History in the Grades ARMAND J. GERSON, Editor. The “Type Lesson” in History. Whatever may be said as to the evil effects of the present overcrowding of the elementary school curriculum, this condition has brought about at least one lasting benefit in that it has led through sheer stress of need to the invention of numerous pedagogic devices for the saving of time. As subject after subject has been added to the work required to be covered in the grades, stern necessity has developed in the grade teacher a wonderful faculty of class-room economy. While it is true that many of the time-saving devices which have thus found their way into our public schools have been unquestionably harmful, there are some among them which have proved themselves efficacious and which may be said to have constituted a permanent advance in educational practice. Among this class we must include the “type lesson” idea. The idea of the type lesson is based upon the principle that since the increasing complexity of the modern elementary curriculum precludes the possibility of teaching with proper thoroughness all the details of the various subjects laid down in our courses of study, it behooves the teacher to select a few typical phases of his subject, teach these thoroughly, and use them as the basis for the rest of the work. Instead of a superficial survey of the entire field, which at best can leave but a hazy resultant in the child’s mind, let the teacher lead the pupil to evolve a certain number of consistent and intensive “type-ideas” to serve as the nuclei of the year’s instruction. To express this pedagogic principle in terms of psychology, this method will develop in the child’s mind certain fundamental concepts to which all later reading and instruction will naturally relate and in the light of which he may interpret all subsequent mental experiences.