American History told by PART I PRACTICAL INTRODUCTION FOR TEACHERS, PUPILS, STUDENTS, AND LIBRARIES CHAPTER I-SOURCES AND THEIR USES TH 1. Educative Value of Sources HE world no longer needs elaborate instruction in the usefulness of the sources of history. Besides calling forth a fusillade of articles and criticisms on this question, it has been the subject of a part or of the whole of two recent educational documents: in the Study of History in Schools, Report of the American Historical Association, may be found (through the index) several discussions of the subject; and the forthcoming Report on the Use of Sources, drawn up by the committee of the New England History Teachers' Association, is really a treatise on the source method. In the Introductions to Volumes I and II of this series may be found the editor's opinions at some length. The most apt parallel for the use of sources in schools is the use of experiments in chemistry and physics and other natural sciences: the object in both cases is the same, - to accustom the pupil to the notion that knowledge is ultimately founded on personally recorded observations; and also to train the observing and reasoning powers by the use of a limited amount of select material, as illustrative of great bodies of facts which must be taken on faith without the aid of experiment. The educative value of sources is to arouse, and interest, and make history seem like something that actually happened. |