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Title: The Vitalized School


Author: Francis B. Pearson



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THE VITALIZED SCHOOL

by

FRANCIS B. PEARSON

Superintendent of Public Instruction of Ohio
Author of "The Evolution of the Teacher"
"The High School Problem"
"Reveries of a Schoolmaster"







New York
The MacMillan Company
1918
Copyright, 1917,
by the MacMillan Company.
Published February, 1917.
Reprinted January, 1918.





PREFACE


The thoughtful observer must have noted in the recent past many
indications of an awakened interest both in the concept of education and
in school procedure on the part of school officials, teachers, and the
public. Educators have been developing pedagogical principles that
strike their roots deep into the philosophy of life, and now their
pronouncements are invading the consciousness of people of all ranks and
causing them to realize more and more that the school process is an
integral part of the life process and not something detached from life.

The following pages constitute an attempt to interpret some of the
school processes in terms of life processes, and to suggest ways in
which these processes may be made identical.

It is hoped that teachers who may read these pages may find running
through them a strand of optimism that will give them increased faith in
their own powers, a larger hope for the future of the school, and an
access of zeal to press valiantly forward in their efforts to excel
themselves.

F. B. P.

COLUMBUS, OHIO,
January, 1917.




TABLE OF CONTENTS


CHAPTER

      I. TEACHING SCHOOL
     II. THE TEACHER
    III. THE CHILD
     IV. THE CHILD OF THE FUTURE
      V. THE TEACHER-POLITICIAN
     VI. SUBLIME CHAOS
    VII. DEMOCRACY
   VIII. PATRIOTISM
     IX. WORK AND LIFE
      X. WORDS AND THEIR CONTENT
     XI. COMPLETE LIVING
    XII. THE TIME ELEMENT
   XIII. THE ARTIST TEACHER
    XIV. THE TEACHER AS AN IDEAL
     XV. THE SOCIALIZED RECITATION
    XVI. AGRICULTURE
   XVII. THE SCHOOL AND THE COMMUNITY
  XVIII. POETRY AND LIFE
    XIX. A SENSE OF HUMOR
     XX. THE ELEMENT OF HUMAN INTEREST
    XXI. BEHAVIOR
   XXII. BOND AND FEAR
  XXIII. EXAMINATIONS
   XXIV. WORLD-BUILDING
    XXV. A TYPICAL VITALIZED SCHOOL




THE VITALIZED SCHOOL




CHAPTER I

TEACHING SCHOOL


=Life and living compared.=--There is a wide difference between
school-teaching and teaching school. The question "Is she a
school-teacher?" means one thing; but the question "Can she teach
school?" means quite another. School-teaching may be living; but
teaching school is life. And any one who has a definition of life can
readily find a definition for teaching school. Much of the criticism of
the work of the schools emanates from sources that have a restricted
concept of life. The artisan who defines life in terms of his own trade
is impatient with much that the school is trying to do. He would have
the scope of the school narrowed to his concept of life. If art and
literature are beyond the limits of his concept, he can see no warrant
for their presence in the school. The work of the schools cannot be
standardized until life itself is standardized, and that is neither
possible nor desirable. The glory of life is that it does not have
fixity, that it is ever crescent.

=Teaching defined.=--Teaching school may be defined, therefore, as the
process of interpreting life by the laboratory method. The teacher's
work is to open the gates of life for the pupils. But, before these
gates can be opened, the teacher must know what and where they are. This
view of the teacher's work is neither fanciful nor fantastic; quite the
contrary. Life is the common heritage of people young and old, and the
school should be so organized and administered as to teach people how to
use this heritage to the best advantage both for themselves and for
others. If a child should be absent from school altogether, or if he
should be incarcerated in prison from his sixth to his eighteenth year,
he would still have life. But, if he is in school during those twelve
years, he is supposed to have life that is of better quality and more
abundant. Life is not measured by years, but by its own intensity and
scope. It has often been said that some people have more life in
threescore and ten years than Methuselah had in his more than nine
hundred years.

=Life measured by intensity.=--This statement is not demonstrable, of
course, but it serves to make evident the fact that some people have
more of life in a given time than others in the same time. In this
sense, life may be measured by the number of reactions to objectives.
These reactions may be increased by training. Two persons, in passing a
shop-window, may not see the same objects; or one may see twice as many
as the other, according to their ability to react. The man who was
locked in a vault at the cemetery by accident, and was not discovered
for an hour, thought he had spent four days in his imprisonment. He had
really lived four days in a single hour by reason of the intensity of
life during that hour.

=Illustrations.=--In the case of dreams, we are told that years may be
condensed into minutes, or even seconds, by reason of the rapidity of
reactions. The rapidity and intensity of these reactions make themselves
manifest on the face of the dreamer. Beads of perspiration and facial
contortions betoken intensity of feeling. In such an experience life is
intense. If a mental or spiritual cyclometer could be used in such a
case, it would make a high record of speed. Life sometimes touches
bottom, and sometimes scales the heights. But the distance between these
extremes varies greatly in different persons. The life of one may have
but a single octave; of the other, eight, or a hundred, or a thousand.
The life of Job is an apt illustration. No one has been able to sound
the depths of his suffering, nor has any one been able to measure the
heights of his exaltation. We may not readily compute the octaves in
such a life as his.

=The complexity of life.=--It is not easy to think life, much less
define it. The elements are so numerous as to baffle and bewilder the
mind. It looks out at one from so many corners that it seems Argus-eyed.
At one moment we see it on the Stock Exchange where men struggle and
strive in a mad frenzy of competition; at another, in a quiet home,
where a mother soothes her baby to sleep, where there is no competition
but, rather, a sublime monopoly. Again, it manifests itself in the
clanking of machinery where men are tunneling the mountain or
constructing a canal to unite oceans; or, again, in the laboratory where
the microscope is revealing the form of the snow crystal. One man is
watching the movements of the heavenly bodies as they file by his
telescope, while another writes a proclamation that makes free a race of
people. Another man is leading an army into battle, while some Doctor
MacClure is breasting the storm in the darkness as he goes forth on his
mission of mercy.

=Manifestations of life.=--These manifestations of life men call trade,
commerce, history, mathematics, science, nature, and philanthropy. And
men write these words in books, and other men write other books trying
to explain their meaning. Then, still others divide and subdivide, and
science becomes the sciences, and mathematics becomes arithmetic, and
algebra, and geometry, and trigonometry, and calculus, and astronomy.
Here mathematics and science seem to merge. And, in time, history and
geography come together, and sometimes strive for precedence.

Thus, books accumulate into libraries and so add another to the many
elements of life. Then magazines are written to explain the books and
their authors. The motive behind the book is analyzed in an effort to
discover the workings of the author's mind and heart. In these
revelations we sometimes hear the rippling of the brook, and sometimes
the moan of the sea; sometimes the cooing of the dove, and sometimes the
scream of the eagle; sometimes the bleating of the lamb, and sometimes
the roaring of the lion. In them we see the moonbeams that play among
the flowers and the lightning that rends the forest; the blossoms that
filter from the trees and the avalanche that carries destruction; the
rain that fructifies the earth and the hurricane that destroys.

=Life in literature.=--Back of these sights and sounds we discover
men--Cicero, Demosthenes, Homer, Isaiah, Shakespeare, Milton, Dante. We
trace the thoughts and emotions of these men and find literature. And in
literature, again, we come upon another manifestation of life.
Literature is what it is because these men were what they were. They saw
and felt life to be large and so wrote it down large; and because they
wrote it thus, what they wrote endures. They stood upon the heights and
saw the struggles of man with himself, with other men, and with nature.
This panorama generated thoughts and feelings in them, and these they
could not but portray. And so literature and life are identical and not
coördinates, as some would have us think.

=Life as subject matter in teaching.=--In teaching school, therefore,
the subject matter with which we have to do is life--nothing more and
nothing less. We may call it history, or mathematics, or literature, or
psychology,--but it still remains true that life is the real objective
of all our activities. And, as has been already said, we are teaching
life by the laboratory method. We are striving to interpret the thing in
which we are immersed. We feel, and think, and aspire, and love, and
enjoy. All these are life; and from this life we are striving to extract
strength that our feeling may be deeper, our thinking higher, our
aspirations wider and more lofty, our love purer and nobler, and our own
enjoyment greater. By absorbing the life that is all about us we strive
to have more abundant and abounding life.

=The teacher's province.=--Such is the province of one who essays the
task of teaching school. School is life, as we have been told; but, at
the same time, it is a place and an occasion for teaching life. If we
could detach history from life, it would cease to be history. If
literature is not life, it is not literature; and so with the sciences.
These branches are but variants or branches of life, and all emanate
from a common center. Whether we scan the heavens, penetrate the depths
of the sea, pore over the pages of books, or look into the minds and
hearts of men, we are striving after an interpretation of life.


QUESTIONS AND EXERCISES

1. Distinguish between a "school teacher" and a "man or woman who
teaches school."

2. Discuss the importance of the following agencies of the school in
securing for children "life of a better quality and more abundant":
play; revitalized curricula; vitalized teachers; medical inspection;
social centers; moral instruction.

3. Discuss both from the standpoint of present practice and ideal
educational principles: "More abundant life rather than knowledge is the
chief end of instruction."

4. What changes are necessary in school curricula and in the methods of
school organization, instruction, and discipline, in order that the
chief purpose of our schools, "more abundant _life_," may be realized?

5. Justify the apparent length of the school day to teachers and pupils,
as a means of determining the quality of the work of the school.

6. Some teachers maintain that school is a preparation for life, while
the author maintains that "school is _life_." Is this difference in the
concept of the school a vital one?

7. How may this difference of concept affect the work of the teacher?
the attitude of the pupil?

8. What definition of education will best harmonize with the ideals of
this chapter?




CHAPTER II

THE TEACHER


=Teachers contrasted.=--The vitalized school is an expression of the
vitalized teacher. In the hands of the teacher of another sort, the
vitalized school is impossible. Unless she can see in the multiplication
table the power that throws the bridge across the river, that builds
pyramids, that constructs railways, that sends ships across the ocean,
that tunnels mountains and navigates the air, this table becomes a
stupid thing, a dead thing, and an incubus upon the spirits of her
pupils. To such a teacher mathematics is a lifeless thing, without hope
or potency, the school is a mere convenience for the earning of a
livelihood, the work is the drudgery of bondage, and the children are
little less than an impertinence. The vitalized teacher is different. To
her the multiplication table pulsates with life. It stretches forth its
beneficent hand to give employment to a million workers, and food to a
million homes. It pervades every mart of trade; it loads trains and
ships with the commerce of nations; and it helps to amplify and ennoble
civilization.

=Vitalized mathematics.=--In this table she sees a prophecy of great
achievements in engineering, architecture, transportation, and the
myriad applications of science. In brief, mathematics to her is vibrant
with life both in its present uses and in its possibilities. She knows
that it is a part of the texture of the daily life of every home as well
as of national life. She knows that it pertains to individual,
community, and national well-being. Knowing this, she feels that it is
quite worth while for herself and her pupils, both for the present and
for the future. She feels that, if she would know life, she must know
mathematics, because it is a part of life; that, if she would teach life
to her pupils, she must teach them mathematics as an integral part of
life; and that she must teach it in such a way that it will be as much a
part of themselves as their bodily organs. She wants them to know the
mathematics as they know that the rain is falling or that the sun is
shining, because the rain, the sunshine, and the mathematics are all
elements of life. Her great aim is to have her pupils experience the
study just as they experience other phases of life.

=The teacher's attitude.=--Such a teacher with such a conception of life
and of her work finds teaching school the very reverse of drudgery. Each
day is an exhilarating experience of life. Her pupils are a part of life
to her. She enjoys life and, hence, enjoys them. They are her
confederates in the fine game of life. The bigness and exuberance of her
abundant life enfolds them all, and from the very atmosphere of her
presence they absorb life. Their studies, under the influence of her
magic, are as much a part of life to them as the air they breathe or the
food they eat. No two days are alike in her school, for life to-day is
larger than it was yesterday and so presents a new aspect. Her spirit
carries over into their spirits the truths of the books, and these
truths thus become inherent.

=College influences.=--She teaches life, albeit through the medium of
subjects and books, because she knows life. Her college work did not
consist in the gathering together of many facts, but in accumulating
experiences of life. Many of these experiences were acquired
vicariously, but they were no less real on that account. Her generous
nature was able to withstand the most assiduous efforts of some of her
teachers to quench the flames of life that glowed in the pages of books,
with the wet blanket of erudition. She was able to relive the thoughts
and feelings of the authors whose books she studied and so make their
experiences her own. She could reconstitute the emotional life of her
authors and gain potency through the transfusion of spirit. Her books
were living things, and she gleaned life from their pages.

=Reading and life.=--She can teach reading because she can read. Reading
to her is an experience in life. The words on the printed page are not
meaningless hieroglyphics. They are the electric wires which connect the
soul of the author with her own, and through which the current is
continually passing. When she reads Dickens, Tiny Tim is never a mere
boy with a crutch, but he is Tiny Tim, and, as such, neither men nor
angels can supplant him on the printed page. She knows the touch of him
and the voice of him. She laughs with him; she cries with him; she prays
with him; she lives with him. In her teaching she causes Tiny Tim to
stand forth like a cameo to her pupils, with no rival and no peer. This
she can do because he is a part of her life. She has no occasion either
to pose or to rhapsodize. Sincerity is its own explanation and
justification.

=Power of understanding.=--When she reads "Little Boy Blue" she can hear
the sobbing of a heartbroken mother and thus, vicariously, comes to know
the universality of death and sorrow. But she finds faith and hope in
the poem, also, and so can see the sunlight suffusing the clouds of the
mother's grief. Thus she enters into the feeling of motherhood and so
shares the life of all the mothers whose children are her pupils. In
every page she reads she crosses anew the threshold of life and gains a
knowledge of its joys, its sorrows, its triumphs, or its defeats. In
short, she reads with the spirit and not merely with the mind, and thus
catches the spiritual meaning of what she reads. She can feel as well as
think and so can emotionalize the printed page. Nature has endowed her
with a sensory foundation that reacts to the emotional situations that
the author produces. Thus she understands, and that is the prime
desideratum in reading. And because she understands, she can interpret,
and cause her pupils to understand. Thus they receive another endowment
of life.

=Books as exponents of life.=--She has time for reading as she has time
for eating and drinking, and for the same reason. To her they are all
coördinate elements of life. She eats, and sleeps, and reads because she
is alive; and she is more alive because she eats, and sleeps, and reads.
She taps the sources of spiritual refreshment, without parade, and
rejoices in the consequent enrichment of her life. She does not smite
the rock, but speaks to it, and smiles upon it, and the waters gush
forth. She descends into Hades with Dante, and ascends Sinai with Moses,
and is refreshed and strengthened by her journeys. She sits enrapt as
Shakespeare turns the kaleidoscope of life for her, or stands enthralled
by Victor Hugo's picture of the human soul. Her sentient spirit is
ignited by the fires of genius that glow between the covers of the book,
and her fine enthusiasm carries the divine conflagration over into the
spirits of her pupils. There is, therefore, no drag or listlessness in
her class in reading, because, during this exercise, life is as buoyant
and spontaneous as it is upon the playground.

=The meaning of history.=--In her teaching of history she invests all
the characters with life, because to her they are alive. And because
they are alive to her they are alive to her pupils. They are instinct
with power, action, life. She rehabilitates the scenes in which they
moved, and, therefore, they must be alive in order to perform their
parts. They are all flesh and blood people with all the attributes of
people. They are all actuated by motives and move along their appointed
ways obedient to the laws of cause and effect. They are not named in the
book to be learned and recited, but to be known. She causes her pupils
to know them as they would come to know people in her home. Nor do they
ever mistake one for the other or confuse their actions. They know them
too well for that. These characters are made to stand wide apart, so
that, being thus seen, they will ever after be known. History is not a
directory of names, but groups of people going about their tasks. They
hunger, and thirst, and love, and hate, and struggle with their
environment as their descendants are doing to-day.

=Language and vitality.=--When she is teaching a language, it is never
less than a living language. In Latin the syntax is learned as a means,
never an end. The big things in the study loom too large for that. The
pupils become so eager to see what Cæsar will do next that they cannot
afford the time to stare long at a mere ablative absolute. They are
following the parade, and are not to be turned aside from their large
purpose by minor matters. They are made to see and hear Cicero; and Rome
becomes a reality, with its Forum, its Senate, and its Mamertine. When
Dido sears the soul of the faithless Æneas with her words of scorn, the
girls applaud and the boys tremble. When Troy burns, there is a real
fire, and Achates is as real as the man Friday. When the shipwrecked
Trojans regale themselves with venison, it is no make-believe dinner,
but a real one. Where such a teacher is, there can be no dead language,
no dry bones of history, and no stagnation in the stream of life.


QUESTIONS AND EXERCISES

1. What suggestions are offered for the vitalization of mathematics?
history? reading? language?

2. In what ways is vitalization of subject matter related to its
socialization?

3. How may motivation in teaching the multiplication table be assisted
by vitalization?

4. What is to be included in the term "read" in the sentence "She can
teach reading because she can read"?

5. Add to the author's list of children in literature whom the vitalized
teacher may introduce as companions to her pupils.

6. Why is extended reading essential to success in teaching?

7. What works of Dante have you read? of Victor Hugo? of Shakespeare?
How will the reading of such authors improve the teaching ability of
elementary teachers?

8. What are the distinguishing characteristics of the vitalized teacher?




CHAPTER III

THE CHILD


=The child as the center in school procedure.=--The child is the center
of school procedure in all its many ramifications. For the child the
building is erected, the equipment is provided, the course of study is
arranged and administered, and the teacher employed. The child is major,
and all else is subsidiary. In the general scheme even the teacher takes
secondary place. Teachers may come and go, but the child remains as the
focus of all plans and purposes. The teacher is secured for the child,
and not the child for the teacher. Taxpayers, boards of education,
parents, and teachers are all active in the interests of the child; and
all school legislation, to be important, must have the child as its
prime objective. Colleges of education and normal schools, in large
numbers, are working at the educational problem in an effort to develop
more effective methods of training the teachers of the child. A host of
authors and publishers are giving to the interest of the child the
products of their skill. In every commonwealth may be found a large
number of men and women whose time and energies are devoted to the work
of the schools for the child.

=All children should have school privileges.=--All these facts are
freely admitted, wherever attention is called to them, but we still have
truant officers, and child labor laws. We admit the facts, but, in our
practices, strive to circumvent their application. If the school is good
for one child, it is good for all children. Indeed, the school is
maintained on the assumption that all children will take advantage of
and profit by its presence. If there were no schools, our civilization
would surely decline. If school attendance should cease at the end of
the fifth year, then we would have a fifth-year civilization. It rests,
therefore, with the parents of the children, in large measure, whether
we are to have an eighth-grade civilization, a high-school civilization,
or a college civilization.

=Parental attitude.=--Schools are administered on the assumption that
every child is capable of and worthy of training, and that training the
child will make for a better quality of civilization. The state regards
the child as a liability during his childhood in the hope that he may be
an asset in his manhood. In this hope time and money are devoted to his
training. But, in the face of all this, there are parents, here and
there, who still look upon their own children as assets and would use
them for their own comfort or profit. They seem to think that their
children are indebted to them for bringing them into the world and that
their obligation to the children is canceled by meager provision of
food, shelter, and clothing. They seem not to realize that "life is more
than fruit or grain," and deny to their children the elements of life.

=The rights of the child.=--All this is a sort of preface to the
statement that the child comes into the world endowed with certain
inherent rights that may not be abrogated. He has a right to life in its
best and fullest sense, and no one has a right to abridge this measure
of life, or to deprive him of anything that will contribute to such a
life. He goes to the school as one of the sources of life, and any one
who denies him this boon is doing violence to his right to have life. He
does not go to school to study arithmetic, but studies arithmetic as one
of the elements of life; and experience has demonstrated that arithmetic
may be learned in the school more advantageously than elsewhere. He goes
to school to have agreeable and profitable life. Each day is an integer
of life and must be made to abound in life if it is to be accounted a
success.

=Child life.=--Again, the child has a right to the quality of life that
is consistent with and congenial to his age. A seven-year-old should be
a seven-year-old, in his thinking, in his activities, in his amusements,
and in his feeling. We should never ask or want him to "put away
childish things" at this age, for these childish things are a proof of
his normality and good health. His buoyant life and good health may
prove disastrous to the furniture in his home, but far better marred
furniture than marred childhood. If, at this age, he should become as
quiet and sedate as his father, his parents and teacher would have cause
for alarm. It is the high privilege of the parent and the teacher to
direct his activities, but not to abridge or interdict them. If the
teacher would reduce him to inaction and silence, she may well reflect
that if he were an imbecile he would be quiet. He will not pass this way
again; and if he is ever to have the sort of life that is in harmony
with his age, he must have it now.

=Childhood curtailed.=--He has a right, also, to the full measure of
childhood. This period is relatively short, and any curtailment does
violence to his physiological and psychological nature. All the years of
his childhood are necessary for a proper balancing of his physical and
mental powers, that they may do their appointed work in after years.
Entire volumes have been devoted to this subject, but, in spite of these
volumes, some mothers still try to hurry their daughters into the duties
and responsibilities of adult life. One such mother went to the high
school to get the books of her fifteen-year-old daughter and, upon being
asked why the daughter was leaving school, replied, "Oh, she's keeping
company now." That daughter will never be the hardy plant in
civilization that she ought to be, because she was reared in a hothouse
atmosphere. That mother had no right to cripple the life of her child by
thwarting nature's decrees.

=Detrimental effects.=--The pity of it all is that the child is at the
mercy of the parent, or of the teacher, as the case may be. We become so
eager to have "old heads on young shoulders" that we begrudge the child
the years that are necessary for the shoulders to attain that maturity
of strength that is needful for supporting the "old heads." Then ensues
a lack of balance, and, were all children thus denied their right to the
full period of youth, we should have a distorted civilization. Dickens
inveighs against this curtailment of youth prodigiously, and the marvel
is that we have failed to learn the lesson from his pages. We need not
have recourse to Victor Hugo to know the life of little Cosette, for we
can see her prototype by merely looking about us.

=The child's right to the best.=--As the child has a right to life in
its fullness, so he has a right to all the agencies that can promote
this type of life. If he meets with an accident he has a right to the
best surgical skill that can be secured, and this right we readily
concede; and equally he has a right to the best teacher that money will
secure. If he has a teacher that is less than the best, the time thus
lost can never be restored to him. A lady who had an unskillful teacher
in her first year in the high school now avers that he maimed her for
life in that particular study. Life is such a delicate affair that it
demands expert handling. If we hope to have the child attain his right
to be an intelligent coöperating agent in promoting life in society,
then no price is too great to pay for the expert teaching which will
nurture the sort of life in him that will make him effective.

=The child's native tendencies.=--Then, again, the child has a right to
the exercise of the native tendencies with which he is endowed. In fact,
these tendencies should be the working capital of the teacher, the
starting points in her teaching. There was a time when the teacher
punished the child who was caught drawing pictures on his slate. Happily
that sort of barbarity disappeared, in the main, along with the slate.
The vitalized teacher rejoices in the pictures that the child draws and
turns this tendency to good account. Through this inclination to draw
she finds the real child and so, as the psychologists direct, she begins
where the child is and sets about attaching to this native tendency the
work in nature study, geography, or history. When she discovers a
constructive tendency in the child, she at once uses this in shifting
from analytic to synthetic exercises in the school order. If he enjoys
making things, he will be glad of an opportunity to make devices, or
problems, or maps.

=The play instinct.=--She makes large use, also, of the play instinct
that is one of his native tendencies. This instinct is constantly
reaching out for objects of play. The teacher is quick to note the
child's quest for objects and deftly substitutes some phase of school
work for marbles, balls, or dolls, and his playing proceeds apace
without abatement of zest. The vitalized teacher knows how to attach the
arithmetic to this play instinct and make it a fascinating game. During
the games of arithmetic, geography, history, or spelling, life is at
high tide in her school and the work is thorough in consequence. Work is
relieved of the onus of drudgery whenever it appears in the guise of a
game, and the teacher who has skill in attaching school studies to the
play instinct of the child will make her school effective as well as a
delight to herself and her pupils. In such a plan there is neither place
nor occasion for coercion.

=Self-expression.=--Another right of the child is the right to express
himself. The desire for self-expression is fundamental in the human
mind, as the study of archæology abundantly proves. Since this is true,
every school should be a school of expression if the nature of the child
is to have full recognition. Without expression there is no impression,
and without impression there is no education that has real value. The
more and better expression in the school, therefore, the more and better
the education in that school. In the vitalized school we shall find
freedom of expression, and the absence of unreasoning repression. The
child expresses himself by means of his hands, his feet, his face, his
entire body, and his organs of speech, and his expression through either
of these means gives the teacher a knowledge of what to do. These
expressions may not be what the teacher would wish, but the expression
necessarily precedes intelligent teaching.

=Imagination.=--These expressions may reveal a vivid imagination, but
they are no less valuable as indices of the child's nature on that
account. It is the very refinement of cruelty to try to interdict or
stifle the child's imagination. But for the imagination of people in the
past we should not have the rich treasures of mythology that so delight
us all. Every child with imagination is constructing a mythology of his
own, and from the gossamer threads of fancy is weaving a pattern of life
that no parent or teacher should ever wish to forbid or destroy. Day by
day, he sees visions and dreams dreams, and so builds for himself a
world in which he finds delight and profit. In this world he is king,
and only profane hands would dare attempt to dethrone him.

=The child's experiences.=--His experiences, whether in the real world,
or in this world of fancy, are his capital in the bank of life; and he
has every right to invest this capital so as to achieve further
increments of life. In this enterprise, the teacher is his counselor and
guide, and, in order that she may exercise this function sympathetically
and rationally, she must know the nature and extent of his capital. If
he knows a bird, he may invest this knowledge so as to gain a knowledge
of many birds, and so, in time, compass the entire realm of ornithology.
If he knows a flower, from this known he may be so directed that he may
become a master in the unknown field of botany. If he knows coal, this
experience may be made the open sesame to the realms of geology. In
short, all his experiences may be capitalized under the direction of a
skillful teacher, and made to produce large dividends as an investment
in life.

=Relation to school work.=--Thus the school becomes, for the child, a
place of and for real life, and not a place detached from life. There he
lives effectively, and joyously, because the teacher knows how to
utilize his experiences and native dispositions for the enlargement of
his life. He has no inclination to become a deserter or a tenant, for
life is agreeable there, and the school is made his chief interest. His
work is not doled out to him in the form of tasks, but is graciously
presented as a privilege, and as such he esteems it. There he learns to
live among people of differing tastes and interests without abdicating
his own individuality. There he learns that life is work and that work
is the very quintessence of life.


QUESTIONS AND EXERCISES

1. How should dividends on school investments be estimated?

2. What are the inherent rights of childhood?

3. What use may be made of play in the education of children?

4. Explain why adults are often unwilling to coöperate through lack of
opportunity to play in childhood.

5. Illustrate from your own knowledge and experience how the exercise of
native tendencies may be the means of education.

6. What modes of self-expression should be used by pupils of elementary
schools? of high schools?

7. What may the vitalized teacher do to assist in the development of
self-expression? What should she refrain from doing?

8. Suggest methods whereby the teacher may discover the content of the
child's world.

9. How may the child's experience, imagination, and expression be
interrelated?

10. Why is the twentieth century called the "age of the child"?




CHAPTER IV

THE CHILD OF THE FUTURE


=Rights of the coming generations.=--Any school procedure that limits
its interests and activities to the present generation takes a too
restricted view of the real scope of education. The children of the next
generation, and the next, are entitled to consideration if education is
to do its perfect work and have complete and convincing justification.
The child of the future has a right to grandfathers and grandmothers of
sound body and sound mind, and the schools and homes of the present are
charged with the responsibility of seeing to it that this right is
vouchsafed to him. In actual practice our plans seem not to previse
grandfathers and grandmothers, and stop short even of fathers and
mothers. The child of the next generation has a right to a father and a
mother of untainted blood, and neither the home nor the school can
ignore this right.

=Transmitted weaknesses.=--If these rights are not scrupulously
respected by the present generation, the child of the future may come
into the world under a handicap that all the educational agencies
combined can neither remove nor materially mitigate. If he is crippled
in mind or in body because of excesses on the part of his progenitors,
the schools and hospitals may help him through life in a sorry sort of
fashion, but his condition is evermore a reminder to him of how much he
has missed in comparison with the child of sound body and mind. If such
a child does not imprecate even the memory of the ancestors whose
vitiated blood courses through his stricken body, it will be because his
mind is too weak to reason from effect to cause or because his
affliction has taught him large charity. He will feel that he has been
shamefully cheated in the great game of life, with no hope of
restitution. By reason of this, his gaze is turned backward instead of
forward, and this is a reversal of the rightful attitude of child life.
Instead of looking forward with hope and happiness, he droops through a
somber life and constantly broods upon what might have been.

=Attitude of ancestors.=--Whether he realizes it or not, he reduces the
average of humanity and is a burden upon society both in a negative and
in a positive sense. In him society loses a worker and gains a
dependent. Every taxpayer of the community must contribute to the
support which he is unable to provide for himself. He watches other
children romp and play and laugh; but he neither romps, nor plays, nor
laughs. He is inert. Some ancestor chained him to the rock, and the
vultures of disease and unhappiness are feeding at his vitals. He asks
for bread, and they give him a stone; he asks for life, and they give
him a living death; he asks for a heaven of delight, and they give him a
hell of despair. He has a right to freedom, but, in place of that, he is
forced into slavery of body and soul to pay the debts of his
grandfather. Nor can he pay these debts in full, but must, perforce,
pass them on to his own children. Sad to relate, the father and
grandfather look upon such a child and charge Providence with unjust
dealing in burdening them with such an imperfect scion to uphold the
family name. They seem blind to the patent truth before them; they seem
unable to interpret the law of cause and effect; they charge the
Almighty and the child with their own defections; they acquit themselves
of any responsibility for what is before their eyes.

=Hospitals cited.=--Our hospitals for abnormal and subnormal children,
and our eleemosynary institutions, in general, are a sad commentary upon
our civilization and something of a reflection upon the school as an
exponent of and a teacher of life. If the wards of these institutions,
barring the victims of accidents, are the best we can do in the way of
coming upon a solution of the problem of life, neither society nor the
school has any special warrant for exultation. These defectives did not
just happen. The law of life is neither fortuitous nor capricious. On
the contrary, like begets like, and the law is immutable. With lavish
hand, society provides the pound of cure but gives only superficial
consideration to the ounce of prevention. The title of education will be
cloudy until such time as these institutions have become a thing of the
past. Both pulpit and press extol the efforts of society to build,
equip, and maintain these institutions, and that is well; but, with all
that, we are merely trying to make the best of a bad situation.
Education will not fully come into its own until it takes into the scope
of its interests the child of the future as well as the child of the
present; not until it comes to regard the children of the present as
future ancestors as well as future citizens.

=The child as a future ancestor.=--If the children of the future are to
prove a blessing to society and not a burden, then the children of the
present need to become fully conscious of their responsibilities as
agencies in bringing to pass this desirable condition. If the teacher or
parent can, somehow, cause the boy of to-day to visualize his own
grandson, in the years to come, pointing the finger of scorn at him and
calling down maledictions upon him because of a taint in the family
blood, that picture will persist in his consciousness, and will prove a
deterrent factor in his life. The desire for immortality is innate in
every human breast, we are taught, but certainly no boy will wish to
achieve that sort of immortality. He will not consider with complacency
the possibility of his becoming a pariah in the estimation of his
descendants, and will go far in an effort to avert such a misfortune.
There is no man but will shudder when he contemplates the possibility of
having perpetuated upon his gravestone or in the memory of his
grandchild the word "Unclean."

=The heart of the problem.=--Here we arrive at the very heart of the
problem that confronts the home and the school. We may close our eyes,
or look another way, but the problem remains. We may not be able to
solve it, but we cannot evade it. Each day it calls loudly to every
parent and every teacher for a solution. The health and happiness of the
coming generations depend upon the right education of the present one,
and this responsibility the home and the school can neither shirk nor
shift. We take great unction to ourselves for the excellence of the
horses, pigs, and cattle that we have on exhibition at the fairs, but
are silent as to our failures in the form of children, that drag out a
half-life in our hospitals. In one state it costs more to care for the
defectives and unfortunates than to provide schooling facilities for all
the normal children, but this fact is not written into party platforms
nor proclaimed from the stump. In the face of such a fact society seems
to proceed upon the agreeable assumption that the less said the better.

=Misconceptions.=--We temporize with the fundamental situation by the
use of such soporifics as the expressions "necessary evil" and the like,
but that leaves us exactly at the starting point. Many well-meaning
people use these expressions with great frequency and freedom and seem
to think that in so doing they have given a proof of virtue and public
spirit. It were worthy only of an iconoclast to deprecate or disparage
the legislative attempts to foster clean living. All such efforts are
worthy of commendation; but in sadness it must be confessed that,
laudable as these efforts are, they have not produced results that are
wholly satisfactory. Defectives are still granted licenses to perpetuate
their kind; children still enervate their bodies and minds by the use of
narcotics; and society daintily lifts its skirts as it hurries past the
evil, pretending not to see. Legislation is an attempt to express public
sentiment in statutory form; but public sentiment must precede
legislation if it is to become effective. Efforts have been made through
the process of legislation to deny the granting of marriage licenses to
people who are physically unsound, but the efforts came to naught
because public sentiment has not attained to this plane of thinking.
Hence, we shall not have much help from legislation in solving our
problem, until public sentiment has been educated.

