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An analogy.—If we may win a concept of the analogy between the vitalized school and a filtration-plant, we shall, perhaps, gain a clearer notion of the purpose of the school and come upon a juster estimate of its processes. The purpose of the filtration-plant is to purify, clarify, and render more conducive to life the stream that passes through, and the function of the school may be stated in the same terms. The stream that enters the plant is murky and deeply impregnated with impurities; the same stream when it issues from the plant is clear, free from impurities, and, therefore, better in respect to nutritive qualities. The stream of life that flows into the school is composed of many heterogeneous elements; the stream that issues from the school is far more homogeneous, clearer, more nearly free from impurities, and, therefore, more conducive to the life and health of the community. The stream of life that flows into the school is composedof elements from all countries, languages, and conditions. In this are Greeks and barbarians, Jews and Gentiles, saints and sinners, the washed and the unwashed, the ignorant, the high, the low, the depraved, the weak, and the strong.
Life-giving properties.—The stream that issues from the school is the very antithesis of all this. Instead of all these heterogeneous elements, the stream when it comes from the school is composed wholly of Americans. A hundred flags may be seen in the stream that enters the school, but the stream that flows out from the school bears only the American flag. The school has often been called the melting-pot, in which the many nationalities are fused; but it is far more than that. True, somehow and somewhere in the school process these elements have been made to coalesce, but that is not the only change that is wrought. The volume of life that issues from the school is the same as that which enters, barring the leakage, but the resultant stream is far more potent in life-giving properties because of its passage through the school.
Changes wrought.—When we see the stream entering the filtration-plant polluted with impurities and then coming forth clear and wholesome, weknow that something happened to that stream in transit. Similarly, when we see the stream of life entering the school as a mere aggregation of more or less discordant elements and then coming forth in a virtually unified homogeny, we know that something has happened to that stream in its progress through the school. To determine just what happens in either case is a task for experts and a task, moreover, that is well worth while. In either case we may well inquire whether the things that happen are the very best things that could possibly be made to happen; and, if not, what improvements are possible and desirable.
Another misconception.—The analogy between the plant and the school will not hold if we still retain in the parlance of school procedure the expression “getting an education.” The act of getting implies material substance. Education is not a substance but a process, and it is palpably impossible to get a process. So there can be no such thing as getting an education, in spite of the tenacity of the expression. Even to state the fact would seem altogether trite, were we not confronted every day with the fact that teachers and parents are either unable or unwilling to substitute some rightexpression for this wrong one. Education is not the process of getting but, rather, the process of becoming, and the difference is as wide as the difference between the true and the false.
Just how long it will require to eradicate this conception from the school and society no one can well conjecture. Its presence in our nomenclature reveals, in a marked way, the strength of habit. Many teachers will give willing assent to the fact and then use the expression again in their next sentence. Certainly we shall not even apprehend the true function and procedure of the vitalized school until we have eliminated this expression. If we admit the validity of the contention as to this expression, then we may profitably resume the consideration of our analogy, for, in that case, we shall find in this analogy no ineptitude.
The validity of the analogy.—We cause the stream of water to pass through the filtration-plant that it may become rectified; we cause the stream of life to pass through the school that it may become rectified. When the stream of water becomes rectified, bodily disease is averted; when the stream of life is rectified, mental and spiritual disease is averted. The analogy, therefore, holds good whether we considerthe process itself or its effect. We have only to state the case thus to have opened up for us a wide field for profitable speculation. The diseases of mind and spirit that invade society are the causes that lie back of our police courts, our prisons, and, very often, our almshouses. Hence, if the stream of life could be absolutely rectified, these undesirable institutions would disappear, and life for the entire community would be far more agreeable by reason of their absence.
Function of the school.—The school, then, is established and administered to carry on this process of rectification. By means of this process ignorance becomes intelligence, coarseness becomes culture, strife becomes peace, impurity becomes purity, disease becomes health, and darkness becomes light. The child comes into the school not to get something but to have something done to and for him that he may become something that he was not before, and, therefore, that he may the better execute his functions as a member of society. In short, he comes into the school that he may pass through the process of rectification. In this process he loses neither his name, his extraction, his identity, nor his individuality. On the contrary,all these attributes are so acted upon by the process that they become assets of the community.
Language.—In order to lead to a greater degree of clarity it may be well to be even more specific in explaining this process of rectification. Language is fundamental in all the operations of society. It is indispensable to the grocer, the farmer, the lawyer, the physician, the manufacturer, the housewife, and the legislator. It is the means by which members of society communicate with one another, and without communication, in some form, there can be no social intercourse, and, therefore, no society. People are all interdependent, and language is the bond of union. They must use the same language, of course, and the words must be invested with the same meaning in order to be intelligible.
Language a social study.—Just here great care must be exercised or we shall go astray in depicting the work of the school in dealing with this subject of language. The child comes into the school with language of a sort, but it needs rectification in order to render it readily available for the purposes of society. Herein lies the crux of the whole matter. If this child were not to become a member of society, it would matter little what sort of language he usesor whether he uses any language. If he were to be banished to some island there to dwell alone, language would be unnecessary. Hence, his study of language in the school is, primarily, for the well-being of society and not for himself. Language is so essential to the life processes that, without it, society would be thrown out of balance. The needs of society are paramount, and hence language as it concerns the child relates to him chiefly if not wholly as a member of society.
