Asserts that the study of history involves more than the passive absorption facts, dates, names, and places. Maintains that real historical understanding requires students to engage in historical thinking, to raise questions, and to marshal evidence. Describes skills for five types of historical thinking. (CFR)

This occasional paper discusses and examines the role of history as a link between the past and the future. The paper advocates one of the tasks of historians is to keep the present in reasonable touch with the past and with the hope of helping the present to accept and understand the future when it comes. The report cites the declining enrollment…