A natural result of this has been the practical adoption of uniform requirements for admission to college, and this in turn has made possible the adoption of the system of uniform entrance examination questions. Thus history has been accorded a permanent place in the curriculum, and, if the classicists and scientists could but realize that history does not supplant the older subjects, but serves as a unifying force to make the curriculum an organic whole, a more hearty welcome would be given the

new-comer.

It was but natural that those who blazed the path for the better teaching of history in the secondary schools, who made the tools with which they cleared the way for their colleagues as well as for their successors, should sometimes have felled a tree that ought to have remained, and should have reached an end somewhat distant from that anticipated. In the first reaction from the slavish use of the text-book that characterized the early period of history teaching, the text-book was thrown aside and immature pupils were put at tasks that might well have staggered experienced historians. But the discussion of twenty years, over the question of whether the text-book method or the source method should be used in the secondary schools has resulted in inestimable benefit. The text-book has been restored, but not to its old place. It no longer serves to stimulate the flagging memory of the teacher, who follows the history lesson with his finger on the line of the text; but it serves as the skeleton which the teacher is to clothe with flesh and blood. Sources have not taken the place of the text-book, but they are used to illustrate, not to reconstruct history. One of the greatest gains of the discussions of the past twenty years has been the clarification of our ideas in regard to the relation to each other of sources and text-books.

A more intelligent appreciation of the value of the textbook as an aid in the study of history has led to a demand for its improvement. Recent years have seen effective protests against "fourteen weeks in the history of the world" series, and the substitution for them of tests written by those who are at once distinguished scholars and experienced teachers. Moreover, in our own association we have had the best formulation yet given of the fundamental principles that should govern the preparation of a text-book in history. With these high ideals in

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theory and in practice it seems impossible that we should ever degenerate into using the ready-to-wear text-book, with its minute instructions to teachers, and its lack of both historical fact and historical perspective. This gain has been a welcome result of conference and co-operation.

The substitution of the study of history for the reading of history, the introduction of the comparative method, the development of the science of historical criticism, have all combined to create a demand for a more scientific equipment. This demand has been met, as well as in part created, by scholars who have worked in different bibliographical fields. The monumental work done by Professor Gross for English history, by Mr. Larned and his board of co-operators for American history, the valuable bibliography of the study and teaching of history, prepared by Mr. J. I. Wyer of the University of Nebraska, as well as other similar works on a less extended scale, have all given invaluable help to the teacher of history. No more important step in the development of historical study is seen than in the substitution of bibliography for chronology as the handmaid of history.

History itself has come to have a history, and at least two important histories have appeared within fifteen years. Yet so rapidly have changes come in the point of view of historians themselves that in a history of historical writing in America, written less than fifteen years ago, the names of the American historians most honored to-day are mentioned, if at all, with but incidental allusion.

The past twenty years have indeed been years of plenty, not only by comparison with the lean years that had preceded them, but also as regards their net results. So much has indeed been done that the insistent questions may well be asked-Why another association? What remains to be done?

It may be said that the work thus far accomplished has been somewhat along the line of self-instruction. History has so recently come into the curriculum that the principles as yet deduced, in connection with its teaching, have been formulated by those still actively in the field. We ourselves believe in our subject, and we have come to agree on certain fundamentals in regard to studying and teaching it. But others have yet to be convinced, and one of the first important duties of our associa

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tion should be to press on the attention of those having the appointing power, that an essential qualification of those whom they select to teach history should be some knowledge of the subject to be taught. The protest against present conditions is not superfluous; current announcements show that one ambitious school, in one of the most famous New England towns, has a teacher who gives instruction in music, painting, drawing, biology, and history; that in one large city high school the classes in history are heard by the musical critic of one of the daily papers; that, in another, history has been assigned to the general utility man. If we ourselves have learned any thing as teachers of history, it is that we cannot teach what we do not ourselves know; but the public has not yet learned this elemental truth, and no one thing would do more to advance the cause of history teaching in this country than an understanding of this fact.