=The responsibility of the school.=--This education must come, in large
part, through the schools, but even these will fail until they come into
a full realization of the fact that their field of effort is life in the
large. Time was when the teacher thought she was employed to teach
geography, grammar, and arithmetic. Then she enlarged this to include
boys and girls. And now she needs to make another addition and realize
that her function is to teach boys and girls the subject of Life, using
the branches of study as a means to this end. In a report on the work of
the schools at Gary, Indiana, the statement is made that the first
purpose of these schools seems to be to produce efficient workers for
the mills. This seems to savor of the doctrine of educational
foreordination, and would make millwork and life synonymous. Life is
larger than any mill. We may be justified in educating one horse for the
plow and another for the race track, but this justification rests upon
the fact that horses are assets and not liabilities.

=Clean living.=--Clean living in this generation will, undeniably,
project itself into the next, and we have only to see to it that all the
activities of the school function in clean living in the child of
to-day, and we shall surely be safeguarding the interests of the child
of the future. But clean living means more than mere externals. The
daily bath, pure food, fresh air, and sanitary conditions are essential
but not sufficient in themselves. Clean thinking, right motives, and a
high respect for the rights and interests of the future must enter into
the scheme of life. There must be no devious ways, no back alleys, in
the scheme, but only the broad highway of life, open always to the
sunlight and to the gaze of all mankind. All this must become thoroughly
enmeshed in the social consciousness and in the daily practice of every
individual, before the school can lay claim to success in the art of
teaching efficient living.


QUESTIONS AND EXERCISES

1. Investigate the following agencies as means for providing future
generations with ancestors of untainted blood: legislation; moral
education; physical education; sex hygiene and eugenics; penal
institutions; medical science.

2. Enumerate some of the physical and mental handicaps of the child who
is not well born.

3. What powerful appeal for clean living may be made to the adolescent
youth?

4. As a concrete example of children being punished for the sins of
their fathers even unto the third and fourth generation, read the
history of the Juke family.

5. To what extent does the school share the responsibility for the
improvement of the physical and moral quality of the children of the
future?

6. What kind of teaching is needed to meet this responsibility?

7. Reliable authorities have estimated that 60 per cent or 12,000,000 of
the school children of America are suffering from removable physical
defects; that 93 per cent of the school children of the country have
defective teeth; and that on the average the health of children who are
not in attendance at school is better than that of those who are in
school. In the light of these facts discuss the failure or success of
our schools in providing fit material for efficient citizenship.




CHAPTER V

THE TEACHER-POLITICIAN


=The politician defined.=--The politician has been defined as one who
makes a careful study of the wants of his community and is diligent in
his efforts to supply these wants. This definition has, at the very
least, the merit of mitigating, if not removing, the stigma that
attaches to politicians in the popular thought. Conceding the
correctness of this definition, it must be evident that society is the
beneficiary of the work of the politician, and would be the gainer if
the number of politicians were multiplied. The motive of self-interest
lies back of all human activities, and education is constantly striving
to stimulate and accentuate this motive. Even in altruism we may find an
admixture of self-interest. The merchant who arranges his goods
artistically may hope by this means to win more patronage, but, aside
from this, he wins a feeling of gratification. His self-interest may
look either toward a greater volume of business or to a better class of
patrons, or both. While he is enlarging the scope of his business, he
may be elevating the taste of his customers. In either case his
self-interest is commendable. A successful merchant is better for the
community than an unsuccessful one.

=Self-interest.=--The physician is actuated by the motive of
self-interest, also. His years of training are but a preparation for the
competition that is certain to fall to his lot. He is gratified at the
increase of his popularity as a successful practitioner. But he
prescribes modes of living as well as remedies, and so tries to
forestall and prevent disease, while he is exercising his curative
skill. He tries not only to restore health, but also to promote good
health in the community by his recommendations of pure food, pure water,
fresh air, and exercise. His motives are altruistic even while he is
consulting self-interest. None but the censorious will criticize the
minister for accepting a larger parish even with a larger salary
attached. The larger parish will afford him a wider field for
usefulness, and the larger salary will enable him to execute more of his
laudable plans.

=The methods of the politician.=--Hence it will be seen that, in the
right sense, merchants, physicians, and ministers are all politicians in
that they seek to expand the sphere of their activities. Like the
politician they study the wants of the people in order to win a starting
point for leadership. True, there are quacks, charlatans, hypocrites,
and demagogues, but none of these, nor all combined, avail to disprove
the validity of the principle. It has often been said that the churches
would do well to study and use the art of advertising that is so well
understood by the saloons. This is another way of saying that the
methods of the politician will avail in promoting right activities as
well as wrong ones. The politician, whether he is a business man or a
professional man, proceeds from the known to the related unknown, and
thus shows himself a conscious or unconscious student of psychology. He
studies that which is in order to promote that which should be.

=Leadership.=--The politician aspires to leadership, and that is
praiseworthy, provided his cause is a worthy one. If the cause is
unworthy, the cloven foot will soon appear and repudiation will ensue,
which will mark him unsuccessful as a politician. He may be actuated by
the motive of self-interest, in common with all others, but this
interest may focus in the amelioration of conditions as they are or in
the advancement of his friends. The satisfaction of leadership is the
sole reward of many a politician, with the added pleasure of seeing his
friends profit by this leadership. A statesman is a politician grown
large--large in respect to motives, to plans and purposes, and to
methods. The fundamental principle, however, remains constant.

=The politician worthy of imitation.=--The successful politician must
know people and their wants. He must know conditions in order to direct
the course of his activities. Otherwise, he will find himself moving at
random, and this may prove disastrous to his purposes. Much misdirected
effort has been expended in disparaging the politician and his methods.
If the man and his methods were better understood, they would often be
found worthy of close imitation in the home, in the school, in the
church, in the professions, and in business.

=Education and substitution.=--Education, in the large, is the process
of making substitutions. Evermore, in school work, we are striving to
substitute something better for something not so good. In brief, we are
striving to substitute needs for wants. But before we can do this we
must determine, by careful study and close observation, what the wants
are. Ability to substitute needs for wants betokens a high type of
leadership. The boy wants to read Henty, but needs to read Dickens or
Shakespeare. How shall the teacher proceed in order to make the
substitution? Certainly it cannot be done by any mere fiat or ukase.
Those who are incredulous as to the wisdom of establishing colleges of
education and normal schools to generate and promote methods of teaching
have here a concrete and pertinent question: Can a college of education
or normal school give to an embryo teacher any method by which she may
effectively substitute Shakespeare for Henty?

=Methods contrasted.=--Some teachers have attempted to make this
substitution by means of ridicule and sarcasm and then called the boy
stupid because he continued to read his Henty. Others have indulged in
rhapsodies on Shakespeare, hoping to inoculate the boy with the
Shakespearean virus, and then called the boy stolid because he failed to
share their apparent rapture. The politician would have pursued neither
of these plans. His inherent or acquired psychology would have
admonished him to begin where the boy is. He would have gone to Henty to
find the boy. Having found him, he would have sat down beside him and
entered into his interest in the book. In time he would have found
something in the book to remind him of a passage in Shakespeare. This
passage he would have read in his best style and then resumed the
reading of Henty. Thus, by degrees, he would have effected the
substitution, permitting the boy to think that this had been done on his
own initiative.

=The principle illustrated.=--The vitalized teacher observes, profits
by, and initiates into her work the method of the politician and so
makes her school work vital. Beginning with what the boy wants, she
lures him along, by easy stages, until she has brought him within the
circle of her own wants, which are, in reality, the needs of the boy.
The boy walks along in paces, let us say, of eighteen inches. The
teacher moderates her gait to harmonize with his, but gradually
lengthens her paces to two feet. At first, she kept step with him; now
he is keeping step with her and finds the enterprise an exhilarating
adventure. She is teaching the boy to walk in strides two feet in
length, and begins with his native tendency to step eighteen inches.
Thus she begins where the boy is, by acquainting herself with his wants,
attaches her teaching to his native tendencies, and then proceeds from
the known to the related unknown. Libraries abound in books that explain
lucidly this simple elementary principle of teaching, but many teachers
still seem to find it difficult of application.

=Substitution illustrated.=--This method of substitution becomes the
rule of the school through the skill of the vitalized teacher. The lily
of the valley is substituted for the sunflower, in the children's
esteem, and there is generated a taste for the exquisite. The copy of
the masterpiece of art supplants the bizarre chromo; correct forms of
speech take the place of incorrect forms; the elegant usurps the place
of the inelegant; and the inartistic gives place to the artistic. The
circle of their wants is extended until it includes their needs, and
these, in turn, are transformed into wants. Thus all the pupils ascend
to a higher level of appreciation of the things that make for a more
comfortable and agreeable civilization. They work under the spell of
leadership, for real leadership always inspires confidence.

=Society and the school.=--At its best, society is but an enlarged copy
of the vitalized school. Or, to put it in another way, the vitalized
school is society in miniature. As the school is engaged in the work of
making substitutions, so, in fact, is society. Legislative bodies are
striving to substitute wise laws for the laws that have fallen behind
the needs of the times, that the interests of society may be fully
conserved. The church is substituting better methods of work in all its
activities for the methods that have become antiquated or ineffective.
This it does in the hope that its influence may be broadened and
deepened. Ministers and officials are constantly pondering the question
of substitutions. The farmer is substituting better methods of tilling
the soil for the methods that were in vogue in a former time before
science had invaded the realms of agriculture, to the end that he may
increase the yield of his fields, make larger contributions to commerce,
increase his profits, and so be better able to gratify some of the
higher desires of his nature.

=The automobile factory.=--Each successive model in an automobile
factory is a concrete illustration of the process of making
substitutions, and each substituted part bears witness to a close
scrutiny of past experiences as well as of the wants of prospective
purchasers. The self-starter was a want at first; but now it is a need,
and, therefore, a necessity. If the school would but make as careful
study of the boy's experiences and his wants as the manufacturer does in
the case of automobiles, and then would attach the substitutions to
these experiences and wants, the boy would very soon find himself in
happy possession of a self-starter which would prove to be the very
crown of school work. The automobile manufacturer is both a psychologist
and a politician.

=Results of substitutions.=--As a result of substitutions we have better
roads, better houses, better laws, cleaner streets, better fences,
better machinery, more sanitary conditions, and a higher type of
conduct. We step to a higher level upon the experiences of the past and
make substitutions as we move upward. The progress of civilization is
measured by the character of these substitutions and the rapidity with
which they are made. The people on the Isle of Marken make but few
substitutions, and these only at long intervals, and so they are looked
upon as curiosities among humans. In all our missionary enterprises we
are endeavoring to persuade the peoples among whom we are working to
make substitutions. Instead of their own, we would have them accept our
books, our styles of clothing, our plans of government, our modes of
living, our means of transportation, and, in short, our standards of
life. But, first of all, we must learn their standards of life;
otherwise we cannot proceed intelligently or effectively in the line of
substitutions. We must know their language before we can teach them
ours, and we must translate our books into their language before we can
hope to substitute our books for theirs. All the substitutions we hope
to make presuppose a knowledge of their wants. Hence the methods of the
missionary bear a close analogy to the methods of the politician.

=The Idealist.=--This is equally true of the vitalized teacher. She is a
practical idealist. In the words of the poet, her reach is beyond her
grasp, and this proclaims her an idealist. In her capacity as a
politician she makes a close study of the wants of her constituents,
both pupils and parents, and so learns how best to articulate school
work with the interests of the community. She does not hold aloof from
her pupils or their homes, but studies them at close range, as do the
missionary and the politician. She lives among them and so learns their
language and their modes of thinking and living. Only so can she come
into sympathetic relations with them and be of greatest service to them
in promoting right substitutions. She finds one boy surcharged with the
instinct of pugnacity. This tendency manifests itself both in school and
at home. Her own conclusions are ratified by the parents. He wants to
fight. His whole nature cries aloud for battle. In such a case, neither
repression nor suppression will avail. So she attaches a phase of school
work to this native disposition and gives his pugnacious instinct a fair
field.

=An example.=--Enlisting him as her champion in a tournament, she pits
against him a doughty antagonist in the form of a problem in arithmetic.
In tones of encouragement she gives the signal and the fight is on. The
boy pummels that problem as he would belabor a schoolmate on the
playground. His whole being is focused upon the adventure. And when he
has won his meed of praise, he feels himself a real champion. The
teacher merely substituted mind for hands in the contest and so fell in
with his notion that fighting is quite right if only the cause is a
worthy one. He is quick to see the distinction and so makes the
substitution with alacrity and with no loss of self-respect. Ever after
he disdains the vulgar brawl and does not lose the fighting instinct.
Thus the vitalized teacher by knowing how to make substitutions wins for
society a valiant champion. If we multiply this example, we shall
readily see how such a teacher-politician deserves the distinction of
being termed a practical idealist.


QUESTIONS AND EXERCISES

1. Distinguish the following terms: demagogue; politician; statesman;
and practical idealist.

2. Subject to what limitations should a successful teacher be a
politician?

3. Enumerate the qualities of a successful politician that teachers
should possess.

4. How does the author define education? Criticize this definition.

5. What resemblances has the process of education to the evolution of
machinery? to the evolution of biological species?

6. Describe methods by which the tactful teacher may secure helpful
substitutions in the child's life.

7. In what respects does society resemble a vitalized school?

8. Illustrate how teachers may utilize for the education of the child
seemingly harmful instincts.




CHAPTER VI

SUBLIME CHAOS


=Acquisitiveness.=--In fancy, at least, we may attain a position over
and far above the city of London and from this vantage-place, with the
aid of strong glasses, watch a panorama that is both entrancing and
bewildering. The scene bewilders not alone by its scope, but still more
by its complexity. The scene is a shifting one, too, never the same in
two successive minutes. Here is Trafalgar Square, with its noble
monument and the guardian lions, reminding us of Nelson in what is
accounted one of the most heroic naval engagements recorded in history.
As we look, we reconstitute the scene, far away, in which he was
conspicuous, and reread in our books his stirring appeal to his men.
Thence we glance up Regent Street and see it thronged with equipages
that betoken wealth and luxury. Richly dressed people in great numbers
are moving to and fro and giving color to the picture. A shabby garb
cannot be made to fit into this picture. When it appears, there is
discord in the general harmony. All this motion must have motives behind
it somewhere; but we can only conjecture the motives. We have only
surface indications to guide us in our quest for these. But we are
reasonably certain that these people are animated by the instinct of
acquisition. They seem to want to get things, and so come where things
are to be had.

=Desires for things intangible.=--There are miles of vehicles of many
kinds wending their tortuous, sinuous ways in and out along streets that
radiate hither and thither. They stay their progress for a moment and
people emerge at Robinson's, at Selfridge's, at Liberty's. Each of these
is the Mecca of a thousand desires, and faces beam with pleasure when
they reappear. Some desire has evidently been gratified. Others alight
at the National Gallery and enter its doors. When they come forth it is
obvious that something happened to them inside that building. The lines
of care on their faces are not so evident, and their step is more
elastic and buoyant. Their desires did not have tangible things as their
objectives as in the case of the people who entered the shops for
merchandise, but their faces shine with a new light and, therefore,
their quest must have been successful. As we look, we realize that
desires for intangible things may be as acute as for tangible ones, and
that the gratification of these desires produces equal satisfaction.

=Westminster Abbey.=--Not far away other throngs are invading
Westminster Abbey. In those historic and hallowed precincts they are
communing with the Past, the Present, and the Future. All about them is
the sacred dust of those who once wrought effectively in affairs of
state and in the realm of letters. History and literature have their
shrine there, and these people are worshipers at that shrine. All about
them are reminders of the Past, while the worshipers before the Cross
direct their thoughts to the Future. Earth and Heaven both send forth an
invitation for supreme interest in their thoughts and feelings. History
and literature call to them to emulate the achievements whose monuments
they see about them, while the Cross admonishes them that these
achievements are but temporal. Here they experience a fulfillment of
their desires. Their knowledge is broadened, and their faith is lifted
up. The Past thrills them; the Future inspires them; and thus the
Present is far more worth while.

=House of Parliament.=--Across the way is Parliament, and this conjures
up a long train of events of vast import. The currents that flow out
from this power-house have encircled the globe. Here conquests have been
planned that electrified nations. Here have been generated vast armies
and navies as messengers of Desire. Here have been voted vast treasures
in execution of the desires of men for territorial extension and
national aggrandizement. These halls have resounded with the eloquence
of men who were striving to inoculate other men with the virus of their
desires; and the whole world has stood on tiptoe awaiting the issue of
this eloquence. Momentous scenes have been enacted here, all emanating
from the desires of men, and these scenes have touched the lives of
untold millions of people.

=Commerce.=--We see the Thames near by, teeming with ships from the
uttermost corners of the earth, and we think of commerce. We use the
word glibly, but no mind is able to comprehend its full import. We know
that these ships ply the seas, bearing food and clothing to the peoples
who live far away, but when we attempt to estimate the magnitude of
commerce, the mind confesses to itself that the problem is too great. We
may multiply the number of ships by their tonnage, but we get, in
consequence, an array of figures so great that they cease to have any
meaning for the finite mind. The best and most that they can do for us
is to make us newly aware that the people who dwell in the jungles of
Africa, who roam the pampas of South America, who climb the Alps, the
Rockies, the Andes, and the Himalayas, all have desires that these ships
are striving to gratify.

=Social intercourse.=--Going up the river to Hampton Court we see people
out for a holiday. There are house-boats with elaborate and artistic
fittings and furnishings, and other craft of every sort that luxury can
suggest. One could imagine that none but fairies could stage such a
scene. The blending of colors, the easy dalliance, the rippling
laughter, the graceful feasting, and the eddying wavelets all conspire
to produce a scene that serves to emphasize the beauty of the shores.
Underneath this enchanting scene of variegated beauty we discover the
fundamental fact that man is a gregarious animal, that he not only
craves association with his kind but that playing with them brings him
into more harmonious communion with them. In their play they meet upon
the plane of a common purpose and are thus unified in spirit. Hence, all
this beauty and gayety is serving a beneficent purpose in the way of
gratifying the inherent desire of mankind for social intercourse.

=The travel instinct.=--At Charing Cross the commerce drama is
reënacted, only here with trains instead of boats, and, mainly, people
instead of merchandise. Here we see hurry and bustle, and hear the
shriek of the engine and the warning blast of the guard. Trains are
going out, trains are coming in. When the people step out upon the
platforms, they seem to know exactly whither they are bound. There are
porters all about to help them achieve their desires, and cabs stand
ready at the curb to do their bidding. Here is human commerce, and the
trains are the answer to the call of the human family to see their own
and other lands. These trains are swifter and more agreeable for nomads
than the camel of the desert or the Conestoga wagon of the prairie. The
nomadic instinct pulls and pushes people away from their own door-yards;
hence railways, trains, engines, air brakes, telegraph lines, wireless
apparatuses, and all the many other devices that the mind of man has
designed at the behest of this desire to roam about.

=Monuments.=--Further down the Thames we see Greenwich, which regulates
the clocks for the whole world, and furnishes the sea captain the
talisman by which he may know where he is. Over against St. Paul's is
the Bank of England, which for long years ruled the finances of the
world. Yonder is the Museum, the conservator of the ages. There is the
Rosetta Stone, which is the gateway of history; there the Elgin Marbles,
which proclaim the glory of the Greece that was; there the palimpsests
which recall an age when men had time to think; and there the books of
all time by means of which we can rethink the big thoughts of men long
since gone from sight. There are things that men now call curiosities
that mark the course of minds in their struggles toward the light; and
there are the sentiments of lofty souls that will live in the hearts of
men long after these giant stones have crumbled.

=Desire for pastoral beauty.=--Beyond the city, in the alluring country
places, we see a landscape that delights the senses, ornate with hedges,
flowers, vine-clad cottages, highways of surpassing smoothness, fertile
fields, and thrifty flocks and herds. There are carts and wagons on the
roads bearing the products of field and garden to the marts of trade.
Men, women, and children zealously ply the hoe, the plow, or the shovel,
abetting Nature in her efforts to feed the hungry. In this pastoral
scene there is dignity, serenity, and latent power. Its beauty answers
back to the æsthetic nature of mankind, and nothing that is artificial
can ever supplant it in the way of gratifying man's desire for the
beautiful.

=Economic articulation.=--Through all the diversified phases of this
panorama there runs a fundamental principle of unity. There are no
collisions. In the economy of civilization the farmer is coördinate with
the artist, the artisan, and the tradesman. But, if all men were
farmers, the economic balance would be disturbed. The railroad engineer
is major because he is indispensable. So, also, is the farmer, the
legislator, the artist, and the student. There is a degree of
interdependence that makes for economic harmony. The articulation of all
the parts gives us an economic whole.

=Aspirations.=--This panorama is a picture of life; and the school is
life. Hence the panorama and the school are identical; only the school
is larger than the panorama, even though the picture is reduced in size
to fit the frame of the school. The pupils in the school have dreams and
aspirations that reach far beyond the limits of the picture of our
fancy. And all these aspirations are a part of life and so are
indigenous in the vitalized school. And woe betide the teacher who would
abridge or repress these dreams and aspirations. They are the very warp
and woof of life, and the teacher who would eliminate them would
suppress life itself. That teacher is in sorry business who would fit
her pupils out with mental or spiritual strait-jackets, or mold them to
some conventional pattern, even though it be her own. These pupils are
the prototypes of the people in our panorama, and are, therefore,
animated by like inclinations and desires.

=Desire is fundamental.=--Here is a boy who is hungry; he desires food.
But so does the man who is passing along the street. The man is focusing
all his mental powers upon the problem of how he shall procure food. The
man's problem is the boy's problem and each has a right to a solution of
his problem. The school's business is to help the boy solve his problem
and not to try to quench his desire for food or try to persuade him that
no such desire exists. This desire is one of the native dispositions to
which the work of the school is to attach itself. Desires are
fundamental in the scheme of education, the very tentacles that will lay
hold upon the school activities and render them effective. The teacher's
large task is to strengthen and nourish incipient desires and to cause
the pupil to hunger and thirst after the means of gratifying them.

=Innate tendencies.=--Each pupil has a right to his inherent
individuality. The school should not only begin where the boy is, but
should begin its work upon what he is. Only so can it direct him toward
what he ought to be. If the boy would alight at the National Gallery in
order to regale himself with the masterpieces of art, why, pray, should
the teacher try to curtail this desire and force him into Westminster
Abbey? If she will accompany him into the Gallery and prove herself his
friend and guide among the treasures of art, she will, doubtless,
experience the joy of hearing him ask her to be his companion through
the Abbey later on. The Abbey is quite right in its way and the boy must
visit it soon or late, but to this particular boy the Gallery comes
first and he should be led to the Abbey by way of the Gallery. In school
work the parties are all personally conducted, but the rule is that a
party is composed of but one person.

=Illustration.=--The girl is not to be condemned because she desires to
visit the Selfridge shop rather than the Museum. The teacher may
rhapsodize upon the Museum to the limit of her strength, but the girl is
thinking of the beautiful fabrics to be seen at the shop, and,
especially, of the delicious American ice cream that can be had nowhere
else in London. It is rather a poor teacher who cannot lead the girl to
the British Museum by way of Selfridge's. If the teacher finds the task
difficult, she would do well to traverse the route a few times in
advance. The ice cream will help rather than hinder when they stand, at
length, before the Rosetta Stone or read the original letter to Mrs.
Bixby. The store and the Museum are both in the picture, and the teacher
must determine which should come first in the itinerary of this girl.
The native dispositions and desires will point out the way to the
teacher.

The old-time schoolmaster was fond of setting as a copy in the
old-fashioned copy book "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy";
but, later, when he caught Jack playing he gave him a flogging, thus
proving himself both inconsistent and deficient in a knowledge of
psychology and fair play. If we are going to Greenwich we shall save
time by taking the longer journey by way of Hampton Court. As we disport
ourselves amid the beauties and gayeties of the Court we can prolong our
pleasures by anticipating Greenwich, and so make our play the anteroom
of our work.

=Variety in excellence.=--In the vitalized school we shall find each
pupil eager in his quest of food for the hunger he feels, and the
teacher rejoicing in the development of his individuality. She would not
have all her pupils attain the same level even of excellence. They are
different, and she would have them so. Nor would she have her school
exemplify the kind of order that is to be found in a gallery of statues.
Her school is a place of life, eager, yearning, pulsating life, and not
a place of dead and deadening silence. Her pupils have diversified
tastes and desires and, in consequence, diversified activities, but work
is the golden cord that binds them in a healthy and healthful unity.
This is sublime chaos, a busy, happy throng, all working at full
strength at tasks that are worth while, and all animated by hopes and
aspirations that reach out to the very limits of space.


QUESTIONS AND EXERCISES

1. What may the school do to give helpful direction and needed
modifications to the instinct of acquisition?

2. The ultimate ends of education are more efficient production and more
intelligent consumption. How and by what means may the school bring
about a more intelligent choice of tangible and intangible things?

3. What hint may the teacher of geography receive from the brief
description of London's points of interest?

4. Compare a vitalized school with the panorama of London.

5. To what extent must individual differences be recognized by the
teacher in the recitation? in discipline?

6. Suggest means whereby pupils may be induced to spend their evenings
with Dickens, Eliot, Macaulay, or Irving in preference to the "movies."




CHAPTER VII

DEMOCRACY


=A conflict.=--There was a fight on a railway train--a terrific fight.
The conductor and two other Americans were battling against ten or more
foreigners. These foreigners had come aboard the train at a mining town
en route to the city for a holiday. The train had hardly got under way,
after the stop, when the fight was on. The battle raged back and forth
from one car to the other across the platform amid the shouts and
cursing of men and the screams of women. Bloody faces attested the
intensity of the conflict. One foreigner was knocked from the train, but
no account was taken of him. The train sped on and the fight continued.
Nor did its violence abate until the train reached the next station,
where the conductor summoned reënforcements and invoked the majesty of
the law in the form of an officer. The affray, from first to last, was
most depressing and gave to the unwilling witness a feeling that
civilization is something of a misnomer and that men are inherently
ferocious.

=Misconceptions.=--More mature reflection, however, served to modify
this judgment, and the application of some philosophy resolved the
distressing combat into a relatively simple proposition. The conductor
and his assistants were fighting for their conception of order, and
their opponents were fighting for their conception of manhood. Reduced
to its primal elements, the fight was the result of a dual
misconception. The conductor was battling to vindicate his conception of
order; the foreigners were battling to vindicate their conception of the
rights of men in a democracy. Neither party to the contest understood
the other, and each one felt himself to be on the defensive. Neither one
would have confessed himself the aggressor, and yet each one was
invading the supposed rights of the other. Judicial consideration could
readily have averted the whole distressing affair.

=Foreign concept of democracy.=--The foreigners had come to our country
with roseate dreams of democracy. To their conception, this is the land
where every man is the equal of every other man; where equal rights and
privileges are vouchsafed to all men without regard to nationality,
position, or possessions; where there is no faintest hint of the caste
system; and where there are no possible lines of demarcation. Their
disillusionment on that train was swift and severe, and the observer
could not but wonder what was their conception of a democracy as they
walked about the streets of the city or gave attention to their bruised
faces. Their dreams of freedom and equal rights must have seemed a
mockery. They must have felt that they had been lured into a trap by
some agency of cruelty and injustice. After such an experience they must
have been unspeakably homesick for their native land.

="Melting pot."=--Their primary trouble arose from the fact that they
had not yet achieved democracy, but had only a hazy theoretical
conception of its true meaning. Nor did the conductor give them any
assistance. On the contrary he pushed them farther away into the realm
of theory, and rendered them less susceptible to the influence of the
feeling for democracy. Before these foreigners can become thoroughly
assimilated they must know this feeling by experience; and until this
experience is theirs they cannot live comfortably or harmoniously in our
democracy. To do this effectively is one of the large tasks that
confront the American school and society as a whole. If we fail here,
the glory of democracy will be dimmed. All Americans share equally in
the responsibility of this task. The school, of course, must assume its
full share of this responsibility if it would fully deserve the name of
melting pot.

=Learning democracy.=--Meeting this responsibility worthily is not the
simple thing that many seem to conceive it to be. If it were, then any
discussion appertaining to the teaching of democracy would be
superfluous. This subject of democracy is, in fact, the most difficult
subject with which the school has to do, and by far the most important.
Its supreme importance is due to the fact that all the pupils expect to
live in a democracy, and, unless they learn democracy, life cannot
attain to its maximum of agreeableness for them nor can they make the
largest possible contributions to the well-being of society. It has been
said that the seventeenth century saw Versailles; the eighteenth century
saw the Earth; and the nineteenth century saw Humanity. Then the very
pertinent question is asked, "Which century will see Life?" We who love
our country and our form of government fondly hope that we may be the
first to see Life, and, if this privilege falls to our lot, we must come
to see life through the medium of democracy.

=The vitalized school a democracy.=--Life seems to be an abstract
something to many people, but it must become concrete before they can
really see it as it is. Democracy is a means, therefore, of transforming
abstract life into concrete life, and so we are to come into a fuller
comprehension of life through the gateway of democracy. The vitalized
school is a laboratory of life and, at the same time, it is the most
nearly perfect exemplification of democracy. The nearer its approach to
perfection in exemplifying the spirit and workings of a democracy, the
larger service it renders society. If the outflow from the school into
society is a high quality of democracy, the general tone of society will
be improved. If society deteriorates, the school may not be wholly at
fault, but it evidently is unable to supply to society reënforcement in
such quantity and of such quality as will keep the level up to normal.

=Responsibility of the individual.=--In society each individual raises
or lowers the level of democracy according to what he is and does. The
idler fails to make any contributions to the well-being of society and
thus lowers the average of citizenship. The trifler and dawdler lower
the level of democracy by reason of their inefficiency. They may
exercise their right to vote but fail to exercise their right to act the
part of efficient citizens. If all citizens emulated their example,
democracy would become inane and devitalized. Tramps, burglars,
feeble-minded persons, and inebriates lower the level of democracy
because of their failure to render their full measure of service, and
because, in varying degrees, they prey upon the resources of society and
thus add to its burdens. Self-reliance, self-support, self-respect, as
well as voting, are among the rights that all able-bodied citizens must
exercise before democracy can come into its rightful heritage.

=The function of the school.=--All this and much more the schools must
teach effectively so that it shall be thoroughly enmeshed in the social
consciousness or their output will reveal a lack of those qualities that
make for the larger good of democratic society. Democracy must be
grooved into habits of thought and action or the graduates of the
schools will fall short of achieving the highest plane of living in the
community. They will not be in harmony with their environment, and
friction will ensue, which will reduce, in some degree, the level of
democracy. Hence, the large task of the school is to inculcate the habit
of democracy with all that the term implies. Twelve years are none too
long for this important work, even under the most favorable conditions
and under the direction of the most skillful teaching. Indeed, civic
economy will be greatly enhanced if, in the twelve years, the schools
accomplish this one big purpose.

=Manifestations of democratic spirit.=--We may not be able to resolve
democracy into its constituent elements, but the spirit that is attuned
to democracy is keenly alive to its manifestations. The spirit so
attuned is quick to detect any slightest discord in the democratic
harmony. This is especially true in the school democracy. A discordant
note affects the entire situation and militates against effective
procedure. In the school democracy we look for a series and system of
compromises,--for a yielding of minor matters that major ones may be
achieved. We look for concessions that will make for the comfort and
progress of the entire body, and we experience disappointment if we fail
to discover some pleasure in connection with these concessions. We
expect to see good will banishing selfishness and every semblance of
monopoly. We expect to find every pupil glad to share the time and
strength of the teacher with his fellows even to the point of
generosity, and to find joy in so doing. We expect to find each pupil
eager to deposit all his attainments and capabilities as assets of the
school and to find his chief joy in the success of all that the school
represents.

=Obstacles in the path.=--But it is far easier to depict democracy than
to teach it. In fact, the teacher is certain to encounter obstacles, and
many of these have their source in American homes. Indeed, some of the
most fertile sources of discord in the school may be traced to a
misconception of democracy on the part of the home. One of these
misconceptions is a species of anarchy, which appropriates to itself the
gentler name of democracy. But, none the less, it is anarchy. It
disdains all law and authority, treads under foot the precepts of the
home and the school, flouts the counsels of parents and teachers, and is
self-willed, obstinate, and defiant. Democracy obeys the law; anarchy
scorns it. Democracy respects the rights of others, anarchy overrides
them. Democracy exalts good will; anarchy exalts selfishness. Democracy
respects the Golden Rule; anarchy respects nothing, not even itself.

=Anarchy.=--When this spirit of anarchy gains access to the school, it
is not easily eradicated for the reason that the home is loath to
recognize it as anarchy, and resents any such implication on the part of
the school. The father may be quite unable to exercise any control over
the boy, but he is reluctant to admit the fact to the teacher. Such a
boy is an anarchist and no sophistry can gloss the fact. What he needs
is a liberal application of monarchy to fit him for democracy. He should
read the Old Testament as a preparation for an appreciative perusal of
the New Testament. If the home cannot generate in him due respect for
constituted authority, then the school must do so, or he will prove a
menace to society and become a destructive rather than a constructive
agency. Here we have a tense situation. Anarchy is running riot in the
home; the home is arrayed against the attempts of the school to correct
the disorder; and Democracy is standing expectant to see what will be
done.

=Snobbery.=--Scarcely less inimical to democracy than anarchy is
snobbery. The former is violent, while the latter is insidious. Both
poison the source of the stream of democracy. If the home instills into
the minds of children the notion of inherent superiority, they will
carry this into the school and it will produce a discord. A farmer and a
tenant had sons of the same age. These lads played together, never
thinking of superiority or inferiority. Now the son of the tenant is
president of one of the great universities, and the son of the
proprietor is a janitor in one of the buildings of that university.
Democracy presents to view many anomalies, and the school age is quite
too early for anything approaching the caste system or snobbery. The
time may come when the rich man's son will consider it an honor to drive
the car for his impecunious classmate.

