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Chapter 1: Meaning and Relevance of History

Learning Objectives:

At the end of this lesson, you should be able to:

1. Demonstrate an understanding of history

2. Determine the relevance of history
3. Discuss the nature of history
4. identify the primary and secondary sources in understanding Philippine history; and
5. Analyze the context, content, and perspective of different kinds of primary sources.

Understanding History

To make sense of history, it is necessary to first understand what it is all about. Many people think
that history is merely lists of names, dates, places, and “important” events. However, history or
the study of history is more than just knowing and memorizing facts.

How about you, what do you think about history?

The term history was derived from the Greek word “historia” which means inquiry or knowledge
acquired from investigation. History is the study of the past as it is described in written documents.
It provides the analysis and interpretation of the human past enabling us to study continuity and
changes that take place over time.

History is defined as the scientific study of significant events

What does a historian do? As a student of history, what do you think will be your
“duties”?

It is a historian’s duty to draw insights from the ideas and realities that have shaped the lives of
men and women and the society. And in understanding these ideas, a historian ( or, in fact, a
student like you of history) can comprehend how situations happened, identify their elements, and
think of how these situations can solve today’s predicaments and help plan for the future. It is the
historian’s job to seek historical evidences and facts but also to interpret these facts. “Facts cannot
speak for themselves.” It is the job of the historian to give meaning to these facts and organize
them into a timeline, establish causes, and write history.

The study of history, therefore, is the study of the beliefs and desires, practices, and institutions of
human beings.

With this, history becomes an active factor in the study of Philippine society.

Nature of History

To better understand history, it is essential to determine its very nature.

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1. History is a study of the present in the light of the past. The present owes its existence on
the past. To understand exactly how society has come to its present form, there is a need to know
its past. One cannot just leapfrog and ignore what happened in the past. The past events need to
be unearthed to reveal how the present evolved out of it.

2. History is the study of man. As one historian said, history deals with man’s struggles through
the ages. Past events are riddled with man’s engagement in wars, his struggles to win his
independence. History traces the fascinating story of h ow man has developed through the ages,
how man has studied to use and control his environment and how the present institutions have
grown out of the past.

3. History is concerned with man in time. It deals with a series of events and each event
happens at a given point in time. History dwells on the human development in time.

4. History provides an objective record of happenings. Historians are careful on the data they
include in their books. They base their data on original sources and make them free from
subjective interpretation.

5. History is relevant. In the study of history, only significant events which have influenced the
society are covered and essential to the understanding of the present life.

Relevance of History

Why do we have to study history?

An examination of the past can tell us a great deal about how we came to be who we are. It
means looking at the roots of modern institutions, ideas, values, and problems.

Looking at the past teaches us to see the world through different eyes- appreciating diversity of
human perceptions, beliefs, and culture. Different and/or new perspectives will enable us to
analyze critically the present contexts of society and beings.

Historical Sources

With the past as history’s subject matter, the historian’s most important research tools are
historical sources. In general, historical sources can be classified between primary and secondary
sources.

A. Primary Sources

In the study of history as an academic discipline, the use of primary sources is necessary.
Primary sources are materials produced by people or groups directly involved in the event or
topic being studied. These people are either participants or eyewitness to the event. These
primary sources provide the original materials on which other research is based and enable
students and other researchers to get as close as possible to what actually happened during a
particular event or era. Published materials can be viewed as primary sources as long as they
come from the time period that is being discussed, and were written or produced by someone with
firsthand experience of the event.
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History as an academic discipline heavily relies on primary source. As one historian says, “Primary
sources are absolutely fundamental to history.” Generally, a historian capitalizes on all available
primary sources that were created by the people involved at the time being studied. In reality,
some sources have been destroyed, while others are not available for research. Remember,
printing press was invented way back in 14 th century and was introduced in most countries at the
end of the century. The most reliable eyewitness reports of an event may be memoirs,
autobiographies, or oral interviews taken years or even centuries ago. Manuscripts that are
sources for classical texts can be copies of documents, or fragments of copies of documents. For
this reason, history is usually taught in schools using secondary sources.

