A full course for the eight grades of the common
school, with this double historical series as a nucleus, has been
carefully worked out and applied by Professor Rein and his associates.
It has been applied also with considerable success in a number of
German schools.
This great undertaking has had to run the gauntlet of a severe
_criticism_. Its fundamental principles, as well as its details of
execution, have been sharply questioned. But a long-continued effort,
extending through many years, by able and thoroughly-equipped teachers,
to solve one of the greatest problems of education, deserves careful
attention. The general theory of concentration, the selection and
value of the materials, the previous history of method, and the best
present method of treating each subject, with detailed illustrations,
are all worked out with great care and ability.
The Jewish and German historical materials, which are made the
moral-educative basis of the common school course by the Herbartians,
can be of no service to us except by way of example. Neither sacred
nor German history can form any important part of an American course of
study. Religious instruction has been relegated to the church, and
German history touches us indirectly if at all.
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