=Restatement.=--It needs to be repeated, therefore, that democracy is
the most difficult subject which the school is called upon to teach, not
only because it is difficult in itself, but also because of the attitude
of many homes that profess democracy but do not practice it. To the
influence of such homes one may trace the exodus of many children from
the schools. The parents want things done in their way or not at all,
and so withdraw their children to vindicate their own autocracy. They
are willing to profit by democracy but are unwilling to help foster its
growth. They not only lower the level of democracy but even compel their
children to lower it still more. The teacher may yearn for the children
and the children for the teacher, but the home is inexorable and
sacrifices the children to a misconception of democracy.

=Coöperation.=--Democracy does not mean fellowship, but it does mean
coöperation. It means that people in all walks of life are animated by
the common purpose to make all their activities contribute to the
general good of society. It means that the railroad president may shake
hands with the brakeman and talk with him, man to man, encouraging him
to aspire to promotion on merit. It means that this brakeman may become
president of the road with no scorn for the stages through which he
passed in attaining this position. It means that he may understand and
sympathize with the men in his employ without fraternizing with them. It
means that every boy may aspire to a place higher than his father has
attained with no loss of affection for him. It does not mean either
sycophancy or truculence, but freedom to every individual to make the
most of himself and so help others to make the most of themselves.

=The democratic teacher.=--Democracy is learned not from books but from
the democratic spirit that obtains in the school. If the teacher is
surcharged with democracy, her radiating spirit sends out currents into
the life of each pupil, and the spirit of democracy thus generated in
them fuses them into homogeneity. Thus they become democratic by living
in the atmosphere of democracy, as the boy grew into the likeness of the
Great Stone Face.


QUESTIONS AND EXERCISES

1. How may elementary teachers inculcate the principles of true
democracy?

2. By what means may public schools assist in the transformation of
illiterate foreigners into "intelligent American citizens"?

3. What are some of the weaknesses of democracy which the public school
may remedy? the press? public officials? the people?

4. Are such affairs as are described in the beginning of the chapter
peculiar to democracies? Why or why not?

5. How may school discipline recognize democratic principles, thereby
laying the foundation of respect for law and order by our future
citizens?

6. What qualities of citizens are inconsistent with a high level of
democracy?

7. Discuss the extent to which the management of the classroom should be
democratic.

8. How may the monarchical government of a school fit pupils for a
democracy? How may it unfit them?

9. In what ways may the following institutions raise the level of
democracy: centralized schools? vocational schools? junior high schools?
moonlight schools? evening schools?




CHAPTER VIII

PATRIOTISM


=Patriotism as a working principle.=--The vitalized school generates and
fosters patriotism, not merely as a sentiment, but more particularly as
a working principle. Patriotism has in it a modicum of sentiment, to be
sure, as do religion, education, the home, and civilization; but
sentiment alone does not constitute real or true patriotism. The man who
shouts for the flag but pursues a course of conduct that brings
discredit upon the name of his country, belies the sentiment that his
shouting would seem to express. The truly patriotic man feels that he
owes to his country and his race his whole self,--his mind, his time,
and his best efforts,--and the payment of this obligation spells life to
him. Thus he inevitably interprets patriotism in terms of industry,
economy, thrift, and the full conservation of time and energy, that he
may render a good account of his stewardship to his country.

=Spelling as patriotism.=--With this broad conception in mind the
teacher elevates patriotism to the rank of a motive and proceeds to
organize all the school activities in consonance with this conception.
Actuated by this high motive the pupils, in time, come to look upon
correct spelling not only as a comfort and a convenience, but also as a
form of patriotism in that it is an exponent of intelligent observation
and as such wins respect and commendation from people at home and people
abroad. Or, to put the case negatively, if we were all deficient in the
matter of spelling, the people of other lands would hold us up to
ridicule because of this defect; but if we are expert in the art of
spelling, they have greater respect for us and for our schools. Hence,
such a simple matter as spelling tends to invest the flag of our country
with better and fuller significance. Thus spelling becomes woven into
the life processes, not as a mere task of the school, but as a privilege
vouchsafed to every one who yearns to see his country win distinction.

=Patriotism a determining motive.=--In like manner the teacher runs the
entire gamut of school studies and shows how each one may become a
manifestation of patriotism. If she has her pupils exchange letters with
pupils in the schools of other countries, they see, at once, that their
spelling, their writing, and their composition will all be carefully
assessed in the formation of an estimate of ourselves and our schools.
It is evident, therefore, that the pupils will give forth their best
efforts in all these lines that the country they represent may appear to
the best advantage. In such an exercise the motive of patriotism will
far outweigh in importance the motive of grades. Besides, the letters
are written to real people about real life, and, hence, life and
patriotism become synonymous in their thinking, and all their school
work becomes more vital because of their patriotism.

=History.=--In the study of history, the pupils readily discover that
the men and women who have given distinction to their respective
countries have done so, in the main, by reason of their attainments in
science, in letters, and in statesmanship. They are led to think of
Goethals in the field of applied mathematics; of Burbank in the realm of
botany; of Edison in physics; of Scott and Burns in literature; of Max
Müller in philology; of Schliemann in archæology; of Washington and
Lincoln in the realm of statesmanship; and of Florence Nightingale and
Clara Barton in philanthropy. They discover that France deemed it an
honor to have Erasmus as her guest so long as he found it agreeable to
live in that country, and that many countries vied with one another in
claiming Homer as their own. Phillips Brooks was a patriot, not alone
because of his profession of love for his country, but because of what
he did that added luster to the name of his country.

=Efficiency.=--The study of physiology and hygiene affords a wide field
for the contemplation and practice of patriotic endeavor. The care of
the body is a patriotic exercise in that it promotes health and vigor,
and these underlie efficiency. Anything short of efficiency is
unpatriotic because it amounts to a subtraction from the possible best
that may be done to advance the interests of society. The shiftless man
is not a patriot, nor yet the man who enervates his body by practices
that render him less than efficient. The intemperate man may shout
lustily at sight of the flag, but his noise only proclaims his lack of
real patriotism. An honest day's work would redound far more to the
glory of his country than his noisy protestations. Seeing that behind
every deliberate action there lies a motive, the higher the motive the
more noble will be the action. If, then, we can achieve temperance
through the motive of patriotism, society will be the beneficiary, not
only of temperance itself, but also of many concomitant benefits.

=Temperance.=--Temperance may be induced, of course, through the motives
of economy, good health, and the like, but the motive of patriotism
includes all these and, therefore, stands at the summit. Waste, in
whatever form, is evermore unpatriotic. Conservation is patriotism,
whether of natural resources, human life, human energy, or time. The
intemperate man wastes his substance, his energies, his opportunities,
his self-respect, and his moral fiber. Very often, too, he becomes a
charge upon society and abrogates the right of his family to live
comfortably and agreeably. Hence, he must be accounted unpatriotic. If
all men in our country were such as he, our land would be derided by the
other nations of the world. He brings his country into disrepute instead
of glorifying it because he does less than his full share in
contributing to its well-being. He renders himself less than a typical
American and brings reproach upon his country instead of honor.

=Sanitation.=--One of the chief variants of the general subject of
physiology and hygiene is sanitation, and this, even yet, affords a
field for aggressive and constructive patriotism. Grime and crime go
hand in hand; but, as a people, we have been somewhat slow in our
recognition of this patent truth. Patriotism as well as charity should
begin at home, and the man who professes a love for his country should
make that part of his country which he calls his home so sanitary and so
attractive that it will attest the sincerity of his profession. If he
loves his country sincerely, he must love his back yard, and what he
really loves he will care for. It does him no credit to have the flag
floating above a home that proclaims his shiftlessness. His feeling for
sanitation, attractiveness, and right conditions as touching his own
home surroundings will expand until it includes his neighborhood, his
county, his State, and his entire country.

=A typical patriot.=--A typical patriot is the busy, intelligent,
frugal, cultured housewife whose home is her kingdom and who uses her
powers to make that kingdom glorious. She regrets neither the time nor
the effort that is required to make her home clean, artistic, and
comfortable. She places upon it the stamp of her character, industry,
and good taste. She supplies it with things that delight the senses and
point the way to culture. To such a home the crude and the bizarre are a
profanation. She administers her home as a sacred trust in the interests
of her family and never for exhibition purposes. Her home is an
expression of herself, and her children will carry into life the
standards that she inculcates through the agency of the home. Life is
better for the family and for the community because her home is what it
is, and, in consequence, her patriotism is far-reaching in its
influence. If all homes were such as this, our country would be
exploited as representing the highest plane of civilization the world
has yet attained. The vitalized teacher is constantly striving to have
this standard of home and home life become the standard of her pupils.

=Mulberry Bend.=--In striking contrast with this home are conditions in
Mulberry Bend, New York, as described by a writer thoroughly conversant
with conditions as they were until recently--conditions, however, now
much bettered: "These alleys, running from nowhere to nowhere, alongside
cellars where the light never enters and where nothing can live but
beast-men and beast-women and rats; behind foul rookeries where skulk
the murderer and the abandoned tramp; beside hideous plague-spots where
the stench is overpowering--Bottle Alley, where the rag-pickers pile
their bags of stinking stuff, and the Whyo Roost where evil-visaged
beings prowl about, hunting for prey; dozens of alleys winding in and
out and intersecting, so that the beast may slay his prey, and hide in
the jungle, and be safe; these foul alleys--who shall picture them, or
explore their depths, or describe their wretchedness and their
hideousness?... Upon the doorsteps weary mothers are nursing little
babies who will never know the meaning of innocent childhood, but will
be versed in the immoral lore of the Underworld before they learn their
alphabet. Ragged children covered with filth play about the pushcarts
and the horses in the street, while their mothers chatter in greasy
doorways, or shout from upper windows into the hordes below, or clatter
about creaky floors, preparing the foul mess of tainted edibles which
constitutes a meal."

With many other phases of this gruesome picture this author deals, and
then concludes with the following: "But in the rookeries which, like
their inmates, skulk and hide out of sight in the crowded street; in
these ramshackle structures which line the back alleys, and there breed
their human vermin amid dirt and rags--in these there is no direct
sunlight throughout the long year. Rookeries close to the front windows,
shutting out light and air, and rookeries close to the rear windows, and
rookeries close to each side, and never a breath of fresh air to
ventilate one of these holes wherein men and women and children wallow
in dirt, and live and fight and drink and die, and finally give way to
others of their kind." So long as such conditions as these continue in
our country, sanitation as a manifestation of patriotism will not have
done its perfect work, and the stars and stripes of our flag will lack
somewhat of their rightful luster.

=Patriotism in daily life.=--When the influences of hygiene and of home
economics, taught as life processes and not merely as prerequisites for
graduation, by teachers who regard them as forms of patriotism,--when
these influences have percolated to every nook and cranny of our
national life,--to the homes, the streets and alleys, the farms, the
shops, the factories, and the mines, such conditions as these will
disappear, and we as a nation shall then have a clearer warrant for our
profession of patriotic interest in and devotion to the welfare of our
country as a whole. But so long as we can look upon insanitary
conditions without a shudder; so long as we permit dirt to breed disease
and crime; so long as we make our streams the dumping places for débris;
so long as we tolerate ugliness where beauty should obtain; and so long
as our homes and our farms betray the spirit of shiftlessness,--so long
shall we have occasion to blush when we look at our flag and confess our
dereliction of our high privilege of patriotism.

=The American restaurant.=--Perhaps no single detail of the customs that
obtain in our country impresses a cultivated foreigner more unfavorably
than the régime in our popular restaurants. The noise, the rattle and
clatter and bang, the raucous calling of orders, and the hurry and
confusion give him the impression that we are content to have feeding
places where we might have eating places. He regards all that he sees
and hears as being less than proper decorum, less than a high standard
of intelligence, less than refined cultivation, and less than agencies
that contribute to the graces of life. He marvels that we have not yet
attained the conception that partaking of food amounts to a gracious and
delightful ceremony rather than a gastronomic orgy. His surprise is not
limited to the people who administer these establishments, but extends
to the people who patronize them. He marvels that the patrons do not
seek out places where there is quiet, and serenity, and pleasing
decorum. He returns to his own land wondering if the noisy restaurant is
typical of American civilization. He may not know that the study of
domestic science in our schools has not had time to attain its full
fruition in the way of inculcating a lofty conception of life in the
dining room.

=Thrift as patriotism.=--Another important phase of patriotism is
thrift; and here, again, we have come short of realizing our
possibilities. There are far too many people who have failed to lay in
store against times of emergency, far too many who care only for to-day
with slight regard for to-morrow. Moreover, there are far too many who,
despite sound bodies, are dependents, contributing nothing to the
resources of society, but constantly preying upon those resources. There
are in our country not fewer than one hundred thousand tramps, and by
some the number has been estimated at a half-million. If this vast army
of dependents could be transferred to the ranks of producers, tilling
our fields, harvesting our crops, constructing our highways of travel,
redeeming our waste places, and beautifying our streams, life would be
far more agreeable both for them and for the rest of our people. They
would become self-supporting and so would win self-respect; they would
subtract their number from the number of those who live at public
expense; and they would make contributions to the general store. They
would thus relieve society of the incubus of their dependence, and
largely increase the number of our people who are self-supporting.

=Some contrasts.=--We are making some progress in the line of thrift
through our school savings and postal savings, but we have not yet
attained to a national conception of thrift as an element of patriotism.
This is one of the large yet inspiring privileges of the vitalized
school. Thrift is so intimately identified with life that they naturally
combine in our thinking, and we have only to reach the conception that
our mode of life is the measure of our patriotism in order to realize
that thrift and patriotism are in large measure identical. The
industrious, frugal, thrifty man is patriotic; the unthrifty, lazy,
shiftless man is unpatriotic. The one ennobles and honors his country;
the other dishonors and degrades his country.

=Conclusion.=--If the foregoing conclusions are valid, and to every
thoughtful person they must seem well-nigh axiomatic, then the school
has a wide field of usefulness in the way of inculcating a loftier and
broader conception of patriotism. The teacher who worthily fills her
place in the vitalized school will give the boys and girls in her care
such a conception of patriotism as will give direction, potency, and
significance to every school activity and lift these activities out of
the realm of drudgery into the realm of privilege. Her pupils will be
made to feel that what they are doing for themselves, their school, and
their homes, they are doing for the honor and glory of their country.


QUESTIONS AND EXERCISES

1. In what ways and to what extent should patriotism affect conduct?

2. Indicate methods in which patriotism may be used as an incentive to
excel in the different branches of study.

3. What branches of study should have for their sole function to
stimulate the growth of patriotism? Discuss methods and give instances.

4. Distinguish from patriotism each of the following counterfeits:
sectionalism; partisanship; nationalism; and jingoism. Should teachers
try to eradicate or sublimate these sentiments? How?

5. What should be the attitude of the teacher of history toward
Commodore Decatur's toast: "My country, may she always be in the right;
but right or wrong, my country"?

6. Cite recent history to prove that temperance and sanitation are
necessary for the realization of national victories and the perpetuation
of the common welfare.

7. Is the "Golden Rule" a vital principle of patriotism? Why?

8. How are culture and refinement related to patriotism? thrift?

9. Make a list of songs, poems, novels, paintings, and orations that are
characterized by lofty patriotic sentiments. Name some that are usually
regarded as patriotic but which are tainted with inferior sentiments.

10. Discuss the adaptability of these to the different periods of
youthful development and the methods whereby their appeal may be made
most effective.




CHAPTER IX

WORK AND LIFE


=Tom Sawyer.=--Tom Sawyer was one of the most effective teachers that
has figured in the pages of the books; and yet we still regard Mark
Twain as merely the prince of humorists. He was that, of course, but
much more; and some day we shall read his books in quest of pedagogical
wisdom and shall not be disappointed. It will be recalled that Tom
Sawyer sat on the top of a barrel and munched apples while his boy
companions whitewashed the fence in his stead. Tom achieved this triumph
because he knew how to emancipate work from the plane of drudgery and
exalt it to the plane of a privilege. Indeed, it loomed so large as a
privilege that the other boys were eager to barter the treasures of
their pockets in exchange for this privilege. And never did a fence
receive such a whitewashing! There wasn't fence enough and, therefore,
the process must needs be repeated again and again. The best part of the
entire episode was that everybody was happy, Tom included. Tom was happy
in seeing his plan work, and the other boys were happy because they were
doing work that Tom had caused them to become eager to do.

=Work as a privilege.=--To make work seem a privilege is a worthy task
for the school to set before itself, and if it but achieves this it will
prove itself worth all it costs. At first thought, it seems a stupendous
task, and so it is. But Tom Sawyer accomplished it in an easy, natural
way, with no parade or bombast. He had habit and tradition to contend
against, just as the school has, but he overbore these obstacles and won
the contest. Some of those boys, before that morning, may have thought
it ignoble to perform menial tasks; but Tom soon overcame that feeling
and led them to feel that only an artist can whitewash a fence properly.
Some of them may have been interpreting life as having a good time, but,
under the tutorage of Tom, they soon came to feel that having a good
time means whitewashing a fence.

=The persistency of habit.=--In striving to exalt and ennoble work, the
school runs counter to habits of thought that have been formed in the
home, and these habits prove stubborn. The home has so long imposed work
as a task that the school finds it difficult to make it seem a
privilege. The father and mother have so often complained of their work,
in the presence of their children, that all work comes to assume the
aspect of a hardship, if not a penalty. It often happens, too, that the
parents encourage their children to think that education affords
immunity from work, and the children attend school with that notion
firmly implanted in their minds. They seem to think that when they have
achieved an education they will receive their reward in the choicest
gifts that Fortune has to bestow, and that their only responsibility
will be to indicate their choices.

=Misconceptions of work.=--Still further, when children enter school
imbued with this conception of work, they feel that the work of the
school is imposed upon them as a task from which they would fain be
free. If their parents had only been as wise as Tom Sawyer and had set
up motives before them in connection with their home activities and thus
exalted all their work to the plane of privilege, the work of the school
would be greatly simplified. It is no slight task to eradicate this
misconception of work, but somehow it must be done before the work of
the school can get on. Until this is done, the work of the school will
be done grudgingly instead of buoyantly, and work that is done under
compulsion is never joyous work. Nor will work that is done under
compulsion ever be done in full measure, as the days of slavery clearly
prove.

=Illustrations.=--Life and work are synonymous, and no amount or form of
sophistry can abrogate their relation. The man who does not work does
not have real life, as the invalid will freely witness. The tramp on the
highway manages to exist, but he does not really live, no matter what
his philosophy may be. Many children interpret life to mean plenty of
money and nothing to do, but this conception merely proves that they are
children with childish misconceptions. They see the railway magnate
riding in his private car and conceive his life to be one of ease and
luxury. They do not realize that the private car affords him the
opportunity to do more and better work. They see the president of the
bank sitting in his private office and imagine that he is idle, not
realizing that his mind is busy with problems of great magnitude,
problems that would appall his subordinates. They cannot know, as he
sits there, that he is projecting his thoughts into far-off lands, and
is watching the manifold and complex processions of commerce in their
relations to the world of finance.

=Concrete examples.=--They see the architect in his luxurious
apartments, but do not realize that his brain is directing every
movement of a thousand men who are causing a colossal building to tower
toward the sky. They see a Grant sitting beneath a tree in apparent
unconcern, but do not know that he is bearing the responsibility of the
movements of a vast army. They see the pastor in his study among his
books, but do not know the travail of spirit that he experiences in his
yearning for his parishioners. They see the farmer sitting at ease in
the shade, but do not know that he is visualizing every detail of his
farm, the men at their tasks, the flocks and herds, the crops, the
streams, the machinery, the fences, and the orchards and vineyards. They
see the master of the ship, standing on the bridge clad in his smart
uniform, and imagine that he is merely enjoying the sea breezes the same
as themselves, not knowing that his thoughts are concentrated upon the
safety of his hundreds of passengers and his precious cargo.

=The potency of mental work.=--Only by experience may children come to
know that work may be mental as well as physical, and the school is
charged with the responsibility of affording this experience. Through
experience they will come to know that mind transcends matter, and that
in life the body yields obedience to the behests of the mind. They will
come to know that mental work is more far-reaching than physical work,
in that a single mind plans the work for a thousand hands. They will
learn that mental work has redeemed the world from its primitive
condition and is making life more agreeable even if more complex. They
will come to see the mind busy in its work of tunneling mountains,
building canals and railways, navigating oceans, and exploring the sky.
They will come to realize that mental work has produced our libraries,
designed our machinery, made our homes more comfortable and our fields
more fertile.

=Work a blessing.=--As a knowledge of all these things filters into
their minds, their conception of life broadens, and they see more and
more clearly that life and work are fundamentally identical. They see
that work directs the streams of life and gives to life point, potency,
and significance. They soon see that knowledge is power only because it
is the agency that generates power, and that knowledge touches life at
every point. They will come to realize that work is the one great luxury
in life, and that education is designed to increase the capacity for
work in order that people may indulge in this luxury more abundantly.
The more work one can do, the more life one has; and the better the work
one can do, the higher the quality of that life. They learn that the
adage "Work to live and live to work" is no fiction but a reality.

=Work and enjoyment.=--The school, therefore, becomes to them a workshop
of life, and unless it is that, it is not a worthy school. It is not a
something detached from life, but, rather, an integral part of life and
therefore a place and an occasion for work. The school is the Burning
Bush of work that is to grow into the Tree of Life. But life ought to
teem with joy in order to be at its best, and never be a drag. Work,
therefore, being synonymous with life, should be a joyous experience,
even though it taxes the powers to the utmost. If the child comes to the
work of the school as the galley-slave goes to his task, there is a lack
of adjustment and balance somewhere, and a readjustment is necessary. It
matters not that a boy spends two hours over a problem in arithmetic if
only he enjoys himself during the time. But, if he works two hours
merely to get a passing grade or to escape punishment, the time thus
spent does not afford him the pleasure that rightfully belongs to him,
and some better motive should be supplied.

=The teacher's problem.=--The teacher's mission is not to make school
work easy, but, rather, to make the hardest work alluring and agreeable.
Here, again, she may need to take counsel with Tom Sawyer. Whitewashing
a fence is quite as hard work as solving a problem in decimals or cube
root. Much depends upon the mental attitude of the boy, and this in turn
depends upon the skill of the teacher and her fertility of mind in
supplying motives. Whitewashing a fence causes the arms to grow weary
and the back to ache, but the boys recked not of that. On the contrary,
they clamored for more of the same kind of work. This same spirit
characterizes the work of the vitalized school. The pupils live as
joyously in the schoolroom as they do outside, and the harder the work
the greater their joy.

When work is made a privilege by the expert teacher, school procedure
becomes well-nigh automatic and there is never any occasion for nagging,
hectoring, or badgering. Such things are abnormal in life and no less so
in the vitalized school. They are a confession on the part of the
teacher that she has reached the limit of her resources. She admits that
she cannot do what Tom Sawyer did so well, and so proclaims her
inability to articulate life and work effectively.


QUESTIONS AND EXERCISES

1. Read that chapter of "Tom Sawyer" which deals with the whitewashing
episode.

2. What principles of teaching did Tom Sawyer apply?

3. Discuss, from the pupils' viewpoint, how the study of different
subjects may be made a privilege.

4. In accordance with Tom Sawyer pedagogy, discuss plans for the
formation of the reading habit in pupils. How direct the pupils' choice
of reading matter?

5. How would you demonstrate to pupils that mental work is more
exhausting than manual labor?

6. Why is work a blessing? How convince an indolent pupil of this truth?

7. State the chief problem of the teacher.

8. Show that the pedagogical doctrines of this chapter are not to be
classified under the head of "soft pedagogy."




CHAPTER X

WORDS AND THEIR CONTENT


=Initial statement.=--Life and words are so closely interwoven that we
have only to study words with care in order to achieve an apprehension
of life. Indeed, education may be defined as the process of enlarging
the content of words. No two of us speak the same language even though
we use the same words. The schoolboy and the savant speak of education,
using the same word, but the boy has only the faintest conception of the
meaning of the word as used by the savant. We must know the content of
the words that are used before we can understand one another, either in
speaking or in writing. For one man, a word is big with meaning; for
another, the same word is so small as to be well-nigh meaningless. To
the ignorant boor, the word "education" means far less than the three
R's, while to the scholar the word includes languages, ancient and
modern, mathematics through many volumes, sciences that analyze the
dewdrop, determine the weight of the earth and the distances and
movements of the planets, history from the Rosetta Stone to the latest
presidential election, and philosophy from Plato to the scholar of
to-day.

=The word "education."=--And yet both these men spell and pronounce the
word alike. The ignorant man has only the faintest glimmering of the
scholar's meaning of the word when he speaks or writes it. Still the
word is in common use, and people who use it are wont to think that
their conception of its meaning is universal. If the boor could follow
the expansion of the word as it is invested with greater and greater
content, he would, in time, understand Aristotle, Shakespeare,
Gladstone, and Max Müller. And, understanding these men, he would come
to know philosophy, literature, and language, and so would come to
appreciate more fully what education really is. In contemplating the
expansion of the word, one might easily visualize the ever widening
circle produced by throwing a pebble into a pool; but a better
conception would be the expansion of a balloon when it is being
inflated. This comparison enables one to realize that education enlarges
as a sphere rather than as a circle.

=The scholar's concept of the sea.=--The six-year-old can give the
correct spelling of the word _sea_ as readily as the sage, but the sage
has spent a lifetime in putting content into the word. For him, the word
epitomizes his life history. Through its magic leading he retraces his
journeys through physiography and geology, watching the sea wear away
two thousand feet of the Appalachian Mountains and spread the detritus
over vast areas, making the great fertile corn and wheat belt of our
country. He knows that this section produces, annually, such a quantity
of corn as would require for transportation a procession of teams that
would encircle the earth nine times, at the equator, and he interprets
all this as sea. The word leads him, also, through the mazes and
mysteries of meteorology, revealing to him the origin of the rain, the
snow, the dew, and the frost, with all the wonders of evaporation,
condensation, and precipitation.

=Further illustration.=--He can discern the sea in every blade of grass,
in every leaf, and in every flower. In the composition of his own body,
he finds that ninety per cent of it is sea. He finds his heart pumping
the sea through his veins and arteries as a vital part of the life
process; and through the power of capillary attraction, the sea is
coursing through every hair of his head. In the food upon his table, the
meat, the bread, the milk, the vegetables, and the fruits, he finds the
sea. Not his poetry, but his science follows the raindrop from the roof
to the rivulet, on to the river, then to the ocean, then into vapor and
on into rain down into the earth, then up into the tree, out into the
orange, until it finally reappears as a drop of juice upon the rosy lip
of his little six-year-old.

=The child's conception.=--Whether the child ever wins the large
conception of the sea that her father has depends, in part, upon the
father himself, but, in a still larger degree, upon her teacher. If the
teacher thinks of the sea merely as a word to be spelled, or defined, or
parsed, that she may inscribe marks in a grade book or on report cards,
then the child will never know the sea as her father knows it, unless
this knowledge comes to her from sources outside the school. Instead of
becoming a living thing and the source of life, her sea will be a desert
without oasis, or grass, or tree, or bird, or bubbling spring to refresh
and inspire. It would seem a sad commentary upon our teaching if the
child is compelled to gain a right conception of the sea outside the
school and in spite of the school, rather than through and by means of
the school.

=The quest of teacher and child.=--The vitalized teacher knows the sea
as the sage knows it, and can infuse her conception into the
consciousness of the child. She feels it to be her high privilege to
lead the child on in quest of the sea and to find, in this quest,
pulsating life. In this alluring quest, she is putting content into the
word, and thus discovering, by experience, what life is. This is
education. This is the inviting vista that stretches out before the eyes
of the child under the spell and leadership of such a teacher. In their
quest for the meaning of the sea, these companions, the child and the
teacher, will come upon the fields of grain, the orchards, the flocks
and herds, the ships, the trains, and the whole intricate world of
commerce. They will find commerce to be a manifestation of the sea and
moreover a big factor in life. It will mean far more than mere cars to
be counted or cargoes to be estimated in the form of problems for the
class in arithmetic. The cargoes of grain that they see leaving the port
mean food for the hungry in other lands, and the joy and vigor that only
food can give.

=The sea as life.=--At every turn of their ramified journey, these
learners find life and, best of all, are having a rich experience in
life, throughout the journey. They are immersed in life and so are
absorbing life all the while. Wider and wider becomes their conception
of life as exemplified by the sea, and their capacity for life is ever
increasing. Day by day they ascend to higher levels and find their
horizon receding farther and farther. For them, life enlarges until it
embraces all lands, the arts, the sciences, the languages, and all
history. Whether they pursue the sea into the mountains; to the steppes,
plateaus, or pampas; to the palace or the hovel; to the tropics or the
poles,--they find it evermore representing life.

=The word "automobile."=--It would seem to be quite possible to
construct a twelve-year course of study based upon this sort of study of
words and their content with special emphasis upon the content. Since
life is conterminous with the content of the words that constitute one's
vocabulary, it is evident that the content of words becomes of major
importance in the scheme of education. To be able to spell the word
"automobile" will not carry a young man very far in his efforts to
qualify as a chauffeur, important though the spelling may be. As a mere
beginning, the spelling is essential, but it is not enough. Still the
child thinks that his education, so far as this word is concerned, is
complete when he can spell it correctly, and carry home a perfect grade.
No one will employ the young man as a driver until he has put content
into the word, and this requires time and hard work. He must know the
mechanism of the machine, in every detail, and the articulation of all
its parts. He must be able to locate trouble on the instant and be able
to apply the remedy. He must be sensitive to every slightest sound that
indicates imperfect functioning. This, of course, carries far beyond the
mere spelling of the word, but all this is essential to the safety of
his passengers.

=Etymology.=--Etymology has its place, of course, in the study of words,
but it stops short of the goal. It may be well to take the watch apart
in order to make an examination of its parts, but until it is
reconstituted and set going, it is useless as a watch. So with a word.
We may give its etymology and rhapsodize over its parts, but thus
analyzed it is an inert thing and really inane so far as real service is
concerned. If word study does not carry beyond the mere analysis, it is
futile as a real educative process. To be really effective, the word
must be instinct with life and busy in the affairs of life, and not a
mere specimen in a museum. Too often our work in etymology seems to be
considered an end in itself, rather than a means to an end.

=The word in use.=--Arlo Bates says that the word "highly" in the
Gettysburg Speech is the most ornate word in the language in the setting
that Lincoln gave it. The merest tyro can give its etymology, but only
when it was set to work by a master did it gain potency and distinction.
The etymology of the word "fidelity" is reasonably easy, but this
analysis is powerless to cause the child to thrill at the story of
Casabianca, or of Ruth and Naomi, or of Esther, or Antigone, or
Cordelia, or Nathan Hale, or the little Japanese girl who deliberately
bit through her tongue that she might not utter a syllable that would
jeopardize the interests or safety of her father. The word analyzed is a
dead thing; the word in use is a living thing. The word merely analyzed
is apt to be ephemeral; the word in use is abiding and increasingly
significant. As the child puts more and more content into the word, he,
himself, expands at the same rate in the scope and power of his
thinking. Words are the materials out of which he weaves the fabric of
life, and the pattern depends upon the content of his words.

=Illustrations from art.=--The child can spell the word "art" and can
repeat the words of the book by way of a memorized definition, but he
cannot define the word with even a fair degree of intelligence. He
cannot know the meaning of the word until its significance becomes
objectified in his life processes. This requires time, and thought, and
experiences with books, with people, and with galleries. In short, he
must live art before he can define the word; and his living art invests
the word with content. The word will grow just as he grows in his
conception of art. At first, he may denominate as art the simple little
daubs of pictures that he makes with the teacher's hand guiding his
brush. But, later on, as he gains a larger conception, these things will
appear puerile if not silly. The time may come when he can read the
thoughts of the masters as expressed in their masterpieces. Then, and
only then, will he be able to define the word.

=Michael Angelo.=--At the age of fifteen, Michael Angelo wrought the
Mask of the Satyr, which would not be considered a work of art if that
were the only product of his chisel. What he did later was the
fulfillment of the prophecy embodied in the Mask. At the age of eighty,
he produced the Descent from the Cross, which glorifies the Duomo in
Florence. In between these productions, we find his David, his Moses,
the Sistine Ceiling, with many others scarcely less notable. He rose to
a higher and higher conception of art as he lived art more and more
fully, and his execution kept pace with the expansion of his conception.
He gave content to the word both for himself and for the world until now
we associate, in our thinking, art with his name. He himself is now, in
large measure, our definition of art--and that because he lived art.

=The child's conception of truth.=--In his restricted conception, the
boy conceives truth to be the mere absence of peccadillos. He thinks
that his denial of the charge that he was impolite to his sister, or
that he went on a foraging expedition to the pantry, is the whole truth
and, indeed, all there is to truth. It requires a whole lifetime to
realize the full magnitude of his misconception. In the vitalized
school, he finds himself busy all day long trying to find answer to the
question: What is Truth? In the Alps, there is a place called Echo Glen
where a thousand rocks, cliffs, and crags send back to the speaker the
words he utters. So, when this boy asks What is Truth? a thousand voices
in the school and outside the school repeat the question to him: What is
Truth? Abraham Lincoln tried to find the answer as he figured on the bit
of board with a piece of charcoal by the firelight. Later on, he wrote
the Emancipation Proclamation, and in both exercises he was seeking for
the meaning of truth.

=The work of the school.=--Christopher Columbus was doing the same thing
in his quest, and thought no hardship too great if he could only come
upon the answer. Galileo, Huxley, Newton, Tyndall, Humboldt, Darwin,
Edison, and Burbank are only the schoolboys grown large in their search
for the meaning of truth. They have enlarged the content of the word for
us all, and by following their lead we may attain to their answers.
Every school study gives forth a partial answer, and the sum of all
these answers constitutes the answer which the boy is seeking.
Mathematics tells part of the story, but not all of it; science tells
another part, but not all of it; history tells still another part, but
not all of it. Hence, it may be reiterated that one of the prime
functions of the vitalized school is to invest words with the largest
possible content.


