Abstract
THERE are three fundamental subjects in education—the history of our race, the world around us, and the conditions of health, happiness, and effective work. They correspond to Le Play's “famille, lieu, travail”; to the biologist's “Organism, Environment, Function.” Fundamental they certainly are, but it is generally admitted that most men know little about any of them and understand less. We are perhaps deplorably slow to learn, but we are also very badly taught. Especially in regard to the history of mankind it is difficult to forgive our teachers, for we spent so long over it (the other fundamentals were for the “modern” side) and we know that we were not unappetised. Yet for bread we got stones. We find the same disappointment among most of our fellows, the disappointment of half-educated men who know their deficiencies. There are well-known ways of making the study of history grip—the use of graphs and charts, the biographical approach, with its calendar of great men, the emotional and dramatic methods so vividly illustrated by Dr. Hay ward, and so on; but they seem rarely to be tested in schools or colleges, and widespread ignorance of a supreme subject prevails. We except, of course, those who are by birth historically minded, who learn in spite of bad methods or the absence of any; though even those who know many historical facts seem often like students who are familiar with fossils, but unaware of the æonic pulse and progress of life.
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A “Tour de Force”. Nature 106, 137–140 (1920). https://doi.org/10.1038/106137a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/106137a0