Joe Smith, University of Stirling
Myth-histories have unrivalled discursive power in calling up the imagined community of the nation. These stories – whether Homeric epics, Arthurian chivalry, or Wagnerian operas – supposedly distil the character of the nation in narrative form and create an unbroken chain between the imaginary community of the past and the imagined community in the present. Myths, in short, draw their power from the way that they align with the stories a nation tells about itself.
The place of these myth-histories in the school curriculum is contested. In 2010, David Cameron, the new UK Conservative Prime Minister identified the Henrietta Marshall’s Our Island Story as his favourite children’s book, despite its conflation of fact and myth. In response, historian Richard Evans accused the Conservative government of ‘confusing history with memory’. Such clashes suggest a deep-seated disagreement over what school history is, and what it is for. Seixas has proposed three broad curriculum stances around myths within national narratives: history as collective memory (which embraces myths), history as a way of knowing (which critiques myths), and a postmodern position which treats myths as narrative texts which possess discursive power despite their dubiety.
Although Seixas was writing in the 2000s, my recent research into debates around the teaching of history in late-Victorian schools, suggests that the debates which Seixas identifies are not a product of late twentieth century postmodernism, but an inevitable consequence of nineteenth century modernism. It was the professionalisation of history in the nineteenth century which brought these questions to the fore. If history was to be a quasi-scientific evidence-based discipline, what would be the place of myth histories (and biblical accounts)? My research suggests that Victorian educators quickly comprehended the educational implications of the professionalisation of history in the academy, and that this led to contestation over what children should be taught.
Here I use Seixas’ modern three-part classification to present three contrasting Victorian views on the place of myth histories in the curriculum. While the application of a Seixas’s twenty-first century analytical frame to Victorian debates is anachronistic, its suitability demonstrates that these debates are not a product of post-modern relativistic angst, but an essential consideration for anyone thinking about what it means to teach history to children.
History as memory
In this extract from an 1889 lecture, noted Classicist Joseph Wells makes the case that school-history should be considered a world-apart from disciplinary history and suggests that disciplinary compromises in the teaching of school history are legitimate provided that they serve some greater good, whether social or educational.
unfortunately, a large number of the ‘pearls of history’ are ‘mock pearls’: are we therefore to keep them from children? Or shall we first use them and then introduce wholesome doubt? The latter course at any rate is certainly a mistake. Children don’t understand half lights… I for one have no doubt that children have the right to the good old stories of English history, however often they have been refuted. What if Prince Henry did not strike Judge Gascoyne and then nobly apologise when king? He might have done it, and the story helps us to realise what one of our greatest kings thought of duty.
To modern minds, Wells’ approach is shocking not only because it excuses the ethically dubious practice of telling untruths to children, but also because it makes a contestable claim about the character of an historical figure – Henry V – and then uses fabricated evidence to support it. Here it is possible that Wells’ training as a Classicist has influenced his views on teaching more recent history. After all, the Ancient Greeks and Romans did not share our modern division between myths and history.
History as a way of knowing
In contrast, Art Historian George Williamson was offended by this dilution of the historical discipline for consumption that he saw in schools. In this speech from 1888 Williamson frames history as a truth-seeking discipline with strict methodological procedures, and argues that children should learn it as such.
History is not romance, it is its very opposite, with its inquiries respecting facts and causes, it is something known, as its very word etymology tells us. It is no tale or story… and yet too often the history learned in schools is not history at all, but an interwoven tissue of romance, colour, name and date.
Post-modern
Where Wells disregards the facticity of what is taught and Williamson insists on this, our last contribution from 1888 by teacher-education pioneer Joshua Fitch, adopts a complex middle ground in which mythical narratives exercise discursive power irrespective of their facticity. Foreshadowing arguments from post modernism, Fitch argues that this power is, in itself, a legitimate object of study.
That Romulus and Remus were suckled by a wolf… that Arthur gathered a goodly fellowship of famous knights at the round table at Caerleon, that William Tell shot an apple on his son’s head, may, or may not, be authentic facts which will stand the test of historical criticism. But they were for ages believed to be facts. The belief in their truth helped to shape the character and convictions of after-ages. They had, therefore, all the force of truths, and they deserve study just as much as facts which can be historically verified.
For Fitch, myths ‘may or may not be authentic facts’ but they should be studied by children because of the implications of the widespread ‘belief in their truth’.
Conclusion
Despite its lingering appeal to some, most history teachers today would reject Wells’ view that myth histories should be taught uncritically to children. However, criticality in the teaching of history seems to have a longer heritage than has been assumed. These debates emerge not from the so-called ‘culture wars’ of the 2020s or the ‘relativism’ of the 1960s, but from the uncertainty inherent in the historical discipline itself. Once history emerged as a discipline it needed to consider the status of accounts which sat outside the disciplinary norms. Then, as now, history educators understood the consequences of this for the school curriculum and adopted a range of positions in response.
This blog draws on ideas that are expanded in my recent paper for History of Education entitled, ‘Talk about the questions of the day, shun them not’: three late Victorian voices on the place of history in English schools’. The full paper is available open access.
Author Biography
Joseph Smith is a Lecturer in History Education at the University of Stirling, UK. His research concerns the framing of history curricula, the identity of history teachers, and the intersections between these. He is a former high school history teacher and has published on both history and education for both general and academic audiences, most recently in the Journal of Curriculum Studies and History of Education. He is editor of Scottish Educational Review and The Yearbook of the Scottish Association of History Teachers.