It was expected that the new high school manual describing the course of study in the high schools would be off the press, and that accompanying each exhibit-e.g., that in ancient history-there would be this printed information stating the ground covered and the text-books used. This hope was not realized. It is very doubtful whether the public would have taken the time to read such a summary had it been available. In the corridor just outside the door by which the visitor would naturally enter was a large placard stating the general object of the course in the social sciences. This read as follows:

The general aim of the course in the social sciences is to give the student a background for his own life and environment that he may better appreciate the character of the problems of life and devote himself more intelligently to their solution; that he may see more clearly the complicated character of human society, and, understanding the nature of the obstacles to be overcome, be more patient with the slow progress of reform; and finally that he may have that mental vision, clarified by a study of the past that will enable him to enjoy the rich life of the present, and to set himself manfully to the task of shaping the course of the future.

A large chart at the right showed in graphic form how much history was required in the six courses offered in the four high schools. Just below appeared a large placard with the following statement of the objects sought by the exhibit:

Note how the exhibit illustrates the following points:

1. The problem nature of the work.

2. The variety of the assignments.

3. The correlation of the work with the departments of art, English, sewing, manual training and mechanical drawing.

4. The points of contact maintained with the world to-day and the student's environment.

5. The realization of a definite aim in each course.

6. The use of illustrations.

7. The use of notebooks.

8. The nature and scope of outside reading,

On a similar placard was a directory of the whole exhibit, arranged in accordance with the following plan:

Object of the Course in the Social Sciences.
Method of Presentation.

Exhibit 1, Ancient.

Exhibit 2, European.

Exhibit 3, English.

Exhibit 4, American. Exhibit 5, Economics.

Exhibit 6. Civics.

Tables: Text-books and books for supplementary reading; course of study syllabi; aids to study of subject; writings of members of the department; notebooks; examination papers; examples of class work.

The aim of the course in American history was stated as follows:

The general aim is to trace the progress and make clear the struggle for liberty.

1. For political liberty against the oppressive action of established government.

2. For religious liberty against the narrowing influence of an insistent theocracy.

3. For industrial liberty against the restrictive measures of established industry.

4. For a broader democracy against the aristocratic tendency of established society.

5. For a broader humanity against the entrenched power of wealth and privilege.

The aim of the course in economics was stated as follows:

1. To make the students intelligent on present-day social and industrial problems and on their solution. 2. To develop in them an altruistic spirit. 3. To develop independent thinkers.

The aim of the course in community civics was stated as follows:

1. To give the students a workable knowledge of the way in which Newark provides for the public welfare.

2. The arouse an abiding interest in civic affairs. 3. To develop a sense of civic obligation and personal responsibility.

4. To cultivate a public opinion that demands efficient, honest service in public office, GOOD CITIZEN

SHIP.

It was the particular object of the exhibit to show the various devices by which these aims were realized. This was no easy task in a field which was naturally characterized by much indefiniteness, but much was done to translate into definite pieces of work the actual experiences of the class-room, and to enable the uninitiated to realize just what a course in history involved and just what the boys and girls were doing. All the text-books and helps used were available. In short, nothing was omitted that was in any way connected with the actual presentation of the subject in the class-room.

THE PROBLEM METHOD OF TEACHING.

The problem nature of the work and the varied forms taken by the assignments were illustrated in the European field by a set of answers to the questions, "How would you frame the Near Eastern Question?" "How would you solve the Balkan problem? To each of the answers to the latter question was attached a criticism by a fellow student. Then again there were interviews with famous men in which the writers imagined themselves face to face with a Cromwell or an Erasmus, describing the man and voicing his views upon the questions of the day. There were answers to the query, "If I were Tzar;" letters supposed to have been sent home by delegates, attending the Council of Constance, in which they set forth the difficulties involved in the situation before them; reports of interviews with representatives of the different classes in Germany, expressing their views of Luther and the Reformation; and speeches delivered at the trial of Louis XVI. A complete set of assignments actually used for an entire term was

also displayed in typewritten form, making clear the constant insistence upon the problem nature of the work.

CORRELATION WITH OTHER SUBJECTS.

The attempt to correlate the work with that done in the department of English was illustrated by dramatizations-e.g., the sinking of the Maine, Columbus' first voyage, and the French Revolution; by reading lists and summaries of reading; and by elaborate essays, note-books and briefs for debate. In every case the form followed was that prescribed by the department of English.