Grammar.—Grammar is nothing else than language reduced to a system of common terms that have been agreed upon in the interests of society. People have entered into a linguistic compact, an agreement that certain words and combinations of words shall be understood to mean certain things. The tradesman must understand the purchaser or there can be no exchange. The ticket-agent must understand the prospective traveler or the latter cannot take the journey and reach his destination. Hence, grammar, with all that the term implies, is a means of facilitating the activities of society and pertains to the individual only in his relation to society.
Needs of society.—True, the individual willfind life more agreeable in society if he understands the common language, just as the traveler is more comfortable in a foreign country if he understands its language. But we need emphasis upon the statement that we have grammar in the school because it is one of the needs of society. The individual may not need chemistry, but society does need it, and the school must somehow provide it because of this need. Hence we place chemistry in the school as one of the ingredients of the solvent which we employ in the process of rectification. Those who are susceptible to the influences of this ingredient will become inoculated with it and bear it forth into the uses of society.
Caution.—But just here we find the most delicate and difficult task of the school. Here we encounter some of the fundamental principles of psychology as explained and emphasized by James, McDougall, and Strayer. Here we must begin our quest for the native tendencies that condition successful teaching. We must discover what pupils are susceptible to chemistry before we can proceed with the work of inoculation. This has been the scene and source of many tragedies. We have been wont to ask whether chemistry will be good for theboy instead of making an effort to discover whether the boy will be good for chemistry—whether his native tendencies render him susceptible to chemistry.
Some mistakes.—Our procedure has often come but little short of an inquisition. We have followed our own predilections and prejudices instead of being docile at the feet of Nature and asking her what to do. We have applied opprobrious epithets and resorted to ostracism. We have been freely dispensing suspensions and expulsions in a vain effort to prove that the school is both omniscient and omnipotent. We have tried to transform a poet into a mechanic, a blacksmith into an artist, and an astronomer into a ditcher. And our complacency in the presence of the misfits of the school is the saddest tragedy of all. We have taken counsel with tradition rather than with the nature of the pupil, the while rejoicing in our own infallibility.
Native dispositions.—Society needs only a limited number of chemists and only such as have the native tendencies that will make chemistry most effective in the activities of society. But we have been proceeding upon the agreeable assumption that every pupil has such native tendencies. Suchan assumption absolves the school, of course, from the necessity of discovering what pupils are susceptible to chemistry and of devising ways and means of making this important discovery. Because we do not know how to make this discovery we find solace in the assumption that it cannot or need not be made. We then proceed to apply the Procrustean bed principle with the very acme ofsang froid. Here is work for the efficiency expert. When children are sitting at the table of life, the home and the school in combination ought to be able to discover what food they crave and not insist upon their eating olives when they really crave oatmeal.
The ideal of the school.—We shall not have attained to right conditions until such time as the stream of life that issues from the school shall combine the agencies, in right proportions and relations, that will conserve the best interests of society and administer its activities with the maximum of efficiency. This is the ideal that the school must hold up before itself as the determining plan in its every movement. But this ideal presupposes no misfits in society. If there are such, then it will decline in some degree from the plane of highest efficiency.If there are some members of society who are straining at the leash which Nature provided for them and are trying to do work for which they have neither inclination nor aptitude, they cannot render the best service, and society suffers in consequence.
Misfits.—The books teem with examples of people who are striving to find themselves by finding their work. But nothing has been said of society in this same strain. We have only to think of society as composed of all the people to realize that only by finding its work can society find itself. And so long as there is even one member of society who has not found himself, so long must we look upon this one exception as a discordant note in the general harmony. If one man is working at the forge who by nature is fitted for a place at the desk, then neither this man nor society is at its best. And a large measure of the responsibility for such discord and misfits in society must be laid at the door of the school because of its inability to discover native tendencies.
Common interests.—There are many interests that all children have in common when they enter the school in the morning, and these interests may well become the starting points in the day’s work.The conversations at breakfast tables and the morning paper beget and stimulate many of these interests and the school does violence to the children, the community, and itself if it attempts to taboo these interests. Its work is to rectify and not to suppress. When the children return to their homes in the evening they should have clearer and larger conceptions of the things that animated them in the morning. If they come into the school all aglow with interest in the great snowstorm of the night before, the teacher does well to hold the lesson in decimals in abeyance until she has led around to the subject by means of readings or stories that have to do with snowstorms. The paramount and common interest of the children in the morning is snow and, therefore, the day should hold snow in the foreground in their thinking, so that, at the close of the day, their horizon in the snow-world may be extended, and so that they may thus be able to make contributions to the home on the subject of snow.
Real interests.—In the morning the pupils had objective snow in which they rollicked and gamboled in glee. All day long they had subjective snow in which the teacher with fine technique caused them to revel; and, in the evening, their concept of snowwas so much enlarged that they experienced a fresh access of delight. And that day was their snow epiphany. On that day there was no break in the stream of life at the schoolhouse door. There was no supplanting of the real interests of the morning with fictitious interests of the school, to be endured with ill grace until the real interests of the morning could be resumed in the evening. On the contrary, by some magic that only the vitalized teacher knows, every exercise of the day seemed to have snow as its center. Snow seemed to be the major in the reading, in the spelling, in the geography, and in the history.
On that day they became acquainted with Hannibal and his struggles through the snow of the Alps. On that day they learned of the avalanche, its origin, its devastating power, and, of course, its spelling. On that day they read “Snow Bound” and the snow poems of Longfellow and Lowell. Thus the stream of life was clarified, rectified, and amplified as it passed through the school, and, incidentally, the teacher and the school were glorified in their thoughts.
