It were useless for teachers to pooh-pooh this matter as visionary and inconsequential or to disregard aspiration as a vital factor in the scheme of education.  This quality is fundamental and may not, therefore, be either disregarded or slurred.  Fundamental qualities must engage the thoughtful attention of all true educators, for these fundamentals must constitute the ground-work of every reform in our school procedure.  There can be life without arithmetic, but there can be no real life without aspiration.  It points to higher and fairer levels of life and impels its possessor onward and upward.  This needs to be fully recognized by the schools that would perform their high functions worthily, and no teacher can with impunity evade this responsibility.  Somehow, we must contrive to instill the quality of aspiration into the lives of our pupils if we would acquit ourselves of this obligation.  To do less than this is to convict ourselves of stolidity or impotence.

Chief among the agencies that may be made to contribute generously in this high enterprise is history, or more specifically, biography, which is quintessential history.  A boy proceeds upon the assumption that what has been done may be done again and, possibly, done even better.  When he reads of the beneficent achievements of Edison he becomes fired with zeal to equal if not surpass these achievements.  Obstacles do not daunt the boy who aspires.  Everything becomes possible in the light and heat of his zeal.  Since Edison did it, he can do it, and no amount of discouragement can dissuade him from his lofty purpose.  He sets his goal high and marches toward it with dauntless courage.  If a wireless outfit is his goal, bells may ring and clocks may strike, but he hears or heeds them not.

To be effective the teaching of history must be far more than the mere droning over the pages of a book.  It must be so vital that it will set the currents of life in motion.  In his illuminating report upon the schools of Denmark, Mr. Edwin G. Cooley quotes Bogtrup on the teaching of history as follows:  “History does not mean books and maps; it is not to be divided into lessons and gone through with a pointer like any other paltry school subject.  History lies before our eyes like a mighty and turbulent ocean, into which the ages run like rivers.  Its rushing waves bring to our listening ears the sound of a thousand voices from the olden time.  With our pupils we stand on the edge of a cliff and gaze over this great sea; we strive to open their eyes to its power and beauty; we point out the laws of the rise and fall of the waves, and of the strong under-currents.  We strive by poetic speech to open their ears to the voices of the sea which in our very blood run through the veins from generation to generation, and, humming and singing, echo in our innermost being.”