Lewis on the Teaching of History (Part II)

In order to develop a healthy love for country C.S. Lewis attributes the proper education of a country's youth as necessary to instilling a correct view of the nation's past. Lewis specifically addresses the teaching of history, however, the education of children always encompasses knowledge as a whole. One should contrast Lewis's statements against both "liberal" or "conservative" educators who both seek to tell their own stories of how America came to be. As Dr. Gamble says "we are all born bad historians" and should thus attempt to learn carefully how to study and understand history. A proper understanding is vital for producing the right type of character within the human soul, that will allow him to discern good from evil, right from wrong, among human nature.

Developing proper historical consciousness is a topic that would take a book or two or three. A good friend of mine wrote his senior thesis on the work of John Lukacs who I would definitely recommend reading. Good historical method is the surest way to fight the evils of historicism and those who claim to have a "philosophy of history." Failure to understand history leads to serious miscalculations regrading some of the most fundamental questions of humanity.

In The Screwtape Letters Lewis warns against becoming either of two radical positions, "an extreme patriot" or "an ardent pacifist." Leading people into either of these extremes is a tactic of Satan that leads to destruction. Knowledge must go on even during times of war according to Lewis in his essay "Learning in Wartime." Says Lewis, "The pursuit of knowledge and beauty, in a sense, for their own sake, but in a sense which does not exclude their being for God's sake. An appetite for these exists in the human mind, and God makes no appetite in vain." Lewis continues:

... we need intimate knowledge of the past. Not that the past has any magic about it, but because we cannot study the future, and yet need something to set against the present, to remind us that the basic assumptions have been quite different in different periods and that much which seems certain to the uneducated is merely temporary fashion.

In another essay titled, "Why I am not a Pacifist," Lewis criticizes what he later calls the "chronological snobbery" of progressives who assume "human history is a simple, unilinear movement from worse to better- what is called a belief in progress so that any given generation is always in all respects wiser than all previous generations." These people seem to believe that "the whole world was wrong until the day before yesterday and now has suddenly become right." Such a belief in history lacks a proper understanding of human nature and historical consciousness.

In the Four Loves, Lewis's discussion on love of country takes him once again to the topic of education. It is easy for one to only look at the heroic actions of the past while failing to remembering that "the actual history of every country is full of shabby and even shameful things." Nonetheless, Lewis encourages people to be strengthened by the images of the past without being "deceived or puffed up." Such images only become dangerous when "mistaken or substituted for serious and systematic historical study."

How then do we teach our children so as to avoid an unhealthy nationalistic pride? Lewis turns to stories with the emphasis on the tale and the picture which "fires the imagination." This way of doing history avoids a type of patriotism that indoctrinates the young in "false or biased history" that assumes their particular nation is superior in people, culture, and tradition. A belief that somehow ones people are "chosen" might lead to fatal and dire consequences.

Lewis's reflections on the proper love of country seem to further cement the changing feelings I have about my own country. Coinciding with my newfound desire to work in education someday, Lewis helps put into perspective the necessity of correctly teaching history as a way to monitor the health of a country. Perhaps a reason for the current sickness of our own nation can be traced to the irresponsible ways we have handled history in the education of our children.