QUESTIONS AND EXERCISES

1. To what extent is education the process of enlarging the content of
words?

2. As a concrete illustration of the differences in the content of
words, compare various definitions of education. Choose typical
definitions of education to reflect the ideas of different educational
periods.

3. Suggest other methods than the use of the dictionary for the
enlargement of the pupil's content of words.

4. How may words be vitalized in composition?

5. Should the chief aim of language work in the grades be force,
accuracy, or elegance in the use of language?

6. Add to the author's list of words, other words the content of which
may be expanded by education.

7. How may the vitalized teacher encourage in pupils the formation of
habits of careful diction?

8. How remove unnatural stilted words and expressions from the oral and
written expressions of pupils?




CHAPTER XI

COMPLETE LIVING


=The question raised.=--That education is a preparation for complete
living has been quoted by every teacher who lays any sort of claim to
the standard definitions. Indeed, so often and so glibly has the
quotation been made that it is well-nigh axiomatic and altogether trite.
But we still await any clear explanation of what is meant by complete
living. On this point we are still groping, with no prophetic voice to
tell us the way. By implication we have had hints, and much has been
said on the negative side, but the positive side still lies fallow. When
asked for an explanation, those who give the quotation resort to
circumlocution and, at length, give another definition of education,
apparently conscious of the mathematical dictum that things that are
equal to the same thing are equal to each other. So we continue to
travel in a circle, with but feeble attempts to deviate from the course.

=The vitalized school an exemplification.=--Nor will this chapter
attempt to resolve the difficult situation in which we are placed. It is
not easy to define living, much less complete living. All that is hoped
for here is to bring the matter to the attention of all teachers and to
cause them to realize that the quest for a definition of complete living
will be for them and for their pupils an exhilarating experience. The
vitalized school will belie its name if it does not strive toward a
solution of the difficulty, and any school that approximates a
satisfactory definition will be proclaimed a public benefactor. In fact,
the school cannot lay claim to the distinction of being vitalized if it
fails to exemplify complete living, in some appreciable degree, and if
it fails to groove this sort of living into a habit that will persist
throughout the years. This is the big task that the school must essay if
it would emancipate itself from the trammels of tradition and become a
leader in the larger, better way. Complete living must become the ideal
of the school if it would realize the conception of education of which
it is a professed exponent.

=Incomplete living.=--The man who walks with a crutch; the man who is
afflicted with a felon; the man who lacks a hand or even a
finger,--cannot experience complete living. Through the power of
adaptation the man with a crutch may compass more difficult situations
than the man with sound legs will attempt, but he cannot realize all the
possibilities of life that a sound body would vouchsafe to him. The man
without hands may learn to write with his toes, but he is not employed
as a teacher of penmanship. His life is a restricted one and, therefore,
less than complete. We marvel at the exhibitions of skill displayed by
the maimed, but we feel no envy. We may not be able to duplicate their
achievements, but we feel that we have ample compensation in the normal
use of our members. We know instinctively that, in the solitude of their
meditations, they must experience poignant regrets that they are not as
other people, and that they must pass through life under a handicap.

=The sound body.=--It is evident, therefore, that soundness of body is a
condition precedent to complete living. The body is the organism by
means of which the mind and the spirit function in terms of life; and,
if this organism is imperfect, the functioning will prove less than
complete. Hence, it is the province of the school to so organize all its
activities that the physical powers of the pupils shall be fully
conserved. The president of a large university says that during his
incumbency of seventeen years they have found only one young woman of
physical perfection and not a single young man, although the tests have
been applied to thousands. College students, it will be readily
conceded, are a selected group; and yet even in such a group not a
physically perfect young man was found in tests extending over seventeen
years. If a like condition should be discovered in the scoring of live
stock at our fairs, there would ensue a careful investigation of causes
in the hope of finding a remedy.

=Personal efficiency.=--We shall not achieve national efficiency until
every citizen has achieved personal efficiency, and physical fitness is
one of the fundamental conditions precedent to personal efficiency. Here
we have the blue print for the guidance of society and the school. If we
are ever to achieve national efficiency, we must see to it that every
man and woman, every boy and girl, has a strong, healthy body that is
fully able to execute the behests of mind and spirit. This may require a
stricter censorship of marriage licenses, including physical
examinations; it may require more stringent laws on our statute books;
it may require radical changes in our methods of physical training; and
it may require the state to assume some of the functions of the home
when the home reveals its inability or unwillingness to cope with the
situation. Heroic treatment may be necessary; but until we as a people
have the courage to apply the remedies that the diagnosis shows to be
necessary, we shall look in vain for improvement.

=Physical training.=--Seeing that it is so difficult to find a man or a
woman among our people who has attained physical perfection, it behooves
society and the schools to take a critical inventory of their methods of
physical training and their meager accomplishments as a preliminary
survey looking to a change in our procedure. We seem to have delegated
scientific physical training to athletics and pugilism, with but scant
concern for our people as a whole. If pink-tea calisthenics as practiced
mildly in our schools has failed to produce robust bodies, then it is
incumbent upon us to adopt a régime of beefsteak. What the traditional
school has failed to do the vitalized school must attempt to do or
suffer the humiliation of striking its colors. There is no middle
course; it must either win a victory or admit defeat in common with the
traditional school. The standard is high, of course, but every standard
of the vitalized school is and ought to be high.

=Cigarettes.=--If the use of cigarettes is devitalizing our boys, and
this can be determined, then the manufacture and sale must be prohibited
unless our legislative bodies would plead guilty to the charge of
impotence. But we are told that public sentiment conditions the
enactment of laws. If such be the case, then the school and its
auxiliaries should feel it a duty to generate public sentiment. If
cigarettes are harmful, then they should be banished, and the task is
not an impossible one by any means. As to the injurious effects of
cigarettes, as distinguished an authority as Thomas A. Edison says the
following:

    "The injurious agent in cigarettes comes principally from the
    burning paper wrapper. The substance thereby formed is called
    'acrolein.' It has a violent action on the nerve centers,
    producing degeneration of the cells of the brain, which is quite
    rapid among boys. Unlike most narcotics, this degeneration is
    permanent and uncontrollable. I employ no person who smokes
    cigarettes."

We have eliminated dangerous explosives from our Fourth of July
celebrations, and the ban can as easily be placed upon any other
dangerous product. Just here we inevitably meet the cry of paternalism,
but we shall always be confronted by the question to what extent the
government should stand aside and see its citizens follow the bent of
their appetites and passions over the brink of destruction. It is the
inherent right of government to maintain its own integrity, and this it
can do only through the conservation of the powers of its citizens. If
paternalism is necessary to this end, then paternalism is a governmental
virtue. Better, by far, some paternalism than a race of weaklings.

=Military training.=--We may shrink away from military training in the
schools, just as we shrink from the régime of pugilism; but we may
profit by observing both these types of training in our efforts to
develop some method of training that will render our young people
physically fit. We need some type of training that will eliminate round
and drooping shoulders, weak chests, shambling gait, sluggish
circulation, and shallow breathing. The boys and girls need to be, first
of all, healthy animals with large powers of endurance, elastic,
buoyant, graceful, and in general well set up. These conditions
constitute the foundation for the superstructure of education. The
placid, anæmic, fiberless child is ill prepared in physique to attain to
that mastery of the mental and spiritual world that makes for an
approximation to complete living.

=Examples cited.=--If one will but make a mental appraisement of the
first one hundred people he meets, he will see among the number quite a
few who reveal a lack of physical vigor. They droop and slouch along and
seem to be dragging their bodies instead of being propelled through
space by their bodies. They can neither stand nor walk as a human being
ought to stand and walk, and their entire ensemble is altogether
unbeautiful. We feel instinctively that, being fashioned in the image of
their Maker, they have sadly declined from their high estate. Their
bodily attitude seems a sort of apology for life, and we long to invoke
the aid of some teacher of physical training to rescue them from
themselves and restore them to their rightful heritage. They are weak,
apparently ill-nourished, scrawny, ill-groomed; and we know, without the
aid of words, that neither a vigorous mind nor a great spirit would
choose that type of body as its habitation.

=The body subject to the mind.=--A healthy, vigorous, symmetrical body
that performs all its functions like a well-articulated, well-adjusted
mechanism is the beginning, but only a beginning. Next comes a mind that
is so well trained that it knows what orders to give to the body and how
to give them. Many a strong body enters the door of a saloon because the
mind is not sufficiently trained to issue wise orders. The mind was
befuddled before the body became so, and the body becomes so only
because the mind commands. Intoxication, primarily, is a mental
apostasy, and the body cannot do otherwise than obey. If the mind were
intent upon securing a book at the library, the body would not have seen
the door of the saloon, but would have been urgent to reach the library.
There is neither fiction nor facetiousness in the adage, "An idle brain
is the devil's workshop." On the contrary, the saying is crammed full of
psychology for the thoughtful observer. Hence, when we are training the
mind we are wreaking destruction upon this workshop.

=Freedom a condition precedent.=--Complete living is impossible outside
the domain of freedom. The prisons show forth no examples of complete
living. But mental thralldom is quite as inimical to complete living as
thralldom of the body. The mind must know in order to move among the
things of life in freedom. Ignorance is slavery. The mind that is unable
to read the inscription on a monument stands baffled and helpless, and
no form of slavery can be more abject. The man who cannot read the bill
of fare of life is in no position to revel in the good things that life
offers. The man who cannot read the signboards of life gropes and
flounders about in the byways and so misses the charms. If he knows the
way, he has freedom; otherwise he is in thralldom. The man who cannot
interpret life as it shows itself in hill, in valley, in stream and rock
and tree, goes through life with bandaged eyes, and that condition
affords no freedom.

=Street signs.=--A man who had been traveling through Europe for several
weeks, and had finally reached London, wrote enthusiastically of his
pleasure at being able to read the street signs. All summer he had felt
restricted and hampered, but when he reached a country where the street
signs were intelligible, he gained his freedom. Had he been as familiar
with Italian, German, and French as he is with English, life would have
been for him far more nearly complete during that summer and therefore
much more agreeable and fertile. There is no more exhilarating
experience than to be able to read the street signs along the highway of
life, and this ability is one of the great objectives of every vitalized
school.

=Trained minds.=--Nature reveals her inmost secrets only to the trained
mind. No power can force her, no wealth can bribe her, to disclose these
secrets to others. Only the mind that is trained can gain admission to
her treasure house to revel in its glories. John Burroughs lives in a
world that the ignorant man cannot know. The trained mind alone has the
key that will unlock libraries, art galleries, the treasure houses of
science, language, history, and art. The untrained minds must stand
outside and win what comfort they can from their wealth, their social
status, or whatever else they would fain substitute for the training
that would admit them. All these things are parts of life, and those who
cannot gain admission to these conservatories of knowledge cannot know
life in its completeness.

=Achievements of trained minds.=--In order to know life in the large,
the mind must be able to leap from the multiplication table to the
stars; must become intimate with the movements of the tides, the
glacier, and the planets; must translate the bubbling fountain and the
eruption of Vesuvius; must be able to interpret the whisper of the
zephyr and the diapason of the forest; must be able to hear music in the
chirp of the cricket as well as in the oratorios; must be able to delve
into the recesses of the mine and scale the mountain tops; must know the
heart throbs of Little Nell as well as of Cicero and Demosthenes; must
be able to see the processions of history from the cradle of the race to
the latest proclamation; and must sit in the councils of the poets, the
statesmen, the orators, the artists, the scientists, and the historians
of all time. A mind thus trained can enter into the very heart of life
and know it by experience.

=Things of the spirit.=--But education is a spiritual process, as we
have been told; and, therefore, education is without value unless it
touches the spirit. Indeed, it is only by the spirit that we may test
the quality of education. It is spirit that sets metes and bounds and
points the way to the fine things of life. A man may live in the back
alley of life or on the boulevard, according to the dictates of the
spirit. If his spirit cannot react to the finer things, his way will lie
among the coarse and bizarre. If he cannot appreciate the glory that is
revealed upon the mountain, he will gravitate to the lower levels. If
his spirit is not attuned to majestic harmonies, he will drift down to
association with his own kind. If he cannot thrill with pleasure at the
beauty and fragrance of the lily of the valley, he will seek out the
gaudy sunflower. If his spirit cannot rise to the plane of Shakespeare
and Victor Hugo, he will roam into fields that are less fruitful. The
spirit that is rightly attuned lifts him away from the sordid into the
realms of the chaste and the glorified; away from the coarse and ugly
into the realm of things that are fine and beautiful; and away from the
things that are mean and petty into the zone of the big, the true, the
noble, and the good. And so with body, mind, and spirit thus doing their
perfect work, he can, at least, look over into the promised land of
complete living.

=Altruism.=--We are commanded to let our light shine, and this command
is a noble and an inspiring one. A man who by such training as has been
depicted approximates complete living is prepared to let his light shine
primarily because he has light, and in the next place because his
training has made him generous in spirit and altruistic; and his
greatest joy comes from letting his light so shine that others may catch
his spirit and move up to higher planes of living.


QUESTIONS AND EXERCISES

1. Why is education not satisfactorily defined by saying that it is a
preparation for complete living? Who first stated this definition?

2. What is the relation of the school to complete living?

3. What further training should the school give in better living than to
teach the pupils what it is?

4. Give an idea of what is meant by incomplete living so far as the body
is concerned.

5. Show that soundness of body is necessary to realize one's best.

6. What are some reasons for the scarcity of physically perfect men and
women?

7. Have we been able to eliminate physical defects and develop physical
merits in people to the same extent that we have in domestic animals?

8. What are some of the things that have been done to improve physical
man? Which of these have to do primarily with heredity and which with
rearing or training?

9. Why is the possession of healthy bodies a matter of national concern?

10. Wherein does physical training seem to have failed to attain its
ends?

11. What are the arguments, from the standpoint of the physically
efficient life, for the regulation or prohibition by the government of
the sale of injurious products?

12. What are the benefits of such a type of training as military
training?

13. Show how the lack of proper training of the mind may result in a
less efficient body.

14. In our present civilization what conditions may give rise to mental
thralldom? Upon what is mental freedom conditioned?

15. How can the trained mind get the most out of life and contribute the
most to it?

16. Explain how the spirit is the dominant element in complete living.

17. Why is one who is living the complete life sure to be altruistic?




CHAPTER XII

THE TIME ELEMENT


=The question stated.=--There are many, doubtless, who will deny, if not
actually resent, the statement that some do more real teaching in ten
minutes than others do in thirty minutes. But, in spite of denials, the
statement can be verified by the testimony of a host of expert observers
and supervisors. Indeed, stenographic reports have been made of many
class exercises by way of testing the truth of this statement, and these
reports are a matter of record. Assuming the validity of the statement,
therefore, it is pertinent to inquire into the causes that underlie the
disparity in the teaching ability of the ten-minute teacher and the
thirty-minute teacher. The efficiency expert would be quick to seize
upon this disparity in the rate of progress as the starting point in his
critical examination. In a factory a like disparity would lead to
unpleasant consequences. The workman who consumes thirty minutes in
accomplishing a piece of work that another does in ten minutes would be
admonished to accelerate his progress or else give way to a more
efficient man. If we had instruments of sufficient delicacy to test the
results of teaching, we should probably discover that the output of the
ten-minute teacher is superior in quality to that of the thirty-minute
teacher. For we must all have observed in our own experience that the
clarity of our thinking depends upon its intensity.

=Examples.=--A young man who won distinction as a college student had a
wide shelf fitted up on one side of his room at which he stood in the
preparation of all his lessons. His theory was that the attitude of the
body conditions the attitude of the mind. Professor James gives assent
to this theory and avers that an attitude of mind may be generated by
placing the body in such an attitude as would naturally accompany this
mental attitude. This theory proclaims that, if the body is slouching,
the mind will slouch; but that, if the body is alert, the mind will be
equally so. Another college student always walked to and fro in his room
when preparing his history lesson. A fine old lady, in a work of
fiction, explained her mental acumen by the single statement, "I never
slouch." Every person must have observed many exemplifications of this
theory in his own experience even if he has not reduced it to a working
formula.

=Basic considerations.=--Any consideration of the time element, in
school work, must take into account, therefore, not only the number of
minutes involved in a given piece of work, but also the intensity of
effort during those minutes. Two minds, of equal natural strength, may
be fully employed during a given period and yet show a wide difference
in the quality and quantity of the results. The one may be busy all the
while but slouch through the minutes. The other may be taut and
intensive, working at white heat, and the output will be more extensive
and of better quality. The mind that ambles through the period shows
forth results that are both meager and mediocre; but the mind whose
impact is both forceful and incisive produces results that serve to
magnify the work of the school. Thus we have placed before us two basic
considerations, one of which is the time itself, in actual minutes, and
the other is the character of the reactions to external stimuli during
those minutes.

=Two teachers compared.=--In order to consider these factors of the
teaching process with some degree of definiteness it will be well to
have the ten-minute teacher and the thirty-minute teacher placed in
juxtaposition in our thinking. We shall thus be able to compare and
contrast and so arrive at some clear judgments that may be used as a
basis for generalizations. We may assume, for convenience and for
concreteness, that the lesson is division of fractions. There will be
substantial agreement that the principle involved in this subject can be
taught in one recitation period. The reasons for some of the steps in
the process may come later, but the child should be able to find his way
to the correct answer in a single period. Now if one teacher can achieve
this result in thirty minutes and the other in ten minutes, there is a
disparity in the effectiveness of the work of these teachers which is
worthy of serious consideration. The ten-minute teacher proves that the
thirty-minute teacher has consumed twenty minutes of somebody's time
unnecessarily. If the salary of this thirty-minute teacher should be
reduced to one third its present amount, she would inveigh against the
reduction.

=School and factory compared.=--If she were one of the operators in a
factory, she would not escape with the mere penalization of a salary
reduction. The owner would argue that he needed some one who could
operate the machine up to its full capacity, and that, even if she
should work without salary, her presence in the factory would entail a
loss in that the output of her machine was so meager. If one operator
can produce a shoe in ten minutes and the other requires thirty minutes
for the same work, the money that is invested in the one machine pays
dividends, while the other machine imposes a continuous tax upon the
owner. This, of course, will be recognized as the line of argument of
the efficiency expert, but it certainly is not out of place to call
attention to the matter in connection with school work. The subject of
efficiency is quite within the province of the school, and it would seem
to be wholly within reason for the school to exemplify its own
teachings.

=Appraisal of teaching expertness.=--The teacher who requires thirty
minutes for division of fractions which the other teacher compasses in
ten minutes consumes twenty minutes unnecessarily in each recitation
period, or two hundred minutes in the course of the day. The efficiency
expert would ask her to account for these two hundred minutes. In order
to account for them satisfactorily she would be compelled to take an
inventory of her acquired habits, her predilections, her attitude toward
her pupils and her subjects, and any shortcomings she may have in regard
to methods of teaching. She would, at first, resent the implication that
the other teacher's method of teaching division of fractions is better
than her own and would cite the many years during which her method has
been used. When all else fails, tradition always proves a convenient
refuge. We can always prove to-day by yesterday; only, by so doing, we
deny the possibility of progress.

=The potency of right methods.=--A teacher of Latin once used twenty
minutes in a violent attempt to explain the difference between the
gerund construction and the gerundive construction. At the end of the
time she had the pupils so completely muddled that, for months, the
appearance of either of these constructions threw them into a condition
of panic. To another class, later, this teacher explained these
constructions clearly and convincingly in three minutes. In the meantime
she had studied methods in connection with subject matter. Another
teacher resigned her position and explained her action by confessing
that she had become so accustomed to the traditional methods of teaching
a certain phase of arithmetic that it was impossible for her to learn
the newer one. Such a teacher must be given credit for honesty even
while she illustrates tragedy.

=The waste of time.=--In explaining the loss of two hundred minutes a
day the teacher will inevitably come upon the subject of methods of
teaching, and she may be put to it to justify her method in view of its
results. The more diligently she tries to justify her method, the more
certainly she proclaims her responsibility for a wrong use of the
method. Those twenty minutes point at her the accusing finger, and she
can neither blink nor escape the facts. The other teacher led her pupils
into a knowledge of the subject in ten minutes, and this one may neither
abrogate nor amend the record. As an operative in the factory she holds
in her hand one shoe as the result of her thirty minutes while the other
holds three. Conceding that results in the school are not so tangible as
the results in the factory, still we have developed methods of
estimating results in the school that have convincing weight with the
efficiency expert. We can estimate results in school work with
sufficient accuracy to enable us to assess teaching values with a goodly
degree of discrimination.

=Possibilities.=--It would be a comparatively simple matter to compute
in days and weeks the time lost during the year by the thirty-minute
teacher, and then estimate the many things that the pupils could
accomplish in that time. If the thirty-minute teacher could be
transformed into a ten-minute teacher, the children could have three
more hours each day for play, and that would be far better for them than
the ordeal of sitting there in the class, the unwilling witnesses, or
victims, of the time-wasting process. Or they might read a book in the
two hundred minutes and that would be more enjoyable, and the number of
books thus read in the course of a year would aggregate quite a library.
Or, again, they might take some additional studies and so make great
gains in mental achievements in their twelve years of school life. Or
they might learn to work with their hands and so achieve self-reliance,
self-support, and self-respect.

=Conservation.=--In a word, there is no higher type of conservation than
the conservation of childhood, in terms of time and interest. The two
hundred minutes a day are a vital factor in the life of the child and
must be regarded as highly valuable. The teacher, therefore, who
subtracts this time from the child's life is assuming a responsibility
not to be lightly esteemed. She takes from him his most valuable
possession and one which she can never return, try as she may. Worst of
all, she purloins this element of time clandestinely, albeit
seductively, in the guise of friendship. The child does not know that he
is the victim of unfair treatment until it is too late to set up any
defense. He is made to think that that is the natural and, therefore,
only way of school, and that he must take things as they come if he is
to prove himself a good soldier. So he musters what heroism he can and
tries to smile while the teacher despoils him of the minutes he might
better be employing in play, in reading, or in work.

=The teacher's complacency.=--This would seem a severe indictment if it
were incapable of proof, but having been proved by incontrovertible
evidence its severity cannot be mitigated. We can only grieve that the
facts are as they are and ardently hope for a speedy change. The chief
obstacle in the way of improvement is the complacency of the teacher.
Habits tend to persist, and if she has contracted the habit of much
speaking, she thinks her volubility should be accounted a virtue and
wonders that the children do not applaud the bromidic platitudes which
have been uttered in the same form and in the same tones a hundred
times. She is so intoxicated with her own verbosity that she can neither
listen to the sounds of her own voice nor analyze her own utterances.
While her neighbor is teaching she is talking, and then with sublime
nonchalance she ascribes the retardation of her pupils to their own
dullness and never, in any least degree, to her own unprofitable use of
their time.

=The voluble teacher.=--And while she rambles on in her aimless talking
the children are bored, inexpressibly bored. It is axiomatic that the
learning process does not flourish in a state of boredom. Under the
ordeal of verbal inundation the children wriggle and squirm about in
their seats and this affords her a new point of attack. She calls them
ill-bred and unmannerly and wonders at the homes that can produce such
children. She does not realize that if these children were grown-ups
they would leave the room regardless of consequences. When they yawn,
she reminds them of the utter futility of casting pearls before swine.
All the while the twenty minutes are going and the pupils have not yet
learned how to divide fractions. Over in the next room the pupils know
full well how to divide fractions and the teacher is rewarding their
diligence with a cookie in the form of a story, while they wait for the
bell to ring. Out of the room of the thirty-minute teacher come the
children glowering and resentful; out of the other room the children
come buoyant and happy.

=The test of teaching.=--Not alone did the former teacher use the time
of her pupils for her own ends, but, even more, she dulled their
interest, and the damage thus inflicted cannot be estimated. Many a
child has deserted the school because the teacher made school life
disagreeable. She was the wet blanket upon his enthusiasm and chilled
him to the marrow when he failed to go forward upon her traditional
track. The teacher who can generate in the minds of her pupils a
spiritual ignition by her every movement and word will not be humiliated
by desertions. Indeed, the test of the teacher is the mental attitude of
her pupils. The child who drags and drawls through the lesson convicts
the teacher of a want of expertness. On the other hand, when the pupils
are all wide-awake, alert, animated, eager to respond, and dynamic, we
know that the teacher has brought this condition to pass and that she is
a ten-minute teacher.

=Meaningless formalities.=--One of the influences that tends to deaden
the interest of children is the ponderous formality that sometimes
obtains. The teacher solemnly calls the roll, although she can see at a
glance that there are no absentees. This is exceedingly irksome to
wide-awake boys and girls who are avid for variety. The same monotonous
calling of the roll day after day with no semblance of variation induces
in them a sort of mental dyspepsia for which they seek an antidote in
what the teacher denominates disorder. This so-called disorder betokens
good health on their part and is a revelation of the fact that they have
a keen appreciation of the fitness of things. They cannot brook monotony
and it irks them to dawdle about in the anteroom of action. They are
eager to do their work if only the teacher will get right at it. But
they are impatient of meaningless preliminaries. They see no sense in
calling the roll when everybody is present and discredit the teacher who
persists in the practice.

=Repeating answers.=--Still another characteristic of the thirty-minute
teacher is her habit of repeating the answers that pupils give, with the
addition of some inane comment. Whether this repeating of answers is
merely a bad habit or an effort on the part of the teacher to
appropriate to herself the credit that should otherwise accrue to the
pupils, it is not easy to say. Certain it is that school inspectors
inveigh against the practice mightily as militating against the
effectiveness of the teaching. Teachers who have been challenged on this
point make a weak confession that they repeat the answers unconsciously.
They thus make the fatal admission that for a part of the time of the
class exercise they do not know what they are doing, and admitting so
much we can readily classify them as belonging among the thirty-minute
teachers.

=Meanderings.=--Another characteristic is her tendency to wander away
from the direct line and ramble about among irrelevant and
inconsequential trifles. Sometimes these rambles are altogether
entertaining and enable her pupils to pass the time pleasantly, but they
lack "terminal facilities." They lead from nowhere to nowhere in the
most fascinating and fruitless meanderings. Such expeditions bring back
no emoluments. They leave a pleasant taste in the mouth but afford no
nourishment. They use the time but exact no dividends. Like sheet
lightning they are beautiful but never strike anything. They are
soothing sedatives that never impel to action. They lull to repose but
never vitalize.

=The ten-minute teacher.=--It is evident, therefore, that only the
ten-minute teacher is worthy of a place in the vitalized school. She
alone is able and willing to conserve, with religious zeal, the time and
interest of the pupils. To her their time and interest are sacred and
she deems it a sacrilege to trifle with them. She knows the market value
of her own time but does not know the value of the time of the possible
Edison who sits in her class. She gives to every child the benefit of
the doubt and respects both herself and her pupils too much to take
chances by pitting herself against them and using their time for her own
purposes. Moreover, she never permits their interest to flag, but knows
how to keep their minds tense. Their reactions are never less than
incisive, and, therefore, the truths of the lesson groove themselves
deep in their consciousness.


QUESTIONS AND EXERCISES

1. What is meant by the time element in teaching?

2. How is an operation in a factory timed? For what purpose? What are
some of the results that have accrued from the timing of work by
efficiency experts?

3. How can teaching be timed approximately? Is it probable that more of
this will be done in the future by supervisors and investigators? Would
you resent the timing of your work? Would you appreciate it? Why?

4. What may be done, in the matter of bodily positions, to improve
mental time-reactions of the student? Of the teacher?

5. The literature of a typewriter manufacturer carries the precept "Sit
erect." What are the reasons?

6. What two factors must be considered in estimating mental work with a
view to time considerations?

7. If the attainment of school results by the teacher were treated as
the attainment of factory results by the operator, what would happen if
a large per cent of the time spent on a process were unnecessary?

8. Apply the factory manager's argument in detail to the teacher's
efficiency. If you can, show wherein it fails to apply.

9. What result besides waste of time may come of a cumbersome method of
teaching?

10. How can one acquire a clear-cut method?

11. A professor of physics was asked by a former student who was
beginning to teach for suggestions on the teaching of physics. His only
reply was "Know your subject thoroughly." Was this a satisfactory
response? Give reasons for your opinion.

12. If the teacher can have lessons finished with greater rapidity, what
can be done with the time thus remaining?

13. Show that the teacher must attend to the conservation of time in
order to protect the child.

14. In what way besides the direct waste of the minutes is the
expenditure of undue time unfortunate?

15. In what particular way do many teachers lose much of the
recitation-lesson or study-lesson period?

16. What are the results of an undue expenditure of time in this way?

17. What is the relation between the waste of time in school and the
exodus of children from the upper grades?

18. What do you think of a teacher who persists in "meaningless
formalities"?

19. How does the repeating of answers by the teacher affect the pupils?

20. A teacher says she repeats answers often because pupils speak low
and indistinctly. What are the proper remedies for this?

21. What should be the teacher's rule in regard to digressions?

22. Why should every teacher strive to be a "ten-minute" teacher, and
why should every supervisor strive to recommend no others?

23. What corollary can be drawn on the advisability of the employment of
no teachers except those recommended by competent supervisors?




CHAPTER XIII

THE ARTIST TEACHER


=Teaching as a fine art.=--Teaching is an art. This fact has universal
recognition. But it may be made a fine art, a fact that is not so
generally recognized. The difference between the traditional school and
the vitalized school lies in the fact, to a large degree, that, in the
former, teaching is regarded merely as an art, while in the latter it
becomes a fine art. In the former, the teacher is an artisan; in the
latter the teacher is an artist. The difference is broadly significant.
The artisan, in his work, follows directions, plans, specifications, and
blue-prints that have been devised and designed by others; the artist
imbues his work with imagination. The artisan works by the day--so much
money for so many hours' work with pay day as his large objective; the
artist does not disdain pay day, but he has an objective beyond this and
has other sources of pleasure besides the pay envelope. The artisan
thinks and talks of pay day; the artist thinks and talks of his work.
The artisan drops his work when the bell rings; the artist is so
engrossed in his work that he does not hear the bell. The artisan plods
at his task with a grudging mien; the artist works in a fine frenzy.

=Characteristic qualities.=--It is not easy to find the exact words by
which to differentiate the traditional teacher from the artist teacher.
There is an elusive quality in the artist teacher which is not easily
reduced to or described by formal words. We know that the one is an
artist teacher and that the other is not. The formal examination may not
be able to discover the artist teacher, but there is a sort of knowledge
that transcends the findings of an examination, that makes her identity
known. She is a real flesh and blood person and yet she has a
distinctive quality that cannot be mistaken even though it eludes
description. She exhales a certain exquisiteness that reveals itself in
the delicacy and daintiness of her contact with people and the objective
world. Her impact upon the consciousness is no more violent than the
fragrance of the rose, but, all at once, she is there and there to stay,
modest, serene, and masterful.

She is as gentle as the dawn but as staunch as the oak. She has
knowledge and wisdom, and, better still, she has understanding; she
needs no diagram. Her gaze penetrates the very heart of a situation but
is never less than kindly, and her eyes are never shifty. Her aplomb,
her pose, and her poise belong to her quite as evidently as her hands.
She is genuine and altogether free from affectation. Her presence
stimulates without intoxicating, and she accepts the respect of people
with the same naturalness and grace as would accompany her acceptance of
a glass of water. Both the giver and the recipient of this respect are
ennobled by the giving. Indeed she would far rather have the respect of
people, her pupils included, than mere admiration, for she knows full
well that respect is far more deeply rooted in the spirit and bears
fruit that is more worth while. Her nature knows not inertia, but it
abounds in enterprise, endeavor, and courage that are born of a high
purpose.

=Joy in her work.=--Her teaching and her life do not occupy separate
compartments but are identical in time and space; only her teaching is
but one phase or manifestation of her life. She fitly exemplifies the
statement that "Art is the expression of man's joy in his work." She has
great joy in her work and, therefore, it is done as any other artist
does his work. She enjoys all life, including her work. Indeed, she has
contracted the habit of happiness and is so engrossed in the big
elemental things of life that she can laugh at the incidental pin-pricks
that others call troubles. She differentiates major from minor and never
permits a minor to usurp the throne. Being an integral part of her life,
her work takes on all the hues of her life. For her, culture is not
something added; rather it is a something that permeates her whole
nature and her whole life. She does not read poetry and other forms of
literature, study the great masterpieces of music and art, and seek
communion with the great, either in person or through their works--she
does not do these things that she may acquire culture, but does them
because she has culture.

=Dynamic qualities.=--Her character is the sum of all her habits of
thinking, feeling, and action and, therefore, is herself. Since she is
an artist, her habits are all pitched in a high key and she is culture
personified. Her immaculateness of body and spirit is not a superficial
acquisition but a fundamental expression of her real self. Just as the
electric bulb diffuses light, so she diffuses an atmosphere of culture.
She gives the artistic touch to every detail of her work because she is
an artist, a genuine, sincere artist in all that makes up life. She has
the heart of an artist, the eyes of an artist, the touch of an artist.
Whether these qualities are inherent or acquired is beside the point, at
present, but it may be remarked, in passing, that unless they were
capable of cultivation, the world would be at a standstill. There is no
place in her exuberant vitality for a jaundiced view, and hence her
world does not become "stale, flat, and unprofitable."

=Aspiration and worship.=--Every sincere, noble aspiration is a prayer;
hence, she prays without ceasing in obedience to the admonition of the
Apostle. And, let it be said in reverence, she helps to answer her own
prayers. Her spirit yearns out toward higher and wider attainments every
hour of the day, not morbidly but exultantly. And while she aspires she
worships. The starry sky holds her in rapt attention and admiration, and
the modest flower does no less. She is thankful for the rain, and revels
in the beauty and abundance of the snow. The heat may enervate, but she
is grateful, none the less, because of its beneficent influence upon the
farmer's work. Like food and sleep, her attitude of worship conserves
her powers and preserves her balance. When physical weariness comes, she
sends her spirit out to the star, or the sea, or the mountain, and so
forgets her burden in the contemplation of majesty and beauty. In short,
her spirit is attuned to all beauty and sublimity and truth, and so she
is inherently an artist.

