A confederacy of dunces: Magna Carta in History 8 textbooks

The problem of origins involves too often attributing modern ideas to persons in other ages. Take Chapter 1 of Magna Carta that provides that the English church shall be free. This meant that the church would be free of Papal interference in the making of appointments, not a statement about individual freedom of conscience. The mistake lies in supposing that because a word we think we recognize was used in the past that it must have been used in the same sense in which the term is now used.

I do not wish to suggest that the textbooks are useless or without merit. They are attractively produced, full of maps, pictures, and diagrams, all in full color. This, for the thirteen year old in the twenty first century, is a huge advance over the text only books of my youth. The approach to history is also different in two marked ways. First, history covers non-European history. In the case of History 8 this includes the Ottomans, the Khmer, Japan and the Pacific Island voyages of the Polynesians. Second, there is a strong emphasis on the social history to give students an idea of what life was like in the societies covered. But this necessarily crowds out legal, political and constitutional history. Since no curriculum on any subject can cover everything about everything, the question is on what basis is a selection to be made? This will always be a controversial matter since selection is inevitable. And as content is included other content must be omitted.

Earlier generations took the view that history should impart a knowledge or, at least, a basic awareness of the legal/constitutional and political history of the country. The current approach substantially neglects these matters. Why should not Australians know about where their major institutions came from, how they emerged and the changes that were made to them, both in England and in Australia? Our dominant political and legal arrangements are largely English, save for Scandinavian innovations such as the Ombudsman and American influences on our Constitution. To neglect this is to send forth generations from our schools with no grasp of the institutions that are part of the present. I have had the misfortune to teach students who were unsure of the number of states in Australia or even when the Middle Ages occurred. One slick operator when asked about this offered that they "were a while back".

The rule of law, parliamentary government, responsible government (never mind the oxymoron), the separation of powers, judicial independence, the protection of rights by the common law, the universal franchise, and voting by the secret ballot are all English ideas. Students should learn that the first law in the British Empire to mandate voting by ballot was passed in Tasmania in January 1856 and that when Britain adopted voting by ballot in 1872 the British parliament modeled its law on that of South Australia with its cross in the square voting method created in Adelaide in 1858. Australia also led the way in not imposing a religious test for admission to university with the Sydney University Act 1850, over twenty one years before similar arrangements in England. Votes for women in South Australia in 1894 preceded the vote for women in Britain in 1918. These examples of Australian innovations made to inherited institutional arrangements indicate that any account must recognize and be faithful to the historical record. It would not be a simple history of how everything was created in Britain and that we simply adopted British institutions unchanged. After all Australia has a written constitution while Britain does not; we have judicial review of legislation they do not; we have a federal system they do not; we have an elected upper house they do not.

In short, any proper history would be an account of the obsolete, of survivals, and of changes made through transplantation. It would not be simply a history of triumphs or of failures, but of both. It would depict human achievements and follies; it would show humans at their best and at their worst. It would exhibit the complexity of human history as well as the pity, the fallibility and the magnificence of the human condition. Above all the study of history should be accompanied by a skeptical cast of mind both towards the evidence and towards comprehensive explanations.