Circus day.—But snow is merely typical. On other days other interests are paramount. Oncircus day the children, again, have a common interest which affords the teacher a supreme opportunity. The day has been anticipated by the teacher, and the pupils have cause to wonder how and whence she ever accumulated such a wealth of pictures of animal life. All day long they are regaled with a subjective menagerie, and when they attend the circus in the evening they astonish their parents by the extent and accuracy of their information. They know the animals by name, their habitat, their habits, their food, and their uses. In short, they seemed to have compassed a working knowledge of the animal kingdom in a single day through the skill of the teacher who knows how to make the school reënforce their life interests.
The quality of life.—If we now extend the scope of common interests that belong in the category with the snow and the animals, we shall readily see that the analogy of the filtration-plant holds good in the entire régime of the vitalized school. But we must never lose sight of the additional fact that the quality of life that issues from the school is far better because of its passage through the school. The volume may be less, through unfortunate leakage, but the quality is so much better that its valueto society is enhanced a hundred- or a thousand-fold. The people who pass through the school have learned a common language, have been imbued with a common purpose, have learned how to live and work in hearty accord, have come to revere a common flag, and have become citizens of a common country.
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Poetry defined.—Poetry has been defined as “a message from the heart of the artist to the heart of the man”; and, seeing that the heart is the center and source of life, it follows that poetry is a means of effecting a transfusion of life. The poet ponders life long and deeply and then gives forth an interpretation in artistic form that is surcharged with the very quintessence of life. The poet absorbs life from a thousand sources—the sky, the forest, the mountain, the sunrise, the ocean, the storm, the child in the mother’s arms, and the man at his work, and then transmits it that the recipient may have a new influx of life. The poet’s quest is life, his theme is life, and his gift to man is life. His mission is to gain a larger access of life and to give life in greater abundance. He gains the meaning of life from the snowflake and the avalanche; from the grain of sand and the fertile valley; from the raindrop and the sea; from the chirp of the cricketand the crashing of the thunder; from the firefly and the lightning’s flash; and from Vesuvius and Sinai. To know life he listens to the baby’s prattle, the mother’s lullaby, and the father’s prayer; he looks upon faces that show joy and sorrow, hope and despair, defeat and triumph; and he feels the pulsations of the tides, the hurricane, and the human heart.
How the poet learns life.—He sits beside the bed of sickness and hears the feeble and broken words that tell of the past, the present, and the future; he visits the field of battle and sees the wreckage of the passions of men; he goes into the dungeon and hears the ravings and revilings of a distorted soul; he visits pastoral scenes where peace and plenty unite in a song of praise; he rides the mighty ship and knows the heartbeats of the ocean; he sits within the church and opens the doors of his soul to its holy influences; he enters the hovel whose squalor proclaims it the abode of ignorance and vice; he visits the home of happiness where industry and frugality pour forth their bounteous gifts and love sways its gentle scepter; and he sits at the feet of his mother and imbibes her gracious spirit.
Transfusion of life.—And then he writes; and as he writes his pen drips life. He knows and feels, and, therefore, he expresses, and his words are the distillations of life. His spiritual percipience has rendered his soul a veritable garden of emotions, and with his pen he transplants these in the written page. And men see and come to pluck the flowers to transplant again in their own souls that they, too, may have a garden like unto his. Hisélancarries over into the lives of these men and they glow with the ardor of his emotions and are inspired to deeds of courage, of service, and of solace. For every flower plucked from his garden another grows in its stead more beautiful and more fragrant than its fellow, and he is reinspired as he inspires others. And thus in this transfusion of life there is an undertow that carries back into his own life and makes his spirit more fertile.
Aspiration.—When he would teach men to aspire he writes “Excelsior” and so causes them to know that only he who aspires really lives. They see the groundling, the boor, the drudge, and the clown content to dwell in the valley amid the loaves and fishes of animal desires, while the man who aspires is struggling toward the heights whence hemay gain an outlook upon the glories that are, know the throb and thrill of new life, and experience the swing and sweep of spiritual impulses. He makes them to know that the man who aspires recks not of cold, of storm, or of snow, if only he may reach the summit and lave his soul in the glory that crowns the marriage of earth and sky. They feel that the aspirant is but yielding obedience to the behests of his better self to scale the heights where sublimity dwells.
Perseverance.—Or he writes the fourth “Æneid” to make men feel that the palm of victory comes only to those who persevere to the end; that duty does not abdicate in favor of inclination; and that the high gods will not hold guiltless the man who stops short of Italy to loiter and dally in Carthage even in the sunshine of a Dido’s smile. When Italy is calling, no siren song of pleasure must avail to lure him from his course, nor must his sail be furled until the keel grates upon the Italian shore. His navigating skill must guide him through the perils of Scylla and Charybdis and the stout heart of manhood must bear him past Mount Ætna’s fiery menace. His dauntless courage must brave the anger of the greedy waves and boldly ride them down. Normust his cup of joy be full until the wished-for land shall greet his eager eyes.
