The Teaching of History

This monograph will make no attempt to analyze the personality of the ideal teacher. It is
assumed that the teacher of history has an adequate preparation to teach his subject, that
he is in good health, and that his usefulness is unimpaired by discontent with his work or
cynicism about the world. It is presupposed that he understands the wisdom of correlating in
his instruction the geography, social progress, and economic development of the people
which his class are studying. He is aware that the pupil should experience something more
than a kaleidoscopic view of isolated facts. He recognizes the folly of requiring four years of
high school English for the purpose of cultivating clear, fluent, and accurate expression, only
to relax the effort when the student comes into the history class. He knows that the
precision, logic, and habit of definite thinking exacted by the pursuit of the scientific subjects
should not be laid aside when the student attempts to trace the rise of nations. Let us go so
far as to assume a teacher who is both pedagogical and practical; scholarly without being
musty; imbued with a love for his subject and yet familiar with actual human experience.