Beautifully colored maps, plans of monasteries and castles, and of basilicas, temples and churches, bore witness to the great indebtedness to the art departments of the various schools. The work of entire classes in fixing from memory boundaries, etc., on outline maps showed the success attending efforts of this sort and the practical nature of this work. Elaborate graphs of the tariff problem; of the rise and fall of the power of king, church, nobles and commons in England throughout the Middle Ages; carefully drawn diagrams illustrating the commission form of government, the organization of a great railroad, and the progress of the temperance movement, all bore witness to the skill of many a student in mechanical drawing. Many of the maps and plans thus prepared -some of which were absolutely original-were executed on a large enough scale to be utilized as a part of the regular equipment of the department.

One of the most attractive features of the exhibit from the standpoint of the visitor was a case of costume dolls dressed by students in the history classes who were also taking courses in sewing. The costumes were faithful reproductions of German plates. These were copied in water color by students in the history department who were enrolled in the art department, and it was therefore possible to appreciate the care taken to reproduce the exact color scheme of the originals. There were seven of these dolls representing a page, the wife of a German knight, a man of the people-a twelfth century type-women living in the cities during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, and a Ku Klux rider mounted on his horse.

DRAWING UPON THE PUPILS' ENVIRONMENT.

The close relationship which was maintained with the student's life and environment was illustrated time and again, particularly in the use made of the magazine and newspaper. There were copies of such periodicals as the "Survey," the "Literary Digest,' the "Independent," the "Outlook" and "Review of Reviews;" and the use made of the daily paper and the weekly or monthly periodical was illustrated in a variety of ways. Here, for example, in the economics exhibit were graphs of current prices; a map of the United States showing by years the passage of workmen's compensation laws; analyses of the party platforms of 1912 for economic clauses; reports of visits to factories; to penitentiaries; to courtrooms; and reports of strikes in the neighborhood, with their causes and other pertinent facts in tabular form. "How would you decide the Oregon case?" illustrated the time and attention given to current happenings, and the sort of reaction upon the student resulting from the use of questions of this character. In the civics exhibit appeared the minutes of the "Newark Charter Revision Committee" (the junior class in civics in one of the high schools), accompanied by a diagram of the particular form of government which they finally recommended. Cartoons were displayed upon pages taken from note-books, accompanied in each case by an interpretation; other note-books with their carefully selected clippings from the local papers illustrated the emphasis placed upon a knowledge of local conditions. A series of large maps of the "Blood-red World" at various epochs: in 1648; during the Wars of Louis XIV; during the Napoleonic struggle; and as the result of the present great war, brought out clearly the effort to

correlate the past with the present, and to throw light upon the great events of our day. A map of Africa as it would probably be apportioned among the great powers in the event of a German victory also illustrated this same point. The use of the editorial and the news item to vitalize the work was also illustrated by specimens of work.2

Individual reading lists, types of tests, final examination papers, illustrated material drawn from books and magazines, large wall pictures and carefully prepared note-books served to make clear the other phases of the work to which attention was drawn in the large placard serving as a guide to the visitor.

TESTIMONY OF NEW JERSEY'S CHIEF EXECUTIVE.

To emphasize the value of such work as viewed by men of affairs--if further emphasis were needed after such a display-letters were on exhibition from the present Governor of New Jersey and from three of her ex-Governors. These letters follow:

STATE OF NEW JERSEY, EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENT.

SEA GIRT, June 28, 1916.

I am very glad to endorse the work of the high schools of this State in connection with instruction in social sciences. I consider this a very important branch of education, and I feel our schools are taking the matter up intelligently and thoroughly. Sincerely yours,

JAMES F. FIELDER.

TRENTON, N. J., June 28, 1916.

I take great pleasure in commending the work of your school in history, civics and economics. These are studies that bear upon the incidents of every-day life and a mastery of them enables the citizen to act intelligently for his country and wisely for himself.

The great educational problem of to-day is how to coordinate the school with the life work of the individual, and social science study is a step in that direction. With best wishes, I am,

Very sincerely yours,

E. C. STOKES.

In this day and age when so much is depending upon a knowledge of history and of all questions of social science, there seems to be little of anything that could be more important than these questions. It would seem that there should be no necessity for these great causes to be compelled to fight for their existence in the curriculum of the high schools. In the actual affairs of life these to-day are almost, if not quite, essential. When a great political party only four years ago went to the nation in an independent way and was almost successful largely upon these social questions, it would seem that the American people were quite interested in their vital features. Certain social sciences properly selected and judiciously studied, together with economics of government as well as private affairs should not be neglected in any public system of education. As business is broadening and international trade being extended, a knowledge of the history of all people would seem to me to be a first consideration.

I wish you success in your efforts to accomplish the results which you seem to be trying to advance as I gather from the spirit of your letters.

Yours very truly,

JOHN FRANKLIN FORT.

VALUE OF ECONOMICS.