Overweening ambition.—Or, again, the poet may yearn to teach the wrong of overweening, vaulting ambition and he writes “Paradise Lost” and “Recessional.” He pictures Satan overthrown, like the Giants who would climb into the throne on Olympus. He pictures Hell as the fitting place for Satan overthrown, and in his own place he pictures the outcast and downcast Satan writhing and cursing because he was balked of his unholy ambition. And, lest mortals sink from their high estate, borne down by their sins of unsanctified ambition, he prays, and prays again, “Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet, lest we forget, lest we forget.” And the prayer echoes and reëchoes in the soul of the man, and the world sees his lips moving in the prayer of the poet, “Lest we forget, lest we forget.”
Native land.—Or, again, he writes Bannockburn and the spirit is fired with patriotic devotion to native land. We hear the bagpipe and the drum and see the martial clans gathering in serried ranks and catch the glint of their arms and armor as they flash back the sunlight. We hear their lusty calls as they rush together to defend the hills and thehomes they love. We see, again, the Wallace and the Bruce inciting valorous men to deeds of heroism and hear the hills reëchoing with the shock of steel upon steel. From hill to hill the pibroch leaps, and hearts and feet quicken at its sound. And mothers are pressing their bairns to their bosoms as they cheer their loved ones away to the strife. And while their eyes are weeping their hearts are saying:
“Wha will be a traitor knave?Wha can fill a coward’s grave?Wha so base as be a slave?Let him turn and flee!”
“Wha will be a traitor knave?Wha can fill a coward’s grave?Wha so base as be a slave?Let him turn and flee!”
“Wha will be a traitor knave?
Wha can fill a coward’s grave?
Wha so base as be a slave?
Let him turn and flee!”
Faith.—And after the sounds of battle are hushed he sings “To Mary in Heaven” and causes the man to stand in the presence of the Burning Bush and to hear the command “Put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground.” And the heart of the man grows tender as the poet opens his eyes to catch a glimpse of the life of faith that the star foretells even as the Star of Bethlehem was prophetic. And, through the eyes of the lover, he looks over into the other life and knows that his faith is not in vain. And when faith sits enthroned, the music of the brook at his feet becomes sweeter, the stars shine more brightly, theearth becomes a place of gladness, and life is far more worth while. The poet has caused the scales to fall from his eyes and through them the light of Heaven has streamed into his soul.
The teacher’s influx of life.—And the teacher imbibes the spirit of the poet and becomes vital and thus becomes attuned to all life. Flowers spring up in her pathway because they are claiming kinship with the flowers that are blooming in her soul. The insect chirps forth its music, and her own spirit joins in the chorus of the forest. The brooklet laughs as it ripples its way toward the sea, and her spirit laughs in unison because the poet has poured his laughter into her soul. She stands unafraid in the presence of the storm because her feeling for majesty overmasters her apprehension of danger. The lightning’s flash may rend the oak but, even so, she stands in mute admiration at this wondrous manifestation of life. Her quickened spirit responds to the roll and reverberation of the thunder because she has grown to womanhood through the poet’s copious draughts of life.
The book of life.—The voices of the night enchant her and the stars take her into their counsels. The swaying tree speaks her language because bothspeak the language of life. She takes delight in the lexicon of the planets because it interprets to her the book of life, and in the revelations of this book she finds her chief joy. For her there are no dull moments whether she wanders by the river, through the glades, or over the hills, because she is ever turning the pages of this book. She moves among the things of life and accounts them all her friends and companions. She knows their moods and their language and with them holds intimate communion. They smile upon her because she can reciprocate their smiles. Life to her is a buoyant, a joyous experience each hour of the day because the poet has poured into her spirit its fuller, deeper meanings.
The teaching.—And because the poet has touched her spirit with the wand of his power the waters of life gush forth in sparkling abundance. And children come to the fountain of her life and drink of its waters and are thereby refreshed and invigorated. Then they smile back their gratitude to her in their exuberance of joyous life.
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An American story.—There is a story to the effect that a certain Mr. Jones was much given to boasting of his early rising. He stoutly maintained that he was going about his work every morning at three o’clock. Some of his friends were inclined to be incredulous as to his representations and entered into a kindly conspiracy to put them to the test. Accordingly one of the number presented himself at the kitchen door of the Jones residence one morning at half-past three and made inquiry of Mrs. Jones as to the whereabouts of her husband, asking if he was at home. In a very gracious manner Mrs. Jones replied: “No, he isn’t here now. He was around here early this morning but I don’t really know where he is now.” This is a clean, fine, typical American story, and, by means of such a story, we can test for a sense of humor. The boy in school will laugh at this story both because it is a good one and because he is a normal boy. If he does notlaugh at such a story, there is cause for anxiety as to his mental condition or attitude. If the teacher cannot or does not laugh, a disharmony is generated at once between teacher and pupil which militates against the well-being of the school. If the teacher reprimands the boy, the boy as certainly discredits the teacher and all that she represents. If she cannot enjoy such a wholesome story, he feels that her arithmetic, geography, and grammar are responsible, and these studies decline somewhat in his esteem. Moreover, he feels that the teacher’s reprimand was unwarranted and unjust and he fain would consort with people of his own kind. Many a boy deserts school because the teacher is devoid of the saving grace of humor. Her inability to see or have any fun in life makes him uncomfortable and he seeks a more agreeable environment.
