There is one great drawback to the method. It is a sort of educational quicksand, in which, if you once step, you will stick to the end of your teaching days. There is no such thing as getting back to the too common memory work of the old narrative teaching. Another drawback is the fact that when once in one is bound to go deeper and deeper, and do his best to the contrary, he cannot help but feel, that he knows less and less about history, and actually wants to learn more and more. What is the effect on the school as a whole, is a pertinent question, the answer to which will be beneficial to those who are using the method as an exchange of experiences and to those who are seriously thinking of adopting it as an aid in forming a decision. The question is difficult to answer. In a certain home there is a general air of culture. Asked to go into details to sustain the assertion one is unable to give them. But the home has been visited and the culture is felt and he knows it. So, in the school where the source study method is taught, there is a general beneficial result. It is impossible for me to particularize; but being in the same school for two years, in each of which a different method was used, I am able to feel rather than see the beneficial results upon the school. This knowledge is no doubt given partly by observing pupils of the school outside of history classes and noting their interest in the discussions and their facially expressed admiration when conclusive proof of a controverted point is aptly cited, and by further hearing such a regretful expression as: "I wish we had had this method last year." There is manifest to the teacher through a sort of instinct, if there is such a thing in a teacher, a growth in truthfulness and honesty-a tendency away from reckless assertion and weak credulity--a tendency toward making a part of one's belief and life only such statements whose basis of truth is planted firmly in an unquestioned source. The general spread of this tendency will, I fear, when thoroughly realized in some communities serve as an objection to the method, for it will seriously affect the industries of at least two classes of people -the Mother Grundys and the scandal mongers. The effect on the pupil's work is excellent. If I were to say that every individual in a class of sixty is doing satisfactory work, I would either be the envied of all my brothers as an apostle in an educational Utopia, or silently condemned as a conscienceless fabricator; but as compared with individual results under the old method the improvement is very marked. The cause, to me, is this: under the old method of teaching, the ordinary assignment covers so limited an amount that the art of the narrator has shorn the pupil of the opportunity for the exercise of reason, judgment, and discrimination. Under the new, his only safety is in the exercise of these, and there comes to him the consciousness of newly acquired powers, and the pleasure consequent upon the realization of this in nine cases out of ten makes a new boy or girl out of the pupil. The question as to the acquisition of knowledge may be pertinently asked. If length and breadth and shallowness of knowledge in history, and a charming uncertainty in the possession of it are aimed at, the source study method is not to be commended; but, if depth, rather than length and breadth, in the knowledge and a confident possession of historical truths, and the power to draw historical conclusions are aimed at, then the method is to be commended. I believe that a fourth rate pupil taking work under this method is able to rise and make a more satisfactory recitation in history, either upon the lesson under consideration or in review, than a first rate pupil could do under the old. I may be charged by the ultra conservative with possessing the zeal of a new convert, but in the language of my pupils when some of their statements are questioned, "I can prove every word I say.” CHAPTER VII. A STUDY OF THE EARLY HISTORY OF THE MIDDLE COLONIES A PAPER ON LABORATORY METHOD IN HIGH SCHOOLS. It is much more difficult to find extracts to illustrate the life of the people of Pennsplvania and New York than it is for the New England states or for the South. Perhaps it may be that their life was more humdrum, and that the questions which they discussed pertained in a greater degree to the details of trade and material interests, and less to the life of the people. If so, while the extracts may not be so attractive, it may be that they will be just as valuable in characterizing the conditions of the time. I. Extracts from the Charters of Pennsylvania. XXVII die Janry, 1682. CHARLES THE SECOND, BY THE ** * * lar persons, * *by and with the advice, assent, and approbacon of the freemen of the said countrey, or the greater parte of them, or of their Delegates or Deputies, whom for the Enacting of the said Lawes, when, and as often as need shall require." II. Extracts from agreement between Penn and the emigrants to Pennsylvania. III. "Twelfthly. And forasmuch as it is usual with the planters to overreach the poor natives * * in Trade, by goods not being good of the kind, or debased with mixtures, * * it is agreed whatever is sold to the Indians * * * shall be sold in market place, and there to suffer the test, whether good or bad * * * 99 * "Fourteenthly. That all differences between the Planters "Twentiethly. That no person leave the province without * Extracts from "The Frame of Government,” 1682. "But this is not all, he (the apostle Paul) opens and car. ries the matter of government a little further: 'Let every soul be subject to the higher powers for there is no power but of God. The powers that be are ordained of God; * * *. For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to Evil.'"* "This settles the divine right of government beyond exception, and that for two ends; first, to terrify evil-doers; secondly, to chose who do well; which gives government a life beyond corruption, and makes it as durable in the world as good men shall be." * * * "For particular frames and models, (of government), it will become to say little; * I do not find a model in the world that time, place, and some singular emergencies have not necessarily altered; nor is it easy * to frame a civil government that shall serve all places alike. * * * Governments, like clocks, go from the motion men give them, and as governments are made and moved by men, so by them they are ruined too. Wherefore governments rather depend upon men than men upon governments. Let men be good, and the government cannot be bad; if it be ill, they will cure it. But if men be bad, let the government be never so good, they will endeavour to warp and spoil to their turn.” Sections: "Second. That the freemen of the province shall, on twentieth day of the twelfth month, * * * meet and choose out of themselves seventy-two persons of most note for their wisdom, virtue and ability," who shall constitute the "Provincial Council." "Twelfth. That the governor and Provincial Council shall erect and order all publick schools, and encourage and reward the authors of useful sciences and laudable inventions in the said province." IV. Extracts from the "Journal of the Council of Pensil vania." "Att a councell held att Philadelphia the 10th of the first Month (March), 1682-3." This is the first day's meeting, and the resolutions cited below begin the legislative action of the great state of Pennsylvania. The names of those present are first given; then follows: "The Governor ordered that one speak at a time, standing up, wth (with) his face to the chair." "A debate being about the balloting box, the question was putt whether the Ballot should be used in all cases? Past in ye negative." "The Question being putt whether they would have the "The question being putt whether all Bills should be past |