Page:Outlines of European History.djvu/13



General European history is one of the most perplexing subjects to deal with in the high school. It seems essential that boys and girls should have some knowledge of the whole past of mankind; without that they can have no real understanding of the world in which they live, for the simple reason that the present can only be explained by the past. The older historical manuals were, in the main, short accounts of past events; but it is really past conditions and past institutions that are best worth knowing about. The older books tended, moreover, to give too much attention to the remote past and too little information in regard to recent history, so that there was little chance of the pupil's realizing the vital bearing of the past on the present.

The aim of the "Outlines of European History" is to avoid these defects of the older books, first, by frankly subordinating the mere happenings of the past to a clear statement of the conditions under which men lived for long periods and of the ideas which they held; and, secondly, by devoting about half of the work, namely, Part II, to the past hundred and fifty or two hundred years, which concern us most immediately.

The arrangement of the volumes is novel in a number of respects. Each chapter is divided into several topical sections, as will be seen by consulting the Table of Contents. The topics are, of course, arranged with strict attention to chronology, but the writers have always before them a particular subject which they aim to make plain under each section heading. In short, each section is a discussible topic and not a fragment of chronology. The authors hope that this plan of presentation will serve to make the books more useful and teachable than the older method of arrangement. iii