Humor in its manifestations.—A sense of humor diffuses itself through all the activities of life, giving to them all a gentle quality that eliminates asperities and renders them gracious and amiable. Like fireflies that bespangle the darkness of the night, humor scintillates through all life’s phases and activities and causes the day to go more pleasantly and effectively on. It twinkles through the thoughtsand gives to language a sparkle and a nicety that cause it to appeal to the artistic sense. It gives to discourse a piquancy that stimulates but does not irritate. It is the flavor that gives to speech its undulatory quality, and redeems it from desert sameness. It pervades the motives and gives direction as well as a pleasing fertility to all behavior. It is pervasive without becoming obtrusive. It steals into the senses as quietly as the dawn and causes life to smile. Wit may flash, but humor blithely glides into the consciousness with a radiant and kindly smile upon its face. Wit may sting and inflame, but humor soothes and comforts. The man who has a generous admixture of humor in his nature is an agreeable companion and a sympathetic friend to grown-up people, to children, and to animals. His spirit is genial, and people become kindly and magnanimous in his presence.
One of John B. Gough’s stories.—The celebrated John B. Gough was wont to tell a story that was accounted one of his many masterpieces. It was a story of a free-for-all convention where any one, according to inclination, had the privilege of freely speaking his sentiments. When the first speaker had concluded, a man in the audience called lustily fora speech from Mr. Henry. Then another spoke, and, again, more lustily than before, the man demanded Mr. Henry. More and more vociferous grew the call for Mr. Henry after each succeeding speech until, at last, the chairman with some acrimony exclaimed: “The man who is calling for Mr. Henry will please be quiet. It is Mr. Henry who is now speaking.” The man thus rebuked was somewhat crestfallen, but managed to say, as if in a half-soliloquy: “Mr. Henry! Why, that ain’t Mr. Henry. That’s the little chap that told me to holler.”
At the conclusion of one of his lectures in which Mr. Gough told this story in his inimitable style, a man came to the platform and explained to him that he had a friend who seemed to lack a sense of humor and wondered if he might not prevail upon Mr. Gough to tell him this particular story in the hope that it would cause him to laugh. In a spirit of adventure Mr. Gough consented, and at the time appointed told the story to the old gentleman in his own best style. The old gentleman seemed to be deeply interested, but at the conclusion of the story, instead of laughing heartily as his friend had hoped, he solemnly asked, “What did he tell him to holler fur?”
The man who lacks a sense of humor.—There was no answer to this question, or, rather, he himself was the answer. Such a man is obviously outside the pale, without hope of redemption. If such a story, told by such araconteur, could not touch him, he is hopeless. In his spiritual landscape there are no undulations, but it reveals itself as a monotonous dead-level without stream or verdure. He eats, and sleeps, and walks about, but he walks in a spiritual daze. To him life must seem a somber, drab affair. If he were a teacher in a traditional school, he would chill and depress, but he might be tolerated because a sense of humor is not one of the qualifications of the teacher. But, in the vitalized school, he would be intolerable. If children should go to such a teacher for spiritual refreshment, they would return thirsty. He has nothing to give them, no bubbling water of life, no geniality, no such graces of the spirit as appeal to buoyant childhood. He lacks a sense of humor, and that lack makes arid the exuberant sources of life. He may solve problems in arithmetic, but he cannot compass the solution of the problem of life. The children pity him, and no greater calamity can befall a teacher than to deserve and receive the pity of a child. He might,in a way, teach anatomy, but not physiology. He might be able to deal with the analytic. He might succeed as curator in a museum of mummies, but he will fail as a teacher of children.
Story of a boy.—A seven-year-old boy who was lying on his back on the floor asked his father the question, “How long since the world was born?” The father replied, “Oh, about four thousand years.” In a few moments the child said in a tone of finality, “That isn’t very long.” Then after another interval, he asked, “What was there before the world was born?” To this the father replied, “Nothing.” After a lapse of two or three minutes the child gave vent to uncontrollable laughter which resounded throughout the house. When, at length, the father asked him what he was laughing at, he could scarcely control his laughter to answer. But at last he managed to reply, “I was laughing to see how funny it was when there wasn’t anything.”
The child’s imagination.—The philosopher could well afford to give the half of his kingdom to be able to see what that child saw. Out of the gossamer threads of fancy his imagination had wrought a pattern that transcends philosophy. The picture that his imagination painted was so extraordinarythat it produced a paroxysm of laughter. That picture is far beyond the ken of the philosopher and he will look for it in vain because he has grown away from the child in power of imagination and has lost the child’s sense of humor. What that child saw will never be known, for the pictures of fancy are ephemeral, but certain it is that the power of imagination and a keen sense of humor are two of the attributes of childhood whose loss should give both his father and his teacher poignant regrets.
The little girl and her elders.—The little girl upon the beach invests the tiny wavelets not only with life and intelligence, but, also, with a sense of humor as she eludes their sly advances to engulf her feet. She laughs in glee at their watery pranks as they twinkle and sparkle, now advancing, now receding, trying to take her by surprise. She chides them for their duplicity, then extols them for their prankish playfulness. She makes them her companions, and they laugh in chorus. If she knows of sprites, and gnomes, and nymphs, and fairies, she finds them all dancing in glee at her feet in the form of rippling wavelets. And while she is thus refreshing her spirit from the brimming cup of life, her matter-of-fact elders are reproaching her forgetting her dress soiled. To the parent or the teacher who lacks a sense of humor and cannot enter into the little girl’s conception of life, a dress is of more importance than the spirit of the child. But the teacher or the parent who has the “aptitude for vicariousness” that enables her to enter into the child’s life in her fun and frolic with the playful water, and can feel the presence of the nymphs among the wavelets,—such a teacher or parent will adorn the school or the home and endear herself to the child.
