Of all the folk who were about me, the survivors of the Indian wars were the most interesting. There were several of these old clapper-clawed fellows still living, with their more or less apocryphal tales of adventures they had heard of or shared. There was current a tradition--I have seen it in print--that there had been a fight between the Indians and whites where the government barracks stood, and that two wounded whites had been left upon the ground, where they were not found by the savages. One of these had both arms broken, the other was similarly disabled as to his legs. It was told that they managed to subsist by combining their limited resources. The man with sound legs drove game up within range of the other cripple's gun, and as the turkeys or rabbits fell, he kicked them within reach of his hands, and in like manner provided him with sticks for their fire. This legend, much elaborated in the telling, gave me, I believe at about my eighth year, my first sense of a historic past, and it led to much in the way of fanciful invention of like tales. (N.F. Shaler: _Autobiography_, Chap. I.) The best means at the teacher's command to assist its coming is to tell good stories from history with all the skill he has; the stories need not be told in chronological order. The notion of time implies also in the older pupils the power to place events in chronological order. The notion of a social unit is also of slow growth and must spring from the child's conception of the social units he belongs to--the home, the school, the community. The notion of cause and effect does not belong so wholly to the study of history as the notions of time and of the social unit; it is surprising, however, how soon it makes its appearance in the child's conceptions of history, in his desire to know the "why" of things. (See Barnes' _Studies in Historical Method_.) THE INFORMATION STAGE There are several questions that children soon come to ask: "When?" and "Where?" "What?" and "Who?" This stage may be said to begin in earnest with the Second Form, and it continues through the whole course. One of the essential elements in history study is to have a knowledge of the important facts of history, without which there can be no inferences of value for present use. The all-important point in this teaching of facts is to keep the lessons interesting and not allow them to become mere lifeless memorizing of isolated happenings; for a fact is of value only when related to other facts. (See pp. 36, 38.) THE REFLECTIVE STAGE