274 INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS OF EDUCATION. 
province of this paper to discuss this question further than to point out the 
one fact, clearly to be inferred, that if the school is supported by taxation 
in order to maintain firmly republican institutions, the nature and char- 
acter of these institutions, the facts concerning our Government, and the 
duties of the citizen under it, should most assuredly be taught in such 
school. 
[ shall take the ground that special provision ought to be made for 
mculcating patriotic sentiments, and preparing the pupils for their re- 
sponsibilities as citizens, in all the grades of the public school. As this 
discussion, however, is confined to the elementary school, we shall rave to 
deal only with what is usually comprehended under two grades; that is, 
(1) the primary school, (2) the grammar school. 
THE PRIMARY SCHOOL. 
In the first place, it would be necessary for the teacher to have clearly 
in mind what is to be taught during the time the pupil 1s in her particu- 
lar grade. A clearly-defined plan is essential to intelligent teaching. I 
will here only indicate certain things that seem to me both feasible and 
Jesirable to be taught to the child in the lower grades of the primary 
school: 
1. In what town or city he lives. 
2. What are the adjoining towns or cities. 
3. In what county he lives. 
t. What are the towns or townships and cities in the county. 
5. The name of the State in which he lives. 
6. The name of the Governor of the State. 
7. The name of the country in which he lives. 
8. The name of the President of the United States. 
Some may contend that such teaching should be delayed until the pupil 
is old enough to comprehend and appreciate more fully the nature of the 
tacts and conditions dealt with. I am quite inclined to think, however, 
shat the principle is a sound one, entirely defensible, philosophically and 
pedagogically, to teach in an elementary way facts which may not until 
‘ater be fully comprehended in all their causes, conditions, and effects. 
When I was a small child at school, only five or six years of age, I learned 
she fact that Andrew Jackson was then the Presiderit of the United 
States. The learning of that single fact at that time has been of great 
service to me since. It has enabled me to fix dates, to associate related 
facts of that period, and has served in reality to mark an epoch not only 
in my own life, but in the history of State and nation. The great epochs 
of the world, like the Flood, the escape of the Israelites from Egypt, the 
Hegira, the founding of Rome, the birth of Christ, the discovery of 
America, the Thirty Years’ War, our Revolutionary War, our own Civil 
War, are dividing lines, to be used as starting points for the comparison