Lincoln’s humor.—The life of Abraham Lincoln affords a notable illustration of the saving power of humor. Reared in conditions of hardship, his early life was essentially drab and prosaic. In temperament he was serious, with an inclination toward the morbid, but his sense of humor redeemed the situation. When clouds of gloom and discouragement lowered in his mental sky, his keen sense of humor penetrated the darkness and illumined his pathway. He was sometimes the object of derision because men could not comprehend the depth and bigness of his nature, and his humor was often accounted a weakness. But the Gettysburg speech rendered further derision impossible and the wondrous alchemyof that address transmuted criticism into willing praise.
Humor betokens deep feeling.—Laughter and tears issue from the same source, we are told, and the Gettysburg speech revealed a depth and a quality of tenderness that men had not, before, been able to recognize or appreciate. The absence of a sense of humor betokens shallowness in that it reveals an inability to feel deeply. People who feel deeply often laugh in order to forestall tears. Lincoln was a great soul and his sense of humor was one element of his greatness. His apt stories and his humorous personal experiences often carried off a situation where cold logic would have failed. Whether his sense of humor was a gift or an acquisition, it certainly served the nation well and gave to us all an example that is worthy of emulation.
The teacher of English.—Many teachers could, with profit to themselves and their schools, sit at the feet of Abraham Lincoln, not only to learn English but also to imbibe his sense of humor. Nothing is more pathetic than the efforts of a teacher who lacks a sense of humor to teach a bit of English that abounds in humor, by means of the textual notes. The notes are bad enough, in all conscience, but theteacher’s lack of humor piles Ossa upon Pelion. The solemnity that pervades such mechanical teaching would be farcical were it not so pathetic. The teacher who cannot indulge in a hearty, honest, ringing laugh with her pupils in situations that are really humorous is certain to be laughed at by her pupils. In her work, as in Lincoln’s, a sense of humor will often save the day.
Mark Twain as philosopher.—Mark Twain will ever be accounted a very prince of humorists, and so he was. But he was more than that. Upon the current of his humor were carried precious cargoes of the philosophy of life. His humor is often so subtle that the superficial reader fails to appreciate its fine quality and misses the philosophy altogether. To extract the full meaning from his writing one must be able to read not only between the lines but also beneath the lines. The subtle quality of his humor defies both analysis and explanation. If it fails to tell its own story, so much the worse for the reader. To such humor as his, explanation amounts to an impertinence. People can either appreciate it or else they cannot, and there’s the end of the matter.
In the good time to come when the school teaches reading for the purpose of pleasure and not for examinationpurposes, we shall have Mark Twain as one of our authors; and it is to be hoped that we shall have editions devoid of notes. The notes may serve to give the name of the editor a place on the title page, but the notes cannot add to the enjoyment of the author’s genial humor. Mark Twain reigns supreme, and the editor does well to stand uncovered in his presence and to withhold his pen.
A Twain story.—One of Mark Twain’s stories is said to be one of the most humorous stories extant. The story relates how a soldier was rushing off the battlefield in retreat when a companion, whose leg was shattered, begged to be carried off the field. The appeal met a willing response and soon the soldier was bearing his companion away on his shoulder, his head hanging down the soldier’s back. Unknown to the soldier a cannon ball carried away the head of his companion. Accosted by another soldier, he was asked why he was carrying a man whose head had been shot away. He stoutly denied the allegation and, at length, dropped the headless body to prove the other’s hallucination. Seeing that the man’s head was, in truth, gone, he exclaimed, “Why, the durn fool told me it was his leg.”
Humor defies explanation.—The humor of this story is cumulative. We may not parse it, we may not analyze it, we may not annotate it. We can simply enjoy it. And, if we cannot enjoy it, we may pray for a spiritual awakening, for such an endowment of the sense of humor as will enable us to enjoy, that we may no longer lead lives that are spiritually blind. Bill Nye wrote:
“The autumn leaves are falling,They are falling everywhere;They are falling through the atmosphereAnd likewise through the air.”
“The autumn leaves are falling,They are falling everywhere;They are falling through the atmosphereAnd likewise through the air.”
“The autumn leaves are falling,
They are falling everywhere;
They are falling through the atmosphere
And likewise through the air.”
Woe betide the teacher who tries to explain! There is no explanation—there is just the humor. If that eludes the reader, an explanation will not avail.
A teacher of Latin read to his pupils “The House-Boat on the Styx” in connection with their reading of the “Æneid.” It was good fun for them all, and never was Virgil more highly honored than in the assiduous study which those young people gave to his lines. They were eager to complete the study of the lesson in order to have more time for the “House-Boat.” The humor of the book opened wide the gates of their spirits through which the truths of the regular lesson passed blithely in.
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Yearning toward betterment.—Much has been said and written in recent times touching the matter and manner of vitalizing and humanizing the studies and work of the school. The discussions have been nation-wide in their scope and most fertile in plans and practical suggestions. No subject of greater importance or of more far-reaching import now engages the interest of educational leaders. They are quite aware that something needs to be done, but no one has announced the sovereign remedy. The critics have made much of the fact that there is something lacking or wrong in our school procedure, but they can neither diagnose the case nor suggest the remedy. They can merely criticize. We are having many surveys, but the results have been meager and inadequate. We have been working at the circumference of the circle rather than at the center. We have been striving to reform our educational training, hoping for a reflex thatwould be sufficient to modify the entire school régime. We have added domestic science, hoping thereby to reconstruct the school by inoculation. We have looked to agriculture and other vocational studies as the magnetic influences of our dreams. Something has been accomplished, to be sure, but we are still far distant from the goal. The best that writers can do in their books or educational conferences can do in their meetings, is to report progress.
