TWO DOCTRINES

Wairarapa Times-Age, 3 November 1939, Page 6

TWO DOCTRINES

HISTORY IN THE SCHOOLS. “There are two schools of thought regarding the part which the teaching of history ought to play in our educational system.” said Mr Roger Hinks in a recent 8.8. C. talk. “On the one hand are those who subscribe to the memorable doctrine of Mr Henry Ford that ‘history is bunk.’ And on the other hand are those who have reflected that history is not simply a recital of old. unhappy, far-off things, but the very reason why we are what we are. It is not surprising, then, that those who share this view should place the study of history at the centre of their curriculum, and make all the other disciplines its tributaries. This worship of the historical consciousness is not without its dangers, and they are subtler and more subversive than the blunt hostility of Mr Ford. The excesses of 'historism’--like so many other intellectual excesses—may be observed in the German educational theory and practice of the post-war period; and the reaction from this frame of mind in the Germany of today. much as we deplore it, is not without its logic. A complete surrender to historical fact necessarily involves a surrender of moral values. Everything that has happened—right or wrong, fruitful or poisonous—is sacred; »the historian—and therefore presumably his pupil also—abdicates the right to make ethical judgments. Il is enough to have demonstrated what actually happened.”