THE CONFERENCE ON THE TEACHING

OF HISTORY

[In the Hall of Liberal Arts Room 203]

Professor ISAAC A. Loos: The

program of the Conference this morning is not printed. It is proposed, however, to call on a few men who have been invited to speak. After these persons have spoken the subject will be thrown open for general discussion. The first number on the program as arranged was to have been given by Professor Macy; but his paper will have to be deferred for the present. The second number, on The Relation of History to Economics, by Professor Parish, the third, on The Place of History in Technical Schools, by Professor Cessna, and the fourth, on The Best Methods of Teaching History, by Professor Wilcox, will be given in their order.

Those who heard the lecture last evening may call to mind, as a preparation for this morning's discussion, a number of the things said and suggested by Professor Wambaugh. 1 His subject was The Relation Between General History and the History of Law. What seemed to me the

'Professor Wambaugh's address on The Relation between General History and the History of Law is given above, p. 85.

keynote (and the discussion of the history of two thousand years suggests various keynotes) was that local institutions are law, and law represents in its initial stages a local constitution of the people. When we gather the fruit of what was done we must go back to the people and the institutions themselves. The history of the social sciences in recent decades has been greatly influenced by this general thought, having reckoned with facts now fully recognized in political economy. The program will begin with a paper on The Relation of History to Economics by Professor Parish, of the Iowa State Normal School.

Professor L. W. PARISH: - Ladies and Gentlemen: Although a teacher of political economy rather than of history, it is nevertheless a great pleasure to meet with teachers of history and to try to show the relation between the teaching of history and political economy.

When we call to mind the enthusiastic reception given to Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations and note its prompt and marked influence on public opinion and even on legislation; when we remember the brilliant group of scholars who were his disciples and who helped to establish for nearly a century, and almost without successful dispute, a great school of political economy; when we read, more than a century later,

the words of one of our keenest American thinkers, declaring that he is a Ricardian of Ricardians, we may safely concede that theoretical economics secured abundant recognition among the best thinkers of the day and may claim for it a worthy place among the factors looking to the solution of great industrial problems.

The most plausible objection to the theory of economics was that it carried too much of the dust of the study. It was too theoretical; and, being based on the impossible condition of perfect competition, the theory seemed often to be flatly contradicted by the facts of every-day life. Arnold Toynbee said of Ricardo's great work: "Grant his premises and you must grant all.” This was a noble tribute to the logical power and unity of the classical economics; but Toynbee also said: "The political economy of Ricardo is at last rejected as an intellectual imposture."

It was, then, the lack of consistency with experience that vitiated the instructions of economics, and only through the reconciliation of the two can economics come into its own.

History is experience writ large and wide and long -as large as humanity, as wide as the continents, as long as time. There is scarcely an error of theory or practice upon which some phase of history will not throw light and prevent mortifying and perhaps disastrous results. The

periodic reappearance of old schemes with new faces only proves how much we need to study the past if we would live wisely in the present. History appeals, more directly than almost any other study, to every age and condition of man — to the child in the nursery and to the youth in school, as well as to the mature scholar and the statesman. It requires no special bias, no complex apparatus, and no extensive supervision outside of the schoolroom. Moreover, the habit of historical study, once properly established, is easily and naturally continued in the busy life beyond the school.

It was just here then that history, remote and current, narrative and statistical, came to the aid of economics, placing the real by the side of the ideal, and requiring a comparison of fact and theory which if favorable to the latter commended it to public confidence, but if unfavorable, forced a reconsideration and a modification, which brought economic theory nearer the truth, making it more reliable and therefore more helpful.

Some of the grandest theories of economic science have been abundantly confirmed by the study of history; others have been wisely modified; and some have been practically discarded. The Physiocrats have found that agriculture is not the only productive occupation, but that com