The value of a course in economics was brought forcibly home to the visitor by a placard upon which were tabulated the results of a questionnaire sent out a few years ago to the graduates of what was then the replied. The questions and answers follow:

What line of work pursued in the high school has been of greatest interest to you since you left high school?

Ans. English, 22; History, 3; Mathematics, 5; Economics, 23; Science, 7; Languages, 0.

Which line do you think has influenced your conduct most?

Ans. English, 18; History, 3; Mathematics, 1; Economics, 40; Science, 1; Languages, 1.

Which, in your judgment, more than any other, makes for consideration of others?

Ans. English, 1; History, 3; Mathematics, 0; Economics, 65; Science, 1; Languages, 0.

Which teaches the student the most about the life of to-day?

Ans. English, 0; History, 13 Mathematics, 0; Economics, 75; Science, 1; Languages, 0.

Which do you think more than any other fits one to be the person of influence in the community you would like to be?

Ans. English, 7; History, 1; Mathematics, 1; Economics, 52; Science, 0; Languages, 0.

It might be said in conclusion that the success of the exhibit was largely due to the hearty co-operation of the teachers of the social sciences in the four high schools of the city.

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He who is ignorant of what happened before his birth is, according to Cicero, always a child. Strictly speaking, he cannot be called educated, no matter how much else he may know, for education not only implies "systematic instruction" but "development of character and mental powers into full manhood. Accordingly no one can be regarded as educated unless he has a fair knowledge of the world's history, which the Oxford Dictionary defines as "a continuous methodical record of public events; study of growth, of growth of nations; whole train of events connected with nation, person, thing, etc." Every Catholic college worthy of the name should, therefore, have a history course conducted concurrently with the other studies, and pursued with no less care and diligence, as regards aim and method of instruction.

How should such a course be most advantageously carried on? Here, as in other matters, it is easy to formulate a theory, but far from easy to put that theory into practice in such a way as to make the teaching as effective as possible. The first essential is a good text-book-one that is not overloaded with minor details and innumerable dates, but one that narrates the leading events in a style which, while entertaining, is not rhetorical; for "brilliant writing is a most delusive guide." "It is far more important to the training of the human mind, and the true interest of historical truth," says Prof. Henry O. Wakeman, of Oxford, "that the beginner should learn the place which a period occupies in the story of the world, than to have an accurate knowledge of the smaller details of its history." In the second place, the teacher should be deeply interested, almost an enthusiast, in his subject. Moreover, he should be so equipped with knowledge, as to be able to supplement the text of the class book, and to guide the pupil in the best supplementary reading.

What should be the topics chiefly discussed in a college class-book of history? Surely, they ought not to be in the main, recitals of wars and the crimes of ambitious and wicked despots. As Frederic Harrison well remarks, "Better to know nothing of the bast than to know only its follies, though set forth in

...

eloquent language and with attractive anecdote. Let this be our plan of what is history and what is not, that it teaches us something of the advance of human progress, and that it tells us of those mighty spirits who have left their mark on all time, and that it shows us the nations of the earth woven together in one purpose, or is lit up with those great ideas and great purposes which have kindled the conscience of mankind." And so we see that Freeman has given us a very narrow view of history when he defined it as past politics; though happily he overleaped such barriers when he advanced the high ideal that "the historian is an impartial judge, who prefers the blunt frankness of truth to the prudent silence of friendship;" and yet, how singular after such a standard of excellence to find him occasionally lapsing into flippancy in his most serious dissertations, as, for instance, when in his "Methods of Historical Study" he speaks of "the way in which royal and princely persons seem to have sometimes won the honors of saintship on easier terms than meaner folk ; of the days when crusades were preached as an easy means for laymen to win salvation without the trouble of leading Christian lives." Such innuendos the Catholic teacher should be ever ready to dispose of, especially when they occur in the works of historians of such weight and influence as Freeman's.

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We must remember, however, that Freeman was then discussing some of the troubles with which the painstaking historian has to contend, and in regard to which he says towards the close of his first lecture:

In all these ways we have to struggle with difficulties which surely do not beset other pursuits in anything like the same measure. Nowhere else is half knowledge so likely to be mistaken for real knowledge. Nowhere else is it so large a part of the work of him, who would really understand his subject, first of all to unlearn a vast proportion of all that he has learned. The work of unlearning must have its turn in all studies, whenever a new light shows the old doctrines to be mistaken. In historical study it is needful, not only because new light is often thrown on this or that point, but because many prefer darkness to light, old or new."

