ss may
fail to cover the text and miss the little that is actually given. No
opportunity should be missed to indicate the bearing of the past on
present-day conditions. Even if the events of the lesson exert no direct
influence on affairs to-day, their significance may be brought home to
the student by an illustration from current history. The account of the
Black Death gives excellent occasion for a brief discussion of modern
sanitation and the war on the White Plague. The efforts of Parliament to
fix wages can be illustrated by some of the minimum wage laws passed by
recent legislatures. John Ball's teachings suggest a brief discussion of
modern socialism, daily becoming more active in its influence. The
medieval trade guilds and modern labor unions; the monopolies of
Elizabeth's time and the anti-trust law of to-day; George the Third's
two hundred capital crimes and modern methods of penology; the jealousy
of Athens in guarding the privilege of citizenship and the facility with
which immigrants at present become American citizens are only a few
illustrations, indicating the ease with which the past and the present
may be correlated.

_He will be required to memorize a limited amount of matter verbatim_

In assigning a lesson it is sometimes desirable to require certain
matter to be learned _verbatim_. In American history the Preamble to the
Constitution, the principles of government contained in the Declaration
of Independence, the essential doctrine in the Virginia and Kentucky
Resolutions, certain clauses of the Constitution, and extracts from
other historical documents may well be required to be memorized
accurately. It is scarcely to be supposed that the student can improve
on the clarity and definiteness of the English in such documents. He is
expected to understand the principles which they assert. He may well be
required to train his memory to accuracy by learning certain assignments
_verbatim_. If memory work received a little more attention in our high
schools to-day, we should be less likely to hear the statement of a
political creed neutralized by the omission of an important word. We
should be less likely to see the classic words of Lincoln mangled beyond
recognition by messy misquotation.

The assignment of advance questions such as have been suggested
possesses several advantages. It makes it possible for the teacher to
hold the class responsible for definite preparation, very much as the
teacher i