Report of the Discussion on ‘The Problem of teaching Republican History in Schools’, held on Tuesday, 10th January, 1939

Extract

Professor Norman Baynes, in opening the discussion, said that he proposed to consider the subject in relation only to those at school who were studying the Classics. The teacher must, he thought, abandon two inherited views: that history could be successfully taught sine ira et studio and that it was no function of the teacher to present to students his own interpretation of the past. The ideal of impartiality in history teaching is illusory: God alone could present the history of man ‘as it actually happened’. All teaching or writing of human history is an interpretation of the facts, and that must be a reflection of personality. Interest and vital reaction in the taught can be awakened only through the personal interest and enthusiasm of the teacher. Thus there can never be finality in the presentation of history: every age must recreate its own interpretation of the past.