The Stratford Evening Post. WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER. FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 28, 1913. TEACHING HISTORY.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXV, Issue 50, 28 February 1913, Page 4

The Stratford Evening Post. WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER. FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 28, 1913. TEACHING HISTORY.

Speaking at a recently held conference on educational matters in London, Canon Masterman dealt especially with the teaching of history. He said that the first purpose of such teaching was to help the child to realise he was not an isolated unit, but part of . a larger whole. As to the qualities which they wished to develop by teaching history, he emphasised the instinct ol sympathy which enabled children to grasp the point of view of ages and people wholly different from their own. A certain amount of humility was desired, even in the teaching of history. The second thing they desired to develop was imagination. As a nation England was not great in imaginative power. History was a means by which they could develop imagination in children. Yet another quality was magnanimity, which was the outcome of imagination. Small-mindedness, the curse of modern life, was simply the outcome of a lack of imagination, and, therefore, the cure for it was the right study or history. Educational methods are advancing, if slowly, and a realisation that the cultivation of imagination is a good thing lor the young mind is certainly a step forward. It is stated that imagination is singularly lacking in the majority of children attending our public schools. RECKLESSNESS AND FOLLY. One of the most striking evidences of the incompetence or recklessness of the present leaders ol the Social-ist-Labour movement is the manner ini which they needlessly prolong the hardships endured by their unfortunate followers in the struggles arising out of labour disputes, the Dominion points out, and adds: Everyone, for instance, knew weeks before the final utter collapse of the AVaihi strike that the strikers were hopelessly beaten. Practically from the outset of that foolishly-entered on struggle the miners were beaten, yet their leaders Imoyed them up with promises of victory and vague hints of “trump cards’’ which would bo played at the proper moment, and which would cause the complete discomfiture of the mine-owners. Most people felt at the time, and everyone knows now, that these promises wore only empty bluff -that the strike leaders and those behind them were merely prolonging the struggle which was cost-

ing their followers so dear, because they were afraid to acknowledge defeat. What mattered it to them what it cost the rank and file of the miners and their families so long as they, the leaders, could for the time being save their faces ? So also now witn the slaughtermen’s strike. The men have been beaten in a straight-out fight, and their leaders know it. Yet, what are they doing? Instead of giving the men a chance to recoup themselves for some of their losses, by getting back to work as speedily as possible, they are still talking largely about the failure of the meat companies to carry on with free-workers. This, in spite of the plain facts. One would imagine that the strike leaders would at least strive to lind a means of getting as many as possible of their unfortunate followers back into employment before all the places are filled by free labour; but nothing seems further from their thoughts. They can lose nothing more than they have lost by acknowledging defeat now; they should have done so days ago. Hut they have blundered in recklessly, and they persist in doing so, and the rank and file are left to pay the piper.