COLONIAL AND LOCAL HISTORY IN OUR SCHOOLS Sprague's Journal of Maine History Volume 9, No. 1 1921 Published by John Francis Sprague Dover, Maine page 41-43 COLONIAL AND LOCAL HISTORY IN OUR SCHOOLS During the past year, while Col. Edward L. Logan was com- mander of the Massachusetts department of the American Legion he instituted a campaign there for stimulating and intensifying the study of American and local history in the public schools as a first step towards the promulgation of true Americanism. The Boston Transcript in commenting upon this at the time, reached to the roots of the entire subject in saying: "Colonel Logan finds, in his investigations through the Ameri- canization committee of the Legion, that there are many schools which ignore our Colonial history altogether, beginning their in- struction with the Revolution. To do that, it is needless to say, is to ignore the most interesting part of Massachusetts history, and really to leave the Commonwealth up in the air without any underpinning. The secret of interesting children in history is the ability to vitalize it with personages and with incidents, and such vitalizing persons and incidents are comparatively rare after the Revolutionary period. By that we do not mean to imply that our post-Revolutionary history should be neglected. To leave out Webster, Sumner and the Yankee Division would be as grievous and stupid a fault as to leave out the Pilgrim fathers. But all these later heroes stand on the Fathers' shoulders; it is through and interest in and knowledge of them that the boy or girl of today may readily acquire an interest in the history of the Commonwealth since it became a State of the American Union. "Really to interest the young in historical study and knowledge is a gift of the part of a teacher, but it need not be so rare a gift as some suppose, because the interest is latent in every child, ask- ing only to be intelligently met. Does not the dramatic appeal to the child? And what is history but a drama? The great trouble is that historical study is deliberately made a thing of rote, a droned rigmarole, in many of the schools. It wants the element of human interest; and if teachers do not know how to impart this element, they should be taught how. It may be a good thing for Colonel Logan and the committee to overhaul the normal schools in this regard." What the Transcript urges regarding the study of the colonial history of Massachusetts, is of equal importance in this State, possibly more so, as our colonial period begins with the French settlement at St. Croix Island in 1604, sixteen years before adverse winds compelled the Pilgrims to begin the making of history at Plymouth Rock. Moreover, there is yet another fact augmenting the value of all American colonial history -- fully as cogent a reason for its study as any, and yet seldom referred to; and that is that when one begins its study on any line of research, from any angle whatsoever, one is at once in the most interesting part of European history. Our history is so intertwined with old world political convulsions of two or three centuries ago -- momentous epochs in the world strug- gle of the ages between the forces of freedom and despotism, that it is impossible to read the one without the desire to more fully under- stand the other. If a knowledge of the evolution of freedom and human rights from the Magna Charta to the armistice of 1918 is essential in germi- nating Americanism, the schools of this country have a grave duty to perform in this regard which cannot be doubted or ignored. To neglect it would be as illogical as for the Bible student to ignore the history of the Children of Israel. Those who were privileged to listen to the address of Major William B. Dwight of New York, representing the National Security League, at the S. A. R. Washington Anniversary Banquet, in Portland, Feb. 22, 1920, will recall with what earnestness and eloquence he advocated an awakening along these same line, if we in America are to successfully resist the Karl Marx peril. He criticized much of the present method of studying history in the schools, and very forcefully urged that it be localized and Americanized. (c) 1998 Courtesy of the Androscoggin Historical Society ************************************************* * * * * NOTICE: Printing the files within by noncommercial individuals and libraries is encouraged, as long as all notices and submitter information is included. Any other use, including copying files to other sites requires permission from the submitters PRIOR to uploading to any other sites. We encourage links to the state and county table of contents. * * * * The USGenWeb Project makes no claims or estimates of the validity of the information submitted and reminds you that each new piece of information must be researched and proved or disproved by weight of evidence. It is always best to consult the original material for verification.