HISTORY

Hokitika Guardian, 19 April 1930, Page 7

HISTORY

(Otago “Daily Times.”)

The Great War left behind it a vast number of international questions—political, constitutional, economic, naval, and military. These are the great problems everywhere exercising men’s minds. The changes being brought about manifest themfeelves externally—all can see their effects. But there is a subtler change at work, a change in human outlook a quickened sense among nations of jus tice to other nations, a growing concept of internationalism and a corresponding ' decrease of aggressive nationalism.

Decrease in sincere patriotism is not a corollary of decreasing national assertiveness. Men will love their native land even when th emillennium comes and all the- peoples are one. The sense of oneness, feeble enough at precent, is certainly growing steadily, part ly as a result of the Christain teaching of human brotherhood, partly as an un-looked-for effect of the evolutionary teaching that all human beings have a common biological origin. Indeed the official definition of history in the Board of Education in England is that it is the reasoned account of man's evolution on the earth. This will sound strange in the ears of many adults whose memories oif history are of the drum-and-trumpet type, with British possessions coloured red on the map, and an exclusion of world movements in favour of the doings of a number of kings who were, in Goldsmith ’is language “celebrated for nothing but being knocked on the head.

The newer and more humble attitude to human history is that the spirit of life blows where it listeth, that no nation has a monnply of intellect courage, honour, or philanthropy, and that no nation-can reach its full stature without deriving sustenance from the cultures of other nations. Milton long ago pointed out that, to no people has it been vouchsafed to posses all the great, gifts. Judaea gave the Western world religion. Greece the things of the intellect and aesthetics, Rome government, law and organisation. Many modern nations are making each a unique contribution to the spir 'Dial possessions of mankind. Ever Soviet Russia, dangerous as her doctrines are, is making a great social experiment, which, even if it fails, —a c> it. seems doomed to do—will prove 'of tbe grea+est- value to man’s nttenm J to orient himself properly to his brethern of other lands.

This universal note struck voi--eloarlv bv Mr FT. A. L, Fisher when hr was president of the Board of Education hi his introdnetory note to the ’■eport to the tea rhino; of history in “It is ereatlv to he desired that young people should he giver some general notion of World History, and that they should be invited to consider the history of their native country, which will naturally claim the prerogative share of attention, as part of a large whole.” The Minister of Education in France not long ago struck the same note, while making it perfectly clear that a broad-minded world-view of the march of event. l was not incompatible with a sturdy patriotism.

Pesrhaps the most striking utteronce on the changed conception of his tory is to he found in an official plan of studies for primary schools in Switzerland. It is merely an astounding phenomenon when any public body cries “Peccavi.” Yef the Swiss document in its comment on history-teaching asks: “Have we always been solicitous for the truth. f\nd solicitous even to the point of stubbornness ?' Tf the. search for truth is an obstacle to the spread, oi patriotic sentiment, what can be thought of the quality of such sentiment?”

The most surprising admission in this svll.abus of the Canton of Berne is that “all is not beautiful in our history and it is our duty to say so. Some o*f our past leaders have been attracted by the lust for gold, other were corrupt. It would be easy to cite names. To reveal this to our children and to condemn it is to work for the development of their moral nature. The search for truth is thus the first step in our teaching.”

If this dictum is to be loyally carried out in Switzerland or anywhere else the study of history i s going to be changed and wit hit much prejudice will, .disappear. Fortunately, however, the attention given to certain phases of religious and military history in the past is now being turned to contemporary problems. Not that the history of the days of old is to vanish—civilisation did not begin last Monday; hut school pupils are now beguiling to receive instruction about tlie conditions of contemporary life. Tt is more important for young New Zealand to know something olf the Japan of to-day than of the squabbles of Anglo-Saxon kings. This is a newage, with insistent needs. The teaching of history cannot ignore these. All history, indeed, is contemporary history, in that past problems are offered for our solution in new forms.