History Enters the Schools

Abstract

history in school, and by the time of the Civil War that subject had become, except in the colleges, at least as prominent as it is today. That generation knew, as perhaps we have never known since, precisely how the past was important, and why it should be studied.' A revolution occurred in education during the early nineteenth century. Instead of training a few men to be philosophical gentlemen, it became the aim of education to elevate society by giving all men a knowledge which was believed to be and which would help men in their daily lives. Put into practice this theory meant the beginning of free public schools for all, but more immediately it meant the coming of a new practical curriculum, better suited to the needs of the masses, and philosophy, theology and languages had to make way for utilitarian subjects like spelling, rhetoric, modern languages, geography and history.2 Each generation believes the curriculum changes it makes are changes, and our own era has seen classical subjects like history make way for typing and auto mechanics. In this constantly evolving concept of practicality can be seen many differing justifications of history. A descriptive, travelogue sort of history became impractical to seventeenth-century Puritan readers who wanted history to do the practical job of manifesting God; this in turn became impractical to the eighteenthcentury gentleman who wanted it to furnish a broad knowledge of the