Moving Beyond Interpretation & Getting to the Past as It Was

History lessons, brought to life by primary sources, help students move beyond interpretations of the past to the past as it was. History then no longer appears musty and impersonal, and when excellently taught, reveals an unchanging picture of human nature: one that is deeply personal, surprisingly relatable, and amazingly understandable.

History excellently taught needs no defense. Just as great storytellers waste no time, but begin their tales with gusto, teachers of history should similarly seize the opportunity to impress upon their students the wonders and intrigues of days gone by. A great teacher, Dr. Richard Gamble of Hillsdale College, championed this point, for, as he put it, the past needs no defense, as it speaks for itself.

Many teachers, especially at the high-school level, completely miss this point. They mistakenly believe that their students will become more receptive to history lessons if the subject is first justified and defended. Yet such teachers ought to consider the consequences of this decision. When someone justifies something—and in history’s case this is often done to extraordinary lengths—the intended effect is rarely achieved. Students do not become more eager to learn about the past. Rather, they usually come to the conclusion that this thing—now representative of all the humanities—is worthless. History rests upon dilapidated foundations. Why else would it need defense when the other subjects, from math to science to foreign languages, need no lengthy introduction? The horror that anyone would waste his time studying such a worthless thing in the first place!

A better method would allow students to engage the past directly on its own terms. And one effective means to this end is introducing students to primary sources and not just textbooks alone. Good textbooks—textbooks that lead students through all roads of the past, including the politically inconvenient places that contradict contemporary political narratives—do serve a purpose. They can provide students with context and chronology and many other useful tools that assist with historical comprehension. But these should not be studied on their own or for their own sake. This is because such resources also carry a risk that too many teachers either overlook or fail to recognize.

If the class’s sole focus is memorizing facts from textbooks, there is a good chance that the teacher strangles any chance of a student falling in love with the study of history. Most textbooks are poorly written. They do not tell history as a story. Instead, they are usually dry, disorganized for young minds, and dull. Textbooks generally do not breath any life into history, but rather reinforce the widespread assumption that history is dead and ought to be tossed like yesterday’s rubbish. Alone, they cannot inspire a love of studying the human past.

But when paired with primary source documents, textbooks can serve a truly meaningful role within the classroom.

If a textbook provides a sketch of specific time-periods, primary sources complete the painting by coloring in the picture. This is because primary sources are history in its rawest form: the words, ideas, and thoughts of particular people at particular moments in time.

Primary sources possess an unmatched power. They enable students to venture forth and step into unfamiliar times and places.

This journey is often very difficult for the inexperienced student. Hence the burden is upon the teacher to guide his students through the brush and brambles. Whether by defining challenging vocabulary or by providing necessary context, teachers can effectively introduce students to a raw world filled with the intricacies and paradoxes of the human race.

When reading historical texts—whether they be diaries, letters, constitutions, or speeches—students converse with historical figures. They question, interpret, analyze, and evaluate the thoughts and arguments of other human beings. It is a result of this experience that students come to a profound realization. These people, although removed in time, were not immune to the human condition. They were real people with real problems, ethical duties, joys, sorrows, and loves.

This understanding facilitates profound intellectual growth. As students engage the past on its own terms, they acquire familiarity with the following lessons, each building upon the last in rigor and nuance.

1. The study of history is truly humbling given the vastness and multifaceted nature of the human experience.
2. History is written, composed, and remembered by human beings, creatures with complex emotions, ideologies, theologies, and philosophies.
3. Human beings are fallible and fallen. They make mistakes, whether they recognize those errors or not within their own time.
4. The past must be judged on its own terms, within the context of its own norms and customs.
5. The present is not the telos of history, the end for which everyone in the past lived to build and create.
6. History is complicated. For everything historians know about the past, there are countless more things that went un-remembered simply because someone chose not to remember, not to write, not to draw, or not to sculpt. Humans forget.
7. When pressed for immediate answers, the historian must resist the calls for complete, convenient answers. He must instead demonstrate cautionary restraint when offering answers from the past. He must remember that he can only say so much with some degree of certainty.

These lessons, brought to life by primary sources, help students move beyond interpretations of the past to the past as it was. It no longer appears musty and impersonal. Rather, history excellently taught reveals an unchanging human nature, one that is deeply personal, surprisingly relatable, and amazingly understandable. The following are but a few examples that I introduced to my students this past year. Each document, in its own way, emphasizes one or more of the above lessons.

