This condition may be variously explained. The trouble is often caused by an improper use of the text-book, the incompetent teacher resting content if the pupil commits the words on the pages and recites them with some semblance of intelligence. In most cases, however, it is safe to say that the misconceptions are the result of the teacher’s failure to grasp the child’s difficulties, his inability to put himself into the pupil’s place and realize the mental equipment which the child brings to the grasping of the new ideas. Be the cause of the difficulty what it may, the recognition of its existence must be the first step toward its removal. The word “claim” occupies a prominent place among the disturbers of the peace. In the course of the history work the children become familiar with the fact that the voyages and explorations of the Spanish, English, French and Dutch somehow give rise to “land claims” whose overlapping results in interesting international conflicts. Judicious questioning, however, is apt to disclose a surprising lack of definiteness as to the meaning of this word “claim.” In accordance with the type-lesson method this vagueness of comprehension might readily be avoided if the “claim” concept were developed thoroughly in connection with the explorations of a single European nation. In other words, the teaching of a typical claim forms the surest sort of basis for the comprehension of land claims in general. Spain, because of the early date of its explorations, naturally suggests itself as the type. Let the pupil understand intensively all that we can teach him about the Spanish claim--how far it extended, on what it was based, what it meant--and there will be no difficulty when we come to develop the claims of England, France and Holland. In presenting the type lesson on the Spanish claim the teacher must carefully distinguish and strongly emphasize the type-elements, _i. e._, those aspects of the subject which help form a clear concept or pattern. Chief among these type-elements may be mentioned the following: A clear understanding of what we mean by “right of discovery;” some notion of the distance a claim may be said to extend beyond the point or coast explored; a definite comprehension of what is meant when we speak of a nation “owning” land; a mental attitude toward the rights of the original inhabitants. Reference to these fundamentals will have to be made repeatedly when the claims of other European nations are in their turn presented to the class, but this mere reference is all that will be required if the type-elements developed in connection with the Spanish claim have been thoroughly grounded. The particular incidents of the Spanish story, pedagogically speaking, are of less fundamental significance.