=Professor Phelps quoted.=--In his very delightful book, "Teaching in
School and College," the author, Professor William Lyon Phelps, says: "I
do not know that I could make entirely clear to an outsider the pleasure
I have in teaching. I had rather earn my living by teaching than in any
other way. In my mind, teaching is not merely a life work, a profession,
an occupation, a struggle; it is a passion. I love to teach. I love to
teach as a painter loves to paint, as a musician loves to play, as a
singer loves to sing, as a strong man rejoices to run a race. Teaching
is an art--an art so great and so difficult to master that a man or a
woman can spend a long life at it, without realizing much more than his
limitations and mistakes, and his distance from the ideal. But the main
aim of my happy days has been to become a good teacher, just as every
architect wishes to be a good architect, and every professional poet
strives toward perfection. For the chief difference between the ambition
of the artist and the ambition of a money-maker--both natural and
honorable ambitions--is that the money-maker is after the practical
reward of his toil, while the artist wants the inner satisfaction that
accompanies mastery."

=Attitude toward work.=--To these sentiments the artist teacher
subscribes whole-heartedly, if not in words, certainly by her attitude
and practices. She regards her work not as a task but as a privilege,
and thinking it a privilege she appreciates it as she would any other
privilege. She would esteem it a privilege to attend a concert by
high-class artists, or to visit an art gallery, or to witness a
presentation of a great drama, or to see the Jungfrau; and she feels the
same exaltation as she anticipates her work as a teacher. She sings on
her way to school because of the privileges that await her. She
experiences a fine flow of sentiment without becoming sentimental.
Teaching, to her, is a serious business, but not, in the least, somber.
Painting is a serious business, but the artist's zeal and joy in his
work give wings to the hours. Laying the Atlantic cable was a serious
business, but the vision of success was both inspiring and inspiriting,
and temporary mishaps only served to stimulate to greater effort.

=The element of enthusiasm.=--To this teacher, each class exercise is an
enterprise that is big with possibilities; and, in preparation for the
event, she feels something of the thrill that must have animated
Columbus as he faced the sea. She estimates results more by the faces of
her pupils than by the marks in a grade book, for the field of her
endeavors is the spirit of the child, and the face of the child
telegraphs to her the awakening of the spirit. Like the sculptor, she is
striving to bring the angel of her dream into the face of the child; and
when this hope is realized, the privilege of being a teacher seems the
very acme of human aspirations. The animated face and the flashing eye
betoken the sort of life that her teaching aims to stimulate; and when
she sees these unmistakable manifestations, she knows that her big
enterprise is a success and rejoices accordingly. If, for any reason,
her enthusiasm is running low, she takes herself in hand and soon
generates the enthusiasm that she knows is indispensable to the success
of her enterprise.

=Redemption of common from commonplace.=--She has the supreme gift of
being able to redeem the common from the plane of the commonplace.
Indeed, she never permits any fact of the books to become commonplace to
her pupils. They all know that Columbus discovered America in 1492, but
when the recitation touches this fact she invests it with life and
meaning and so makes it glow as a factor in the class exercise. The
humdrum traditional teacher asks the question; and when the pupil drones
forth the answer, "Columbus discovered America in 1492," she dismisses
the whole matter with the phonographic response, "Very good." What a
farce! What a travesty upon the work of the teacher! Instead of being
very good, it is bad, yea, inexpressibly bad. The artist teacher does it
far better. By the magic of her touch she causes the imagination of her
pupils to be fired and their interest to thrill with the mighty
significance of the great event. They feel, vicariously, the poverty of
Columbus in his appeals for aid and wish they might have been there to
assist. They find themselves standing beside the intrepid mariner,
watching the angry waves striving to beat him back. They watch him
peering into space, day after day, and feel a thousand pities for him in
his suspense. And when he steps out upon the new land, they want to
shout out their salvos and proclaim him a victor.

=The voyage of Columbus.=--They have yearned, and striven, and prayed
with Columbus, and so have lived all the events of his great
achievements. Hence, it can never be commonplace in their thinking. The
teacher lifted it far away from that plane and made it loom high and
large in their consciousness. A dramatic critic avers that the action of
the play occurs, not upon the stage, but in the imagination of the
auditors; that the players merely cause the imagination to produce the
action; and that if nothing were occurring in the imagination of the
people in the seats beyond what is occurring on the stage, the audience
would leave the theater by way of protest. The artist teacher acts upon
this very principle in every class exercise. Neither the teacher nor the
book can possibly depict even a moiety of all that she hopes to produce
in the imagination of the pupils. She is ever striving to find the one
word or sentence that will evoke a whole train of events in their minds.
Just here is where her superb art is shown. A whole volume could not
portray all that the imagination of the pupils saw in connection with
the voyage of Columbus, and yet the teacher caused all these things to
happen by the use of comparatively few words. This is high art; this
proclaims the artist teacher.

=Resourcefulness.=--In her work there is a fineness and a delicacy of
touch that baffles a satisfactory analysis. She has the power to call
forth Columbus from the past to reënact his great discovery in the
imagination of her pupils--all without noise, or bombast, or
gesticulation. She does what she does because she is what she is; and
she needs neither copyright nor patent for protection. Her work is
suffused with a rare sort of enthusiasm that carries conviction by
reason of its genuineness. This enthusiasm gives to her work a tone and
a flavor that can neither be disguised nor counterfeited. Her work is
distinctive, but not sensational or pyrotechnic. Least of all is it ever
hackneyed. So resourceful is she in devising new plans and new ways of
saying and doing things that her pupils are always animated by a
wholesome expectancy. She is the dynamo, but the light and heat that she
generates manifest themselves in the minds of her pupils, while she
remains serene and quiet.

=The thirteen colonies.=--With the poet Keats she can sing:

  Beauty is truth, truth beauty, that is all
  Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.

Animated by this sentiment, she disdains no form of truth, whether large
or small, for in every form of truth she finds beauty; and her spirit
reacts to it on the instant, and joy is the resultant. This is the basis
for her superb enthusiasm in every detail of her work as well as the
source of her joyous living. Her pupils may name the thirteen original
colonies without a slip, but that is not enough for her. The
establishing of these colonies formed a mighty epoch in history, and she
must dwell upon the events until they throb through the life currents of
her pupils. Names in books must mean people with all their hopes, their
aspirations, their trials and hardships, their sorrows and their joys.
The conditions of life, the food, the clothing, the houses, the modes of
travel, and the dangers must all come into the mental picture. Hence it
is that she prepares for the lesson on the colonies as she would make
ready for a trip with the pupils around the world, and the mere giving
of names is negligible in her inspiring enterprise.

=Every subject invested with life.=--She finds in the circulation of the
blood a subject of great import and makes ready for the lesson with
enthusiastic anticipation. Her step is elastic as she takes her way to
school on this particular day, and her face is beaming, for to-day comes
to the children this stupendous revelation. She feels as did the college
professor when he was just ready to begin an experiment in his
laboratory and said to his students, "Gentlemen, please remove your
hats; I am about to ask God a question." She approaches every truth
reverently, albeit joyously, for she feels that she is the leader of the
children over into the Promised Land. In the book already quoted,
Professor Phelps says, "I read in a German play that the mathematician
is like a man who lives in a glass room at the top of a mountain covered
with eternal snow--he sees eternity and infinity all about him, but not
much humanity." Not so in her teaching of mathematics; for every subject
and every problem transports her to the Isle of Patmos, and the hour is
crowded with revelations.

=Human interest.=--And wherever she is, there is humanity. There are no
dry bones in her work, for she invests every subject with human interest
and causes it to pulsate in the consciousness of her pupils. If there
are dry bones when she arrives, she has but to touch them with the magic
of her humanity, and they become things of life. Whether long division
or calculus, it is to her a part of the living, palpitating truth of the
world, and she causes it to live before the minds of the pupils. The
so-called dead languages spring to life in her presence, and, like
Aaron's rod, blossom and bring forth at her touch. Wherever she walks
there are resurrections because life begets life. No science, no
mathematics, no history, no language, can be dull or dry when touched by
her art, but all become vital because she is vital. By the subtle
alchemy of her artistic teaching all the subjects of her school are
transmuted into the pure gold of truth and beauty.


QUESTIONS AND EXERCISES

1. What kinds of arts are there other than the fine arts?

2. How do the motives of the artisan differ from those of the artist?

3. What are some of the characteristics that gain one the distinction of
being an "artist" teacher?

4. Show that to enjoy respect is more worth while than to attract
admiration.

5. Under what conditions can one have joy in his work? Can one do his
best without it?

6. What is the result on one's work of brooding over troubles?

7. Henry Ford employs trained sociologists who see that the home
relations of his employees are satisfactory. Why?

8. Is one who reads good literature to acquire culture as yet an
"artist" teacher?

9. What constitutes character?

10. What is the inference concerning one's culture if his clothes and
body are not clean? If his property at the school is not in order?

11. How can one add to his culture? Is what one knows or what one does
the more important part of it? Has a high degree of culture been
attained by a person who must ever be on his guard?

12. Is feeling an important element of culture? Illustrate.

13. What is the teacher's chief reward?

14. Can a teacher lead pupils to regard work as a privilege rather than
as a task, unless she has that attitude herself?

15. In what respects do you regard teaching as a privilege? In what
respects is it drudgery to you?

16. Can enthusiasm result if there is a lack of joy in one's work? If
there is a deficiency of physical strength? If there is a poor knowledge
of the subject?

17. What causes historical facts to seem commonplace?

18. What elements should be emphasized in history to make it seem alive
with meaning?

19. What principle of the drama comes into play in teaching, when a
teacher desires to invest the subject with life?

20. What advantages are there in having variety in one's plans?

21. Why should one avoid the sensational in school work? What are the
characteristics of sensationalism? Is the fact that a class is unusually
aroused a reason for decrying a method as sensational?

22. With what spirit should a teacher prepare to teach about the
thirteen colonies?

23. Why should a teacher have great joy in the teaching of science?

24. Is interest in a subject as an abstract science likely to be an
adequate interest? If so, is it the best sort of interest? Why?

25. From what should interest start, and in what should it function?

26. Summarize the ways in which the artist teacher will show herself the
artist.




CHAPTER XIV

THE TEACHER AS AN IDEAL


=Responsibility of the exemplar.=--If the teacher could be convinced
that each of her pupils is to become a replica of herself, she would
more fully appreciate the responsibilities of her position. At first
flush, she might feel flattered; but when she came into a full
realization of the magnitude of the responsibility, she would probably
seek release. If she could know that each pupil is striving to copy her
in every detail of her life, her habits of speech, her bodily movements,
her tone of voice, her dress, her walk, and even her manner of thinking,
this knowledge would appall her, and she would shrink from the
responsibility of becoming the exemplar of the child. She cannot know,
however, to what extent and in what respects the pupils imitate her.
Nor, perhaps, could they themselves give definite information on these
points, if they were put to the test. Children imitate their elders both
consciously and unconsciously; so, whether the teacher wills it so or
not, she must assume the functions of an exemplar as well as a teacher.

=Absorbing standards.=--If we give full credence to Tennyson's
statement, "I am a part of all that I have met," then it follows that we
have become what we are, in some appreciable measure, through the
process of absorption. In other words, we are a composite of all our
ideals. The vase of flowers, daintily arranged, on the breakfast table
becomes the standard of good taste thenceforth, and all through life a
vase of flowers arranged less than artistically gives one a sensation of
discomfort. A traveler relates that in a hotel in Brussels he saw window
curtains of a delicate pattern; and, since that time, he has sought in
many cities for curtains that will fill the measure of the ideal he
absorbed in that hotel. Beauty is not in the thing itself, but in the
eye of the beholder, and the eye is but the interpreter of the ideal.
One person rhapsodizes over a picture that another turns away from,
because the latter has absorbed an ideal that is unknown to the former.

=Education by absorption.=--This subject of absorption has not received
the careful attention that its importance warrants. In the social
consciousness education has been so long associated with books, and
formal processes, that we find it difficult to conceive of education
outside of or beyond books. If, as we so confidently assert, education
is a spiritual process, then whatever stimulates the spirit must be
education, whether a landscape, a flower, a picture, or a person. The
traveler who sits enrapt before the Jungfrau for an hour or a day is
becoming more highly educated, even in the absence of books and
formalities. The beauty of the mountain touches his spirit, and there is
a consequent reaction that fulfills all the claims of the educational
processes. In short, he is lifted to a higher plane of appreciation, and
that is what the books and the schools are striving to achieve.

=The principle illustrated.=--In the presence of this mountain the
tourist gains an ideal of grandeur which becomes his standard of
estimating scenery throughout life. A boy once heard "The Dead March"
played by an artist, and when he was grown to manhood that was still his
ideal of majestic music. A traveler asserts that no man can stand for an
hour on the summit of Mt. Rigi and not become a better and a stronger
man for the experience. A writer on art says that it is worth a trip
across the ocean to see the painting of the bull by Paul Potter; but
that, of course, depends upon the ideals of the beholder. All these
illustrations conform to and are in harmony with the psychological
dictum that in the educational process the spirit reacts to its
environment.

=The teacher as environment.=--But the environment may include people as
well as inanimate objects, mountains, rivers, flowers, and pictures.
And, as a part of the child's environment, the teacher takes her place
in the process of education by absorption. A city superintendent avers
that there is one teacher in his corps who would be worth more to his
school than the salary she receives even if she did no teaching. This
means that her presence in the school is a wholesome influence, and that
she is the sort of environment to which the pupils react to their own
advantage. It might not be a simple thing to convince some taxpayers of
the truth of the superintendent's statement, but this fact only proves
that they have not yet come into a realization of the fact that there
can be education by absorption.

=The Great Stone Face.=--The people of Florence maintain that they need
not travel abroad to see the world, for the reason that the world comes
to them. It is true that many thousands visit that city annually to win
a definition of art. There they absorb their ideals of art and thus
attain abiding standards. In like manner the child may sojourn in the
school to gain an ideal of grace of manner and personal charm as
exemplified by the teacher, and no one will have the temerity to assert
that this phase of the child's education is less important than those
that are acquired through the formal processes. The boy in the story
grew into the likeness of the "Great Stone Face" because that had become
his ideal, and not because he had had formal instruction in the subject
of stone faces, or had taken measurements of or computed the dimensions
of the one stone face. He grew into its likeness because he thought of
it, dreamed of it, absorbed it, and was absorbed by it, and reacted to
it whenever it came into view.

=Pedagogy in literature.=--Hawthorne, in this story, must have been
trying to teach the lesson of unconscious education or education by
absorption, but his readers have not all been quick to catch his
meaning. Teachers often take great unction in the reflection that they
afford to the child his only means of education, and that but for them
the child would never become educated at all. We are slow to admit that
there are many sources of education besides the school, and that formal
instruction is not the only road to the acquisition of knowledge.
Tennyson knew and expressed this conception in the quotation already
given, but we have not acquired the habit of consulting the poets and
novelists for our pedagogy. When we learn to consult these, we shall
find them expressing many tenets of pedagogy that are basic.

=The testimony of experience.=--But we need not go beyond our own
experiences to realize that much of our education has been unconsciously
gained, that we have absorbed much of it, and, possibly, what we now
regard as the most vital part of it. We have but to explore our own
experiences to discover some person whose standards have been effective
in luring us out of ourselves and causing us to yearn toward higher
levels; who has been the beacon light toward which our feet have been
stumbling; who has been the pattern by which we have sought to shape our
lives; and for whom we feel a sense of gratitude that cannot be
quenched. The influence of that person has been a liberal education in
the vital things that the books do not teach, and we shudder to think
what we might have been had that influence not come into our lives. This
ideal is not some mythical, far-away person, but a real man or woman who
has challenged our admiration by looks, by conduct, by position, and by
general bearing in society.

=The one teacher.=--This preliminary part of the subject has been dwelt
upon thus at length in an effort to win assent to the general
proposition that unconscious education is not only possible, but an
actuality. This assent being once given, the mind feels out at once for
applications of the principle and, inevitably, brings the parent and the
teacher into the field of view. But the parent is too near to us in
time, in space, and in relation to afford the illustration that we seek,
and we pass on to the teacher. In the experience of each one of us there
stands out at least one teacher as clear in definition as a cameo. This
teacher may not have been the most scholarly, or the most successful in
popular esteem, or even the most handsome, but she had some quality that
differentiates her in our thinking from all others. Others may seem but
a sort of blur in our memory, but not so this one. She alone is
distinct, distinctive, and regnant.

=Her supremacy.=--The vicissitudes of life have not availed to dethrone
her, nor have the losses, perplexities, and sorrows of life caused the
light of her influence to grow dim. She is still an abiding presence
with us, nor can we conceive of any influence that could possibly
obliterate her. She may have been idealized by degrees, but when she
came fully into our lives she came to stay. She came not as a transient
guest, but as a lifelong friend and comrade. She crept into our lives as
gently as the dawn comes over the hills, and since her arrival there has
been no sunset. Nor was there ever by pupil or teacher any profession or
protestation, but we simply accepted each other with a frankness that
would have been weakened by words.

=The rôle of ideal.=--But the rôle of ideal is not an easy one. It is a
comparatively simple matter to give instruction in geography,
arithmetic, and history, but to know one's self to be the ideal of a
child, or to conceive of the possibility of such a situation and
relation, is sufficient to render the teacher deeply thoughtful. Once it
is borne in upon her that the child will grow into her likeness, she
cannot dismiss the matter from her thinking as she can the lesson in
grammar. The child may be unconscious of the matter, but the teacher is
acutely conscious. When she stands before her class she sees the child
growing into her image, and this reflection gives cause and occasion for
a careful and critical introspection. She feels constrained to take an
inventory of herself to determine whether she can stand a test that is
so searching and so far-reaching.

=The teacher's other self.=--As she stands thus in contemplation she sees
the child grown to maturity with all her own predilections--physical,
mental, spiritual--woven into the pattern of its life. In this child
grown up she sees her other self and can thus estimate the qualities of
body, mind, and spirit that now constitute herself, as they reveal
themselves in another. She thus gains the child's point of view and so is
able to see herself through the child's eyes. When she is reading a book,
she is aware that the child is looking over her shoulder to note the
quality of literature that engages her interest. When she is making a
purchase at the shop, she finds the child standing at her elbow and
duplicating her order. When she is buying a picture, she is careful to
see to it that there are two copies, knowing that a second copy must be
provided for the child. When she is arranging her personal adornment, she
is conscious of the child peeping through the door and absorbing her with
languishing eyes.

=The status irrevocable.=--Wherever she goes or whatever she does, she
knows that the child is walking in her footsteps and reënacting her
conduct. Her status is irrevocably fixed in the life of the child, nor
can any philosophy or sophistry absolve her from the situation. She
cannot abdicate her place in favor of another, nor can she win immunity
from responsibility. She is the child's ideal for weal or woe, nor can
men or angels change this big fact. Through all the hours of the day she
hears the child saying, "Whither thou goest I will go," and there is no
escape.

=The child's viewpoint.=--This is no flight of fancy. Rather it is a
reality in countless schoolrooms of the land if only the teachers were
alive to the fact. But we have been so busy measuring, estimating,
scoring, and surveying the child for our purposes that we have given but
scant consideration to the child's point of view as regards the teacher.
We have not been quick to note the significant fact that the child is
estimating, measuring, scoring, and surveying the teacher for purposes
of its own and in the strictest obedience to the laws of its nature.

=The child's need of ideals.=--Every child needs and has a right to
ideals, and finds the teacher convenient both in space and in the nature
of her work to act in this capacity. Because of the character of her
work and her peculiar relation to the child, the teacher assumes a place
of leadership, and the child naturally appropriates her as the lodestar
for which his nature is seeking. And so, whether the teacher leads into
the morass or into the jungle, the child will follow; but if she elects
to take her way up to the heights, there will be the child as faithful
as her shadow. If the teacher plucks flowers by the way, then, in time,
gathering flowers will become habitual to the child, nor will there be
any need to admonish the child to gather flowers. The teacher plucks
flowers, and that becomes the child's command. Education by absorption
needs neither admonition nor homilies.

=The ideal a perpetual influence.=--And all this is life--actual life,
fundamental life, and inevitable life. Moreover, the inevitableness of
this phase of life serves to accentuate its importance. The idealized
teacher gives to the child his ideals of conduct, literature, art,
music, home, school, and service. Take this teacher out of his life and
these ideals vanish. Better by far eliminate the formal instruction,
important as that may be made to be, than to rob the child of his
ideals. They are the influences that are ever active even when formal
instruction is quiescent. They are potent throughout the day and
throughout the year. They induce reactions and motor activities that
groove into habits, and they are the external stimuli to which the
spirit responds.

=The teacher's attitude.=--The vitalized school takes full cognizance of
this phase and means of education and gives large scope and freedom for
its exercise and development. The teacher is more concerned with who and
what her pupils are to be twenty years hence than she is in getting them
promoted to the next grade. She knows full well that vision clarifies
sight, and she is eager to enlarge their vision in order to make their
sight more keen and clear. She, therefore, adopts as her own standards
of life and conduct what she wishes for her pupils when they have come
to maturity. She may not proclaim herself an ideal teacher or a model
teacher, but she is cognizant of the fact that she is the model and the
ideal of one or more pupils in her school and bases her rule of life
upon this fact.

=Prophetic conduct.=--In her dress she decides between ornateness and
simplicity as a determining factor in the lives of her pupils both for
the present and for the years to come. In this she feels that she is but
doing her part in helping to determine the trend and quality of
civilization. She is reading such books as she hopes to find in their
libraries when they have come to administer homes of their own. She is
directing her thinking into such channels as will bear the thoughts of
her pupils out into the open sea of bigness and sublimity. Knowing that
pettiness will be inimical to society in the next generation, she is
careful to banish it from her own life.

=Her rule of life.=--In her thinking she comes into intimate relations
with the sea and all its ramified influences upon life. She invites the
mountains to take her into their confidence and reveal to her the
mysteries of their origin, and their influence upon the winds, the
seasons, the products of the earth, and upon life itself. She communes
with the great of all times that she may learn of their concepts as to
the immensities which the mind can explore, as well as intricate and
infinite manifestations of the human soul. She associates with the
planets and rides the spaces in their company. She asks the flowers, the
sunrise glow of the morning, the hues of the rainbow, and the drop of
dew to explain to her what God is, and rejoices in their responses.

=Her growth.=--And so, through her thinking she grows big--big in her
aspirations, big in her sympathies with all nature and mankind, big in
her altruism, and big in her conceptions of the universe and all that it
embraces. And when people come to know her they almost lose sight of the
teacher in their contemplation of the woman. Her pupils, by their close
contact and communion, became inoculated with the germs of her bigness
and so follow the lead of her thinking, her aspirations, her sympathies,
and her conceptions of life. Thus they grow into her likeness by
absorbing her thoughts, her ideals, her standards, in short, herself.

=Seeing life large.=--The bigness of her spirit and her ability to see
and feel life in the large superinduce dignity, poise, and serenity. She
never flutters; but, calm and masterful, she moves on her majestic way
with regal mien. Nor is her teaching less thorough or less effective
because she has a vision. On the contrary, she teaches cube root with
accuracy and still is able to see and to cause her pupils to see the
index finger pointing out and up toward the mathematical infinities. She
can give the latitude and longitude of Rome, and, while doing so, review
the achievements of that historic city. She can explain the action of
the geyser and still find time and inclination to take delight in its
wonders. She can analyze the flower and still revel in its beauty. She
can teach the details of history and find in them the footprints of
great historical movements. All these things her pupils sense and so
invest her with the attributes of an ideal.


QUESTIONS AND EXERCISES

1. Do most teachers realize to what extent they have influence?

2. Is it comfortable to think that one is an example? If not, why not?
Is it only teachers who need to feel that they are examples? Is it fair
to demand a higher standard of the teacher and preacher?

3. Give from your own experience instances in which you have absorbed an
ideal which has persisted. Is there danger of adopting an ideal that,
while it is worthy as far as it goes, is merely incidental and not worth
while? (Such are an accurate memory of unimportant details, certain
finesse in manners and speech, punctiliousness in engagements,
exhaustiveness in shopping before making purchases, perfection in
penmanship and other arts at the expense of speed: suggest others.)

4. How can the contemplation of a rainbow educate? What education should
result from a view of Niagara Falls?

5. What qualities would a teacher have to possess that her influence
aside from her teaching might be of more value than the teaching itself?

6. That one may have influence is it enough for one to be good, or is it
what one does that counts? Suggest lines of action for a teacher that
would increase her influence for good.

7. Explain how a fine unconscious influence exerted by a teacher helps
to keep pupils in school.

8. In Hawthorne's story of the _Great Stone Face_ what qualities were
attained by those whom Ernest expected to grow into the likeness?

9. Why did Ernest's face come to resemble that of the great stone face?

10. In what ways is good fiction of value to teachers?

11. Cite something that you have gained from the unconscious influence
of another.

12. What attainments or qualities have you yet to acquire in order to
stand out as "distinctive and regnant" to a good many pupils?

13. A bacteriologist makes a "culture" of a drop of blood, multiplying
many times the bacteria in it, to determine whether serious disease
germs are prevalent. If the influence of a person could be observed in a
large way, would that be conclusive as to the person's character, just
as the result of the culture proves the condition of the blood? May
there not be an obscure element in the teacher's character that is
having a deleterious effect? Or is it only the outstanding features of
his conduct that affect the pupils?

14. Why is it more important to acquire ideals than to acquire
knowledge?

15. Describe the attitude of the teacher toward the pupils in the
"vitalized" school.

16. Show how the teacher should have in view the future of the pupils.

17. Is it a compliment to be easily recognized as a teacher? Why or why
not?

18. Just what is meant by "narrowness" in a teacher? What is meant by
"bigness"? What is their effect if the teacher is taken as an ideal?

19. Can one instill high ideals in others without frequently absorbing
inspiration himself? What are suitable sources?




CHAPTER XV

THE SOCIALIZED RECITATION


=The term defined.=--The socialized recitation, as its name implies, is
a recitation in which teacher and pupils form themselves into a
committee of the whole for the purpose of investigating some phase of a
school study. In this committee the line of cleavage between teacher and
pupils is obliterated as nearly as possible, the teacher exercising only
so much of authority as will preserve the integrity of the group and
forestall its disintegration. The teacher thus becomes a coördinate and
coöperating member of the group, and her superior knowledge of the
subject is held in abeyance to be called into requisition only in an
emergency and as a last resort. It will readily be seen, however, that
the teacher's knowledge of the subject must be far more comprehensive in
such a procedure than in the question-and-answer type of recitation, for
the very cogent reason that the discussion is both liable and likely to
diverge widely from the limits of the book; and the teacher must be
conversant, therefore, with all the auxiliary facts. She must be able to
cite authorities in case of need, and make specific data readily
accessible to all members of the group. This presupposes wide reading on
her part, and a consequent familiarity with all the sources of knowledge
that have a bearing upon the subject under consideration.

=The pupil-teacher.=--In order to make the coöperative principle of the
recitation active in practice a pupil acts as chairman of the meeting,
serving in rotation, and gives direction to the discussion. He is
clothed with authority, also, to restrict the discussion to time limits
that there may be no semblance of monopoly and that the same rights and
privileges may be accorded to each member of the class. The chairman, in
short, acts both as captain and as umpire, with the teacher in the
background as the court of final appeal. Knowing the order of rotation,
each pupil knows in advance upon what day he is to assume the functions
of chairman and makes preparation accordingly, that he may acquit
himself with credit in measuring up to the added responsibilities which
the position imposes. In taking the chair he does not affect an air of
superiority for the reason that he knows the position to have come to
him by rotation and that upon his conduct of the duties depend his
chances for honor; and acting for his peers he is careful not to do
anything that will lead to a forfeiture of their respect and good will.

=Some advantages.=--It requires far more time to describe these
preliminary arrangements than it does to put them into operation.
Indeed, after the first day, they become well-nigh automatic. Because of
their adaptableness the pupils look upon the new order as the
established order, and, besides, the rotation in the chair affords a
pleasing antidote to monotony. Each day brings just enough novelty to
generate a wholesome degree of anticipation. They are all stimulated by
an eagerness to know just what the day will bring forth. The class
exercise is relieved of much of the heavy formalism that characterizes
the traditional recitation and that is so irksome to children of school
age. The socialized recitation is a worthy enterprise that enlists the
interest of all members of the group and unifies them upon the plane of
a common purpose. In the common quest they become members in a social
compact whose object is the investigation of some subject that has been
found worthy the attention and thoughtful consideration of scholars and
authors.

=The gang element.=--The members of the group represent all strata of
society, and the group is, in consequence, a working democracy. Moving
in the same direction under a common impulse and intent upon a laudable
enterprise, race and class distinctions are considered negligible, if,
indeed, they are not entirely overlooked or forgotten. The group is, in
truth, a sublimated gang with the undesirable elements eliminated and
the potential qualities of the gang retained. The gang spirit when
impelling in right directions and toward worthy ends is to be highly
commended. In the gang, each member stimulates and reënforces the other
members, and their achievements in combination amply justify their
coöperation. The potency of the gang spirit is well exemplified in such
enterprises as "tag day" for the benefit of charity, the sale of Red
Cross stamps, and the sale of special editions of papers. People
willingly enlist in these enterprises who would not do so but for the
element of coöperation. We have come to recognize and write upon the
psychology of the gang, and the socialized recitation strives to utilize
these psychological principles for the advancement and advantage of the
enterprise in hand.

=Proprietary interest.=--In a coöperative enterprise such as the one
under consideration each member of the group feels a sense of
responsibility for the success of the enterprise as a whole, and this
makes for increased effort. In the traditional recitation the pupil
feels responsibility only for that part of the lesson upon which he is
called to recite. In his thinking the enterprise belongs to the teacher,
and therefore he feels no proprietary interest. If the lesson is a
failure, he experiences no special compunction; if a success, he feels
no special elation. If the trunk with which he struggles up the stairs
is his own, he has the feeling of a victor when he reaches the top; but
since it belongs to the teacher, he feels that he has finished a
disagreeable task, takes his compensating pittance in the form of a
grade, and goes on his complacent way. The boy who digs potatoes from
his own garden thinks them larger and smoother than the ones he digs for
wages. The latter are potatoes, while the former are his potatoes.
Proprietary interest sinks its roots deep into the motives that impel to
action.

=This interest in practice.=--The recitation in question strives to
generate a proprietary interest in the enterprise on the part of every
member of the class so that each one may have a share in the joy of
success. Such an interest gives direction and efficacy to the work of
the class exercise. Given such an interest, the pupil will not sit inert
through the period unless stimulated by a question from the teacher, but
will ask intelligent and pertinent questions to help the enterprise
along. Moreover, each pupil, because of his proprietary interest in the
enterprise, will feel constrained to bring to class such subsidiary aids
as his home affords. His interest causes him to react to clippings,
pictures, magazine articles, books, and conversations that have a
bearing upon the topic, and these he contributes opportunely in his zeal
for the success of the recitation. His pockets become productive of a
varied assortment of materials that the tentacles of his interest have
seized upon in his preparation for the event, and so all members of the
class become beneficiaries of his explorations and discoveries.

=The potency of ownership.=--A child is interested in his own things.
The little girl fondles her doll in the most tender way, even though it
does not measure up to the accepted standards of excellence or elegance.
But it is her doll; hence her affection. Volumes have been written upon
the general subject of interest, and we have been admonished to attach
our teaching to the native interests of the child, but the fundamental
interest of proprietorship has strangely enough been overlooked. If we
want to discover and localize the child's interest, we have but to make
an inventory of his possessions. His pony, his dog, or his cart will
discover to us one of his interests. Again, if we would generate an
interest in the child, we have but to make him conscious that he is the
owner of the thing for which we hope to awaken his interest. This is
fundamental in this type of recitation. The teacher effaces herself as
much as possible in order to develop in the pupils a feeling of
proprietorship in the exercise in progress, and the pupils are quick to
take the advantage thus afforded to make the work their own.

=Exemplified in society.=--The socialized recitation has its counterpart
in many a group in society. In the blacksmith shop, at the grocery, in
the barber shop, in the office, at the club, and in the field, we find
groups of people in earnest, animated conversation or discussion. They
are discussing politics, religion, community affairs, public
improvements, tariff, war, fashions, crops, live stock, or machinery.
Whatever the topic, they pursue the give-and-take policy in their
efforts to arrive at the truth. They contest every point and make
concessions only when they are confronted by indisputable facts. Some
feeling, or even acrimony, may be generated in the course of the
discussion, but this is always accounted a weakness and a substitute for
valid argument. The recitation is rather more decorous than some of
these other discussions, but, in principle, they are identical. Every
one has freedom to express his convictions and to adduce contributory
arguments or evidence. There are no restrictions save the implied one of
decorum. The utmost courtesy obtains in the recitation, even at the
sacrifice of some eagerness. There may be a half-dozen members of the
group on their feet and anxious to be heard, but they do not interrupt
one another without due apology.

=Abiding resultants.=--Unlike some of their elders, they are ready to
acknowledge mistakes and to make concessions. They do not scruple to
correct the mistakes of others, knowing that corrections will be
gratefully received, but they do not accept mere statements from one
another. They must have evidence. They combat statements with evidence
from books or other sources that are regarded as authorities. They read
extracts, or draw diagrams, or display pictures or specimens in support
of their contentions. There is animation, to be sure; and, at times, the
flushed face and the flashing eye betoken intense feeling. But the
psychologist knows full well that these expressions intensify and make
abiding the impressions. Both in victory and in defeat the pupil comes
to an appreciation of the truth. Defeat may humiliate, but he will
evermore know the rock on which his craft was wrecked. Victory may elate
and exalt, but he will not forget the occasion or the facts. The truths
of the lesson become enmeshed in his nervous system and throughout life
they will be a part of himself.

