Not all parts of history, indeed, are adapted to please and
instruct some period of youth. Whole ages have been destitute of such
materials, barren as deserts for educational purposes. But those
epochs which have been typical of great experiences, landmarks of
progress, have also found poets and historians to describe them. The
great works of poets and historians contain also the great _object
lessons_ upon which to cultivate the minds of children. Some of the
leading characters of fiction and history are the best personifications
of the steps of progress in the history of the race; Crusoe, Abraham,
Ulysses, Alfred, Tell, David, Charlemagne, Moses, Columbus, Washington.
These men, cast in a large and heroic mold, represent great human
strivings and are adapted to teach the chief lessons of history, if
properly selected and arranged. These typical individual characters
illustrate the fundamental ideas that will give insight and
appreciation for later social forms. They contain, hidden as it were,
the essential part of great historical and social truths of
far-reaching importance. The culture epochs will be seen later to be
important in solving the problem of the _concentration of instruction_
along certain lines, but in the present discussion their value is
chiefly seen in their adaptability to arouse the interest of children,
by supplying peculiarly congenial materials of instruction in the
changing phases of child progress.
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