The obstacle of conservatism.—One of the greatest obstacles we have to surmount in this whole matter of vitalizing school work is the habitual conservatism of the school people themselves. The methods of teaching that obtained in the school when we were pupils have grooved themselves into habits of thinking that smile defiance at the theories that we have more recently acquired. When we venture out from the shore we want to feel a rope in our hands. The superintendent speaks fervently to patrons or teachers on the subject of modern methods in teaching, then retires to his office and takes intimate and friendly counsel with tradition. In sailing the educational seas he must needs keep in sight the buoys of tradition.This matter of conservatism is cited merely to show that our progress, in the very nature of the case, will be slow.
Schools of education.—Another obstacle in the way of progress toward the vitalized school is the attitude and teaching of many who are connected with colleges of education and normal schools. We have a right to look to them for leadership, but we find, instead, that their practices lag far in the rear of their theories. They teach according to such devitalized methods and in such an unvitalized way as to discredit the subjects they teach. It is only from such of their students as are proof against their style of teaching that we may hope for aid. One such teacher in a college of education in a course of eight weeks on the subject of School Administration had his students copy figures from statistical reports for several days in succession and for four and five hours each day. The students confessed that their only objective was the gaining of credits, and had no intimation that the work they were doing was to function anywhere.
The machine teacher.—Such work is deadening and disheartening. It has in it no inspiration, no life, nothing, in short, that connects with real life.Such a teacher could not maintain himself in a wide-awake high school for a half year. The boys and girls would desert him even if they had to desert the school. And yet teachers and prospective teachers must endure and not complain. Those who submit supinely will attempt to repeat in their schools the sort of teaching that obtains in his classes, and their schools will suffer accordingly. His sort of teaching proclaims him either more or less than a human being in the estimation of normal people. Such a teacher drones forth weary platitudes as if his utterances were oracular. The only prerequisite for a position in some schools of education seems to be a degree of a certain altitude without any reference to real teaching ability.
Statistics versus children.—Such teaching palliates educational situations without affording a solution. It is so steeped in tradition that it resorts to statistics as it would consult an oracle. We look to see it establishing precedents only to find it following precedents. When we would find in it a leader we find merely a follower. To such teaching statistical numbers mean far more than living children. Indeed, children are but objects that become useful as a means of proving theories.It lacks vitality, and that is sad; but, worst of all, it strives unceasingly to perpetuate itself in the schools. Real teaching power receives looks askance in some of these colleges as if it bore the mark of Cain in not being up to standard on the academic side. And yet these colleges are teaching the teachers of our schools.
Teaching power.—Hence, the work of vitalizing the school must begin in our colleges of education and normal schools, and this beginning will be made only when we place the emphasis upon teaching power. The human qualities of the teachers must be so pronounced that they become their most distinguished characteristics. It is a sad commentary upon our educational processes if a man must point to the letters of his degree to prove that he is a teacher. His teaching should be of such a nature as to justify and glorify his degree. As the preacher receives his degree because he can preach, so the teacher should receive his degree because he can teach, even if we must create a new degree by which to designate the real teacher.
Degrees and human qualities.—There is no disparagement of the academic degree in the statement that it proves absolutely nothing touching theability to teach. It proclaims its possessor a student but not a teacher. Yet, in our practices, we proceed upon the assumption that teacher and student are synonymous. We hold examinations for teachers in our schools, but not for teachers in our colleges of education. His degree is the magic talisman that causes the doors to swing wide open for him. Besides, his very presence inside seems to be prima facie evidence that he is a success, and all his students are supposed to join in the general chorus of praise.
Life the great human interest.—The books are eloquent and persistent in their admonitions that we should attach all school work to the native interests of the child. To this dictum there seems to be universal and hearty assent. But we do not seem to realize fully, as yet, that the big native interest of the child is life itself. We have not, as yet, found the way to enmesh the activities of the school in the life processes of the child so that these school activities are as much a part of his life as his food, his games, his breathing, and his sleep. We have been interpreting some of the manifestations of life as his native interests but have failed thus to interpret his life as a whole. The child is but the aggregate of all his inherent interests, andwe must know these interests if we would find the child so as to attach school work to the child himself.
The child as a whole.—Here is the crux of the entire matter, here the big problem for the vitalized school. We have been taking his pulse, testing his eyes, taking his temperature, and making examinations for defects—and these things are excellent. But all these things combined do not reveal the child to us. We need to go beyond all these in order to find him. We must know what he thinks, how he feels as to people and things, what his aspirations are, what motives impel him to action, what are his intuitions, what things he does involuntarily and what through volition or compulsion. With such data clearly before us we can proceed to attach school work to his native interests. We have been striving to bend him to our preconceived notion instead of finding out who and what he is as a condition precedent to intelligent teaching.
Three types of teachers.—The three types of teachers that have been much exploited in the books are the teacher who conceives it to be her work to teach the book, the one who teaches the subject, and the one who teaches the child. Thenumber of the first type is still very large in spite of all the books that inveigh against this conception. It were easy to find a teacher whose practice indicates that she thinks that all the arithmetic there is or ought to be is to be found in the book that lies on her desk. It seems not to occur to her that a score of books might be written that would be equal in merit to the one she is using, some of which might be far better adapted to the children in her particular school. If she were asked to teach arithmetic without the aid of a book, she would shed copious tears, if, indeed, she did not resign.
