Surely no better way could be
devised of instilling a genuine sense of the part which mind has
to play in life than a study of history which makes plain how the
entire advance of humanity from savagery to civilization has been
dependent upon intellectual discoveries and inventions, and the
extent to which the things which ordinarily figure most largely
in historical writings have been side issues, or even
obstructions for intelligence to overcome.
Pursued in this fashion, history would most naturally become of
ethical value in teaching. Intelligent insight into present
forms of associated life is necessary for a character whose
morality is more than colorless innocence. Historical knowledge
helps provide such insight. It is an organ for analysis of the
warp and woof of the present social fabric, of making known the
forces which have woven the pattern. The use of history for
cultivating a socialized intelligence constitutes its moral
significance. It is possible to employ it as a kind of reservoir
of anecdotes to be drawn on to inculcate special moral lessons on
this virtue or that vice. But such teaching is not so much an
ethical use of history as it is an effort to create moral
impressions by means of more or less authentic material. At
best, it produces a temporary emotional glow; at worst, callous
indifference to moralizing. The assistance which may be given by
history to a more intelligent sympathetic understanding of the
social situations of the present in which individuals share is a
permanent and constructive moral asset.
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