nsibility in adding
their subject to the already overloaded curriculum. If the successive
historical texts are only enlarged editions of the first text--more
facts, more dates, more words--then history deserves most of the sharp
criticism which it is receiving from teachers of science, civics, and
economics.

In this condition of affairs we find our justification for offering a
new high school text in American history. Our first contribution is one
of omission. The time-honored stories of exploration and the
biographies of heroes are left out. We frankly hold that, if pupils know
little or nothing about Columbus, Cortes, Magellan, or Captain John
Smith by the time they reach the high school, it is useless to tell the
same stories for perhaps the fourth time. It is worse than useless. It
is an offense against the teachers of those subjects that are
demonstrated to be progressive in character.

In the next place we have omitted all descriptions of battles. Our
reasons for this are simple. The strategy of a campaign or of a single
battle is a highly technical, and usually a highly controversial, matter
about which experts differ widely. In the field of military and naval
operations most writers and teachers of history are mere novices. To
dispose of Gettysburg or the Wilderness in ten lines or ten pages is
equally absurd to the serious student of military affairs. Any one who
compares the ordinary textbook account of a single Civil War campaign
with the account given by Ropes, for instance, will ask for no further
comment. No youth called upon to serve our country in arms would think
of turning to a high school manual for information about the art of
warfare. The dramatic scene or episode, so useful in arousing the
interest of the immature pupil, seems out of place in a book that
deliberately appeals to boys and girls on the very threshold of life's
serious responsibilities.

It is not upon negative features, however, that we rest our case. It is
rather upon constructive features.

_First._ We have written a topical, not a narrative, history. We have
tried to set forth the important aspects, problems, and movements of
each period, bringing in the narrative rather by way of illustration.

_Second._ We have emphasized those historical topics which help to
explain how our nation has come to be what it is to-day.

_Third._ We have dwelt fully upon the social and economic aspects of our
history, especially in relation to