Check Up

History Syllabus Queried

After three years of study in two University colleges in this country, and having taken History to the third stage, I find that I have never had a single lecture on a philosophy of history, if there is one. No professor or lecturer has ever made any attempt to indicate any sort of pattern in history, nor has any form of interpretation, any core of meaning ever been discussed in my hearing at a college lecture. So far as my instruction has been concerned, history is a series of facts which occurred during the last three centuries for very vague reasons. Not only did my University teachers not lecture on this question the meaning of history, but they did not even indicate a book, no, not so much as an essay, on the subject. My conclusions from this are not complimentary to anyone concerned. Either the meaning is supposed to be patent to all—in which case I and my fellows must have been unusually dull students, since we failed to see the obvious, or else the professors do not themselves know if there is a pattern in history, or they do not wish to impart that knowledge, or they are afraid to impart it.

For three years I have gained knowledge with all my ability, and at the end I have not got wisdom—as far as getting it from my professors is concerned. Nor have I met any student who has got this wisdom. Facts they gave us in plenty, but not understanding. I argue that my history course, and their history course, has failed.

Further, in all those three years no lecturer ever dared to come within twenty years of the date of his lecture. What are they frightened of? Not by one word have any of the five men who have lectured me on history suggested that the Burmese might not like the British, or that Soviet Russia was a part of history. These things were, at least, within their course.

But in my check up I find that in all my three years of history most of the important events of world history not only were not, but could not, be mentioned. For me, as a University student, India before 1500 A.D.—indeed, practically the whole world before that date—fails to exist. Surely some of this presumably quite lengthy period of time was worthy of mention. Surely there have been, outside Europe, a few events of world importance. I do not suggest that a University student should cover the whole history of the world, but I do think that books covering the general development of China, India, the Mongol Empire, the development of Mohammedan power up to the sixteenth century, the general story of South America, and the detailed history of some of the less reputable events in European colonisation in Africa and Asia, should have been read and discussed in their broader aspects. I do not think these should be made subjects for examination. They should be subjects for wide reading, followed by essays and a discussion period. The present plight of the world should be dealt with to some extent in each year, and the history of the past, remote from us in place as well as time, should also be covered in the general way indicated, in each year one or two of those great significant sections. I specifically omit Roman and Greek history because, little though it be, most of us do have a faint knowledge of some of the events of those times.

After three years at a University, without having done any reading outside the normal course, a student should, I think, have some idea of the meaning of events in the current month and some general grasp of the great historical movements of the world. One more thing, the student should, by conscious endeavour, in however small a sphere, have tried to take some practical part in the making of history. He should have been a member of a committee, an organisation, or a party with a definite aim to accomplish something. The history student who has no urge both to interpret the world and to change it has failed to profit by his work, and his professor has failed too.

The question I ask myself is, "Have my professors tried?" And I reply that they have not tried very hard. And again I ask, "Why?"

My reply is, frankly, that they appear to lack a suitable curriculum, the knowledge, the enthusiasm, and the guts.

What I now ask is: "Does the

Students' Association Executive know that there are certain flaws in this our College, and what does it propose to do about it?"

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