=Reflex influence.=--Still further, this type of recitation reaches back
into the home and begets a wholesome coöperation between the home and
the school, and this is a desideratum of no slight import. The events of
the day are recounted at the home in the evening, and the contributions
of the members of the family are deposited as assets in the recitation
the next day. Then the family is eager to learn of the reactions of the
class to their contributions. Such a community of interests cannot be
confined to the four walls of a home, but finds its way to other homes
and to places of business; the discussions of the class become the
property of society, and the influence is most salutary. Indirectly, the
school is affording the people of the community many profitable topics
of conversation, and these readily supplant the futile and less
profitable topics. It is easy to measure the intelligence of an
individual or of a community by noting the topics of conversation.
Gossip and small talk do not thrive in a soil that has been thoroughly
inoculated with history, art, music, literature, economics, and
statecraft.

=Influence upon pupils.=--From the foregoing it will be seen that this
type of recitation represents, not a _modus operandi_, but, rather, a
_modus vivendi_, not a way of doing things, merely, but a manner of
living. The work of the school is redeemed from the plane of a task and
lifted to the plane of a privilege. The pupil's initiative is given full
recognition and inspiriting freedom ensues. The teacher is not a
taskmaster but a friend in need. Pupils and teacher live and work
together in an enterprise in which they have common interests. The
emoluments attending success are shared equally and there is no place
for envy in the distribution of dividends. There is fair dealing in
every detail of the work, with no semblance of discrimination. There is
a cash basis in every transaction. If a pupil's offerings are rejected,
he sees at once that they are inferior to others and becomes a willing
shareholder in the ones that are superior to his own. Nothing that is
spurious or counterfeit can gain currency in the enterprise, because of
the critical inspection of the members of the group, all of whom are
jealous for the preservation of the integrity of their organization.

In this cross section of life we find young people learning, by the
laboratory method, the real meaning of reciprocity; we find them winning
the viewpoints of others with no abatement or abrogation of their own
individuality; we find them able and willing to make concessions for the
general good; we find them learning justice and discrimination in their
assessment of values; we find them enlarging their horizons by ascending
to higher levels of intelligence. This work is as much a part of life
for them as their food or their games and they accept it on the same
terms. They are becoming upright, intelligent, effective citizens by
performing some of the work that engages the time and energies of such
citizens. They are learning how to live by the experience of actual
living.

=Part of an actual recitation given.=--Some schools have developed this
type of recitation to a very complete degree and in a very effective
way. In one such school the young woman who teaches the subject of
history makes the following report of a part of one of her recitations
in this study:

The class was called to order by the chairman for the assignment for the
next day's lesson, which proceeded as follows:

Teacher:--To-morrow we shall have for the work of this convention the
New Constitution as a whole. We are ready for suggestions as to how we
had best proceed.

Earl:--It seems to me that a good way would be to compare it with the
Articles of Confederation.

Joe:--I don't quite get your idea. Do you mean to take them article by
article?

Earl:--Yes.

(Joe and Frank begin at the same time. Teacher indicates Joe by nod.)

Joe:--But there are so many things in the new that are not in the old.

Earl:--That is just it. Let's make a list of the points in one that do
not appear in the other. Then by investigation and discussion see if we
can tell why.

Teacher:--Frank, you had something to say a moment ago.

Frank:--Not on Earl's plan, which I think an excellent one, but I wished
to ask the class if they think it important while looking through these
two documents to keep in mind the questions: "Is this the way things are
done to-day?" and "Does this apply in our own city?" and "In case the
President or Congress failed in their duty, what could the people do
about it?"

Ella:--It seems to me that Frank's suggestion is a good one for it bears
upon what we decided in the beginning, that we must apply the history of
the past to see how it affects us to-day.

Violet:--I should like to know how the people received the work of this
convention. You know that it was all so secret no one knew what they
were doing behind their closed doors. If the people were like they are
to-day there would certainly be some opposition to the New Constitution.

Elsie:--Good. Mr. Chairman, I move that Violet report the reception and
rejection of the New Constitution by the people of the several States as
a special topic for to-morrow.

Robert:--Second the motion.

Chairman:--Miss Brown, have you any suggestion as to time limit?

Teacher:--I suggest ten minutes. (Chairman puts vote and suggestion is
carried.)

Teacher:--Mr. Chairman, may we have the secretary read the several
points in the assignment?

At the chairman's request the secretary reads and the class note as
follows: Study of the New Constitution, emphasizing points of similarity
and difference.

Seek reasons for same.

Application of Constitution to our present-day life.

Remedy for failures if officers fail to do their duty.

Special topic ten minutes in length on the reception of the Constitution
by the people of the different States.

Teacher:--I think that will be enough--consult the text. In connection
with the special topic some valuable material may be found in the Civics
section in the reference room. The other references on this subject you
had given you. Mr. Chairman, may we have the secretary read the points
brought out by yesterday's recitation?


QUESTIONS AND EXERCISES

1. What is meant by the "socialized recitation" as the term is here
used?

2. Define separately the word "socialized" as used in this connection.

3. What are the teacher's functions in such a recitation?

4. What are the teacher's functions in the traditional recitation?

5. Compare the kinds of knowledge required of a teacher in connection
with the two types of recitations.

6. Suggest a method of proceeding in a socialized recitation and show
the advantages of the method.

7. Give some of the reasons why the socialized recitation enhances
interest.

8. What is the essence of the "gang spirit"?

9. Compare the character and extent of the individual's responsibility
in the two types of recitations.

10. In what other ways is the socialized recitation likely to produce
better reactions?

11. Some one says that the convention style of recitation will not do,
because a few do all of the work. From your experience or observation do
you find this true? If so, is this condition peculiar to that type of
recitation? Suggest methods of counteracting this tendency in the
socialized class. Would these prove effective in a class taught in the
ordinary way?

12. Is one likely to overestimate the value of one's possessions, mental
or physical? Are the pupils (and perhaps the teacher) likely to
overestimate what is done in the socialized recitation? What things may
offset this tendency?

13. Compare the socialized recitation with a debate.

14. Compare it with an ordinary discussion or argument.

15. Show just why the results of the socialized recitation are likely to
be permanent.

16. How does socialized class work affect the home and society?

17. Though school is a preparation for life, it, at the same time, is
life. Show that the socialized recitation presupposes this truth.

18. Compare the value of the assignment of a history lesson in the
manner described in the notes quoted with the value of an ordinary
assignment.

19. Describe at least one other socialized recitation.

20. Compare socialized work as described in Scott's Social Education (C.
A. Scott, Ginn & Co., 1908) with the socialized recitation here
described, as to (_a_) aim, (_b_) method, (_c_) results.

21. "Lessons require two kinds of industry, the private individual
industry and the social industry or class work." Is this true? If so,
what sort of recitation-lesson will stimulate each kind?




CHAPTER XVI

AGRICULTURE


=Agriculture a typical study.=--In the vitalized school the subject of
agriculture is typical and may profitably be elaborated somewhat by way
of illustrating the relation of a subject to school procedure. From
whatever angle we approach the subject of agriculture we find it
inextricably connected with human life. This fact alone gives to it the
rank of first importance. Its present prominence as a school study is
conclusive evidence that those who are charged with the responsibility
of administering the schools are becoming conscious of the need for
vitalizing them. Time was when arithmetic was regarded as the most
practical subject in the school and, therefore, it was given precedence
over all others. History, grammar, and geography were relegated to
secondary rank, and agriculture was not even thought of as a school
study. But as population increased and the problem of providing food
began to loom large in the public consciousness, the subject of
agriculture assumed an importance that rendered it worthy a place in the
school curriculum. It is a high tribute to the school that whenever any
subject takes hold of the public mind the school is thought of at once
as the best agency for promulgating that subject. The subjects of
temperance and military training aptly illustrate this statement of
fact.

=Its rapid development.=--So soon, therefore, as the subject of
agriculture became prominent in the public consciousness there ensued a
speedy development of colleges and schools of agriculture for the
training of teachers. This movement was prophetic of the plan and
purpose to incorporate this study in the school régime. And this
prophecy has been fulfilled, for the school now looks upon agriculture
as a basic study. True, we are as yet only feeling our way, and that for
the very good reason that the magnitude of the subject bewilders us. We
have written many textbooks on the subject that were soon supplemented
by better ones. The more the subject is studied, the more we appreciate
its far-reaching ramifications. We find it attaching itself to many
other subjects to which it seemed to have but remote relation in the
earlier stages of our study. In brief, we are now on the borderland of a
realization of the fact that agriculture is as broad as life and,
therefore, must embrace many other studies that have a close relation to
life.

=Relation to geology and other sciences.=--In the beginning, geology and
agriculture seemed far apart, but our closer study of agriculture has
revealed the fact that they are intimately related. It remained for
agriculture to lay the right emphasis upon geology. The study of the
composition and nature of the soil carried us at once to a study of its
origin and we found ourselves at the very door of geology. When we began
to inquire how the soil came to be where it is and what it is, we found
ourselves yearning for new and clearer lines of demarcation in science,
for we could scarcely distinguish between geology and physiography. We
soon traced our alluvial plains back to their upland origin, and then we
were compelled to explain their migration. This led us inevitably into
the realm of meteorology, for, if we omit meteorology, the chain is
broken and we lose our way in our search for the explanation we need.
But having availed ourselves of the aid of meteorology, we have a story
that is full of marvelous interest--the great story of the evolution of
the cornfield. In this story we find many alluring details of
evaporation, air movements, precipitation, erosion, and the attraction
of gravitation. But in all this we are but lingering in the anteroom of
agriculture.

=The importance of botany.=--Advancing but a single step we find
ourselves in the realm of botany, which is a field so vast and so
fascinating that men have devoted an entire lifetime to its wonders, and
then realized that they had but made a beginning in the way of exploring
its possibilities. In our own time Mr. Burbank has made his name known
throughout the world by his work in one phase of this subject, and a
score of other Burbanks might be working with equal success in other
branches of the subject and still not trench upon one another's domain.
Venturesome, indeed, would be the prophet who would attempt to predict
the developments in the field of botany in the next century in the way
of providing food, shelter, and clothing for the race. The possibilities
stagger the imagination and the prophet stands bewildered as he faces
this ever-widening field. But botany, vast as it is seen to be, is only
one of the branching sciences connected with agriculture.

=Physics and chemistry.=--Another advance brings us into the wide and
fertile field of physics and chemistry, for in these subjects we find
the means of interpreting much in agriculture that without their aid
would elude our grasp. We have only to resolve a grain of corn into its
component elements to realize the potency and scope of chemistry. Then
if we inquire into the sources of these elements as they have come from
the soil to form this grain of corn, the indispensability of a knowledge
of chemistry will become more apparent. In our explanations we shall
soon come upon capillary attraction, and the person is dull, indeed, who
does not stand in awe before the mystery of this subject. If we broaden
our inquiry so as to compass the evolution of an ear of corn, we shall
realize that we have entered upon an inquiry of vast and fascinating
import. The intricate and delicate processes of growth, combining, as
they do, the influences of sunshine and moisture and the conversion into
food products of elements whose origin goes back to primeval
times,--these processes are altogether worthy of the combined
enthusiasms of scientist and poet.

=Physiology.=--But no mention has been made, as yet, of the science of
physiology, which, alone, requires volumes. We have but to ask how wheat
is converted into brain power to come upon a realization of the
magnitude of the study of this science. We have only to relax the leash
of fancy to see that there are no limits to the excursions that may be
made in this field. If we allow fancy to roam, taking the _a posteriori_
course, we might begin with "Paradise Lost" and reach its sources in
garden and field, in orchard, and in pasture where graze flocks and
herds. But in any such fanciful meandering we should be well within the
limits of physiology, and should be trying to interpret the adaptation
of means to end, or, to use the language of the present, we should be
making a quest to determine how the products of field, orchard, and
pasture may be utilized that they may function in poetry, in oratory, in
discoveries, and in inventions. In short, we should be trying to explain
to ourselves how agriculture functions in life.

=Art as an auxiliary.=--In a recent work of fiction a chapter opens with
a picture of a little girl eating a slice of bread and butter which is
further surmounted by apple sauce and sugar. If the author of the book
"Agriculture and Life" had only caught a glimpse of this picture, he
might have changed the title of his book to "Life and Agriculture." He
certainly would have given to the life element far more prominence than
his book in its present form affords. His title makes a promise which
the book itself does not redeem, more's the pity. If science would use
art as an ally, it need not be less scientific, and its teachings would
prove far more palatable. The little girl with her bread and butter
would prove quite as apt as an introductory picture for a book on
agriculture as for a work of fiction. It matters not that agriculture
includes so many other sciences, for life is the great objective of the
study of all these, and the little girl exemplifies life.

=Relation of sciences to life.=--The pictures are practically endless
with which we might introduce the study of agriculture--a boy in the
turnip field, a milkmaid beside the cow, or Millet's celebrated picture
"Feeding the Birds." And, sooner or later, pursuing our journey from
such a starting point, we shall arrive at physiology, chemistry, botany,
physics, meteorology, and geology, and still never be detached from the
subject of life. In the school consciousness agriculture and domestic
science seem far apart, but by right teaching they are made to merge in
the subject of life. Upon that plane we find them to be complementary
and reciprocal. In the same way chemistry, botany, and physiology merge
in agriculture for the reason that all these sciences as well as
agriculture have to do with life. In the traditional school chemistry is
taught as chemistry--as a branch of science, and the learner is
encouraged to seek for knowledge. In the vitalized school the truths of
chemistry are no less clearly revealed, but, in addition, their
relations to life are made manifest, and the learner has a fuller
appreciation of life, because of his study of chemistry.

=Traditional methods.=--In the traditional school domestic science is
taught that the girl may learn how to cook; but in the vitalized school
the girl learns how to cook that she may be able to make life more
agreeable and productive both for herself and for others. In the
traditional school the study of agriculture consists of the testing of
soils and seeds, working out scientific theories on the subject of the
rotation of crops, testing for food values the various products of the
farm, judging stock, studying the best method of propagating and caring
for orchards, and testing for the most economic processes for conserving
and marketing crops. In the vitalized school all this is done, but this
is not the ultimate goal of the study. The end is not reached until all
these ramifications have touched life.

=The child as the objective.=--Reverting once more to the little girl of
the picture, it will be conceded, upon careful consideration, that she
is the center and focus of all the activities of mind and hand
pertaining to agriculture. Every furrow that is plowed is plowed for
her; every tree that is planted is planted for her; every crop that is
harvested is harvested for her; and every trainload of grain is moving
toward her as its destination. But for her, farm machinery would be
silent, orchards would decay, trains would cease to move, and commerce
would be no more. She it is that causes the wheels to turn, the
harvesters to go forth to the fields, the experiment stations to be
equipped and operated, the markets to throb with activity, and the ships
of commerce to ply the ocean. For her the orchard, the granary, the
dairy, and the loom give of their stores, and a million willing hands
till, and toil, and spin.

=The story of bread.=--But the bread and butter, the apple sauce, and
the sugar! They may not be omitted from the picture. The bread
transports us to the fields of waving grain and conjures up in our
imagination visions of harvesters with their implements, wagons groaning
beneath their golden loads, riches of grain pouring forth from machines,
and brings to our nostrils the tang of the harvest time. Into this slice
of bread the sun has poured his wealth of sunshine all the summer long,
and into it the kindly clouds have distilled their treasures. In it we
find the glory of the sunrise, the sparkling dewdrop, the song of the
robin, the gentle mooing of the cows, the murmur of the brook, and the
creaking of the mill wheel. In it we read the poetry of the morning and
of the evening, the prophecy of the noontide heat, and the mighty
proclamations of Nature. And it tells us charming stories of health, of
rosy cheeks, of laughing eyes, of happiness, of love and service.

=Food and life.=--The butter, the apple sauce, and the sugar each has a
story of its own to tell that renders fiction weak by comparison. If our
hearts were but attuned to the charm and romance of the stories they
have to tell, every breakfast-table would be redolent with the fragrance
of thanksgiving. If our hearts were responsive to the eloquence of these
stories, then eating would become a ceremony and upon the farmer who
provides our food would descend our choicest benedictions. If the scales
could but fall from our eyes that we might behold the visions which our
food foretells, we could look down the vista of the years and see the
children grown to manhood and womanhood, happy and busy in their work of
enlarging and beautifying civilization.

=Agriculture the source of life.=--Agriculture is not the sordid thing
that our dull eyes and hearts would make it appear. In it we shall find
the romance of a Victor Hugo, the poetry of a Shelley or a Shakespeare,
the music of a Mozart, the eloquence of a Demosthenes, and the painting
of a Raphael, when we are able to interpret its real relation to life.
When the morning stars sang together they were celebrating the birth of
agriculture, but man became bewildered in the mazes of commercialism and
forgot the music of the stars. It is the high mission of the vitalized
school to lead us back from our wanderings and to restore us to our
rightful estate amid the beauties, the inspiration, the poetry, and the
far-reaching prophecies of agriculture. This it can do only by revealing
to us the possibilities, the glories, and the joy of life and causing us
to know that agriculture is the source of life.

=Synthetic teaching.=--The analytic teaching of agriculture will not
avail; we must have the synthetic also. Too long have we stopped short
with analysis. We have come within sight of the promised land but have
failed to go up and possess it. We have studied the skeleton of
agriculture but have failed to endow it with life. We must keep before
our eyes the picture of the little girl. We must feel that the
quintessence and spirit of agriculture throbs through all the arteries
of life. Here lies the field in which imagination can do its perfect
work. Here is a subject in which the vitalized school may find its
highest and best justification. By no means is it the only study that
fitly exemplifies life, but, in this respect, it is typical, and
therefore a worthy study. On the side of analysis the teacher finds the
blade of grass to be a thing of life; on the side of synthesis she finds
the blade of grass to be a life-giving thing. And the synthesis is no
less in accord with science than the analysis.

=The element of faith.=--Then again agriculture and life meet and merge
on the plane of faith. The element of faith fertilizes life and causes
it to bring forth in abundance. Man must have faith in himself, faith in
the people about him, and faith in his own plans and purposes to make
his life potent and pleasurable. By faith he attaches the truths of
science to his plans and thus to the processes of life; for without the
faith of man these truths of science are but static. Faith gives them
their working qualities. There is faith in the plowing of each furrow,
faith in the sowing of the seed, faith in the planting of each tree, and
faith in the purchase of each machine. The farmer who builds a silo has
faith that the products of the summer will bring joy and health to the
winter. By faith he transmutes the mountains of toil into valleys of
delight. Through the eyes of faith he sees the work of his hands
bringing in golden sheaves of health and gladness to his own and other
homes.


QUESTIONS AND EXERCISES

1. In what ways is agriculture a typical study?

2. Why was its importance not realized until recently?

3. What educational agency in your state first reflected the need of
scientific instruction in agriculture?

4. The study of agriculture in the public school was at first ridiculed.
Why? What is now the general attitude toward it?

5. To what extent is the study of agriculture important in the city
school? Is there another subject as important for the city school as
agriculture is for the rural school?

6. Mention some school subjects that are closely related to agriculture.
Show how each is related to agriculture.

7. Is Luther Burbank's work to be regarded as botanical or as
agricultural? Why? To which of these sciences do plant variation and
improvement properly belong?

8. In many schools agriculture and domestic science are associated in
the curriculum. What have they in common to justify this?

9. In the chemistry class in a certain school food products are examined
for purity. How will this increase the pupils' knowledge of chemistry?

10. In a certain school six girls appointed for the day cook luncheon
for one hundred persons, six other girls serve it, and six others figure
the costs. Criticize this plan.

11. Show how some particular phase of agricultural instruction may
function in agricultural practice.

12. What benefits accrue to a teacher from the study of a subject in its
ramifications?

13. In what respects is agriculture a noble pursuit? Compare it in this
respect with law. How does agriculture lead to the exercise of faith?
Teaching? Law? Electrical engineering?




CHAPTER XVII

THE SCHOOL AND THE COMMUNITY


=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 composed of 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, we
know 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 right expression 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 consider the
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 uses or 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 will find 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 the boy 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. Such an 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 of _sang 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 snow was 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. On circus 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 value to 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.


QUESTIONS AND EXERCISES

1. What is the general function of the school?

2. What is meant by the school's being the "melting-pot"?

3. What objection is there to the expression "getting an education"?
What would be a better expression to indicate the purpose of attending
school?

4. What diseases that invade society would be checked if in school the
stream of life were rectified?

5. Why is it desirable that pupils shall not lose their individuality in
passing through school?

6. What is the primary purpose of each school study, for instance,
language?

7. What is the true purpose of grammar?

8. What do these functions of the school and of its studies teach us
regarding the adaptation of subjects and methods to the individual?

9. Tell something of the work done in vocational guidance in Boston.

10. Tell something of the methods employed by some corporations in
choosing employees naturally fitted for the work.

11. Tell something of the psychological tests for vocations devised by
Professor Münsterberg. (Psychology and Industrial Efficiency, Hugo
Münsterberg, Houghton Mifflin Co., 1913.)

12. What do you think is the practicable way of helping the pupils in
your school to develop along the lines of their natural endowment?

13. What is the effect on society when a man does work for which he is
not fitted?

14. Show some ways in which the interests of the school as a whole may
be fostered and a natural development of the class as a whole be
secured.

15. There has been a big fire in town. Show how the interest in this
event may be used in the day's work.

16. In what ways is one who has had private instruction likely to be a
poorer citizen than one who has attended school?

17. What conditions might cause some of those who go through school to
be polluted instead of rectified? Whose fault would it be?

18. What questions should we ask ourselves about the things that are
being done in our schools?




CHAPTER XVIII

POETRY AND LIFE


=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 cricket and 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. His _élan_ carries 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 he may 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. Nor must 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 the homes 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!"

=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, the earth 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 both speak 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.


QUESTIONS AND EXERCISES

1. What is poetry?

2. What is the purpose of rhyme?

3. May writing have the essentials of poetry and yet have no regular
rhythm? What of the Psalms?

4. Why is poetry especially valuable to the teacher?

5. Show how some poem other than those mentioned in the chapter teaches
a lesson or gives an inspiration.

6. Name, if you can, some methods of treatment that cause poetry to fail
to affect the lives of the pupils as it should.

7. Suggest uses of poetry and the treatment that will insure the right
results.

8. Is there danger that a teacher may become too appreciative or
susceptible--too poetic in temperament? Recall observations of those who
were either too much so or too little.

9. Is there danger that one may have too much of a good quality, or is
the danger not in having too little of some other quality?

10. Show how a wide and appreciative reading of poetry makes for a
proper balance of temperament.




CHAPTER XIX

A SENSE OF HUMOR


=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 not laugh 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 thoughts and
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
for a 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 a _raconteur_, 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
extraordinary that 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 for getting 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 alchemy of 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 the teacher'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 examination purposes, 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 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.


QUESTIONS AND EXERCISES

1. What is the source of humor in a humorous story?

2. When should the teacher laugh with the school? When should she not do
so?

3. How does the response of the school to a laughable incident reflect
the leadership of the teacher?

4. What can be done to bring more or better humor into the school?

5. Compare as companions those whom you know who exhibit a sense of
humor with those who do not.

6. Compare their influence on others.

7. What can be done to bring humor into essays written by the students?

8. Distinguish between wit and humor. Does wit or humor cause most of
the laughter in school?

9. What is meant by an "aptitude for vicariousness"?

10. How did Lincoln make use of humor? Is there any humor in the
Gettysburg speech? Why?

11. What is the relation of pathos to humor?

12. Give an example from the writings of Mark Twain that shows him a
philosopher as well as a humorist.

13. What books could you read to the pupils to enliven some of the
subjects that you teach?




CHAPTER XX

The Element of Human Interest


=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 that would 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 the ability 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, and we 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. The number 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 banal because 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 could dispense 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 of the 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 thousand points, 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 teacher can 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.


QUESTIONS AND EXERCISES

1. What agencies have been employed with the expectation that they would
improve the school?

2. What are the reasons why some of these have not accomplished more?

3. Give instances in which the conservatism of teachers seems to have
stood in the way of utilizing the element of human interest.

4. What do you think of a teacher who asserts that no important advance
has been made in educational theory and practice since, say, 1910?

5. Make an outline of what you think a college of education should do
for the school.

6. What would you expect to gain from a course in school administration?

7. The president of at least one Ohio college personally inspects and
checks up the work of the professors from the standpoint of proper
teaching standards, and has them visit one another's classes for
friendly criticism and observation. He reports improvement in the
standard of teaching. How is his plan applicable in your school?

8. A city high school principal states that it is not his custom to
visit his teachers' classes; that he knows what is going on and that he
interferes only if something is wrong. What do you think of his
practice? How is the principle applicable in your school?

9. Do the duties of a superintendent have to do only with curriculum and
discipline, or have they to do also with teaching power?

10. What are some of the ways in which you have known superintendents
successfully to increase the teaching power of the teachers?

11. What things do we need to know about a child in order to utilize his
interests?

12. Distinguish three types of teachers.

13. What are the objections to teaching the book?

14. What are the objections to teaching the subject?

15. What are some items of school work upon which some teachers spend
time that they should devote to finding materials suited to the child's
interests?

16. Can one teacher utilize all of the interests of a child within a
nine-month term? What is the measure of how far she should be expected
to do so?




CHAPTER XXI

BEHAVIOR


=Behavior in retrospect.=--The caption of this chapter implies the
behavior of human beings, as a matter of course, and the study of this
subject is, at once, both alluring and illusive. No sooner has the
student arrived at deductions that seem conclusive than exceptions begin
to loom up on his speculative horizon that disintegrate his theories and
cause him to retrace the steps of his reasoning. Such a study affords
large scope for introspection, but too few people incline to examine
their own behavior in any mental attitude that approaches the
scientific. The others seem to think that things just happen, and that
their own behavior is fortuitous. They seem not to be able to reason
from effect back to cause, or to realize that there may be any possible
connection between what they are doing at the present moment and what
they were doing twenty years ago.

=Environment.=--In what measure is a man the product of his environment?
To what extent is a man able to influence his environment? These
questions start us on a line of inquiry that leads toward the realm of,
at least, a hypothetical solution of the problem of behavior. After we
have reached the conclusion, by means of concrete examples, that many
men have influenced their environment, it becomes pertinent, at once, to
inquire still further whence these men derived the power thus to modify
their environment. We may not be able to reach final or satisfactory
answers to these questions, but it will, none the less, prove a
profitable exercise. We need not trench upon the theological doctrine of
predestination, but we may, with impunity, speculate upon the
possibility of a doctrine of educational predestination.

=Queries.=--Was Mr. George Goethals predestined to become the engineer
of the Panama Canal from the foundation of the world, or might he have
become a farmer, a physician, or a poet? Could Julius Cæsar have turned
back from the Rubicon and refrained from saying, "The die is cast"?
Could Abraham Lincoln have withheld his pen from the Emancipation
Proclamation and permitted the negro race to continue in slavery? Could
any influence have deterred Walter Scott from writing "Kenilworth"? Was
Robert Fulton's invention of the steamboat inevitable? Could Christopher
Columbus possibly have done otherwise than discover America? Does
education have anything whatever to do in determining what a man will or
will not do?

=Antecedent causes.=--Here sits a man, let us say, who is writing a
musical selection. He works in a veritable frenzy, and all else seems
negligible for the time. He well-nigh disdains food and sleep in the
intensity of his interest. Is this particular episode in his life merely
happening, or does some causative influence lie back of this event
somewhere in the years? Did some influence of home, or school, or
playground give him an impulse and an impetus toward this event? Or, in
other words, are the activities of his earlier life functioning on the
bit of paper before him? If this is an effect, what and where was the
cause? In the case of any type of human behavior can we postulate
antecedent causes? If a hundred musicians were writing musical
compositions at the same moment, would they offer similar explanations
of their behavior?

=Leadership.=--As a working hypothesis, it may be averred that ability
to influence environment betokens leadership. With such a measuring-rod
in hand we may go out into the community and determine, with some degree
of accuracy, who are leaders and who are mere followers. Then we should
need to go further and discover degrees of leadership, whether small or
large, and, also, the quality of the leadership, whether good or bad,
wise or foolish, selfish or altruistic, noisy or serene, and all the
many other variations. Having done all this, we are still only on the
threshold of our study, for we must reason back from our accumulated
facts to their antecedent causes. If we score one man's leadership fifty
and another's eighty, have we any possible warrant for concluding that
the influences in their early life that tend to generate leadership were
approximately as five to eight?

=Restricted concepts.=--This question is certain to encounter
incredulity, just as it is certain to raise other questions. Both
results will be gratifying as showing an awakening of interest, which is
the most and the best that the present discussion can possibly hope to
accomplish. Very many, perhaps most, teachers in the traditional school
do their teaching with reference to the next examination. They remind
their pupils daily of the on-coming examination and remind them of the
dire consequences following their failure to attain the passing grade of
seventy. They ask what answer the pupil would give to a certain question
if it should appear in the examination. If they can somehow get their
pupils to surmount that barrier of seventy at promotion time, they seem
quite willing to turn their backs upon them and let the teacher in the
next grade make what she can of such unprofitable baggage.

=Each lesson a prophecy.=--And we still call this education. It isn't
education at all, but the merest hack work, and the tragedy of it is
that the child is the one to suffer. The teacher goes on her complacent
way happy in the consciousness that her pupils were promoted and,
therefore, she will retain her place on the pay roll. It were more
logical to have the same teacher continue with the pupil during his
entire school life of twelve years, for, in that case, her interest in
him would be continuous rather than temporary and spasmodic. But the
present plan of changing teachers would be even better than that if only
every teacher's work could be made to project itself not only to
graduation day, but to the days of mature manhood and womanhood. If only
every teacher were able to make each lesson a vital prophecy of what the
pupil is to be and to do twenty years hence, then that lesson would
become a condition precedent to the pupil's future behavior.

=Outlook.=--Groping about in the twilight of possibilities we speculate
in a mild and superficial way as to the extent to which heredity,
environment, and education either singly or in combination are
determining factors in human behavior. But when no definite answer is
forthcoming we lose interest in the subject and have recourse to the
traditional methods of our grandfathers. We lose sight of the fact that
in our quest for the solution of this problem we are coming nearer and
nearer to the answer to the perennial question, What is education?
Hence, neither the time nor the effort is wasted that we devote to this
study. We may not understand heredity; we may find ourselves bewildered
by environment; we may not apprehend what education is; but by keeping
all these closely associated with behavior in our thinking we shall be
the gainers.

=Long division ramified.=--We are admonished so to organize the
activities of the school that they may function in behavior. That is an
admonition of stupendous import as we discover when we attempt to
compass the content of behavior. One of the activities of the school is
Long Division. This is relatively simple, but the possible behavior in
which it may function is far less simple. In the past, this same Long
Division has functioned in the Brooklyn Bridge, in the Hoosac Tunnel,
and Washington Monument, in the Simplon Pass, and in Eiffel Tower. It
has helped us to travel up the mountain side on funicular railways,
underneath rivers and cities by means of subways, under the ocean in
submarines, and in the air by means of aircraft, and over the tops of
cities on elevated railways. Only the prophet would have the temerity to
predict what further achievements the future holds in store. But all
that has been done and all that will yet be done are only a part of the
behavior in which this activity functions.

=Behavior amplified.=--Human behavior runs the entire gamut, from the
bestial to the sublime, with all the gradations between. It has to do
with the mean thief who pilfers the petty treasures of the little child,
and with the high-minded philanthropist who walks and works in obedience
to the behests of altruism. It includes the frowzy slattern who offends
the sight and also the high-born lady of quality whose presence exhales
and, therefore, inspires to, refinement and grace. It has to do with the
coarse boor who defiles with his person and his speech and the courtly,
cultured gentleman who becomes the exemplar of those who come under his
influence. It touches the depraved gamin of the alley and the celebrated
scholar whose pen and voice shed light and comfort. It concerns itself
with the dark lurking places of the prowlers of the night who prey upon
innocence, virtue, and prosperity and with the cultured home whose
members make and glorify civilization.

=Its scope.=--It swings through the mighty arc, from the anarchist
plotting devastation and death up to Socrates inciting his friends to
good courage as he drinks the hemlock. It takes cognizance of the slave
in his cabin no less than of Lincoln in his act of setting the slaves
free. It touches the extremes in Mrs. Grundy and Clara Barton. It
concerns itself with Medea scattering the limbs of her murdered brother
along the way to delay her pursuers and with Antigone performing the
rites of burial over the body of her brother that his soul might live
forever. It has to do with Circe, who transformed men into pigs, and
with Frances Willard, who sought to restore lost manhood. It includes
all that pertains to Lucrezia Borgia and Mary Magdalene; Nero and
Phillips Brooks; John Wilkes Booth and Nathan Hale; Becky Sharp and
Evangeline; Goneril and Cordelia; and Benedict Arnold and George
Washington.

=Behavior in history.=--Before the teacher can win a starting-point in
her efforts to organize the activities of her school in such a manner
that they may function in behavior, she must have a pretty clear notion
as to what behavior really is. To gain this comprehensive notion she
must review in her thinking the events that make up history. In the
presence of each one of these events she must realize that this is the
behavior in which antecedent activities functioned. Then she will be
free to speculate upon the character of those activities, what
modifications, accretions, or abrasions they experienced in passing from
the place of their origin to the event before her, and whether like
activities in another place or another age would function in a similar
event. She need not be discouraged if she finds no adequate answer, for
she will be the better teacher because of the speculation, even lacking
a definite answer.

