Author Description

Excerpt from A Syllabus and Note Book for Ancient History The fundamental problem of the student in history courses in the secondary school is how to study efficiently. The fundamental problem of every teacher of history in high schools is how to teach the student to study. One of the most favorable signs of the times in secondary education is the tendency to emphasize this phase, and to aid in its solution from the administrative standpoint by introducing various plans for supervised study. Unsupervised study is inefficient study. As to what form the supervision shall take, there is room for difference of opinion. Local conditions may make many ideal plans impossible under the circumstances. As to the need for supervising and controlling the study methods of the student, however, there is no room for difference of opinion. In the hope of assisting history teachers to solve this problem, this notebook has been prepared. It is the outcome of the authors own teaching experience, and the principles embodied in it have been successfully tested in practice. Six notebooks are planned in this series, some of them yet in preparation, each to furnish the basis for a semesters work. The plan of the course embodies the recent tendency to subordinate the Ancient and Mediaeval History and to greatly extend the time devoted to Modern and American History and Civics. The content of each semesters work is as follows: 1. Civilization and History of the Ancient World (to about 800 A.D.) 2. Civilization and Development of Mediaeval Europe (to about1648). 3.Modern European History to the close of the Napoleonic Wars, including American Colonial History. 4. The 19th Century in Europe. 5. American National History, 1783. 6.American Government and Civics. About 70 lessons are planned in each semesters work, each of which is intended to serve as the topic for one recitation. Each syllabus consists of an outline, and various other helps which are self-explan