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Show Teaching History Backwards. Wk& Dr. Noble, of the Board ot Edu- iP' cation suggests that In the schools fe. history bo taught backward, In-tad In-tad of from the early years for- ward. Teachers should proceed, he Bp ( onsldera, from effect to cause and R not from cause to effect To lead p. from the known to the unknown Is I the right method In all teaching. 'ft As tho explorers of a river start at r the broad mouth a'jd trace It . source back Into distant territory P so should the boys and girl be led i up the stream of history and be f- brought to examine the great ep- L; ochs whih. like the Xlle's catar- r acts, stand out prominently In the i long course cf the BtfCfl of which - this generation is the heir. f- To form habits of research Is R. one of the mo3t Important office f if education. In his essay on "What i- Knowledge Is of Much Worth" Her- R- bert Spencer ha taught that a fict E or condition a child 5s led to dl- C cover for himself is of far more F value educationally than the same fact or condition drummed into the t; child as a matter of rote-learning. F: This Idea of encouraging original I- research is steadily gaining ground in pedagogy. In the Ftudy of his- ' tory, taking the present as the I point of beginning, explorations In- C to the past even Into remote ep- c ochs. would have a relation a can- I. nection. with ua of 1114, and with p each other, that a mere outline of U successive vent6 from antiquity f forward could not possibly have un- L til the long surveyr was completed. It. If, instead of learning as "history" a record of kings, robber barons, court intrigues, famous battles, tho p boys and girls were to commence T from the present they would inev- p ltably he led more Into the study t-' of sociological, economic, and set- entlfic history. Of course, their studies would F. necessarily be most rudimentary. g; but they would get a natural L' groundwork that would excite their incuriosity in-curiosity and lead to further his- g-torlcal g-torlcal reading In later days. The If teaching of history is getting away. F". since the day of Spencer and h Buckle, from the old method of & date-cramming and namo-dinnlng f without special reference to the p. then existing social conditions of ti the masses. A history' of statecraft P is by no means the history of a i nation or of an empire Moreover, ' those who would start from the i earliest times must be much per- P plexed as to where lo start. Ar- G cheologists are lifting the curtain f. on new "dawns" of history every t'l few years Great historians like W-Olbbon, W-Olbbon, Groto, Glescbrecht and Olu-zot Olu-zot undergo much correction at the if?" hands of their prcstnt-day editor. and the historical mothods have f thrown much new light on the past. g Instead, then, of beginning where ft all Is dispute and uncertainty at w w hat at tho best Is but d provlsianal H starting point .n the past, would It not be bettor rst to Introduce the II children to the institutions, condl- & tlons and terms of the political and I social life of their own day part p of tho teaching of civics and then H retrace with them the development Its f whtch the existing situation is t the outcome? p |