=Machinery.=--She must challenge every piece of machinery that meets her
gaze with the question "Whence camest thou?" She knows, in a vague way,
that it is the product of mind, but she needs to know more. She needs to
know that the machine upon which she is looking did not merely happen,
but that it has a history as fascinating as any romance if only she
cause it to give forth a revelation of itself. She may find in tracing
the evolution of the plow that the original was the forefinger of some
cave man, in the remote past. For a certainty, she will find, lurking
in some machine, in some form, the multiplication table, and this fact
will form an interesting nexus between behavior in the form of the
machine and the activities of the school. She will be delighted to learn
that no machine was ever constructed without the aid of the
multiplication table, and when she is teaching this table thereafter she
does the work with keener zest, knowing that it may function in another
machine.

=Art.=--When she looks at the "Captive Andromache" by Leighton she is
involved in a network of speculations. She wonders by what devious ways
the mind of the artist had traveled in reaching this type and example of
behavior. She wonders whether the artistic impulse was born in him or
whether it was acquired. She sees that he knew his Homer and she would
be glad to know just how his reading of the "Iliad" had come to function
in this particular picture. She further wonders what lessons in drawing
and painting the artist had had in the schools that finally culminated
in this masterpiece, and whether any of his classmates ever achieved
distinction as artists. She wonders, too, whether there is an embryo
artist in her class and what she ought to do in the face of that
possibility. Again she wonders how geography, grammar, and spelling can
be made to function in such a painting as Rosa Bonheur's "The Plough
Oxen," and her wonder serves to invest these subjects with new meaning
and power.

=Shakespeare.=--In the school at Stratford they pointed out to her the
desk at which Shakespeare sat as a lad, with all its boyish
hieroglyphics, and her thought instinctively leaped across the years to
"The Tempest," "King Lear," and "Hamlet." She pondered deeply the
relation between the activities of the lad and the behavior of the man,
wondering how much the school had to do with the plays that stand alone
in literature, and whether he imbibed the power from associations, from
books, from people, or from his ancestors. She wondered what magic
ingredient had been dropped into the activities of his life that had
proven the determining factor in the plays that set him apart among men.
She realizes that his behavior was distinctive, and she fain would
discover the talisman whose potent influence determined the bent and
power of his mind. And she wonders, again, whether any pupil in her
school may ever exemplify such behavior.

=History.=--When she reads her history she has a keener, deeper, and
wider interest than ever before, for she now realizes that every event
of history is an effect, whose inciting causes lie back in the years,
and is not fortuitous as she once imagined. She realizes that the
historical event may have been the convergence of many lines of thinking
emanating from widely divergent sources, and this conception serves to
make her interest more acute. In thus reasoning from effect back to
cause she gains the ability to reason from cause to effect and,
therefore, her teaching of history becomes far more vital. She is
studying the philosophy of history and not a mere catalogue of isolated
and unrelated facts. History is a great web, and in the events she sees
the pattern that minds have worked. She is more concerned now with the
reactions of her pupils to this pattern than she is with mere names and
dates, for these reactions give her a clew to tendencies on the part of
her pupils that may lead to results of vast import.

=Poetry.=--In every poem she reads she finds an illustration of mental
and spiritual behavior, and she fain would find the key that will
discover the mental operations that conditioned the form of the poem.
She would hark back to the primal impulse of each bit of imagery, and
she analyzes and appraises each word and line with the zeal and skill of
a connoisseur. She would estimate justly and accurately the activities
that functioned in this sort of behavior. She seeks for the influences
of landscapes, of sky, of birds, of sunsets, of clouds,--in short, of
all nature, as well as of the manifestations of the human soul. Thus the
teacher gains access into the very heart of nature and life and can thus
cause the poem to become a living thing to her pupils. In all literature
she is ever seeking for the inciting causes; for only so can she prove
an inspiring guide and counselor in pointing to them the way toward
worthy achievements.

=Attitude of teacher.=--In conclusion, then, we may readily distinguish
the vitalized teacher from the traditional teacher by her attitude
toward the facts set down in the books. The traditional teacher looks
upon them as mere facts to be noted, connoted, memorized, reproduced,
and graded, whereas the vitalized teacher regards them as types of
behavior, as ultimate effects of mental and spiritual activities. The
traditional teacher knows that seven times nine are sixty-three, and
that is quite enough for her purpose. If the pupil recites the fact
correctly, she gives him a perfect grade and recommends him for
promotion. For the vitalized teacher the bare fact is not enough. She
does not disdain or neglect the mechanics of her work, but she sees
beyond the present. She sees this same fact merging into the operations
of algebra, geometry, trigonometry, calculus, physics, and engineering,
until it finally functions in some enterprise that redounds to the
well-being of humanity.

=Conclusion.=--To her every event of history, every fact of mathematics
and science, every line of poetry, every passage of literature is
pregnant with meaning, dynamic, vibrant, dramatic, and prophetic.
Nothing can be dull or prosaic to her electric touch. All the facts of
the books, all the emotions of life, and all the beauties of nature she
weaves into the fabric of her dreams for her pupils. The goal of her
aspirations is far ahead, and around this goal she sees clustered those
who were her pupils. In every recitation this goal looms large in her
vision. She can envisage the viewpoint of her pupils, and thus strives
to have them envisage hers. She yearns to have them join with her in
looking down through the years when the activities of the school will be
functioning in worthy behavior.


QUESTIONS AND EXERCISES

1. Discuss the relative importance of environment as a factor in the
behavior of plants; animals; children; men.

2. How may an understanding of the mutual reaction of the child and his
environment assist the teacher in planning for character building in
pupils?

3. Make specific suggestions by which children may influence their
environment.

4. Discuss the vitalized teacher's contribution to the environment of
the child.

5. After reading this chapter give your definition of "behavior."

6. Discuss the author's idea of leadership.

7. Define education in terms of behavior, environment, and heredity.

8. Account for the difference in behavior of some of the characters
mentioned in the chapter.

9. How may the vitalized teacher be distinguished from the traditional
teacher in her attitude toward facts?

10. Discuss the doctrine of educational predestination.




CHAPTER XXII

BOND AND FREE


=Spiritual freedom.=--There is no slavery more abject than the bondage
of ignorance. John Bunyan was not greatly inconvenienced by being
incarcerated in jail. His spirit could not be imprisoned, but the
imprisonment of his body gave his mind and spirit freedom and
opportunity to do work that, otherwise, might not have been done. If he
had lived a mere physical life and had had no resources of the mind upon
which to draw, his experience in the jail would have been most irksome.
But, being equipped with mental and spiritual resources, he could smile
disdain at prison bars, and proceed with his work in spiritual freedom.
Had he been dependent solely, or even mainly, upon food, sleep, drink,
and other contributions to his physical being for his definition of
life, then his whole life would have been restricted to the limits of
his cell; but the more extensive and expansive resources of his life
rendered the jail virtually nonexistent.

=Illustrations.=--It is possible, therefore, so to furnish the mind that
it can enjoy freedom in spite of any bondage to which the body may be
subjected. Indeed, the whole process of education has as its large
objective the freedom of the mind and spirit. Knowledge of truth gives
freedom; ignorance of truth is bondage. A man's knowledge may be
measured by the extent of his freedom; his ignorance, by the extent of
his bondage. In the presence of truth the man who knows stands free and
unabashed, while the man who does not know stands baffled and
embarrassed. In a chemical laboratory the man who knows chemistry moves
about with ease and freedom, while the man who does not know chemistry
stands fixed in one spot, fearing to move lest he may cause an
explosion. To the man who knows astronomy the sky at night presents a
marvelous panorama full of interest and inspiration, to the man who is
ignorant of astronomy the same sky is merely a dome studded with dots of
light.

=Rome.=--The man who lacks knowledge of history is utterly bewildered
and ill at ease in the Capitoline Museum at Rome. All about him are
busts that represent the men who made Roman history, but they have no
meaning for him. Nero and Julius Cæsar are mere names to him and, as
such, bear no relation to life. Cicero and Caligula might exchange
places and it would be all one to him. He takes a fleeting glance at the
statue of the Dying Gaul, but it conveys no meaning to him. He has
neither read nor heard of Byron's poem which this statue inspired. He
sees near by the celebrated Marble Faun, but he has not read Hawthorne's
romance and therefore the statue evokes no interest. In short, he is
bored and uncomfortable, and importunes his companions to go elsewhere.

When he looks out upon the Forum he says it looks the same to him as any
other stone quarry, and he roundly berates the shiftlessness of the
Romans in permitting the Coliseum to remain when the stone could be used
for building purposes, for bridges, and for paving. The Tiber impresses
him not at all for, as he says, he has seen much larger rivers and,
certainly, many whose water is more clear. In the Sistine Chapel he
cannot be persuaded to give more than a passing glance at the ceiling
because it makes his neck ache to look up. The Laocoön and Apollo
Belvedere he will not see, giving as a reason that he is more than tired
of looking at silly statuary. He feels it an imposition that he should
be dragged around to such places when he cares nothing for them. His
evident boredom is pathetic, and he repeatedly says that he'd far rather
be visiting in the corner grocery back home, than to be spending his
time in the Vatican.

=Contrasts.=--In this, he speaks but the simple truth. In the grocery he
has comfort while, in the Vatican, he is in bondage. His ignorance of
art, architecture, history, and literature reduces him to thralldom in
any place that exemplifies these. In the grocery he has comfort because
he can have a share in the small talk and gossip that obtain there. His
companions speak his language and he feels himself to be one of them.
Were they, by any chance, to begin a discussion of history he would feel
himself ostracized and would leave them to their own devices. If they
would retain him as a companion they must keep within his range of
interests and thinking. To go outside his small circle is to offer an
affront. He cannot speak the language of history, or science, or art,
and so experiences a feeling of discomfort in any presence where this
language is spoken.

=History.=--In this concrete illustration we find ample justification
for the teaching of history in the schools. History is one of the large
strands in the web of life, and to neglect this study is to deny to the
pupil one of the elements of freedom. It is not easy to conceive a
situation that lacks the element of history in one or another of its
phases or manifestations. Whether the pupil travels, or embarks upon a
professional life, or associates, in any relation, with cultivated
people, he will find a knowledge of history not only a convenience but a
real necessity, if he is to escape the feeling of thralldom. The
utilitarian value of school studies has been much exploited, and that
phase is not to be neglected; but we need to go further in estimating
the influence of any study. We need to inquire not only how a knowledge
of the study will aid the pupil in his work, but also how it will
contribute to his life.

=Restricted concepts.=--We lustily proclaim our country to be the land
of the free, but our notion of freedom is much restricted. In the
popular conception freedom has reference to the body. A man can walk the
streets without molestation and can vote his sentiments at the polls,
but he may not be able to take a day's ride about Concord and Lexington
with any appreciable sense of freedom. He may walk about the
Congressional Library and feel himself in prison. He may desert a
lecture for the saloon in the interests of his own comfort. He may find
the livery stable more congenial than the drawing-room. His body may
experience a sort of freedom while his mind and spirit are held fast in
the shackles of ignorance. A Burroughs, an Edison, a Thoreau, might have
his feet in the stocks and still have more freedom than such a man as
this. He walks about amid historic scenes with his spiritual eyes
blindfolded, and that condition of mind precludes freedom.

=Real freedom.=--We shall not attain our high privileges as a free
people until freedom comes to mean more than the absence of physical
restraint. Our conception of freedom must reach out into the world of
mind and spirit, and our educational processes must esteem it their
chief function to set mental and spiritual prisoners free. We have only
to read history, science, and literature to realize what sublime heights
mind can attain in its explorations of the realms of truth, and, since
the boys and girls of our schools are to pass this way but once, every
effort possible should be made to accord to them full freedom to emulate
the mental achievements of those who have gone before. They have a right
to become the equals of their predecessors, and only freedom of mind and
spirit can make them such. Every man should be larger than his task, and
only freedom of mind and spirit can make him so. The man who works in
the ditch can revel among the sublime manifestations of truth if only
his mind is rightly furnished.

=Spelling.=--The man who is deficient in spelling inevitably confines
his vocabulary to narrow limits and so lacks facility of expression and
nicety of diction. Accordingly, he suffers by comparison with others
whose vocabulary is more extensive and whose diction is, therefore, more
elegant. The consciousness of his shortcomings restricts the exuberance
of his life, and he fails of that sense of large freedom that a
knowledge of spelling would certainly give. So that even in such an
elementary study as spelling the school has an opportunity to generate
in the pupils a feeling of freedom, and this feeling is quite as
important in the scheme of life as the ability to spell correctly. In
this statement, there is no straining for effects. On the contrary, many
illustrations might be adduced to prove that it is but a plain statement
of fact. A cultured lady confesses that she is thrown into a panic
whenever she has occasion to use the word _Tuesday_ because she is never
certain of the spelling.

=The switchboard.=--Life may be likened to an extensive electric
switchboard, and only that man or woman has complete freedom who can
press the right button without hesitation or trepidation. The ignorant
man stands paralyzed in the presence of this mystery and knows not how
to proceed to evoke the correct response to his desires. It has been
said that everything is infinitely high that we cannot see over. Hence,
to the man who does not know, cube root is infinitely high and, as such,
is as far away from his comprehension as the fourth dimension or the
precession of the equinoxes. In the presence of even such a simple truth
as cube root he stands helpless and enthralled. He lives in a small
circle and cannot know the joy of the man whose mind forgathers with the
big truths of life.

=Comparisons.=--The ignorant man cannot accompany this man upon his
mighty excursions, but must remain behind to make what he can of his
feeble resources. The one can penetrate the mysteries of the planets and
bring back their secrets; the other must confine his thinking to the
weather and the crops. The one can find entertainment in the Bible and
Shakespeare; the other seeks companionship among the cowboys and Indians
of the picture-films. The one sits in rapt delight through an evening of
grand opera, reveling on the sunlit summits of harmony; the other can
rise no higher in the scale of music than the raucous hand organ. The
one finds keen delight among the masterpieces of art; the other finds
his definition of art in the colored supplement. The one experiences the
acme of pleasure in communing with historians, musicians, artists,
scientists, and philologists; the other finds such associations the very
acme of boredom. The one finds freedom among the big things of life; the
other finds galling bondage.

=Three elements of freedom.=--There are three elements of freedom that
are worthy of emphasis. These are self-reliance, self-support, and
self-respect. These elements are the trinity that constitute one of the
major ultimate aims of the vitalized school. The school that inculcates
these qualities must prove a vital force in the life of the pupil; and
the pupil who wins these qualities is well equipped for the work of real
living. These qualities are the golden gateways to freedom, nor can
there be a full measure of freedom if either of these qualities be
lacking. Moreover, these qualities are cumulative in their relations to
one another. Self-reliance leads to and engenders self-support, and both
these underlie and condition self-respect. Or, to put the case
conversely, there cannot be self-respect in the absence of self-reliance
and self-support.

=Self-reliance.=--It would not be easy to over-magnify the influence of
the school that is rightly conducted in the way of inculcating the
quality of self-reliance and in causing it to grow into a habit. Every
problem that the boy solves by his own efforts, every obstacle that he
surmounts, every failure that he transforms into a success, and every
advance he makes towards mastery gives him a greater degree of
self-reliance, greater confidence in his powers, and greater courage to
persevere. It is the high privilege of the teacher to cause a boy to
believe in himself, to have confidence in his ability to win through. To
this end, she adds gradually to the difficulties of his work, always
keeping inside the limits of discouragement, and never fails to give
recognition to successful achievements. In this way the boy gains
self-reliance and so plumes himself for still loftier flights. Day after
day he moves upward and onward, until at length he exemplifies the
sentiment of Virgil, "They can because they think they can."

=This quality in practice.=--The self-reliance that becomes ingrained in
a boy's habits of life will not evaporate in the heat of the activities
and competition of the after-school life. On the contrary, it will be
reënforced and crystallized by the opportunities of business or
professional life, and, in calm reliance upon his own powers, he will
welcome competition as an opportunity to put himself to the test. He is
no weakling, for in school he made his independent way in spite of the
lions in his path, and so gained fiber and courage for the contests of
daily life. And because he has industry, thrift, perseverance, and
self-reliance the gates of success swing wide open and he enters into
the heritage which he himself has won.

=The sterling man.=--His career offers an emphatic negation to the
notion that obtains here and there to the effect that education makes a
boy weak and ineffective, robbing him of the quality of sterling
elemental manhood, and fitting him only for the dance-hall and inane
social functions. The man who is rightly trained has resources that
enable him to add dignity and character to social functions in that he
exhales power and bigness. People recognize in him a real man, capable,
alert, and potential, and gladly pay him the silent tribute that manhood
never fails to win. He can hold his own among the best, and only the
best appeal to him.

=Self-respect.=--And, just as he wins the respect of others, so he wins
the respect of himself, and so the triumvirate of virtues is complete.
Having achieved self-respect he disdains the cheap, the bizarre, the
gaudy, and the superficial. He knows that there are real values in life
that are worthy of his powers and best efforts, and these real values
are the goal of his endeavors. Moreover, he has achieved freedom, and so
is not fettered by precedent, convention, or fads. He is free to
establish precedents, to violate the conventions when a great principle
is at stake, and to ignore fads. He can stand unabashed in the presence
of the learned of the earth, and can understand the heartbeats of life,
because he has had experience both of learning and of life. And being a
free man his life is fuller and richer, and he knows when and how to
bestow the help that will give to others a sense of freedom and make
life for them a greater boon.


QUESTIONS AND EXERCISES

1. Account for the production of some of our greatest religious
literature in prison or in exile. Give other instances than the one
mentioned by the author.

2. Give your idea of the author's concept of the terms "bondage" and
"freedom."

3. Add to the instances noted in this chapter where ignorance has
produced bondage.

4. Defend the assertion that the cost of ignorance in our country
exceeds the cost of education. The total amount spent for public
education in 1915 slightly exceeded $500,000,000.

5. How do the typical recitations of your school contribute to the
happiness of your pupils? Be specific.

6. How may lack of thoroughness limit freedom? Illustrate.

7. How may education give rise to self-reliance? Self-respect?

8. Show that national and religious freedom depend upon education.




CHAPTER XXIII

EXAMINATIONS


=Prelude.=--When the vitalized school has finally been achieved there
will result a radical departure from the present procedure in the matter
of examinations. A teacher in the act of preparing a list of examination
questions of the traditional type is not an edifying spectacle. He has a
text-book open before him from which he extracts nuts for his pupils to
crack. It is a purely mechanical process and only a mechanician could
possibly debase intelligence and manhood to such unworthy uses. Were it
not so pathetic it would excite laughter. But this teacher is the victim
of tradition. He knows no other way. He made out examination questions
in accordance with this plan fifteen years ago and the heavens didn't
fall; then why, pray, change the method? Besides, men and women who were
thus examined when they were children in school have achieved
distinction in the world's affairs, and that, of itself, proves the
validity of the method, according to his way of thinking.

=Mental atrophy.=--It seems never to occur to him that children have
large powers of resistance and that some of his pupils may have won
distinction in spite of his teaching and his methods of examination and
not because of them. His trouble is mental and spiritual atrophy. He
thinks and feels by rule of thumb, "without variableness or shadow of
turning." In the matter of new methods he is quite immune. He settled
things to his complete satisfaction years ago, and what was good enough
for his father, in school methods, is quite good enough for him. His
self-satisfaction would approach sublimity, were it not so extremely
ludicrous. He has a supercilious sneer for innovations. How he can bring
himself to make concessions to modernity to the extent of riding in an
automobile is one of the mysteries.

=Self-complacency.=--His complacency would excite profound admiration
did it not betoken deadline inaction. He became becalmed on the sea of
life years ago, but does not know it. When the procession of life moves
past him he thinks he is the one who is in motion, and takes great
unction to himself for his progressiveness--"and not a wave of trouble
rolls across his peaceful breast." So he proceeds to copy another
question from the text-book, solemnly writing it on a bit of paper, and
later copying on the blackboard with such a show of bravery and gusto as
would indicate that some great truth had been revealed to him alone. In
an orotund voice he declaims to his pupils the mighty revelations that
he copied from the book. His examination régime is the old offer of a
mess of pottage for a birthright.

=Remembering and knowing.=--In our school practices we have become so
inured to the question-and-answer method of the recitation that we have
made the examination its counterpart. As teachers we are constantly
admonishing our pupils to remember, as if that were the basic principle
in the educational process. In reality we do not want them to
remember--we want them to know; and the distinction is all-important.
The child does not remember which is his right hand; he knows. He does
not remember the face of his mother; he knows her. He does not remember
which is the sun and which is the moon; he knows. He does not remember
snow, and rain, and ice, and mud; he knows.

=Questions and answers.=--But, none the less, we proceed upon the
agreeable assumption that education is the process of memorizing, and so
reduce our pupils to the plane of parrots; for a parrot has a prodigious
memory. Hence, it comes to pass that, in the so-called preparation of
their lessons, the pupils con the words of the book, again and again,
and when they can repeat the words of the book we smile approval and
give a perfect grade. It matters not at all that they display no
intelligent understanding of the subject so long as they can repeat the
statements of the book. It never seems to occur to the teacher that the
pupil of the third grade might give the words of the binomial theorem
without the slightest apprehension of its meaning. We grade for the
repetition of words, not for intelligence.

=Court procedure.=--In our school practices we seem to take our cue from
court procedure and make each pupil who recites feel that he is on the
witness stand experiencing all its attendant discomforts, instead of
being a coöperating agent in an agreeable enterprise. We suspend the
sword of Damocles above his head and demand from him such answers as
will fill the measure of our preconceived notions. He may know more of
the subject, in reality, than the teacher, but this will not avail. In
fact, this may militate against him. She demands to know what the book
says, with small concern for his own knowledge of the subject. We
proclaim loudly that we must encourage the open mind, and then by our
witness-stand ordeal forestall the possibility of open-mindedness.

=Rational methods.=--When we have learned wisdom enough, and humanity
enough, and pedagogy enough to dispense with the quasi-inquisition type
of recitation, the transition to a more rational method of examination
will be well-nigh automatic. Let it not be inferred that to inveigh
against the question-and-answer type of recitation is to advocate any
abatement of thoroughness. On the contrary, the thought is to insure
greater thoroughness, and to make evident the patent truth that
thoroughness and agreeableness are not incompatible. Experience ought to
teach us that we find it no hardship to work with supreme intensity at
any task that lures us; and, in that respect, we are but grown-up
children. We have only to generate a white-heat of interest in order to
have our pupils work with intensity. But this sort of interest does not
thrive under compulsion.

=Analysis and synthesis.=--The question-and-answer method evermore
implies analysis. But children are inclined to synthesis, which shows at
once that the analytic method runs counter to their natural bent. They
like to make things, to put things together, to experiment along the
lines of synthesis. Hence the industrial arts appeal to them. But
constructing problems satisfies their inclination to synthesis quite as
well as constructing coat-hangers or culinary compounds, if only the
incitement is rational. The writers of our text-books are coming to
recognize this fact, and it does them credit. In time, we may hope to
have books that will take into account the child's natural inclinations,
and the schools will be the beneficiaries.

=Thinking.=--In the process of synthesis the pupil is free to draw upon
the entire stock of his accumulated resources, whereas in the
question-and-answer method he is circumscribed. In the question-and-answer
plan he is encouraged to remember; in the other he is encouraged to think.
In our theories we exalt thinking to the highest pinnacle, but in our
practice we repress thinking and exalt memory. We admonish our pupils to
think, sometimes with a degree of emphasis that weakens our admonition,
and then bestow our laurel wreaths upon those who think little but
remember much. Our inconsistency in this respect would be amusing if the
child's interests could be ignored. But seeing that the child pays the
penalty, our inconsistency is inexcusable.

=Penalizing.=--The question-and-answer régime, in its full application,
is not wholly unlike a punitive expedition, in that the teacher asks the
question and sits with pencil poised in air ready to blacklist the
unfortunate pupil whose memory fails him for the moment. The child is
embarrassed, if not panic-stricken, and the teacher seems more like an
avenging nemesis than a friend and helper. Just when he needs help he
receives epithets and a condemning zero. He sinks into himself,
disgusted and outraged, and becomes wholly indifferent to the subsequent
phases of the lesson. He feels that he has been trapped and betrayed,
and days are required for his redemption from discouragement.

=Traditional method.=--In the school where this method is in vogue the
examination takes on the color and character of the recitation. At the
close of the term, or semester, the teacher makes out the proverbial ten
questions which very often reflect her own bias, or predilections, and
in these ten questions are the issues of life and death. A hundred
questions might be asked upon the subjects upon which the pupils are to
be tested, but these ten are the only ones offered--with no options.
Then the grading of the papers ensues, and, in this ordeal, the teacher
thinks herself another Atlas carrying the world upon her shoulders. The
boy who receives sixty-seven and the one who receives twenty-seven are
both banished into outer darkness without recourse. The teacher may know
that the former boy is able to do the work of the next grade, but the
marks she has made on the paper are sacred things, and he has fallen
below the requisite seventy. Hence, he is banished to the limbo of the
lost, for she is the supreme arbiter of his fate.

No allowance is made for nervousness, illness, or temperamental
conditions, but the same measuring-rod is applied to all with no
discrimination, and she has the marks on the papers to prove her
infallibility. If a pupil should dare to question the correctness of her
grades, he would be punished or penalized for impertinence. Her grades
are oracular, inviolable, and therefore not subject to review. She may
have been quite able to grade the pupils justly without any such ordeal,
but the school has the examination habit, and all the sacred rites must
be observed. In that school there is but one way of salvation, and that
way is not subject either to repeal or amendment. It is _via sacra_ and
must not be profaned. Time and long usage have set the seal of their
approval upon it and woe betide the vandal who would dare tamper with
it.

=Testing for intelligence.=--This emphatic, albeit true, representation
of the type of examinations that still obtains in some schools has been
set out thus in some detail that we may have a basis of comparison with
the other type of examinations that tests for intelligence rather than
for memory. For children, not unlike their elders, are glad to have
people proceed upon the assumption that they are endowed with a modicum
of intelligence. They will strive earnestly to meet the expectations of
their parents and teachers. Many wise mothers and teachers have incited
children to their best efforts by giving them to know that much is
expected of them. It is always far better to expect rather than to
demand. Coercion may be necessary at times, but coercion frowns while
expectation smiles. Hence, in every school exercise the teacher does
well to concede to the pupils a reasonable degree of intelligence and
then let her expectations be commensurate with their intelligence.

=Concessions.=--It is an affront to the intelligence of a child not to
concede that he knows that the days are longer in the summer than in
winter. We may fully expect such a degree of intelligence, and base our
teaching upon this assumption. In our examinations we pay a delicate
compliment to the child by giving him occasion for thinking. We may ask
him why the days are longer in summer than in winter and thus give him
the feeling that we respect his intelligence. Our examinations may
always assume observed facts. Even if he has never noted the fact that
his shadow is shorter in summer than in winter, if we assume such
knowledge on his part and ask him why such is the case, we shall
stimulate his powers of observation along with his thinking. If the
teacher asks a boy when and by whom America was discovered, he resents
the implication of crass ignorance; but if she asks how Columbus came to
discover America in 1492, he feels that it is conceded that there are
some things he knows.

=Illustrations.=--If we ask for the width of the zones, we are placing
the emphasis upon memory; but, if we ask them to account for the width
of the zones, we are assuming some knowledge and are testing for
intelligent thinking. If we ask why the sun rises in the east and sets
in the west we are, once again, assuming a knowledge of the facts and
testing for intelligence. If we ask for the location of the Suez, Kiel,
and Welland canals, we are testing for mere memory; but, if we ask what
useful purpose these canals serve, we are testing for intelligence. When
we ask pupils to give the rule for division of fractions, we are testing
again for mere memory; but when we ask why we invert the terms of the
divisor, we are treating our pupils as rational beings. Our pedagogical
sins bulk large in geography when we continually ask pupils to locate
places that have no interest for them. Such teaching is a travesty on
pedagogy and a sin against childhood.

=Intelligence of teacher.=--If the teacher is consulting her own ease
and comfort, then she will conduct the examination as a test for memory.
It requires but little work and less thinking to formulate a set of
examination questions on this basis. She has only to turn the pages of
the text-book and make a check-mark here and there till she has
accumulated ten questions, and the trick is done. But if she is testing
for intelligence, the matter is not so simple. To test for intelligence
requires intelligence and a careful thinking over the whole scope of the
subject under consideration. To do this effectively the teacher must
keep within the range of the pupil's powers and still stimulate him to
his best efforts.

=Major and minor.=--She must distinguish between major and minor, and
this is no slight task. Her own bias may tend to elevate a minor into a
major rank, and this disturbs the balance. Again, she must see things in
their right relations and proportions, and this requires deliberate
thinking. In "King Lear" she may regard the Fool as a negligible minor,
but some pupil may have discovered that Shakespeare intended this
character to serve a great dramatic purpose, and the teacher suffers
humiliation before her class. If she were testing for memory, she would
ask the class to name ten characters of the play and like hackneyed
questions, so that her own intelligence would not be put to the test.
Accurate scholarship and broad general intelligence may be combined in
the same person and, certainly, we are striving to inculcate and foster
these qualities in our pupils.

=Books of questions and answers.=--When the examinations for teachers
shall become tests for intelligence and not for memory, we may fully
expect to find the same principle filtering into our school practices.
It is a sad travesty upon education that teachers, even in this
enlightened age, still try to prepare for examinations by committing to
memory questions and answers from some book or educational paper. But
the fault lies not so much with the teachers themselves as with those
who prepare the questions. The teachers have been led to believe that to
be able to recall memorized facts is education. There are those, of
course, who will commercialize this misconception of education by
publishing books of questions and answers. Of course weak teachers will
purchase these books, thinking them a passport into the promised land.

The reform must come at the source of the questions that constitute the
examination. When examiners have grown broad enough in their conception
of education to construct questions that will test for intelligence, we
shall soon be rid of such an incubus upon educational progress as a book
of questions and answers. The field is wide and alluring. History,
literature, the sciences, and the languages are rich in material that
can be used in testing for intelligence, and we need not resort to petty
chit-chat in preparing for examinations.

=The way of reform.=--We must take this broader view of the whole
subject of examinations before we can hope to emerge from our beclouded
and restricted conceptions of education. And it can be done, as we know
from the fact that it is being done. Here and there we find
superintendents, principals, and teachers who are shuddering away from
the question-and-answer method both in the recitation and in the
examination. They have outgrown the swaddling-clothes and have risen to
the estate of broad-minded, intelligent manhood and womanhood. They have
enlarged their concept of education and have become too generous in
their impulses to subject either teachers or pupils to an ordeal that is
a drag upon their mental and spiritual freedom.


QUESTIONS AND EXERCISES

1. What purposes are actually achieved by examinations?

2. What evils necessarily accompany examinations? What evils usually
accompany them?

3. Outline a plan by which these purposes may be achieved unaccompanied
by the usual evils.

4. Is memory of facts the best test of knowledge? Suggest other tests by
which the value of a pupil's knowledge may be judged.

5. Experts sometimes vary more than 70 per cent in grading the same
manuscript. The same person often varies 20 per cent or more in grading
the same manuscript at different times. An experiment with your own
grading might prove interesting.

6. Do you and your pupils in actual practice regard examinations as an
end or as a means to an end? As corroborating evidence or as a final
proof of competence?

7. How may examinations test intelligence?

8. Suggest methods by which pupils may be led to distinguish major from
minor and to see things in their right relations.

9. Is it more desirable to have the pupils develop these powers or to
memorize facts? Why?

10. Why are "question and answer" publications antagonistic to modern
educational practice? Why harmful to students?




CHAPTER XXIV

WORLD-BUILDING


=An outline.=--Education is the process of world-building. Every man
builds his own world and is confined, throughout life, to the world
which he himself builds. He cannot build for another, nor can another
build for him. Neither can there be an exchange of worlds. Moreover, the
process of building continues to the end of life. In building their
respective worlds all men have access to the same materials, and the
character of each man's world, then, is conditioned by his choice and
use of these materials. If one man elects to build a small world for
himself, he will find, at hand, an abundant supply of petty materials
that he is free to use in its construction. But, if he elects to build a
large world, the big things of life are his to use. If he chooses to
spend his life in an ugly world, he will find ample materials for his
purpose. If, however, he prefers a beautiful world, the materials will
not be lacking, and he will have the joy and inspiration that come from
spending a lifetime amid things that are fraught with beauty.

=Exemplifications.=--This conception of education is not a figment of
fancy but a reality whose verification can be attested by a thousand
examples. We have only to look about us to see people who are living
among things that are unbeautiful and who might be living in beautiful
worlds had they elected to do so. Others are spending their lives among
things that are trivial and inconsequential, apparently blind to the
great and significant things that lie all about them. Some build their
worlds with the minor materials, while others select the majors. Some
select the husks, while others choose the grain. Some build their worlds
from the materials that others disdain and seem not to realize the
inferiority of their worlds as compared with others. Their supreme
complacency in the midst of the ugliness or pettiness of their worlds
seems to accentuate the conclusion that they have not been able to see,
or else have not been able to use, the other materials that are
available.

=Flowers.=--To the man who would live in a beautiful world flowers will
be a necessity. To such a man life would be robbed of some of its charm
if his world should lack flowers. But unless he has subjective flowers
he cannot have objective ones. He must have a sensory foundation that
will react to flowers or there can be no flowers in his world. There may
be flowers upon his breakfast table, but unless he has a sensory
foundation that will react to them they will be nonexistent to him. He
can react to the bacon, eggs, and potatoes, but not to the flowers,
unless he has cultivated flowers in his spirit before coming to the
table.

