WHAT SHALL WE TEACH? WHATEVER the possible values of any subject, they remain unrealized unless we get the pupil "inside" the subjectwhich means inducing him to sense the values to be achieved and to participate actively in trying to achieve them. To interest a pupil in a subject does not mean to make it easy or amusing for him; it means to make him eager to work as hard as he can for the sake of what the subject offers him. The pupil to whom a subject is “alive” understands why it is worthy studying, feels a fascination in its difficulties, and takes satisfaction in his accomplishment in it. To gain command of the subject, he will "scorn delights and live laborious days." Requirements and marks mean less to him than the subject itself. Without such interest, achievement is always perfunctory and external; with it, any subject worthy of a place in our school programme becomes revealing, profoundly educative. A few subjects have values so universal and important that they should be constants in any curriculum; but most subjects should be optional, for individuals differ markedly in their response to the appeal of study in the several fields. The problem of what to teach is in part the problem of selecting subjects that are indispensable, such as English and general science; and for the rest it is a problem of educational guidance. Just now the social sciences hold the centre of the stage. HISTORY-QUICK OR DEAD? WILLIAM ROSCOE THAYER I A CRITIC, reviewing my biography of Cavour, said in substance: The author plunges us back into the very life of the period he describes. He makes us feel the passions of the persons, great and small, who played in the drama of the Risorgimento. We are infected by their prejudices; we take sides; we almost forget ourselves and become, temporarily, a part of the titanic conflict. This is not History. Such a frank assertion forces us to ask, What is History? The streets of Naples are paved with slabs of lava, quarried at the foot of Vesuvius. If you wished to write an account of an eruption of the volcano, would you visit the Chiaja, notebook in hand, measure the lava pavingstones, analyze them with a microscope, and make any other examination you thought proper; or would you assemble all the reports of witnesses of the eruption; climb Vesuvius itself; trace the streams of lava; look into the crater; observe the changes caused by explosions and by the caving-in of walls; and so saturate yourself with the records and the setting of the event that it became real and living and visible to you? Only on these terms can you make it real and living and visible to your readers. But my critic declares that history must be dead, and there can be no question that a great part, perhaps four |