The first type.—To such a teacher the book is the Ultima Thule of all her endeavors, and when the pupils can pass the examination she feels that her work is a success. If the problem in the book does not fit the child, so much the worse for the child, and she proceeds to try to make him fit the problem. It does not occur to her to construct problems that will fit the child. When she comes to the solution of the right triangle, the baseball diamond does not come to her mind. She has the boy learn a rule and try to apply it instead of having him find the distance from first base to third in a direct line. In her thinking such a proceeding would be banalbecause it would violate the sanctity of the book. She must adhere to the book though the heavens fall, and the boy with them.
The book supreme.—She seems quite unable to draw upon the farm, the grocery, the store, or the playground for suitable problems. These things seem to be obscured by her supreme devotion to the book. She lacks fertility of resources, nor does she realize this lack, because her eyes are fastened upon the book rather than upon the child. Were she as intent upon the child as she is upon the book, his interests would direct attention to the things toward which his inclinations yearn and toward which his aptitudes lure him. In such a case, her ingenuity and resourcefulness would roam over wide fields in quest of the objects of his native interests and she would return to him laden with material that would fit the needs of the child far better than the material of the book.
The child supreme.—The teacher whose primary consideration is the child and who sees in the child the object and focus of all her activities, never makes a fetish of the book. It has its use, to be sure, but it is subordinate in the scheme of education. It is not a necessity, but a mere convenience. She coulddispense with it entirely and not do violence to the child’s interests. No book is large enough to compass all that she teaches, for she forages in every field to obtain proper and palatable food for the child. She teaches with the grain of the child and not against the grain. If the book contains what she requires in her work, she uses it and is glad to have it; but, if it does not contain what she needs, she seeks it elsewhere and does not return empty-handed.
Illustrations.—She places the truth she hopes to teach in the path of the child’s inclination, and this is taken into his life processes. Life does not stop at way-stations to take on supplies, but absorbs the supplies that it encounters as it moves along. This teacher does not stop the ball game to teach the right triangle, but manages to have the problem solved in connection with or as a part of the game. She does not taboo the morning paper in order to have a lesson in history, but begins with the paper as a favorable starting point toward the lesson. She does not confiscate the contents of the boy’s pocket as contraband, but is glad to avail herself of all these as indices of the boy’s interests, and, therefore, guides for her teaching.
Attitude toward teaching materials.—When the boy carries a toad to school, she does not shudder, but rather rejoices, because she sees in him a possible Agassiz. When he displays an interest in plant life, she sees in him another Burbank. When she finds him drawing pictures at his desk, she smiles approval, for she sees in him another Raphael. She does not disdain the lowliest insect, reptile, or plant when she finds it within the circle of the child’s interests. She is willing, nay eager, to ransack the universe if only she may come upon elements of nutrition for her pupils. From every flower that blooms she gathers honey that she may distill it into the life of the child. She does not coddle the child; she gives him nourishment.
History.—Her history is as wide as human thought and as high as human aspiration. It includes the Rosetta stone and the morning paper. It travels back from the clothing of the child to the cotton gin. The stitch in the little girl’s dress is the index finger that points to the page that depicts the invention of the sewing machine. Every engine leads her back to Watt, and she takes the children with her. Every foreign message in the daily paper revives the story of Field and the laying ofthe Atlantic cable. Every mention of the President’s cabinet gives occasion for reviewing the cabinets of other Presidents with comparisons and contrasts. At her magic touch the libraries and galleries yield forth rich treasures for her classroom. Life is the textbook of her study, and the life of the child is the goal of her endeavors.
The child’s native interests.—In brief, she is teaching children and not books or subjects, and the interests of the children take emphatic precedence over her own. She enters into the life of the child and makes excursions into all life according to the dictates of his interests. The child is the big native interest to which she attaches the work of the school. The program is elastic enough to encompass every child in her school. Her program is a garden in which something is growing for each child, and she cultivates every plant with sympathetic care. She considers it no hardship to learn the plant, the animal, the place, or the fact in which the child finds interest. Because of the child and for the sake of the child she invests all these things with the quality of human interest.
The school and the home.—Arithmetic, language, history, and geography touch life at a thousandpoints, and we have but to select the points of contact with the life of each pupil to render any or all of these a vital part of the day’s work and the day’s life. They are not things that are detached from the child’s life. The child’s errand to the shop involves arithmetic, and the vitalized teacher makes this fact a part of the working capital of the school. The dinner table abounds in geography, and the teacher is quick to turn this fact to account in the school. Her fertility of resources, coupled with her vital interest in human beings and human affairs, soon establishes a reciprocal relation between the home and the school. Similarly, she causes the language of the school to flow out into the home, the factory, and the office.
The skill of the teacher.—History is not a school affair merely. It is a life affair, and through all the currents of life it may be made to flow. The languages, Latin, German, French, Spanish, are expressions and interpretations of life, and they may be made to appear what they really are if the teacher is resourceful enough and skillful enough to attach them to the life of the pupil by the human ligaments that are ever at hand. Chemistry, physics, botany, and physiology all throb with life if only the teachercan place the fingers of the pupils on their pulses. Given the human teacher, the human child, and the humanized teaching, the vitalized school is inevitable.