HUMANISING HISTORY.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVIII, Issue 229, 26 August 1938, Page 6

HUMANISING HISTORY.

If expression is given to recent suggestions of Australian educationists there is a possibility that future generations of scholars will learn their history from text books of a vastly different type from those of the past and the present day. Comment by the Minister of Education at the inaugural meeting of the Advisory Council -of Education, that text books should be “broadened and humanised,” has brought forth a considerable body of opinion in strong support of the contention. Leading figures in Sydney’s academic life consider that the average school history book teaches too national and limited an outlook, and that history should not, in reality, be a subject in a watertight compartment, but should embrace geography, sociology, economics, and other kindred studies -which amplify and interpret it. It is certain that wellinformed opinion in this Dominion will be found to conform in large part with that across the Tasman —dissatisfaction has been expressed more than once in the past on the subject. “Every nation has its own authorised version. What is needed is a revised version.” This neatly phrased verdict of the lieadmastei of the Sydney Grammar School will find a ready echo m the thoughts of those -who visualise in the present state of world unrest —at least to a degree —fruits of faulty or insufficiently comprehensive'tuition in past years. It is pointed out that it is not. a question of doing away with history as a subject, but of broadening its basis, for a proper understanding of the subject cannot be o-ained without references to other Influences. History, according to another Sydney headmaster, should not be taught as 1066 and all that,” but as the development down the ages of the ordinary man, including a study ot the origins of Man and his evolution. It is interesting to recall that in May of last year representatives of German and French teachers of the subject reached an agreement on the. interpretation of modern historical events in school teaching for the two nations. The agreement embraced articles on the leading events in German and French history, from the French Revolution to the present day, and the general eftect was that derogatory references to either nation should be eliminated from the text books of the other. It is believed that ’white there is no information to show lmw Germany has responded, there has been faithful observance of the agreement by Trance. 1 is not without reason that hope for a better world order arising from “humanised” history books may be entertained.