=Lily-of-the-valley civilization.=--All the flowers that grow may adorn
his world if he so elects. He may be content with dandelions and
sunflowers if he so wills, or he may reach forth and gather about him
for his delight the entire gamut of roses from the Maryland to the
American Beauty, the violet and its college-bred descendant the pansy,
the heliotrope, the gladiolus, the carnation, the primrose, the
chrysanthemum, the sweet pea, the aster, and the orchid. But, if he can
reach the high plane of the lily-of-the-valley, in all its daintiness,
delicacy, chastity, and fragrance, he will have achieved distinction.
When society shall have attained to the lily-of-the-valley plane, life
will be fine, fragrant, and beautiful. Intemperance will be no more, and
profanity, vulgarity, and coarseness will disappear. Such things cannot
thrive in a lily-of-the-valley world, but shrink away from the presence
of beauty and purity.

=Music.=--Again, the man who is building such a world will elect to have
music as one of the elements. But here, again, we find that he must have
a sensory foundation or there will be no music for him. Moreover, the
nature of this sensory foundation will determine the character of the
music to be found in his world. He may be satisfied with "Tipperary" or
he may yearn for Handel, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Melba, and
Schumann-Heink. He may not be able to rise above the plane of ragtime,
or he may attain to the sublime plane of "The Dead March in Saul." He
has access to all the music from the discordant hand organ to the
oratorio and grand opera. In his introduction of a concert company, the
chairman said: "Ladies and gentlemen, the artists who are to favor us
this evening will render nothing but high-grade selections. If any of
you are inclined to be critical and to say that their music is above
your heads, I beg to remind you that it will not be above the place
where your heads ought to be." In substance he was saying that the
nature of the music depended not so much upon the singers as upon the
sensory foundation of the auditors.

=Music and life.=--Having a sensory foundation capable of reacting to
the best music, this man opens wide the portals of his world for the
reception of the orchestra, the concert, the opera, and the choir, and
his spirit revels in the "concord of sweet sounds." Through the toil of
the day he anticipates the music of the evening, and the next day he
goes to his work buoyant and rejuvenated by reason of the musical
refreshment. He has music in anticipation and music in retrospect, and
thus his world is regaled with harmony. His world cannot be a dead level
or a desert, for it is diversified by the alluring undulations of music
and made fertile by the perennial fountains of inspiring harmony, and
his world

            "shall be filled with music
  And the cares that infest the day
  Shall fold their tents like the Arabs,
  And as silently steal away."

=Children.=--Again, this man elects to have children in his world, for
he has come to know that there is no sweeter music on earth than the
laughter of a child. Were he sojourning five hundred miles away from the
abode of children he would soon be glad to walk the entire distance that
he might again hear the prattle, the laughter, or even the crying of a
child. Cowboys on the plains have been thrown into a frenzy of delight
at the sight of a little child. Full well the man knows that, if he
would have children in his world, he must find these children for
himself; for this task may not be delegated. If he would bring Paul and
Florence Dombey into his world, he must win them to himself by living
with them throughout all the pages of the book. In order to lure
Pollyanna into his world to imbue it with the spirit of gladness, he
must establish a community of interests with her by imbibing her spirit
as revealed in the book.

=Characterizations.=--He may not have Little Joe in his world unless his
spirit becomes attuned to the pathos of _Bleak House_. And he both wants
and needs Little Joe. Echoing and reëchoing through his soul each day
are the words of the little chap, "He wuz good to me, he wuz," and
acting vicariously for the little fellow he touches the lives of other
unfortunates as the hours go by and brings to them sunshine and hope and
courage. And he must needs have Tiny Tim, also, to banish the cobwebs
from his soul with his fervent "God bless us every one." The day cannot
go far wrong with this simple prayer clinging in his memory. It
permeates the perplexities of the day, gives resiliency to his spirit,
and encourages and reënforces all the noble impulses that come into his
consciousness. Wherever he goes and whatever he is doing he feels that
Tiny Tim is present to bestow his childish benediction.

=Lessons from childhood.=--In _Laddie_ he finds a whole family of
children to his liking and feels that his world is the better for their
presence. To _Old Curiosity Shop_ and _Silas Marner_ he goes and brings
thence Little Nell and Eppie, feeling that in their boon companionship
they will make his world more attractive to himself and others by their
gentle graces of kindness and helpfulness. In his quest for children of
the right sort he lingers long with Dickens, the apostle and benefactor
of childhood, but passes by the colored supplement. For all the children
in his world he would have the approval and blessing of the Master. He
would know, when he hears the words "Except ye become as little
children," that reference is made to such children as he has about him.
At the feet of these children he sits and learns the lessons of
sincerity, guilelessness, simplicity, and faith, and through their eyes
he sees life glorified.

=Stars=.--Nor must his world lack stars. He needs these to draw his
thoughts away from sordid things out into the far spaces. He would not
spend a lifetime thinking of nothing beyond the weather, the ball-score,
his clothes, and his ailments. He wants to think big thoughts, and he
would have stars to guide him. He knows that a man is as high, as broad,
and as deep as his thoughts, and that if he would grow big in his
thinking he must have big objects to engage his thoughts. He would
explore the infinite spaces, commune with the planets in their courses,
attain the sublime heights where the masters have wrought, and discover,
if possible, the sources of power, genius, and inspiration. He would
find delight in the colors of the rainbow, the glory of the morning, and
the iridescence of the dewdrop. He would train his thoughts to scan the
spaces behind the clouds, to transcend the snow-capped mountain, and to
penetrate the depths of the sea. He would visualize creation, evolution,
and the intricate processes of life. So he must have stars in his world.

=Books.=--In addition to all these he must have books in his world, and
he is cognizant of the fact that his neighbors judge both himself and
his world by the character of the books he selects. He may select _Mrs.
Wiggs_ or _Les Miserables_. If he elects to have about him books of the
cabbage patch variety, he condemns himself to that sort of reading for a
whole lifetime. Nor is any redemption possible from such standards save
by his own efforts. Neither men nor angels can draw him up to the plane
of Victor Hugo if he elects to abide in the cabbage patch. If he prefers
_Graustark_ to _Macbeth_, all people, including his dearest friends,
will go on their way and leave him to his choice. If he says he cannot
read Shakespeare, Massinger, Milton, or Wordsworth, he does no violence
to the reputation of these writers, but merely defines and classifies
himself.

=Authors as companions.=--Having learned or sensed these distinctions,
he elects to consort with Burns, Keats, Shelley, Southey, Homer, Dante,
Virgil, Hawthorne, Scott, Maupassant, Goethe, Schiller, and George
Eliot. In such society he never has occasion to explain or apologize for
his companions. He reads their books in the open and gains a feeling of
elation and exaltation. When he would see life in the large, he sits
before the picture of Jean Valjean. When he would see integrity and
fidelity in spite of suffering, he sits before the portrait of Job. When
he would see men of heroic size, he has the characters of Homer file by.
If he would see the panorama of the emotions of the human soul, he
selects Hugo as his guide. If he would laugh, he reads _Tam O'Shanter_;
if he would weep, he reads of the death of Little Nell. If he would see
real heroism, he follows Sidney Carton to the scaffold, or Esther into
the presence of the King. He goes to Shelley's _Skylark_ to find beauty,
Burns's _Highland Mary_ to find tenderness, Hawthorne's _Scarlet Letter_
to find tragedy, and the _Book of Job_ to find sublimity. Through his
books he comes to know Quasimodo and Sir Galahad; Becky Sharp and
Penelope; Aaron Burr and Enoch Arden; and Herodias and Florence
Nightingale.

=People.=--But his world would be incomplete without people, and here,
again, he is free to choose. And, since he wants people in his world who
will be constant reminders to him of qualities that he himself would
cultivate, he selects Ruth and Jephthah's daughter to represent
fidelity. When temptation assails him he finds them ready to lead him
back and up to the plane of high resolves. To remind him of indomitable
courage and perseverance he selects William the Silent, Christopher
Columbus, and Moses. When his courage is waning and he is becoming
flaccid and indolent, their very presence is a rebuke, and a survey of
their achievements restores him to himself. As examples of patriotic
thinking and action he invites into his world Samuel Adams, Thomas
Jefferson, and Alexander Hamilton. They remind him that he is a product
of the past and that it devolves upon him to pass on to posterity
without spot or blemish the heritage that has come to him through the
patriotic service and sacrifice of his progenitors.

=Influence of people.=--That he may never lose sight of the fact that it
is cowardly and degrading to recede from high ideals he opens the doors
of his world for Milton, Beethoven, and Michael Angelo. Their superb
achievements, considered in connection with their afflictions and
hardships, are a source of inspiration to him and keep him up to his
best. As a token of his appreciation of these exemplars he strives to
excel himself, thus proving himself a worthy disciple. They need not
chide him, for in their presence he cannot do otherwise than hold fast
to his ideals and struggle upward with a courage born of inspiration.
Living among such goodly people, he finds his world resplendent with the
virtues that prove a halo to life. With such people about him he can be
neither lonely nor despondent. If the cares of life fret him for the
moment, he takes counsel with them and his equilibrium is restored. In
their company he finds life a joyous experience, for their very presence
exhales the qualities that make life worth while.

As an inevitable result of all the influences that constitute his world
he finds himself yearning for meliorism as the crownpiece. Drinking from
the fount of inspiration that gushes forth at the behest of all these
wholesome influences, he longs for betterment. Good as he finds the
things about him, he feels that they are not yet good enough. So he
becomes the eloquent apostle of meliorism, proclaiming his gospel
without abatement. The roads are not good enough, and he would have
better ones. Our houses are not good enough, and he would have people
design and build better ones. Our music is not good enough as yet, and
he would encourage men and women to write better. Our books are not good
enough, and he would incite people to write better ones. Our conduct of
civic affairs is not good enough, and he would stimulate society to
strive for civic betterment. Our municipal government is not good
enough, and he proclaims the need to make improvement. Our national
government is not all that it might be, and he would have all people
join in a benevolent conspiracy to make it better.

=Influence of the school.=--Thus day by day this man continues the
building of a world for himself. And day by day he strives to make his
world better, not only as an abiding place for himself but also as an
example for others. In short, this man is a product of the vitalized
school, and is weaving into the pattern of his life the teachings of the
school. In exuberance of spirit and in fervent gratitude he looks back
to the school that taught him to know that education is the process of
world-building. And to the school he gives the credit for the large and
beautiful world in which he lives.


QUESTIONS AND EXERCISES

1. Show how the world that one builds depends upon one's own choosing.

2. Do people seem to realize this truth when they do not build their
world as they might? If pupils fail to realize it, what can the teacher
do to help them?

3. Suppose a pupil is interested in petty things; the school must
utilize his interests. How can this be done? How can he be led to larger
aims?

4. To what extent does the richness of our lives depend on the way we
react to stimuli?

5. Explain how each of the influences alluded to in this chapter helps
the teacher.

6. Why does the character of the books one reads most serve as an index
of one's own character?

7. What do you think of a person who prefers new books?

8. What do you think of one who prefers sensational books?

9. Why is it especially important for a teacher to be thoroughly
acquainted with the great characters of history?

10. Does acquaintance with the great in history tend to produce merely a
good static character, or does it do more?




CHAPTER XXV

A TYPICAL VITALIZED SCHOOL


=The school an expression of the teacher.=--The vitalized school may be
a school of one room or of forty rooms; it may be in the city, in the
village, in the hamlet, or in the heart of the country; it may be a
kindergarten, a grade school, a high school, or a college. The size or
the location of the school does not determine its vital quality. This,
on the contrary, is determined by the character of its work and the
spirit that obtains. In general it may be said that the vitalized
teacher renders the school vital. This places upon her a large measure
of responsibility, but she accepts it with equanimity, and rejoices in
the opportunity to test out her powers. It needs to be oft repeated that
if the teacher is static, the school will be static; but if the teacher
is dynamic, the school will be dynamic. The teacher can neither
delegate, abrogate, abate, nor abridge her responsibility. The school is
either vitalized or it is not, according to what the teacher is and
does, and what the teacher does depends upon what she is. In short, the
school is an expression of the teacher, and, if the school is not
vitalized, the reason is not far to seek.

=A centralized school.=--For the purpose of illustration we may assume
that the typical vitalized school is located in the country, and is what
is known as a centralized school. The grounds comprise about ten acres,
and the building contains, all told, not fewer than twenty rooms, large
and small. This building was designed by a student of school problems,
and is not merely a theory of the architect. Each room, and each detail,
articulates with every other room in harmony with a general scheme of
which the child and his interests are the prime considerations. The
well-being of the child takes precedence over the reputation of the
architect. Every nook of the building has its specific function, and
this function has vital reference to the child. The location of each
piece of furniture can be explained from the viewpoint of the child, and
the architectural scheme is considered subsidiary. The seats conform to
the child, and not the reverse. The scheme of lighting concerns itself
with the child's welfare rather than with the external appearance.

=Integrity in construction and decoration.=--The decorations throughout
the building are all chaste and artistic. Nothing below this standard
can win admission. No picture is admitted that does not represent art.
The theory is that the school has a reflex influence upon the homes that
attracts them to its standards, and experience reveals the fact that the
decorations in the homes are constantly rising in artistic tone. The
standards of the school become the standards of the pupils, and the
pupils, in turn, modify and improve the standards of the homes. There is
a degree of simplicity and dignity throughout the building that banishes
from the homes the ornate and the bizarre. There is integrity in every
detail of construction, and the absence of veneer gives to the pupils a
definition of honesty and sincerity. There is nothing either in the
building or in the work of the school that savors of the show element.
The teachers of history and mathematics cannot display the products of
their teaching and, therefore, there is no display of her products by
the teacher of drawing. This school believes in education but not in
exhibition. Words of commendation may be dispensed in the classrooms,
but there is no exhibit of any department in the halls. The teachers are
too polite and too considerate to sanction any such display.

=Simplicity and sincerity.=--The library is notable for the character
of the books, but not for the number. The teachers and pupils are too
genuine ever to become thrasonical, and no teacher or pupil is ever
heard to boast of anything pertaining to the school. They neither boast
nor apologize, but leave every visitor free to make his own appraisement
of their school and its belongings. The teachers are too truly cultured
and the pupils are too well trained ever to exploit themselves, their
school, or their work. The pictures, the statuary, the fittings, and the
equipment are all of the best, and, hence, show for themselves without
exploitation. To teachers and pupils it would seem a mark of
ill-breeding to expatiate upon their own things. Such a thing is simply
not done in this school. The auditorium is a stately, commodious, and
beautiful room, and everybody connected with the school accepts it as a
matter of course with no boastful comment. Anything approaching
braggadocio would prove a discordant note in this school, and, in this
respect, it represents the American ideal that is to be.

=Rooms are phases of life.=--The home economics room, the industrial
arts room, the laboratories, the dining room, the rest rooms, and the
hospital room are all supplied with suitable fittings and equipment and
all represent phases of life. At luncheon each pupil is served a bowl of
soup or other hot dish to supplement his own private lunch, and this
food is supplied at public expense. The school authorities have the
wisdom to realize that health is an asset of the community and is
fundamental in effective school work. The pupils serve their schoolmates
in relays, wash the dishes, and restore them to their places. The boys
do not think they demean themselves by such service, but enter into it
in the true spirit of democracy. A teacher is present to modify and
chasten the hurry and heedlessness of childhood, and there is decorum
without apparent repression.

=Industrial work.=--In connection with the industrial arts department
there is a repair shop where all the implements that are used in caring
for the school farm, gardens, orchards, and lawns are kept in repair.
Here the auto trucks in which the pupils are brought to the school are
repaired by the drivers, assisted by the boys. In this shop the boys
gain the practical knowledge that enables them to keep in repair the
tools and machinery, including automobiles, at their homes. The farmers
who have no sons in school avail themselves of the skill and fidelity
that obtain in the shop, bringing in their tools, their harness, and
their automobiles for needed repairs. The money thus earned is expended
for school equipment. The products of the orchards, farm, and garden are
the property of the school and are all preserved for use in the home
economics department for school lunches. The man in charge of the farm
is employed by the year and is a member of the teaching staff. The farm,
gardens, orchard, and lawn are integral parts of the school, and perform
the functions of laboratories.

=School a life enterprise.=--There are all grades in the school, from
the kindergarten through the high school. There is but slight disparity
in the size of the classes, for the parents instinctively set apart
thirteen years of the time of their children for life in the school. To
these parents school and life are synonymous, and when a child enters
the kindergarten he enlists in the enterprise for a term of thirteen
years. The homes as well as the school are arranged on this basis, and
this plan of procedure is ingrained in the social consciousness.
Deserting the school is no more thought of than any other form of
suicide. If, by any chance, a boy should desert the school, he would be
a pariah in that community and could not live among the people in any
degree of comfort. He would be made to feel that he had debased himself
and cast aspersion upon society. The looks that the people would bestow
upon him would sting more than flagellation. He would be made to feel
that he had expatriated himself, and neither himself nor his parents
would be in good standing in the community. They would be made to feel
that their conduct was nothing short of sacrilege.

=Public sentiment.=--In view of the school sentiment that obtains in the
community the eighth grade is practically as populous as the first
grade. Attendance upon school work is a habit of thinking both with the
children and with their parents, and school is taken for granted the
same as eating and sleeping. If a boy should, for any cause, fail to
graduate from the high school, every patron of the school would regard
it as a personal calamity. They would feel that he had, somehow, been
dropped off the train before he reached his destination, and the whole
community would be inclined to wear badges of mourning. Every parent is
vitally interested in each child of the community, whether he has
children in school or not, and thus school taxes are paid with pride and
elation. The school is regarded as a safe investment that pays large
dividends. Patrons rally to the calls of the school with rare unanimity
and heartiness. Differences in politics and religion evaporate in their
school, for the school is the high plane upon which they meet in
fraternal concord.

=The course of study.=--The course of study is flexible, and because of
its resiliency it adapts itself easily and gracefully to the native
dispositions and the aptitudes of the various pupils. If the boy has a
penchant for agriculture, provision is made for him, both in the theory
and in the practical applications of the subject. If he inclines to
science, the laboratories accord him a gracious welcome. The studies are
adapted to the boy and not the boy to the studies. No boy need
discontinue school to find on the outside something that is congenial,
for, within the school, he may find work that represents life in all its
phases. If he yearns for horticulture, then this study is made his major
and, all in good time, he is made foreman of the group who care for the
gardens. If the course of study lacks the element which he craves and
for which he has a natural aptitude, this branch is added to the course.
The economy of life demands the conservation of childhood and youth and
the school deems it the part of wisdom as well as civic and social
economy to provide special instruction for this boy, as was done in the
case of Helen Keller. This school, in theory and in practice, is firm in
its opposition to wasting boys and girls. Hence, ample provision is made
for the child of unusual inclinations.

=Electives.=--The pupils do not elect a study because it is easy, but
because their inclinations run in that direction. Indeed, there are no
easy courses, no snap courses in the school. Diligent, careful, thorough
work is the rule, and there can be found no semblance of approval for
loafing or dawdling. The school stands for purposes that are clear in
definition and for work that is intense. There are no prizes offered for
excellent work, but the approbation of parents, teachers, and
schoolmates, in the estimation of the pupils, far transcends any
material or symbolic prizes that could be offered. In school work and in
conduct the pupils all strive to win this approval. There is no
coarseness nor boorishness, for that would forfeit this approval. The
cigarette is under ban, for public sentiment is against it; and, after
all, public sentiment is the final arbiter of conduct. Hence, no boy
will demean himself by flying in the face of public sentiment through
indulging in any practice that this sentiment proclaims unclean or
enervating.

=The school the focus of community life.=--This school is the focus of
the community. Hither come the patrons for music, for lectures, for art,
for books and magazines, for social stimulus, and, in short, for all the
elements of their avocational life. Indeed, in educational matters, the
community is a big wholesome family and the school is the shrine about
which they assemble for educational and cultural communion. It is quite
a common practice for mothers to sit in the classrooms engaged in
knitting or sewing while their children are busy with their lessons.
For, in their conception of life, geography and sewing are coördinate
elements, and so blend in perfect harmony in the school régime. At the
luncheon period these mothers go to the dining room with their children
in the same spirit of coöperation that gives distinction to the school
and to the community. There is an interflow of interests between the
school and the homes that makes for unity of purpose and practice. There
is freedom in the school but not license. People move about in a natural
way but with delicate consideration for the rights and sentiments of
others. The atmosphere of the school interdicts rudeness. There is a
quiet dignity, serenity, and intensity, with no abatement of freedom. In
this school it is not good form for a boy to be less than a gentleman or
for a girl to be less than a lady.

=The teachers.=--The atmosphere in which the pupils live is, mainly, an
exhalation from the spirit of the teachers. They live and work together
in a delightful spirit of concord and coöperation. They are magnanimous
and would refuse to be a part of any life that would decline from this
high plane. In this corps there are no hysterics, no heroics, no strain,
no stress. They are, first of all, successful human beings; and their
expert teaching is an expression of their human qualities. Their
teaching is borne along on the tones of conversation. They know that
well-modulated tones of voice contribute to the culture and well-being
of the school. Should a teacher ever indulge in screeching, nagging,
hectoring, badgering, or sarcasm, she would find herself ostracized.
Such things are simply not done in this school. Hence, she would soon
realize that this school is no place for her and would voluntarily
resign. The school is simply above and beyond her kind.

=Unity of purpose.=--Among the teachers there are no jealousies, because
each one is striving to exalt the others. They are so generous in their
impulses, and have such exalted conceptions of life, that they incline
to catalogue their colleagues among the very elect. The teacher in the
high school and the teacher in the primary grade hold frequent
conversations concerning each other's work, and no teacher ever loses
interest in the pupils when they advance to the next grade. To such
teachers, education is not parceled out in terms of years but is a
continuous process, even as life itself. They use the text-book merely
as a convenience, but never as a necessity. If all the text-books in the
school should be destroyed overnight, the work would proceed as usual
the next day, barring mere inconvenience. They respect themselves and
others too highly ever to assume a patronizing air toward their pupils.
On the contrary, they treat them as coördinates and confederates in the
noble and exhilarating game of life.

=The vitalized school.=--They have due regard to their personal
appearance, but, once they have decided for the day, they dismiss the
matter from their thinking and devote their attention to major
considerations. Neither in dress, in manner, nor in conversation do they
ever bring into the school a discordant note. School hours are not a
detached portion of life but, rather, an integral part of life, and to
them life is quite as agreeable during these hours as before and after.
Such as they cannot do otherwise than render the school vital. And when
such teachers and patrons as these join in such a benevolent conspiracy,
then shall we realize not only a typical school but the vitalized
school.


QUESTIONS AND EXERCISES

1. Upon what does the vitalization of a school mainly depend? Upon what
else does it depend in part?

2. What suggestion is made in this chapter in regard to the planning of
school buildings?

3. Why should care be taken in choosing the decorations of a school?

4. Why is it unwise for teacher or pupils to boast of the achievements
of the school?

5. Why has the question of school lunches gained so much prominence
recently?

6. How should the industrial work in a school be linked with that in the
community?

7. Why are there fewer students in the higher than in the lower grades
of most schools? Make a careful analysis of the situation in this
respect in your school.

8. Why is it a calamity to a community for a boy to fail to graduate
from the high school?

9. What may be done to prevent a child going outside the school to find
something congenial?

10. What should be a student's motive in choosing a course?

11. How do you make your school a center for community life? How can you
make it more of a center than it is?

12. How is the spirit of jealousy among teachers injurious to our school
system? What usually makes one teacher disparage the work of another?

13. What is essential in vitalizing a school?




INDEX


Absorbing standards, 160.

Acquisitiveness, 52.

Advantages of socialized recitation, 178.

Agriculture; a typical study, 192;
  its rapid development, 193;
  relation to geology, 194;
  the source of life, 202.

Altruism, 124.

Ambition, 226.

American restaurants, 86.

American story, 231.

Analysis and synthesis, 293.

Anarchy, 73.

Ancestor, child as a future, 34.

Ancestors, attitude of, 31.

Answers, repetition of, 139.

Antecedent causes, 261.

Art, 197, 268;
  teaching as an, 143.

Aspiration, 224;
  and worship, 149.

Aspirations, 59.

Attitude of teacher, 11, 272.

Attitude towards work, 148.

Authors, 311.

Automobile, 105;
  factory, 47.


Beauty, desire for pastoral, 58.

Behavior, amplified, 265;
  in history, 267;
  in retrospect, 259;
  scope of, 256.

Betterment, 244.

Body subject to the mind, 120.

Books, 311;
  as exponents of life, 14;
  of questions and answers, 300;
  of life, 228;
  supreme, 252.

Botany, importance of, 195.

Boy, story of a, 236.

Bread, 200.


Centralized school, 318.

Characterizations, 308.

Child; as a future ancestor, 34;
  as a whole, 250;
  as the objective, 200;
  and teacher, quest of, 104;
  as the center in school procedure, 18;
  imagination of, 26;
  supreme, 252;
  right to express himself, 25;
  play instinct of, 24;
  relation of to school work, 27;
  life, 21;
  rights of, 20.

Child's; conception of truth, 109;
  conception, 103;
  need of ideals, 169;
  viewpoint of teacher, 168;
  experiences, 27;
  native tendencies, 24;
  right to the best, 23;
  native interests, 255;
  imagination, 236.

Childhood curtailed, 22.

Children, 307;
  parental attitude towards, 19;
  common interests, 216;
  should have school privileges, 19;
  real interests, 217;
  _vs._ statistics, 247.

Cigarettes, 117.

Circus day, 118.

Civilization, 305.

Clean living, 37.

College influences, 11.

Columbus, voyage of, 152.

Commerce, 55.

Common from commonplace, 151.

Comparison of life and living, 1.

Comparison of two teachers, 129.

Complacency of teacher, 135.

Complete living defined, 112.

Complexity of life, 4.

Concepts restricted, 262, 279.

Concessions, 297.

Conclusion, 272.

Conduct of teacher, 171.

Conflict, 65.

Conservation, 245.

Contrasted methods, 44.

Contrasts, 278.

Coöperation, 75.

Course of study, 324.

Court procedure, 291.

Curtailment of childhood, 22.


Definition; of complete living, 112;
  of poetry, 222;
  of politician, 40;
  of socialized recitation, 176;
  of teaching, 2.

Degrees and human qualities, 248.

Democracy; foreign concept of, 66;
  the vitalized school a, 69.

Democratic spirit, manifestations of, 71.

Democratic teacher, 75.

Desire is fundamental, 60.

Desires for things intangible, 53.

Domestic science, 199.

Dynamic qualities, 146.


Economic articulation, 59.

Education, 101, 303;
  and substitution, 43;
  by absorption, 160;
  schools of, 246;
  unconsciously gained, 164.

Efficiency, 80.

Electives, 325.

English, teacher of, 239.

Enthusiasm, element of, 150.

Environment, 259.

Etymology, 106.

Examinations, 288;
  traditional method, 294;
  testing for intelligence, 296;
  way of reform, 301.

Expertness, appraisal of teaching, 131.


Faith, 203, 227.

Filtration plant and a vitalized school, 206.

Flowers, 304.

Food and life, 201.

Foreign concept of democracy, 66.

Formalities, meaningless, 128.

Freedom, 120, 275;
  elements of, 283;
  real, 280.

Function of the school, 70, 210.


Gang element, 179.

Generations, rights of the coming, 30.

Girl and her elders, 237.

Grammar, 212.

Great Stone Face, 162.


Habit, persistency of, 92.

History, 79, 254, 270, 278;
  behavior in, 267;
  meaning of, 14.

Home and the school, 255.

Hospitals cited, 32.

House of Parliament, 55.

Human interest, 155.

Human qualities, degrees of, 248.

Humor, 232;
  betokens deep feeling, 239;
  defies explanation, 242;
  lack of, 235;
  of Lincoln, 238.


Ideal; of the school, 215;
  rôle of, 166.

Idealist, 49.

Ideals, a perpetual influence, 169.

Imagination of children, 26, 236.

Imitation, politician worthy of, 43.

Incomplete living, 113.

Individual, responsibility of the, 69.

Industrial work, 321.

Influence; of people, 313;
  of the school, 315;
  upon pupils, 185.

Influences of college, 11.

Initial statement, 100.

Innate tendencies, 61.

Intelligence of teacher, 298.

Intensity, life measured by, 2.

Interest in practice, 180.

Interest, life the great human, 249.


Joy in work of artist teacher, 145.


Language, 211;
  a social study, 211;
  and vitality, 15.

Leadership, 42, 261.

Learning democracy, 268.

Lesson a prophecy, 263.

Lessons from childhood, 309.

Life; and living compared, 1;
  and music, 307;
  and reading, 12;
  as subject matter in teaching, 6;
  books as exponents of, 14;
  book of, 228;
  complexity of, 4;
  every subject invested with, 155;
  how the poet learns, 223;
  in literature, 6;
  quality of, 219;
  manifestations of, 5;
  measured by intensity, 2;
  sea as, 104;
  teachers' influx of, 228;
  the great human interest, 249;
  transfusion of, 224.

Life and food, 201.

Lincoln's humor, 238.

Literature; life in, 6;
  pedagogy in, 163.

Long division ramified, 264.


Machine teacher, 246.

Machinery, 268.

Major and minor, 299.

Man, 285.

Manifestations of life, 5.

Mark Twain as a philosopher, 240.

Mathematics vitalized, 10.

Meanderings, 139.

Melting pot, 67.

Mental atrophy, 289.

Methods, 292;
  contrasted, 44;
  potency of right, 132;
  of the politician, 41.

Michael Angelo, 108.

Military training, 118.

Minor and major, 299.

Misconceptions, 35, 66.

Misfits, 216.

Mistakes, 214.

Monuments, 58.

Mulberry Bend, 83.

Music, 306;
  and life, 307.


Native land, 226.

Needs of society, 212.


Outlook, 264.

Ownership, potency of, 181.


Parental attitude towards children, 19.

Parliament, House of, 55.

Patriot, a typical, 82.

Patriotism; a determining motive, 78;
  as a working principle, 77;
  conclusions, 89;
  in daily life, 85;
  thrift as, 87.

Pedagogy in literature, 163.

Penalizing, 294.

People, 312;
  influence of, 313.

Perseverance, 225.

Personal efficiency, 115.

Physical training, 116.

Physics and Chemistry, 196.

Physiology, 196.

Poetry, 271;
  defined, 222.

Poet learns life how, 223.

Politician defined, 40;
  methods of, 41;
  worthy of imitation, 43.

Possibilities, 134.

Potency of right methods, 132.

Power of understanding, 13.

Problem of the teacher, 98.

Proprietary interests, 180.

Public sentiment, 323.

Pupil teacher, 177.


Question stated, 127.

Questions and answers, 290;
  books of, 300.


Rational methods, 292.

Reading and life, 12.

Recitation, example of socialized, 187.

Reflex influence, 184.

Remembering and knowing, 290.

Repeating answers, 139.

Resourcefulness, 153.

Responsibility of the school, 36.

Restricted concepts, 262.

Resultants, 183.

Rights of the child, 20.

Rome, 276.

Rooms, 320.


Sanitation, 82.

Scholar's concept of the sea, 102.

School; and society, 46;
  and the home, 255;
  an expression of the teacher, 317;
  and factory compared, 130;
  a life enterprise, 322;
  function of the, 70;
  function of, 210;
  ideal of the, 215;
  influence of, 315.

Schoolhouse, 319;
  the community center, 326.

Schools; of education, 246;
  responsibility of, 36;
  work of the, 110.

Sciences, relation of, to life, 198.

Sea; as life, 104;
  scholar's concept of, 102.

Self-complacency, 289.

Self-interest, 41.

Self-reliance, 284.

Self-respect, 286.

Shakespeare, 269.

Simplicity and sincerity, 320.

Snobbery, 73.

Social intercourse, 56.

Social study, language a, 211.

Socialized recitation; definition of, 176;
  sample of, 187;
  exemplified in society, 182.

Society; and the school, 46;
  needs of, 212.

Sound body, 114.

Spelling, 281;
  as patriotism, 77.

Spirit, things of the, 123.

Spiritual freedom, 275.

Stars, 310.

Statistics _vs._ children, 247.

Stories, 233.

Story of a boy, 236.

Street signs, 121.

Substitutions, results of, 48.

Switchboard, 282.

Synthesis and analysis, 293.

Synthetic teaching, 203.


Teacher, 165;
  and child, 104;
  as a machine, 246;
  as environment, 162;
  attitude towards children, 254;
  conduct of, 171;
  characteristic qualities of, 144;
  intelligence of, 298;
  growth of, 172;
  her supremacy, 166;
  of English, 239;
  responsibility of, 159;
  rule of life, 171;
  seeing life large, 172;
  school an expression of, 317;
  skill of the, 256;
  status irrevocable, 168;
  volubility, 136.

Teachers, 327;
  attitude, 11, 170;
  complacency, 135;
  contrasted, 9;
  first type, 251;
  influx of life, 228;
  problem, 89;
  province, 7;
  other self, 167;
  three types of, 250.

Teaching, 229;
  as a fine art, 143;
  defined, 2;
  test of, 137;
  life as subject matter in, 6;
  power, 248.

Temperance, 81.

Tests of teaching, 137.

Things of the spirit, 123.

Thinking, 293.

Thirteen colonies, 154.

Three types of teachers, 250.

Thrift as patriotism, 87.

Time element, basic considerations, 129.

Time, waste of, 133.

Tom Sawyer, 91.

Trained minds, 122;
  achievements of, 123.

Transfusion of life, 224.

Travel instinct, 57.

Truth, child's conception of, 109.

Twain story, 241.

Two teachers compared, 129.

Typical patriot, 82.


Understanding, power of, 13.

Unity of purpose, 328.


Variety in excellence, 63.

Vitalized mathematics, 10.

Vitalized School, 329;
  a democracy, 69;
  an exemplification of complete living, 113;
  filtration plant, 206.

Voluble teacher, 136.


Waste of time, 133.

Weaknesses transmitted, 30.

Westminster Abbey, 54.

Word automobile, 105.

Word in use, 107.

Work; a blessing, 96;
  as a privilege, 92;
  and enjoyment, 97;
  of the school, 110;
  potency of mental, 95;
  misconceptions of, 93.

World-building, 303.




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