A second line of work that needs to be taken up is a consideration of the relation between a consistent course of history in the general secondary schools and that given in college preparatory schools. A large number of schools now have a wellarranged course in history, yet this is made of no effect for its college preparatory class, through the increase in the language requirements made by the colleges, and the regulation requiring all college entrance examinations to be taken within two years prior to admission to college. The schools cannot square the circle, they cannot give a course in ancient history during the first year in the high school, where it logically comes, and yet have the work examined by the colleges within two years of entrance. No better service could be rendered the cause of historical teaching than a presentation to colleges and schools of a satisfactory solution of this very real difficulty.

Another line of work is the consideration of the relation between history in the classroom and the various outside lights thrown upon its study by historical excursions, historical museums, lantern slides, individual collections of photographs, and similar activities.

These are but suggestions of some of the superficial aspects of history as regards methods of instruction.

But there is more than one vital question yet unanswered by either college or school, as to the content of history teaching. Is the subject-matter taught to be selected mainly from patriotic

considerations, and is patriotism to be defined as "my country, right or wrong, my country"; or, again, in the words of Samuel Johnson, as "the last refuge of a scoundrel"? Is truth to be the object of history teaching, or the virtues of a protective tariff, the wisdom of tariff for revenue only, the importance of the seapower, or the dangers threatening us from all the powers of the world? Is the study of history to be an end in itself, or is it to be the handmaid of legislators, anxious to turn to account every means for furthering their own ends; of ecclesiastics, who would utilize its facts to enforce ethical lessons; of business men whose interests are promoted by the study of the history of industries? Is the teacher of history to keep in mind that "far-off, divine event to which the whole creation moves," or that equally remote event from which creation has sprung?

But not only has an association of history teachers a wide field for work in the study of unsettled questions of methods of instruction and of the content of history teaching,-—it has a still wider field opening out to it in the determining the relations it sustains to the various communities of which its members are a part. It rests with us to arouse an interest in the study of history in our home communities, to seek the co-operation of the public library, to show the importance of preserving historical material, to suggest the founding of historical museums, to enlist interest in the records of civic life. The historian and the teacher of history cannot be a recluse, he has never been such. In every age, from the times of Herodotus and Thucydides and Xenophon to those of Von Holst and Mommsen, Stubbs and Bryce, Lavisse and Aulard, Motley and Bancroft, Hay and White, Mahan and Lea, the historian has been a man of affairs, a publicist, a diplomat, a legislator, a business man,always in one profession or another an active member of society. Removed by virtue of his subject from the realm of speculation and abstract theory, from that of experimentation and empiricism, the writer and teacher of history must always keep his feet on solid ground, he must always maintain his connection with the past. But if he is to study the life of a previous age, he must have established relations with his own. "Brains, knowledge of men, insight into things political and social, are the indispensable qualities for the historian," says Frederick Harrison. It must therefore devolve on us, as an association, to keep in touch with

the life about us, to hold ourselves always ready to promote, in any way possible, the interests of historical study in all of its ramifications in our own communities.

If, therefore, as students and teachers of history we are interested through membership in this association in working for improvements in the teaching of history, in determining the field of historical study, in allying ourselves with the historical interests of our own localities, must we not turn the question upon ourselves and ask what are to be our personal relations to the new association? To this question there can be but one answer, the association belongs to us, to every individual working co-operatively with every other individual. It cannot be stated with too great emphasis that the association does not belong to its officers. We get from any organization what we put into it; if we put into it our fees, we get out of it reports; if we put into it earnest work, we get from it large interest on the capital invested.

Pressing home, then, a final question, we must ask what contribution we, as teachers, are personally making towards what Principal Caird has called "the other and higher function of extending the bounds of knowledge." Professor Villari has written of Mansilio Ficino, "His mind was so thoroughly saturated with learning as to become incapable of independent thought "; and in every educational organization we ourselves find Dr. Casaubons with multifarious learning without productivity. If, then, the new association is to justify its existence, it can do so only through the personal efforts of its individual members, whose aim it is to be active, not passive, members; to be producers, not merely intellectual sponges; to invest much in the association with the expectation of realizing largely on the investment.

To an association thus constituted we may apply the words of William Penn: "Governments, like clocks, go from the motion men give them, and as governments are made and moved by men, so by them they are ruined too. Wherefore governments rather depend upon men than men upon governments. Let men be good, and the government cannot be bad; if it be ill, they will cure it. But if men be bad, let the government be never so good, they will endeavor to warp and spoil it to their turn."