DISCUSSED IN A LETTER FROM PROFESSOR ANDREW C. McLAUGHLIN, HEAD OF HISTORY DEPARTMENT, UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO Editor THE HISTORY TEACHER’S MAGAZINE: A magazine devoted to the interests and the problems of the history teacher ought to be of service. We all have so much to learn, our tasks are so perplexing and trying, that we can profit much by the experience of others and gain something by discussion and exchange of opinions. This is true even if we admit that all can not follow the same route and use the same methods, and that, in history teaching, success depends in a peculiar degree on character, aptitude, and native skill. We are in special need of helpful discussion, because we are still considering the elementary phases of our profession; we are not confident of the curriculum; we have no clear common opinion as to the purpose and end of historical instruction; we are pondering dubiously the problems that have long since been solved for other studies in the program. In such respects we are notably far behind the teachers of the classics, mathematics or physics; in fact, we are probably behind the teachers of all other subjects commonly taught in the schools, for, despite the grumblings and complaints of the ubiquitous critic, English itself, our former companion in unhappiness, has found a régime and a method and is gaining in confidence and self-respect. We are further along, it is true, than we were a decade ago; but we are far from agreement and still further from perfection. I sometimes think when I grow weary of the interminable discussion of the history curriculum that there is no need of our trying to establish anything like uniformity, and that the safest and easiest way is to tell every program-maker to go his own way and every teacher to do what he likes; but I know that such despondency is weakness, that in all probability we can reach substantial agreement, and that, until we have a general, if incomplete, consensus concerning the sequence of studies from kindergarten to university, we cannot discuss, as we should, many other topics that demand consideration. We must remember, too, when we find ourselves involved in wearying argument about the mere framework of the curriculum, that history as an educational subject is but a child of yesterday--or to-morrow; and that it has to find its place and justify itself by results, in competition with subjects like Latin, which have been taught ever since the Renaissance, or indeed ever since flogging Orbilius applied the stimulating birch to Horace. And so, we must be patient as well as eager and appreciate the difficulties of our problem.