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"UNITED STATES HISTORY

"B Assignment.
Mace's History, pp. 1-124 inclusive.
Questions and suggested collateral reading
found in Appendix may be used as teacher directs.

"A Assignment.
Mace's History, pp. 125-197.
Make use of questions and suggested collateral
reading at your own option."

For fifth and sixth grades there is assigned a small history text
of 200 pages for one or two lessons per week. The two years of the
seventh and eighth grades are devoted to the mastery of about 500
pages of text. While there is incidental reference to collateral
reading, as a matter of fact the schools are not supplied with the
necessary materials for this collateral reading in the grammar
grades. The true character of the work is really indicated by the last
sentence of the eighth-grade history assignment: "The text of our book
should be thoroughly mastered."

In discussing the situation, the first thing to which we must call
attention is the great value of history for an understanding of the
multitude of complicated social problems met with by all people in a
democracy. In a country where all people are the rulers, all need a
good understanding of the social, political, economic, industrial, and
other problems with which we are continually confronted. It is true
the thing needed is an understanding of present conditions, but there
is no better key to a right understanding of our present conditions
than history furnishes. One comes to understand a present situation by
observing how it has come to be. History is one of the most important
methods of social analysis.

The history should be so taught that it will have a demonstrably
practical purpose. In drawing up courses of study in the subject for
the grammar grades and the high school, the first task should be an
analysis of present-day social conditions, the proper understanding of
which requires historical background. Once having discovered the list
of social topics, it is possible to find historical readings which
will show how present conditions have grown up out of earlier ones.
Looked at from a practical point of view, the history should be
developed on the basis of topics, a great abundance of reading being
provided for each of the topics. We have in mind such topics as the
following:

Sociological Aspects of War
Territorial Expansion
Race Problems
Tariff and Free Trade
Transportation
Money Systems
Our Insular Possessions
G