744 TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION L. 



be taken dealing in the latter year with the growth of the British Empire. 

 From 12+ to 14 or 14+ the time for historical instruction might be lengthened 

 in order to cover the three courses in general, social, and constitutional history- 

 outlined above. 



To assist in this work the Time Chart should always be in use. Maps, 

 plans, and, in some cases, models, containing the necessary data for intelligent 

 interpretation of events, as well as a good atlas, should always be at hand. 

 Pictures, especially contemporary ones, are particularly useful. Source books and 

 original documents need a competent teacher, or sufficient authoritative ex- 

 planatory matter. Contemporary literature is most valuable. Museums supply 

 isolated items to fill up the picture. Text-books and other rea/ding matter should 

 be under the guidance of the teacher. 



5. History in Elementary Schools. By Professor T. F. Tout. 



6. Instruction in Ethics and Politics. 

 By Miss E. E. Constance Jones. 



In discussing the teaching of any subject, we may consider (1) What is to 

 be taught — the subject-matter itself; (2) Whether it is to be taught; (3) How 

 it is to be taught. 



As regards history, we are all agreed that history should be generally taught 

 in schools, and should be a subject of study at universities, and, to some 

 extent at least, at training colleges, and perhaps we all know roughly what we 

 mean by history. So the great question here is : How? 



As regards ethics and politics — the study respectively of private and public 

 duty — of what men ought to do whether as private individuals or as political 

 factors of an organised community — it might be thought that the most debat- 

 able questions are : (1) What account can we give of these subjects? and (2) 

 Should they be taught in schools, in the universities, and in training colleges? 



It seems, however, on reflection, that ethics and politics — though, on the 

 whole, the systematic study of them is strangely neglected — are just as familiar 

 and all-pervading as history — that instruction in history inevitably carries with 

 it some instruction in ethics and politics. At every step in history, from the 

 very beginning when an action, a king, a hero, a traitor, a coward, a govern- 

 ment, a war, is pointed out as good or bad, ethics and politics are taught 

 —though indeed only by-the-way. And the connection becomes closer and deeper 

 and more multifarious as the study proceeds. 



So here, again, what is prominent is our third question, How ? which we may 

 enlarge to How, When, Where, and How much? 



A most suggestive hint as to the best way of consciously using history or 

 legend — descriptive tales whether fact or fiction — as a starting-point of ethical 

 instruction, is given by Eobert Browning in a little poem which tells how his 

 father first made known to him the heroic story of the siege of Troy — ' piling 

 up chairs and tables for a town.' The progress so begun — ' thus far I rightly 

 understood the case, at five years old ' — ends in the pupil's absorbed study 

 of Aristotle's ' Ethics ' in the original. The whole suggestion seems true to 

 life and thought — the first crude, but visible and tangible, presentment being 

 succeeded by acquaintance with the ' Iliad ' itself, and that by admiring con- 

 templation of unembodied virtues. 



At later stages a systematic answer to the question : (1) What is it that is 

 to be taught as good in conduct ? is insistently called for, because differences of 

 opinion arise as to what it is that is Good and Bad. But perhaps at any stage 

 Bishop Butler's view that good conduct may be summed up under the heads of 

 justice, veracity, and regard to common good, is likely on consideration to be 

 accepted. "Virtue thus understood is ' that which every man you meet puts on 

 the show of.' 



And if justice, veracity, and regard to common good can be brought— 

 .TS they can — under the one rubric of benevolence, our first and essentially 

 important question : In teaching ethics and politics what is to be set forth 



