A CHILD’S HISTORY

OF THE WORLD
By V. M. HILLYER
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This page is not for you, boys and girls.
It is for that old man or woman—twenty,
thirty, or forty years old, who may peek
into this book; and is what they would
call the

PREFACE
To give the child some idea of what has gone on in the world
before he arrived;
To take him out of his little self-centered, shut-in life, which
looms so large because it is so close to his eyes;
To extend his horizon, broaden his view, and open up the vista
down the ages past;
To acquaint him with some of the big events and great names
and fix these in time and space as a basis for detailed study in
the future;
To give him a chronological file with main guides, into which
he can fit in its proper place all his further historical study—
Is the purpose of this first SURVEY OF THE WORLD’S HISTORY.
This part is not for you, either. It is for
your father, mother, or teacher, and is
what they would call the

INTRODUCTION
IN common with all children of my age, I was brought up on
American History and given no other history but American,
year in and year out, year after year for eight or more years.
So far as I knew 1492 was the beginning of the world. Any
events or characters before that time, reference to which I
encountered by any chance, were put down in my mind in the
same category with fairy-tales. Christ and His times, of which I
heard only in Sunday-school, were to me mere fiction without
reality. They were not mentioned in any history that I knew
and therefore, so I thought, must belong not to a realm in time
and space, but to a spiritual realm.
To give an American child only American History is as
provincial as to teach a Texas child only Texas History.
Patriotism is usually given as the reason for such history
teaching. It only promotes a narrow-mindedness and an
absurd conceit, based on utter ignorance of any other peoples
and any other times—an intolerant egotism without
foundation in fact. Since the World War it has become
increasingly more and more important that American children
should have a knowledge of other countries and other peoples
in order that their attitude may be intelligent and unprejudiced.
As young as nine years of age, a child is eagerly inquisitive as to
what has taken place in the ages past and readily grasps a
concept of World History. Therefore, for many years Calvert
School nine-year-old pupils have been taught World History in
spite of academic and parental skepticism and antagonism. But
I have watched the gradual drift toward adoption of this plan
of history teaching, and with it an ever-increasing demand for a
text-book of general history for young children. I have found,
however, that all existing text-books have to be largely
abridged and also supplemented by a running explanation and
comment, to make them intelligible to the young child.
The recent momentous studies into the native intelligence of
children show us what the average child at different ages can
understand and what he cannot understand—what dates,
figures of speech, vocabulary, generalities, and abstractions he
can comprehend and what he cannot comprehend—and in the
future all text-books will have to be written with constant
regard for these intelligence norms. Otherwise, such texts are
very likely to be “over the child’s head.” They will be trying to
teach him some things at least that, in the nature of the case,
are beyond him.
In spite of the fact that the writer has been in constant contact
with the child mind for a great many years, he has found that
whatever was written in his study had to be revised and
rewritten each time after the lesson had been tried out in the
class-room. Even though the first writing was in what he
considered the simplest language, he has found that each and
every word and expression has had to be subjected again and
again to this class-room test to determine what meaning is
conveyed. The slightest inverted phraseology or possibility of
double meaning has oftentimes been misconstrued or found
confusing. For instance, the statement that “Rome was on the
Tiber River” has quite commonly been taken to mean that the
city was literally built on top of the river, and the child has had
some sort of fantastic vision of houses built on piles in the river.
A child of nine is still very young—he may still believe in Santa
Claus—younger in ideas, in vocabulary and in understanding
than most adults appreciate—even though they be parents or
teachers—and new information can hardly be put too simply.
So the topics selected have not always been the most
important—but the most important that can be understood
and appreciated by a child. Most political, sociological,
economic, or religious generalities are beyond a child’s
comprehension, no matter how simply told. After all, this
History is only a preliminary story.
Excellent biographies and stories from general history have
been written. But biographies from history do not give an
historic outline. They do not give any outline at all for future
filling in; and, indeed, unless they themselves are fitted into
such a general historical scheme, they are nothing more than
so many disconnected tales floating about in the child’s mind
with no associations of time or space.
The treatment of the subject in this book is, therefore,
chronological—telling the story of what has happened century
by century and epoch by epoch, not by nations. The story of
one nation is interrupted to take up that of another as different
plots in a novel are brought forward simultaneously. This is in
line with the purpose, which is to give the pupil a continuous
view or panorama of the ages, rather than Greek History from
start to finish, then, retracing the steps of time, Roman History,
and so on. The object is to sketch the whole picture in outline,
leaving the details to be gradually filled in by later study, as the
artist sketches the general scheme of his picture before filling
in the details. Such a scheme is as necessary to orderly
