But the narration of stories is not the only way in which we can treat history.  Our present Minister of Education says that history teaching ought to give “discipline in practical reasoning” and “help in forming judgements,” not merely in remembering facts.  Indeed he went so far as to say “eliminate dates and facts” by which, of course, he only meant that the power of reasoning, the power of forming judgements is of far more consequence than the mere possession of any quantity of facts and dates.  Training in reasoning, however, must involve training in verification of facts before pronouncing judgement.

Training in practical reasoning takes a prominent place in that form of history teaching introduced by Professor Dewey.  According to him, history is worth nothing unless it is “an indirect sociology,” an account of how human beings have learned, so far as the world has yet learned the lesson, to co-operate with one another, a study of the growth of society and what helps and hinders.  So he finds his beginnings in primitive life, and although there is much in this that will appeal to any age, there is no doubt that children of seven to ten or eleven revel in this material.

If used at all it should be used as thinking material—­here is man without tools, without knowledge, everything must be thought out.  It does not do much good to hand over the material as a story, as some teachers use the Dopp series of books.  These books do all the children’s thinking for them.  Every set of children must work things out for themselves, using their own environments and their own advantages.  The teacher must read to be ready with help if the children fail, and also to be ready with the actual problems.  It is astonishing how keen the children are, and how often they suggest just what has really happened.  Where there is space out-of-doors and the children can find branches for huts, clay for pots, etc., the work is much easier for the teacher and more satisfactory.  But even where that is impossible and where one has sometimes to be content with miniature reproductions, the interest is most keen.  Children under eight cannot really produce fire from flints or rubbing sticks, nor can they make useable woollen threads with which to do much weaving.  But even they can get sparks from flint, make a little thread from wool, invent looms and weave enough to get the ideas.

The romance of “long ago” ought to be taken advantage of to deepen respect for the dignity of labour.  Our lives are so very short that we are apt to get out of perspective in the ages.  Reading and writing are so new—­it is only about four hundred years since the first book was printed in England, the Roman occupation lasted as long, and who thinks of that as a long period?  Perhaps it is because we are in the reading and writing age that our boys and girls must become “braw, braw clerks,” instead of living on and by the land.  History, particularly primitive history,