In the typical high school, the typical social studies program is a dismal failure nowadays; one finds all sorts of evidence for that. The gain in knowledge or interest (in history, government or “problems of democracy”) is negligible for the average student; and some of the better students appear to be alienated from the civil social order, in consequence of the boring and repetitious character of most social studies programs.
Along with other contributors to a recent number of the Harvard Educational Review, your servant suggested a number of reforms in this field. Among these was my proposal that it might be very well, particularly for the better students, to introduce a course in the history of ideas, or the history of civilization—offering something for the imagination and intellect, and certainly affording a broader and more lively prospect than does the representative “civics” course (which, under various titles, most high school students are compelled to take over and over again) .
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