The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1913-03-20
EVENING CHIT
Do You Remember Dates?
BIZ RUTa CA1sERoN.

My small niece, Rosalie, came home
from school completely discouraged the
other day. She had failed in her his
tory examination. Now if it had been
arithmetic we wouldn't have been at all
surprised, for Rosalie has no head for
figures. But she is extremely pleased
with her first history course, and SO
we were much puzzled until we asked
a few questions about the test; and
then we understood perfectly. For at
least, half the questions were more like
arithmetic than history, in other words
they were on nothing but dates. And
while ROsalie seems to have a fine
grasp of the facts of English history
and their relation to each other and
can tell us some of its thrilling stories
with a dramatic fervor that makes
them far more interesting than the his
tory book does, she doesn't know the
exact dates. And so she flunked.
Perhaps it is because take after
my niece in having no head for ex-
act figures, but it certainly seems to
me that the attempt to make children
remember lists of dates is one of the
great mistakes of our education.
OF course, if we put sufficient mental
effort upon it we can learn dates, and
doubtless 1t is good, mental training
and teaches concentration. But aren't
there plenty of other ways in which one
can learn concentration, and at the
be more worth knowing, and that one
will remember after a few years?
1 emphasize those last few words be-
cause I think there isn't one person in
a hundred who remembers more than
two or three dates in all the innum-
cradle lists he was obliged to learn in
school
have asked several people lately
what dates in English history they can
remember. Four out of the five whom
asked remembered exactly one date,
and all, curiously enough, the same. Be
fore you read on, ask yourself what
date in English history you remember,
and I'll wager it will be that very one
-1O66 the Battle of Hastings. Incl
dentally two of the four could not tell
what that battle stood for in English
history, or why it was SO important
things that would certainly have been
more worth remembering than it's exact
date
The average person seems to remem-
Der more dates in American history, but
even here he has little to show for the
long lists he once learned. 1t is ac-
tually true that before / started talk
ing with my friends about this sub
ject, / could have named just four dates
in American history. 1892, 1775, 1872
and 1861 And the only reason I re-
membered two of those dates was that
they were embalmed in verse,-"In 1872,
Columbus sailed DER the ocean blue;"
"1775, hardly a man is now alive. and
verse 1 do not easily forget.
Doubtless 1 am more forgetful than
the average, but my Investigations have
persuaded me that 1 am not so much
so as you might think. Bring up the
subject of dates sometime among your
own friends, and see.
If a child learns the sequence of
events in history. their casual relation
to each other, and their approximate
dates. it seems to me he has learned
all that is necessary, and all that he
will ever remember.
And for the sake of our little student,
and all the other little students who
find it hard to remember cold figures,
1 wish our school boards thought the
same.