Home School Heartbeat Radio Program

Mom, how can I tell if this book is telling the true story? HSLDA Chairman Michael Farris discusses using primary sources in your study of history, on this edition of Home School Heartbeat.

Mike Farris:


True scholarship requires in depth study, and students will benefit from learning if they also use primary source documents in their own study of history. When people use primary sources, they can turn history into great stories with real people not dry summaries.


Benson Bobrick uses primary sources to tell incredibly interesting stories in his book Wide as the Waters, which is the history of the English Bible. As the story begins, common people have little personal knowledge of the Scripture. But just over 200 years later the world is turned upside down as the English Bible pervades the culture, sanctioning, as Bobrick says, the right and capacity of the people to think for themselves.


The truth had, in reality, set the people free. One Reformer proclaimed, "The art of printing will so spread knowledge that the common people, knowing their own rights and liberties, will no longer be governed by way of oppression but will rule their own lives." It's easy to imagine the fear one bishop expressed when he said, "Either we must root out printing, or printing will root out us."


By sifting through primary sources students get a more personal and accurate view of the past, and gain a greater appreciation for the real stories of real men and women on whose shoulders we stand. I'm Mike Farris.