its course by overhanging rocks, and at another spreading out into a vast lake; becoming again contracted, or like the Arcadian river of Alpheus disappearing altogether from view, then re-appearing, and yet flowing ceaselessly; now past a fair city or a noble castle, and anon through a vast region which is flat and comparatively barren; continuous but irregular; possessing unity but not uniformity; inviting the traveller to glide rapidly along at one time, and to linger long and tenderly over some memorial of vanished greatness at another.

Who does not see that such a narrative precisely corresponds to the real picture of a nation's history? In the life of a people there are always great epochs of on fixed change and activity occurring at irregular intervals, and so marked and characteristic, that if they be once understood, all the lesser details and the intermediate events become intelligible through their means. Moreover, the Scriptural story of the people of Israel curiously resembles the actual knowledge which even the most accomplished historical scholar possesses. That it is adapted to the needs and conditions of the human understanding will be evident to any one who will take the trouble to recal his own experience, and will remember how he has secured one after another certain fixed points

Great Epochs to be studied first.

375

of interest, has grouped round them, little by little, the facts which he has subsequently acquired, filled up the intervals of time between them by slow degrees, but to the last has continued to retain his hold on these fixed points, and to refer every new acquisition to some one or other of them.

I do not say that it is possible or even desirable that school-books on English History should be made to conform to the Bible type in this respect. It is not safe to leave to the compilers of such books the task of determining what part of our annals shall be overlooked, and it is quite necessary that teachers should themselves exercise some discretion in this matter, selecting and adapting their historical lessons according to the age and capacity of the children, and to the probable duration of their stay at school. But if it be, indeed, certain that careful readers of the Bible obtain a truer insight into the character and polity, the manners, progress, and national life of a people than is to be secured, with the same degree of attention, from a modern compendium of English history, the fact is certainly a significant one, and will be found to suggest some important practical inferences.

epochs

should be

learned in detail first.

Of these the most obvious is, that it is better to The great master the great and eventful periods than to go on continuously in the way suggested by the form of a textbook. We said in Geography that there was absolutely no sequence for mere topographical facts; that no one such fact had any real priority over another except in so far as accident or association rendered it useful to the learner. Hence it was expedient for the teacher to emancipate himself completely from the text-books, and to teach the mere facts of political Geography in any order he liked. But in history there is of course a natural order, that of

The first lessons.

chronological sequence; and if life were long enough, and if all events and periods were equally worth studying, this would be the true order of teaching. But as a matter of fact the order of the relative significance and value of events, is of far more importance than their chronological order; and does not in any way correspond to it.

war.

How then should we begin to teach English History? Not certainly by plunging at once into the story of Julius Cæsar and the Druids; nor by giving a number of dates to be learned, to form a framework for pictures we mean to paint. I should first give a short series of lessons either orally, or from a well-written reading book if I could find one, with a view to make some simple and fundamental historical ideas intelligible—a State, a nation, a dynasty, a monarch, a parliament, legislation, the administration of justice, taxes, civil and foreign Scholars would thus see what sort of matter History had to do with, and would be prepared to enter on the study with more interest. Then a general notion should be given of the number of centuries over which our History extends. A general outline of the period of time to be covered is necessary in order that each fact as it is known may be localized and referred to its due position among other facts. Thus a sort of Timemap divided into 19 centuries is roughly constructed, on the same principle as that which would lead the teacher to lay down the meridian lines of a geographical map before he drew it and filled in all its parts. But as soon as this is done the task of selection begins. He is by no means bound to follow blindly the course prescribed by the text-book. On the contrary it will be far better to fix upon the most characteristic periods, to cause them to be studied with fulness and exactness, and to