classification of historical knowledge as is a filing system in any
office that can function properly or even at all.
The Staircase of Time is to give a visual idea of the extent of
time and the progressive steps in the History of the World.
Each “flight” represents a thousand years, and each “step” a
hundred—a century. If you have a spare wall, either in the
play-room, attic, or barn such a Staircase of Time on a large
scale may be drawn upon it from floor to reaching height and
made a feature if elaborated with pictures or drawings of
people and events. If the wall faces the child’s bed so much the
better, for when lying awake in the morning or at any other
time, instead of imagining fantastic designs on the wall-paper,
he may picture the crowded events on the Staircase of Time. At
any rate, the child should constantly refer either to such a
Staircase of Time or to the Time Table as each event is studied,
until he has a mental image of the Ages past.
At first a child does not appreciate time values represented by
numbers or the relative position of dates on a time line and will
wildly say twenty-five hundred B. C. or twenty-five thousand B.
C. or twenty-five million B. C. indiscriminately. Only by
constantly referring dates to position on the Staircase of Time
or the Time Table can a child come to visualize dates. You may
be amused, but do not be amazed, if a child gives 776 thousand
years A.D. as the date for the First Olympiad, or says that Italy
is located in Athens, or that Abraham was a hero of the Trojan
War.
If you have ever been introduced to a roomful of strangers at
one time, you know how futile it is to attempt even to
remember their names to say nothing of connecting names and
faces. It is necessary to hear something interesting about each
one before you can begin to recall names and faces. Likewise
an introduction to World History, the characters and places in
which are utterly unknown strangers to the child, must be
something more than a mere name introduction, and there
must be very few introductions given at a time or both names
and faces will be instantly forgotten. It is also necessary to
repeat new names constantly in order that the pupil may
gradually become familiarized with them, for so many strange
people and places are bewildering.
In order to serve the purpose of a basal outline, which in the
future is to be filled in, it is necessary that the Time Table be
made a permanent possession of the pupil. This Time Table,
therefore, should be studied like the multiplication tables until
it is known one hundred per cent and for “keeps,” and until the
topic connected with each date can be elaborated as much as
desired. The aim should be to have the pupil able to start with
Primitive Man and give a summary of World History to the
present time, with dates and chief events without prompting,
questioning, hesitation, or mistake. Does this seem too much to
expect? It is not as difficult as it may sound, if suggestions
given in the text for connecting the various events into a
sequence and for passing names and events in a condensed
review are followed. Hundreds of Calvert children each year
are successfully required to do this very thing.
The attitude, however, usually assumed by teachers, that “even
if the pupil forgets it all, there will be left a valuable
impression,” is too often an apology for superficial teaching
and superficial learning. History may be made just as much a
“mental discipline” as some other studies, but only if
difficulties of dates and other abstractions are squarely met
and overcome by hard study and learned to be remembered,
not merely to be forgotten after the recitation. The story part
the child will easily remember, but it is the “who and when and
where and why” that are important, and this part is the serious
study. Instead of, “A man, once upon a time,” he should say,
“King John in 1215 at Runnymede because—”
This book, therefore, is not a supplementary reader but a basal
history study. Just enough narrative is told to give the skeleton
flesh and blood and make it living. The idea is not how much
but how little can be told; to cut down one thousand pages to
less than half of that number without leaving only dry bones.
No matter how the subject is presented it is necessary that the
child do his part and put his own brain to work; and for this
purpose he should be required to retell each story after he has
read it and should be repeatedly questioned on names and
dates as well as stories, to make sure he is retaining and
assimilating what he hears.
I recall how once upon a time a young chap, just out of college,
taught his first class in history. With all the enthusiasm of a
full-back who has just kicked a goal from field, he talked, he
sang; he drew maps on the blackboard, on the floor, on the
field; he drew pictures, he vaulted desks, and even stood on his
head to illustrate points. His pupils attended spellbound, with
their eyes wide open, their ears wide open, and their mouths
wide open. They missed nothing. They drank in his flow of
words with thirst unquenched; but, like Baron Munchausen, he
had failed to look at the other end of the drinking horse that
had been cut in half. At the end of a month his kindly principal
suggested a test, and he gave it with perfect confidence.
There were only three questions:
(1) Tell all you can about Columbus.
(2) “ “ “ “ “ Jamestown.
(3) “ “ “ “ “ Plymouth.
And here are the three answers of one of the most interested
pupils:
(1) He was a grate man.
(2) “ “ “ “ “
(3) “ “ “ “ “ to.
 Here is the

STAIRCASE OF TIME
It starts far, far, below the bottom
of the pages and rises up, UP, UP to
where we are NOW—each step a
hundred years, each flight of steps a
thousand. It will keep on up until it
reaches high heaven. From where
we are NOW let us look down the
flights below us and listen to the
Story of what has happened in the
long years gone by.
A CHILD’S HISTORY
OF THE WORLD
BEGINS HERE
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