While the "evil that men do" cannot be overlooked by the historian, it is their good works that should chiefly engage his attention. If the " proper study of mankind is man," in historical study more emphasis should be placed on the influence of him who has labored for the uplift of his age and nation rather than on him who was content "to wade through slaughter to a throne and shut the gates of mercy on mankind." Histories," says F. Harrison, "have been written which are nothing but minute pictures of scoundrelism and folly triumphant; wretches, who if alive now could be consigned to the gallows and the hulks, who have only to take, as it is said, a place in history, and generations after generations of learned men will pore over their lives, collect their letters, their portraits or their books, search out every fact in their lives with prurient inquisitiveness, and chronicle their rascalities in twenty volumes. Such stories, some may say, have a human interest. So has the "Newgate Calendar" a human interest of a certain kind. In search of an effective subject for a telling picture, men have wandered into strange and dismal haunts. We none of us choose our friends on such a plan. Why, then, should we choose thus the friends around whom our recollections are to centre?

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We none of us wish to associate with a man simply because he is a picturesque looking villain, nor do we bring to our firesides men who have the reputation of being the loudest braggarts or keenest sharpers of their times."

"Let us pass by untouched these memories of the unmemorable, these lives of those who never can be said to have lived. Pass them all; these riotings, intrigues and affectations of worthless men and worthless ages. It does not profit to know the names of all the kings that ever lived, and the catalogues of all their crimes and vices, and a minute list of their particular weaknesses."

"And they call this history. This serving up in spiced dishes of the clean and the unclean, the wholesome and the noxious. No good can come of such work without plan, without purpose, without breadth of view, without method. It is a kind of a sacrilege to the memory of the great men, to whom we owe all we prize, if we waste our lives poring over the acts of the puny creatures who only encumbered their path."

is

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If history is philosophy teaching by example," if it is the essence of innumerable biographies," if it the biographies of mankind," if we are so deeply indebted and so indissolubly bound to preceding ages," if "all our hopes of the future depend on a sound understanding of the past," if "history is the record of the growth, advancement and improvement of civilization," then "we cannot fancy any knowledge more important than the knowledge of the way in which this civilization has been built up. If the destiny of our race, and the daily actions of each of us, are so completely directed by it, the useful existence in turn depends upon a right estimate of that which has so constant an influence on us. In a word, it is essential that the students of history mistake none of the elements that go to make up that civiliza

tion as a whole, and see them in their due relations and harmony."

This brings us to that class of objectors "who, far from denying the interest in the events of the past, far from seeing no use at all in their study, are only too ready in discovering a multitude of reasons for it, and at seeing in it a variety of incongruous purposes. If they suppose that it furnishes us with parallels when similar events occur, the answer is that similar events never do and never can occur in history. The history of man offers one unbroken chain of constant change, in which no single situation is ever replaced. The story of the world is played out like a drama in many acts and scenes, not like successive games of chess, in which the pieces enact, combat and manœuver, for a time, only to be cleared for another trial, and replaced in their original positions. Political maxims drawn crudely from history may do more harm than good. You may justify anything from a pointed example in history. It will show you the instances of triumphant tyranny and triumphant tyrannicide. You may find in it excuses for any act or any system. What is true of one country is wholly untrue of another. What leads to a certain result in one year, leads to a wholly opposite result in another.

"All knowledge is imperfect, we may almost say meaningless, unless it tends to give us sounder notions of our social and human interests. What we need are clear principles about the moral nature of man as a social being; about the elements of human society, about the nature and capacities of understanding. We want landmarks to guide us in our search after worthy guides, or true principles for social and political action. Human nature is unlike inorganic nature in this, that its varieties are greater and that it shows continual change... Age after age develops into new phases. It is a duty of life, of growth, of variety. Hence it is that in all political, all social, all human questions whatever, history is the main source of the inquirer."

It is especially the armor with which the Catholic student must equip himself if he wishes to be prepared to meet the attacks of the Church's enemies; for bitter enemies she has, as she had in the days of her infancy, whose calumnics require the services performed in the early ages by the Ante-Nicene Fathers, and later on by men like St. Athanasius and St. Augustine. "The critical sense," it has been well said, "is very slightly developed in the majority of mankind," and this majority can be imposed upon by specious, special pleaders, unless competent scholars are on hand to expound the truth, men of urbanity as well as of sound learning." For it is no longer true as Count Joseph de Maistre could justly say a hundred years ago, that "History as written for the last three centuries has been an organized conspiracy against the truth." At the time of his death, the age of honest research was in its infancy. Its pioneers were Hallam, Guizot, Ranke, and Milman. But though the honest work of the non-Catholic historians has been vastly improved upon by their successors, yet few of them are free from insinuations and slurs, calling for correction and refutation. By no means, for instance,