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TEACHING THE CHILD PATRIOTISM
THE APPEAL TO HISTORY
Let us suppose for a moment that any set of men could succeed in sweeping away from them all the influences of past ages. Suppose a race of men whose minds had been suddenly deadened to every recollection--can we imagine a condition of such utter confusion and misery?--FREDERIC HARRISON.
WE have been lately told by one of our foremost educators that "the best schools are expressly renouncing the questionable duty of teaching patriotism by means of history."
To some of us who have brought up children, this startling statement came like a bomb. If history is to be used, as it certainly is used, in many of our "best schools," in the teaching of political economy, sociology, philosophy, psychology, biology, religion and nearly everything else, why should we not use it also in teaching a child the value of his own country, how dearly it has been bought, and his duty to serve it?
When anybody undertakes to prove that a child who hears, for instance the story of the six "leading citizens" of Calais offering their lives for the redemption of their city, does not feel a deeper sense of patriotism after it, he must prove that the children whom most of us know are exceptional.
See the widening eyes and working features of children listening to a spirited reading of "Horatius at the Bridge," or "Herv? Riel," or the story of Nathan Hale.
Your "educator" may say that all this means merely an "emotional spasm." What is that but interest or enthusiasm? And what is more potent in moving the will?
Most of our intelligent mothers can testify that there seems to be nothing which more rouses a child's loving consciousness of his own land, and more enkindles a desire to do something for it,--even to die for it--than listening to these fiery old tales of exalted patriotism.
In an eloquent panegyric upon the influence of a knowledge of history, President Woolley of Mt. Holyoke College says: "It is a circumscribed life which has no vision into the past, which is familiar only with present conditions and forms of government, manners, customs and beliefs. Such a life has no background, no material for comparisons, no opportunity to learn from the mistakes of others, nor from their achievements."
And, in re-inforcement of the contention that much besides general culture and useful information is gained from the study of the past, and especially from the study of the classics, Senator Henry Cabot Lodge during a recent session of the New York Latin Club uttered a strong plea for the study of Latin and Greek, as an incentive to patriotism.
"It is impossible," he said, in effect, "to read of 'the brave days of old,' of Marathon and Salamis, of Martius Curtius, Lycurgus and a hundred others of the heroes of Greece and Rome, without a sense of the glory of living and dying for one's country. All children should be made familiar with them, and especially with the ringing lines and sound patriotism of the Iliad. They not only teach patriotism, but many of the other higher virtues, and in such an interesting way that children want to hear the stories over and over. Thus their lessons become indelibly impressed upon young minds."
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