to consult the references under "Special," and sometimes the assistant or the instructor is obliged to explain what is desired, and not infrequently to change the subject by limiting the inquiry to some specific part of the general topic assigned; or, on the other hand, to enlarge its scope on account of lack of materials. These preliminaries being arranged to the satisfaction of the assistant and the student, the authorities are next examined, extracts, abstracts, and digests prepared, and submitted to the assistant for his approval. He frequently suggests other sources to be looked into, and sometimes requires the work to be done anew in whole or in part. The students receive credit for this work of seeking and note-taking, the assistant bearing in mind how much aid has been given to the student. The Essay is now written in the student's own words, and based entirely on the Notes, which form an appendix, and are cited in footnotes to the Essay to justify every important statement made. These processes are precisely those on which every historical work must be built. The writing of these essays sharpens the faculties, arouses the student's interest, cultivates his judgment, and shows him how history is written. This system has been in successful operation for several years.

§ 72. Monographs.

The highest and most difficult kind of written work for students in history is the preparation of monographs, of complete studies of some subject, with the use of all the material in print which bears upon it, and of manuscripts, if necessary. This is work to be done only in seminary courses, under the careful guidance of instructors who are specialists in their field.

Two kinds of subjects are usual in such work: an extensive study of some brief episode, or a tracing of some line of investigation through a long period of history. Of the first type a history of the Thirteenth Amendment is an example; of the second type, the veto power of the President of the United States. The former would resemble a chapter out of a large book; the latter cuts a cross-section through a long succession of events; hence,

§ 72.]

Monographs.

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the second type is probably the most helpful to a person who is still a student.

The first step in either case is to clear the ground by making up a bibliography of the subject, including all sources and all valuable secondary authorities; the periodical indexes should also be examined for contributions to or discussions on the subject. At the same time some general account, or accounts, should be read, in order to give some idea of the proportions and relations of the parts of the subject.

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Next comes the collection of material, a long and laborious process, if the subject be as it ought to be important and not already worked out. Notes should be taken on loose sheets, only on one side, and with exact references as one goes along. ing of paper means, sooner or later, a disproportionate loss of time. At this stage is the opportunity to compare, weigh, and offset evidence. (See §§ 62, 63.)

Later on the work must be put into careful written form; wellprepared notes, arranged by topics, will now reward the investigator. The subject must be carefully subdivided and analyzed; material must fall into its proper place, and must be properly subordinated. Exact references to precise footnotes, containing extracts from rare material, must appear at every step. It is an excellent practice to enrich the text as it is written with quotations from sources, or with occasional characteristic passages out of secondary authorities.

It is well to append the text of rare and important documents, exactly transcribed, and to throw into tabular or other form, such facts as cannot easily appear in the body of the work. If printed, an index is an indispensable part of the work.

American history is a convenient field for this kind of study, because materials are abundant, because there are many important and unworked subjects, and because the history of the United States must eventually be rewritten on the basis of carefully prepared studies of limited scope.

§ 73. Subjects for Monographs.

As an illustration of the kind of topics which in actual practice have proved interesting and worth studying may be mentioned some subjects which have been investigated in the Seminary of American History and Institutions in Harvard University: Aboriginal Man in America; Explorations of Coronado; Authority exercised by the Bishop of London in the Colonies; Origin of the Free Public-School System; various topics having to do with the general subject of the New England Town System; Development of Municipal Government in Massachusetts, New York, and other States; Slavery in New York; The Franchise in the Colonies and in the United States; The Colonial Governor, Colonial Tariffs; Colonial Immigration; Separation of Church and State; Taxation, Slavery, Education, Religion, Poor-Law Systems, Punishment of Crimes in the Colonies in 1760; North Carolina, Pennsylvania, etc., in 1775; Constitutional History of a State; The Townshend Acts; Revolutionary Embargoes; The "Old Congress"; Shays's Rebellion; Interstate Conflicts, 178389; Financial History of Massachusetts, 1780-87; Opposition to the Ratification of the Constitution; Interpretation of the Ordinance of 1787; Organization of the Treasury Department; History of the Constitution of New York; Status of a Citizen of the United States; Jefferson's Use of the Executive Patronage; Historical Development of the Theory of Secession; Federal Relations of a State; Anti-slavery Movements in the Northwest; Proposed Amendments to the Constitution of the United States; The Eleventh, Twelfth, Thirteenth, or Fourteenth Amendment; Reconstruction in a Southern State; Foreign Relations, 1860-65; The Acquisition of Florida; Title of the United States to Oregon; The Fisheries Question; Suppression of the African Slave-trade; The Underground Railroad; Social Life in the Confederacy; Education and Illiteracy in the South; The Consular Service ; Railroad Land Grants; Fox and Wisconsin River Improvements; The Veto Power; Nominating Conventions; The Scandinavians in the Northwest; Biographies of important men, as Oglethorpe, Silas Deane, John Hancock, Roger Sherman, Rufus King, Salmon P. Chase.

VIII. TESTS.

§ 74. Class-Room Tests.

THE proper teaching of history requires that pupils should be frequently called upon to show not only that they "know the lesson," but that they know and can apply earlier lessons. Hence, informal tests must be devised. Devoting a part of each exercise to a review of the previous lesson has its advantages; but such a review is apt to be a wearisome and perfunctory exercise. It is better to keep pupils alive on all the field already traversed by compelling them to put their minds upon the whole subject.

One excellent device has been described above (§ 45) under the name of "fluents"; pupils are called upon repeatedly to give the whole narrative of some episode, or period, as nearly and as fully as they remember it. By going over and over this method pupils get saturated with the history, and carry it in their minds a long time.

An equally effective plan is that of the so-called "cards"; a few minutes of each exercise are given up to the asking of very brief questions, put sharply and quickly, and to be answered immediately and categorically. By writing the questions on a set of cards, and then mixing them, they will come out haphazard, and the answer to one will not suggest the answer to the next. (§ 45.)

Geography, of course, is tested by the constant use of wall maps' and atlases, and by the construction of maps or outlines from memory. (§ 48.)

§ 75. Formal Written Tests.

Written tests are undoubtedly more searching and instructive, if properly applied. The danger in the lower schools — especially in large systems handling many children—is that examinations come to be an end instead of a means, and pupils are diverted

In

from their studies in order to get ready for examinations. many city schools, however, pupils are now transferred from grade to grade on the teacher's estimate of their fitness; and promotion examinations are forbidden.

So far as examinations in history are mere memory tests they have little value. But the written tests suggested in §§ 65, 66 are helpful, especially the "paper," or written application of principles to a question up to that time not considered by the pupil.

School examinations may be so contrived as to be of real assistance to historical training. The questions ought to be such as require comparison, and the use of facts acquired at different times and in different connections. For instance, instead of asking pupils who was chief general of the United States army in the Revolutionary war, and who was president in 1796, they may be asked to state what offices George Washington occupied. The old query, "Who went where with how many men?" is not an unfair satire on ordinary questions. Entrance examinations to college ought to be arranged on the same principle of calling for the selection of significant things out of the mass of detail, and the bringing out of relations between things which depend upon each other.

In colleges the written examination has greater importance because recitations in history are there antiquated; but the examination is commonly less searching than the "quiz," the "report," or the "paper." Some instructors give frequent hour examinations, others depend upon the mid-year and final examinations. In all cases examinations must come in somewhere, in order to compel the student to "take account of stock," and to show what he can do with his whole set of acquirements. Here, also, questions must test the judgment, rather than the memory; for the judgment cannot act without material, and if it be found well trained, it will be because the memory has gathered something valuable upon which the judgment stands.