Many primary sources are withheld by private individuals or groups, others are available in
archives, libraries, museums, historical societies, and special collections. These can be public and
private. Some are affiliated with universities and colleges, while others are government entities.

Historians who are into publishing academic articles with fresh or new perspectives prefer to go
back to available primary sources and to seek new ones. Primary sources, be it accurate or not,
offer new inputs into historical questions and most modern history dwells on archives and special
collections for the purpose of finding useful primary sources. A work on history is not likely to be
taken seriously as scholarship if it only cites secondary sources, as it does not indicate that original
research has been done.

In scholarly writing, it is essential to classify the sources to determine its independence and
reliability. In context such as historical writing, it is indeed advisable to use primary sources but in
the absence of one, the author may use the secondary sources with great caution.

B. Different Kinds of Primary Sources

1. Autobiographies and memoirs

2. Diaries, personal letter and correspondence
3. Interviews, surveys, and fieldwork
4. Internet communications on email, blogs, listservs, and newsgroups
5. photographs, drawings, and posters
6. works of art and literature
7. books, magazines and newspapers articles and ads published at the time
8. public opinions polls
9. speeches and oral histories
10. original documents such as birth certificates, property deeds, and trial transcripts
11. research data such as census statistics
12. official and unofficial records of organizations and government agencies
13. artifacts of all kinds, such as tools, coins, clothing, furniture
14. audio recordings, DVDs and video recordings
15. government documents (reports, bills, proclamations, hearings)
16. patents, technical reports and scientific journal articles reporting experimental research results.

Why is primary source important in the study of history?

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C. Secondary Sources

Secondary sources, on the other hand, are those sources, which were produced by an author who
used primary sources to produce the material or the testimony of anyone who is not an eyewitness-
that is of one who not present at the event of which he tells. These are analysis or a restatement
of primary sources. They often describe or explain primary sources. Some secondary sources not
only analyze primary sources , but also use them to argue or persuade the reader to hold a certain
opinion. Secondary sources are not evidence, but a commentary on and discussion of evidence.
These are books, articles, and scholarly journals that had interpreted primary sources or had used
them to discuss certain subjects of history.

However, a student should not be confused about what counts as a primary or a secondary source.
The classification of sources between primary and secondary depends not on the period when the
source was produced or the type of the sources but on the subject of historical research. For
example, a textbook is usually classified as a secondary source, a tertiary source even. However,
this classification is usual but not automatic. If a historian chooses to write the history of education
in the 1980s, he can utilize textbooks used in that period as a primary source. If a historian wishes
to study the historiography of the Filipino-American War for example, he ca use works of different
authors on the topic as his primary source as well.

What What is the purpose of a secondary source?

EXTERNAL AND INTERNAL CRITICISM

Historians need historical sources to ascertain truth, now, how do they know the
truthfulness and credibility of their sources?

Both primary and secondary sources are useful in writing and learning history. However, historians
and students of history need to thoroughly scrutinize these historical sources to avoid deception
and to come up with the historical truth. The historians should be able to conduct an external and
internal criticism of the source, especially primary sources which can age in centuries.

External Criticism is the practice of verifying the authenticity of evidence by examining its physical
characteristics; consistency with the historical characteristic of the time when it was produced; and
the materials used for the evidence.

Examples of the things that will be examined when conducting external criticism of a document
include the quality of the paper, the type of the ink, and the language and words used in the
material, among others.

Internal Criticism, on the other hand, is the examination of the truthfulness of the evidence. It
looks at the content of the source and examines the circumstance of its production. Internal
criticism looks at the truthfulness and factuality of the evidence by looking at the author of the
source, its context, the agenda behind its creation, the knowledge which informed it, and its
intended purpose, among others.

