Grand Forks daily herald. (Grand Forks, N.D.) 1914-1916, 1914-09-23
HISTORY AND WAR.

There q been some change in the
teaching of history in recent years,
but, If one were to form his opinions
from the text books of history which
most people of middle g studied in
their youth, he would conclude that
war had always been the chief occu-
patton Of mankind.
Ancient, medieval or modern his
tory, 1t mattered not which. were full
of the stories OF wars and battles.
from the wars Of the Israelites with
their neighbors down to the recent
history Of our W country. The his
tory of the United States, as recorded
In the books. was a history of car
mage. There were wars with the In
dams, with the French, with the Eng
lish, with the Mexicans, and finally
with each other. and the periods in
between were dismissed as of little
account, because in them nothing
happened.
Naturally, this resulted in false
views Of life. and in mistaken notions
Of the progress Of the world. 1t was
NLSoA Jul Carly SSuOo ddyS LudJ IlOSt
Of us learned that curing the periods
in which, as we supposed, history was
in the making, Rome, or France, or
England, or the United States had a
civil and domestic life, that men were
engaged in the arts and industries,
commerce dourished, and that sci
ence exerted it's influence.
A different spirit is coming over the
teaching of history now. More atten-
ton is paid to the development Of ma
tons along peaceful lines than was
the case formerly. Children are
taught today, In all we'll regulated
schools, that the invasion of England
by the Conqueror, for instance, was
important, not because 1t was a win
ming play in the great game of war,
but because of the influence which
the advent of a new people had on
the civil and domestic life Of the peo-
pie of England. They are taught
that, important az were the events of
the American revolution for their po-
litical significance, the battles of the
revolution were but incidents in the
development of a people whose life
was not the life of the camp and the
of the growing city, and that the
conquest Of the wilderness and the
planting of free institutions was as
important as the winning Of battles.
Still further, the best of our mod
ern historians who write for the
youth of the lane have learned to diff
~ferentiate between patriotism and
partisanship, and in each of their
writings as deal with the wars in
which this country has been engaged
there is O. noticeable absence of the
bitterness which characterized most
former references to those with
whom, at different times, this nation
has been at a Formerly all our
geese were swans, and all the other
fellows swans were geese. There is a
growing tendency to teach our chill
dren now that men and women, of
whatever country. are human beings,
and to train them so hat they will
cSIeSM "oAIA dAo ueSplSe lItleneSS,
wherever they are found. To the
northern school child of today the
southern states during the civil war
were not inhabited by several mill
ion black hearted rebels. most Of
them armed with whips with which
they delighted to torture innocent
colored victims, but by people who
differed little in essentials from their
northern enighbors, and who had
been led naturally and almost newt
ably, by accident of birth and Pc
culiarity Of economic development to
hold political and social views which
were inconsistent with the highest de-
velopment Of the nation and all it's
people.