From “A Modell of Christian Charity” (1630), that John Winthrop’s sermon reveals an awareness of the profundity of his people’s mission. Should they fail to live up to their ideals, their faith and principles would be made a laughingstock throughout the world:

For wee must consider that wee shall be as a citty upon a hill. The eies of all people are upon us. Soe that if wee shall deale falsely with our God in this worke wee haue undertaken, and soe cause him to withdrawe his present help from us, wee shall be made a story and a by-word through the world. Wee shall open the mouthes of enemies to speake evill of the ways of God, and all professors for God’s sake. Wee shall shame the faces of many of God’s worthy servants, and cause theire prayers to be turned into curses upon us till wee be consumed out of the good land whither wee are a goeing.[i]

From the “Trial of John Peter Zenger” (1735), that the impetus for protecting our freedoms of speech and press originated from one man’s journey to speak truth to those corrupted by power:

But to conclude, the question before the Court and you gentlemen of the jury is not of small nor private concern, it is not the cause of a poor printer, nor of New York alone, which you are now trying: No! It may in its consequence affect every freeman that lives under a British government on the main of America. It is the best cause. It is the cause of liberty. . . . Every man who prefers freedom to a life of slavery will bless you and honor you as men who baffled the attempt of tyranny; and by an impartial and uncorrupt verdict, have laid a noble foundation for securing to ourselves, our posterity, and our neighbors, that to which nature and the laws of our country have given us a right – the liberty – both of exposing and opposing arbitrary power by speaking and writing truth.[ii]

From the Rev. Charles Finney’s “Hindrances to Revivals” (1835), that part of the American reformist fervor in the nineteenth century was a call to Christians to confront the evils of slavery with the Word of God:

Revivals are hindered when ministers and churches take wrong ground in regard to any question involving human rights. . . . Consequently, the silence of Christians upon the subject is virtually saying that they do not consider slavery as a sin. The truth is, it is a subject upon which they cannot be silent without guilt. The time has come, in the providence of God, when every southern breeze is loaded down with the cries of lamentation, mourning and wo. Two millions of degraded heathen in our own land stretch their hands, all shackled and bleeding, and send forth to the church of God the agonizing cry for help. And shall the church, in her efforts to reclaim and save the world, deafen her ears to this voice of agony and despair? God forbid. The church cannot turn away from this question. It is a question for the church and for the nation to decide, and God will push it to a decision.[iii]

From John O’Sullivan’s “The Great Nation of Futurity” (1839), that one component of American uniqueness is that of her heroes, her patriots who fought not for personal glory, but to protect the liberty of future generations:

America is destined for better deeds. It is our unparalleled glory that we have no reminiscences of battle fields, but in defense of humanity, of the oppressed of all nations, of the rights of conscience, the rights of personal enfranchisement. Our annals describe no scenes of horrid carnage, where men were led on by hundreds of thousands to slay one another, dupes and victims to emperors, kings, nobles . . . We have had patriots to defend our homes, our liberties, but no aspirants to crowns or thrones.[iv]

And from Lincoln’s “Gettysburg Address” (1863), that America’s great Civil War represented not only the ultimate test for the republic’s longevity, but moreover, that those who gave their lives did so to sanctify the great and noble cause of freedom, not just for whites but for all Americans:

The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us – that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion – that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain.”[v]

Over the course of this past year, despite the pandemic and its related challenges, my students and I walked through the American past. From the Columbian Exchange to Lincoln’s deep grief for those who fell for liberty, my students not only learned historical facts, but they also learned more important things. They learned why freedom is valuable, what rights are and where they come from, what slavery is and why it took so long to release its grip on American life, and, perhaps most importantly, what true virtue and vice looks like in the words and actions of historical individuals.

Some of my students noticed that something was different about their history class. To paraphrase one of my sophomores, history for him was now not dead but living and breathing with a character of its own. As he had read and engaged with primary sources, he had become exposed to parts of the human experience that he had never encountered in any of his other classes. He, and others, had come to realize that history—the human story—reveals both the best and worst parts of humanity and tells the story of man’s hope for fulfillment… and yet how, time and again, his journey towards such satisfaction becomes obstructed by the pitfalls of his own fallen nature. 

This essay was first published here in August 2021.

The Imaginative Conservative applies the principle of appreciation to the discussion of culture and politics—we approach dialogue with magnanimity rather than with mere civility. Will you help us remain a refreshing oasis in the increasingly contentious arena of modern discourse? Please consider donating now.

Notes:

[i]John Winthrop, “A Modell of Christian Charity,” From the Collections of the MA Historical Society (Boston, 1838), 3^rd series 7:31-48.

[ii]“The Zenger Trial,” http://inside.sfuhs.org/dept/history/US_History_reader/Chapter1/zengertrial.pdf, (113). 

[iii]Charles G. Finney, “Hindrances to Revivals,” The Gospel Truth, 6-7.

[iv]John Louis O’Sullivan, “The Great Nation of Futurity,” The United States Democratic Review 6, 23 (November, 1839), 426.

[v]Abraham Lincoln, “Gettysburg Address,” From Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, edited by Roy P. Basler (Rugers University Press, 1953).

The featured image is courtesy of Pixabay.