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For example, Japanese reports and declarations during the period of war should not be taken as a
historical fact hastily. Internal criticism entails that the historian acknowledge and analyze how
such reports can be manipulated to be used as war propaganda. Validating historical sources is
important because the use of unverified, falsified, and untruthful historical sources can lead to
equally false conclusions. Without thorough criticisms of historical evidences, historical deceptions
and lies will be highly probable.

One of the most scandalous case of deception in Philippine history is the hoax Code of Kalantiaw.
The code was a set of rules contained in an epic, Maragtas, which was allegedly written by a
certain Datu Kalantiaw. The document was sold to the National Library and was regarded as an
important precolonial document until 1968, when American historian William Henry Scott debunked
the authenticity of the code due to anachronism and lack of evidence to prove that the code existed
in the precolonial Philippine society. Ferdinand Marcos also claimed that he was a decorated
World War II soldier who led a guerilla unit called Ang Maharlika. This was widely believed by
students of history and Marcos had war medals to show. This claim, however, was disproved
when historians counterchecked Marcos’ claims with the war records of the United States. These
cases prove how deceptions can propagate without rigorous historical research.

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Learning Activities (A)
Name:_______________________________________________Score/Rating:_______________
Section:_______________ Day/Time:__________________Date:__________________________

A. True or False. Write True if the statement is true and write False if the statement is not true.

_________1. History is the study of the past.

_________2. Historical sources that were not written should not be used in writing history.
_________3. Historian’s task is to look at the available historical sources.
_________4. History has no use for the present, thus, the saying “past is past” is true.
_________5. History is limited to the story of a hero versus a villain.
_________6. Only primary sources may be used in writing history.
_________7. There are two types of sources: primary and secondary sources.
_________8. External criticism is done by examining the physical characteristics of a source.
_________9. Internal criticism is done by looking at a source’s quality of paper and type of ink,
among others.
_________10. The historians are the only source of history.

B. What Source? Read the following scenarios and classify the sources discovered as primary or
secondary sources. Write your answer in the space provided.

1. Jose was exploring the library in his new school in Manila. He wanted to study the history of
Calamba, Laguna during the nineteenth century. In one of the books, he saw an old photograph of
a woman standing in front of an old church, clipped among the pages. At the back of the photo
was a fine inscription that says: “Kalamaba, 19 de Junio 1861.”

Is the photograph a primary or secondary source? Why?

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2. Lorena was a new teacher of Araling Panlipunan in a small elementary school in Mauban,
Quezon. Her colleagues gave her the new textbook and she ought to use in class. Before the
class started, Lorena studied the textbook carefully. She noted that the authors used works by
other known historians in writing the textbook. She saw that the bibliography included Teodoro
Agoncillo’s The Revolt of the Masses and the Fateful Years: Japan’s Adventure in the Philippines,
1941-45. She also saw that the authors used Ma. Luisa Camagay’s Working Women of Manila
During the 19th Century and many others.

Is the textbook a primary or secondary source? Why?

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Learning Activities (B)
Name:_______________________________________________Score/Rating:_______________
Section:____________________ Day/Time:______________Date:_________________________

Activity: Comparative Analysis

Read the excerpts from the readings on the remains of what was considered the earliest known
human remains in the Philippines – Tabon Man by Robert B. Fox and William Henry Scott, then
do a comparative analysis. Copy shall be distributed/given by the instructor.

Questions:

1. Which is the primary source and the secondary source between the two readings.
2. Do a credibility analysis of the sources. Who between the two authors is more credible to talk
about the topic? Why?

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Rubric
Use the rubric below to assess the output and presentation of the students:

5– The student answers the questions and explains the content of each question in a clear
and consistent manner. There are no major grammatical errors.

3 - The student answers the questions and explains the content of each question in a
somewhat consistent manner. There may be minor grammatical errors.

1- The student has difficulty in answering the questions and explaining the content of each
question. There may be major grammatical errors.
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0 - The student makes an attempt to answer the questions, but the explanation is without merit

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