CIVICS AND CIVICS TEACHING. Civics is now a term broadly applied to the activities of the citizen in his relationship to the state and society. When it first came into use it was generally interpreted to mean the rela tionship of the citizen to the state and sup planted the earlier expression "civil govern ment?' Along its broader definition it now includes a wide variety of forms. Thus we have its use as: (1) Civics, sometimes modified by the word, political, and interpreted to mean a study of governmental machinery.
(2) Civics, including the first definition and adding thereto the idea of the duties of the in dividual to the state.
(3) Community civics, emphasizing strongly the idea of the relation of the citizen to the im mediate environment in which he is living, and ultimately the state and the nation, with the many obligations which they entail—political, social, industrial, and moral or ethical.
(4) Social civics, stressing the duties of the citizen to society and social betterment, with emphasis on social agencies, but little attention to governmental machinery.
(5) Industrial civics, emphasizing the rela tion of the citizen to industries.
(6) Moral or ethical civics, pertaining to citizens' activities with relation to the moral or ethical standards of himself and his fellows.
Each one of these many conceptions or sub divisions of civics has grown out of the original conception of civics as civil government. It was not until after the middle of the 19th cen tury that the idea of teaching civil government in the schools or colleges took any root at all. Previous to that time it was felt that the ordi nary citizen would derive his knowledge of government by actual participation in it when he reached the voting age. This was always an ineffective method of instruction, but its defects were only forcibly made clear when immigrants began to swarm into the United States in the middle and latter half of the cen tury. Teachers' organizations and judicial offi cers soon detected the danger of allowing such people and their children to remain in igno rance and began a campaign for the introduc tion of the study into the schools.
The colleges gave them no encouragement or assistance, for it was at a time when literary education had strongest hold on those higher institutions and the utilitarian was rigidly ex cluded. The agitation, therefore, met with but little success. Schoolmen in general evinced little interest in it, and it was only in the early eighties that the Constitution of the Uni ted States began to he put into the backs of his tory textbooks of the elementary schools and the pupils were given some instruction in gov ernment.
Progress in the subject, however, was slow until an impetus was given from above. The
colleges had shown themselves singularly ob tuse to the study of political science within their own walls, and it was only in the middle of the late eighties that the subject began to make headway there. Once that men and women connected with higher institutionsto take an interest in the subject, the way the introduction of the study of government in the lower schools was made easy.
The whole curriculum of secondary educa tion was made the subject of a study by a Committee of 10 of the National Education Association from 1890 to 1893. A sub-commit tee was given the subjects of history, civil gov ernment and political economy to deal with. This met at Madison, Wis., in December 1892, and was known as the Madison Conference. It made the following remarks and recommenda tions: "Civil government is pursued at present in very few grammar schools,— in not more than one-aixth of „ those which have come odor our observation. It is. bow ever, rather a frequent subject in high schools, about one third offering some sort of instruction in it. In actual teaching' it seems little associated with history; it is usually simply a textbook study during a part of one year; and very few of the teachers seem to be familiar with the subject." Resolved, that to American history be added the ele ments of civil government." " That American history and civil government be taught in the last year of the elementary school and in the last year of the high school." In 1895 the Committee of 15 of the same Association, which considered the subject of elementary education, recommended: "The study of the outlines of the Constitution, for 10 or 15 weeks in the final year of the element ary school.' In 1897 the Committee on Rural Schools recommended that "some work in civics should be taken up° with children between the ages of 9 and 13 years, and that for those be tween 11 and 13 "duties to the native land, treating under this title the organization and principles of our form of government (civics)' should be taught. "As a preparation the teacher should carefully read some systematic treatises on ethics and civics?' In 1899 a Committee of Seven of the Ameri can Historical Association recommended the study of civics along with or separate from the course in American history in the last year of the high school course. In 1910 a Committee of Eight of the same Association, especially appointed to consider history in the elementary schools, made a statement "that elementary civics should permeate the entire life of the school' and recommended a course of study for it through grades five, six, seven and eight, to be taught in connection with history.