on the program, but also because
this very subject of history is one which the lack of a definite
standard of educational value has been keenly felt.

I should admit at the outset that my interest in history is purely
educational. I have had no special training in historical research. As
you may perhaps infer from my discussion, my acquaintance with
historical facts is very far from comprehensive. I speak as a layman in
history,--and I do it openly and, perhaps, a little defiantly, for I
believe that the last person to pass adequate judgment upon the general
educational value of a given department of knowledge is a man who has
made the department a life study. I have little faith in what the
mathematician has to say regarding the educational value of mathematics
_for the average elementary pupil_, because he is a special pleader and
his conclusions cannot escape the coloring of his prejudice. I once knew
an enthusiastic brain specialist who maintained that, in every grade of
the elementary school, instruction should be required in the anatomy of
the human brain. That man was an expert in his own line. He knew more
about the structure of the brain than any other living man. But knowing
more about brain morphology also implied that he knew less about many
other things, and among the things that he knew little about were the
needs and capacities of children in the elementary school. He was a
special pleader; he had been dealing with his special subject so long
that it had assumed a disproportionate value in his eyes. Brain
morphology had given him fame, honor, and worldly emoluments. Naturally
he would have an exaggerated notion of its value.

It is the same with any other specialist. As specialists in education,
you and I are likely to overemphasize the importance of the common
school in the scheme of creation. Personally I am convinced that the
work of elementary education is the most profoundly significant work in
the world; and yet I can realize that I should be no fit person to make
comparisons if the welfare of a number of other professions and callings
were at stake. I should let an unbiased judge make the final
determination.

II

The first question for which we should seek an answer in connection with
the value of any school subject is this: How does it influence conduct?
Let me insist at the outset that we cannot be definite by saying simply
that we teach history in order to impart instruction. If there is