PREFACE

DURING recent years there has been much written and much said about making the study of history and civics in the elementary schools something more than committing to memory dates, facts, and events. Many newspapers

and educational journals and many of those educators who talk publicly on school questions have criticised severely the results secured from the time devoted to history and civics in the grammar schools. The method used and the lack of proper preparation on the part of the teacher have been held responsible for the poor results secured in these subjects. It has been customary to hold the teacher responsible for the method used and for her poor preparation, and thus to place the entire blame on her. Many have promptly and justly replied that they cannot be expected to expend from two to three thousand dollars in securing a higher education for the purpose of receiving the small salaries paid in the elementary schools. They have also replied and this is even more to the point that not being specialists in history and civics, they cannot, with any degree of success, teach these subjects by the topical method when every grammar school history text-book in print adopts, almost entirely, the cut-anddried chronological-event method. In relation to all these conditions, special attention is called to the fact that in this book the topical treatment is used without any reserve whatever. No teacher can use this book as a text-book

and use any other than the topical method, and no pupil can study this book without becoming interested in the real spirit of our history. (See Explanatory and Suggestive, page ix.)

The use of this volume as a regular text makes a separate study of civics and the use of a separate book on civics entirely unnecessary, in fact, undesirable. This is due to the fullness and to the nature of the treatment which the subject of government has received. It is deemed best, at least so far as the elementary schools are concerned, to consider history and civics one subject, and to teach them as such. This method will tend to give the pupil some conception of the real nature of government and of his relation to the same. He will not look upon civil government as an indistinct and lifeless structure, because he is being led to see the true relation which exists between history and civics,-led to see that government is the enactment of the experience of society into law, and that history is the record of that experience. He will see that all the more important parts of governmental machinery, such as the division of government into the three departments and the division of the legislative department into two houses, are merely the crystallization of ideas which society has gradually developed. The treatment in this volume makes government so completely an integral part of the history of the nation that the pupil will readily see and understand this vital relationship. This will give him a much better and more valuable knowledge of government and of his relation to the same. than he would receive from a separate study of this subject.

Some of the conclusions reached in this volume do not agree with those reached by many who have discussed

American history. It may be proper to state in this connection that this volume was in definite course of preparation for more than six years, and that during this time nearly all the more valuable sources bearing on the subjects discussed were gone over carefully. Any criticism of the more important conclusions herein reached becomes, therefore, a question as to the correct interpretation of the sources. In connection with this last statement it is but just to say, that if this volume contains anything of unusual merit and interest for the student, for the teacher, or for the general reader, it is due in no small measure to Professor George Elliott Howard. While Dr. Howard had nothing to do in the direct preparation of this volume, it was while a member of his classes at Stanford University that I caught something of his inspiration for candid, logical, and devoted research that made the preparation of this work by me possible.

SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA,

January, 1905.

WILLIAM C. DOUB.

"IT is a product of the general feeling among progressive educators that history should cease to be a mere exercise in memory gymnastics, and become a genuine study of human life and experience. In the grammar school, as well as in the high school or the university, history should be so presented that man is ever seen to be its real object. It should never for a single moment be lost sight of that, while the right study of history affords a training for the reason and the judgment scarcely rivaled by that gained from any other source, yet the chief subject-matter is man in his political and other social relations. It is the things which are really important in human progress, in the struggle for existence, that one wishes to know. Lists of dates and genealogical tables of royal or noble personages are not so helpful to the youth preparing himself for citizenship as a knowledge of the institutions of his country and state, or even of his county, village, or school district."

- From Dr. George Elliott Howard's introductory note to Doub's "Topical Discussion of American History" (first edition).