In conclusion, as one reviews the advantages to be derived, that have been set forth in this paper, it can be readily understood why the consolidated school is a profitable investment for the State and an educational beneficence for the student.

BIBLIOGRAPHY.

"Rural Community Organization." Augustus W. Hayes, Assistant Professor of Sociology, Tulane University, La. Need of a rural policy-Significance of a changing rural psychology -The trade area-The small rural school district-The rural community variously considered-The consolidated school district-Organization of forces.

"Consolidation of Rural Schools and Transportation of Children at Public Expense." Arthur C. Monahan, Bulletin No. 30, 1914, Bureau of Education, Washington. History and extent of the movement-State legislation concerning consolidation-Transportation arrangements and cost-Cost of the consolidated school-Educational advantages of consolidation -Some types of consolidated schools investigated and reported -Macdonald consolidated movement in Canada—Agricultural and domestic science in the Harlem Consolidated School.

"A Study of Fifteen Consolidated Schools in Rural Communities; Their Organization, Cost, Efficiency and Affiliated Interests. George W. Knorr, Southern Education Board, Washington, D. C. Publication by the Bureau of Education. Types of rural schools-Organization-Cost of maintenance of consolidated school-Public conveyance of pupils-The consolidated school as a country life institution.

"Consolidation and Public Rural School Efficiency." George H. Betts, author of "The Mind and Its Education." The movement toward consolidation-The consolidated rural schoolThe consolidated rural school and the community-The rural high school-the consolidated building and equipment-How to effect consolidation-transportation of pupils.

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"The Consolidated Rural School." Louis W. Rapeer, President Research University, Washington, D. C.; Author of “Rural Hygiene." National and rural consolidation-The American rural school-Community organization and consolidation -School administration and consolidation-The growth of consolidation-A visit to a consolidated school-The consolidated school site and its uses-The consolidated school building-The teacherage-Transportation of children, etc.

"The American Rural School, Its Characteristics, Its Future, and Its Problems. Harold W. Foght, A.M., Professor of Education, Midland College, Vt. Consolidation of Schools, Chapter IV.

Patriotism and History

F. T. SPAULDING,

THE PARK SCHOOL OF BUFFALO, SNYDER, NEW YORK.

T

HE most recent lay judgment with regard to education has been pronounced upon the teaching of history. From numerous and widely different sources, criticism has been directed toward the subject-matter of instruction as presented in well-known texts on the history of the United States. Those who have contemned the books

◆ have charged the authors with suppression of information, distortion of facts, a point of view unpatriotic and essentially un-American. And so volubly and so acrimoniously has the criticism been supported that it has led to the ruling out of the offending volumes in a number of school systems and to the lay compilation of at least one "100%American" text.

It is easily possible to discredit all this unorthodox disturbance on the ground that it is merely one evidence of the present mania for censorship of everything censorable. Or, as teachers rather than authors, we may protect ourselves by the assertion that the books are not of our making, and that the dispute touches their writers alone. But if we consider the matter without seeking immediate refuge, it is apparent that within the field of teaching itself there may be a sound basis for certain of the charges.

Two ends have been sought from the teaching of history in elementary and grammar schools: first, an interest in history for itself; and second, a usable knowledge of the facts of history which are essential to intelligent citizenship. The acceptance of these objectives has been almost universal; the wide variations which are to be found in the methods of teaching history are to be explained, not primarily by disagreement as

to fundamental purposes, but by the difficulty of adjusting these purposes to the characteristics and abilities of children of grammar-school age.

For, in the teaching of history, as in all subjects which have to do with human relationships, we encounter at the outset two different mental processes-one type based on the emotional and the other on the rational faculties. Interest in history is easily created by emotional appeal: the romance of the far-away or the long-ago appeals even more quickly to children than to the most romantic of adults. If the first objective only were to be sought, therefore, the problem would be simple: an intense interest in history for its story is one of the easiest ends to attain. The difficulties arise when we must lead children to make rational use of the facts of history. This means, first of all, that they must acquire a reasonably complete and systematic understanding of facts-almost always a difficult and distasteful process in itself; and second, that they must learn to interpret those facts through an intelligence and a maturity which, though constantly growing, can never be expected to be completed by the end of the grammar school course.

Out of the vain attempts of teachers to meet both objectives at once has frequently come a final desperate abandonment of either the one or the other. "The superintendent, the principal and I approve the attitude of Professor H. Morse Stephens when he says that he cares little how much students know when they enter his classes in history at the University of California, but that he is very much concerned how interested they are in history." This is the refuge of many teachers who find facts the deadly enemies of a living, breathing interpretation of the story of man. Completeness and proportion alike must be sacrificed, since interest is always at stake; chronology is of slight importance,—it is the "psychological moment" alone which counts. Such teachers forget that of

1 Kendall and Mirick: How to Teach the Fundamental Subjects, p. 262. (Incomplete quotation.)

the thousands of children who may become interested in history in the elementary school, hardly one in three will have either opportunity or incentive to acquire a later systematic knowledge of its facts in the secondary school, and not one in ten will study it in a university.

And to those teachers to whom a knowledge of the facts of history is the prime essential, there seems possible only the dwelling on simple facts until they are mastered, even though interest must completely disappear. Battles, kings, presidents; kingdoms, empires and republics; names and maps and dates; the history of America and England and ancient Egypt and Greece and Rome: all these cold facts and more are iterated and reiterated, in chronological order, or something like it, until some of them must surely stick. And probably they do stick-some of them; but history is "fierce-I hate it!" and the facts which have somehow stuck are dislodged with a grimace as soon as may be.

These pictures are extremes, to be sure, and yet not altogether absurd extremes, for in one or the other of them are recognizable far too many elements of history courses in present-day grammar schools. Through the recognition of such elements we are enabled to discover in part the bases of the charges that present-day teaching of history is unpatriotic and un-American.

For if it is the interest in history alone which counts-the romantic, subjective, story-element-then the farthest away and the longest ago can hardly fail to count for most. War and disaster will be more interesting and more important than peace and prosperity; the story of strange peoples and foreign lands will outweigh in value the discussion of present conditions in our own land. There is much in common between purely romantic history and foreign missions. And from such teaching can hardly fail to spring a point of view, perhaps not unpatriotic and un-American, but lacking by far in wellbalanced and intelligent understanding of the problems of our own day and of our own nation.