This monograph will make no attempt to analyze the personality of the ideal teacher. It is assumed that the teacher of history has an adequate preparation to teach his subject, that he is in good health, and that his usefulness is unimpaired by discontent with his work or cynicism about the world. It is presupposed that he understands the wisdom of correlating in his instruction the geography, social progress, and economic development of the people which his class are studying. He is aware that the pupil should experience something more than a kaleidoscopic view of isolated facts. He recognizes the folly of requiring four years of high school English for the purpose of cultivating clear, fluent, and accurate expression, only to relax the effort when the student comes into the history class. He knows that the precision, logic, and habit of definite thinking exacted by the pursuit of the scientific subjects should not be laid aside when the student attempts to trace the rise of nations. Let us go so far as to assume a teacher who is both pedagogical and practical; scholarly without being musty; imbued with a love for his subject and yet familiar with actual human experience.

The Herbart school adheres to this view of education, and has transferred its spirit and method to the schools. The Herbartians have the hardihood, in this age of moral skeptics, to believe not only in moral example but also in moral teaching. (By moral skeptics we mean those who believe in morals but not in moral instruction.) They seek first of all historical materials of the richest moral content, in vivid personification, upon which to nourish the moral spirit of children. If properly treated, this subject matter will soon win the children by its power over feeling and judgment. With Crusoe the child goes through every hardship and success; with Abraham he lives in tents, seeks pastures for his flocks, and generously marches out to the rescue of his kinsmen. He should not read Caesar with a slow and toilsome drag (parsing and construing) that would render a bright boy stupid. If he goes with Caesar at all, he must build an agger, fight battles, construct bridges, and approve or condemn Caesar’s acts. But we doubt the moral value of Caesar’s Gallic wars. By reading Plutarch we may see that the Latins and Greeks, before the days of their degeneracy, nourished their rising youth upon the traditions of their ancestry. The education produced a tough and sinewy brood of moral qualities.