Rhoda's Teacher and Her School

THE teacher no longer sits below the salt. His is the noblest profession known to man. Of him we demand higher qualifications, nobler instincts, and greater devotion than of any other. His purpose is to train and develop the immortal; to fit it for its work, to establish its character, and to endow it with power to perform aright all human duties, private and public. The teacher of boys has one phase of this work to perform, the teacher of girls another. How many of the men and women engaged in “teaching,” as they say, really consider their high calling in its sublime aspect? How many go into it as a “business?” How many think? A high English authority tells us that, in his country the teachers who think are few.

What are some of the qualifications of a teacher? Knowledge of his subject comes first to mind, of course, but, that allowed, the subject must take a place in the background, for the child to be taught stands first. The question for the teacher is not, “ How shall I get into this mind the facts of my subject?” but rather, “How shall I train this child so that it may reach its greatest development? How shall I arouse in it an interest in the subject so real that it will demand facts which, without such interest, are dry and impossible of assimilation ? ”

Before all other qualifications, however, the teacher’s character is the fundamental requisite. That must be above reproach in all things. Milton’s words about the poetie power are specially true in regard to the power to teach. “ He who would not be frustrate,” said the great poet, “of his hope to write well hereafter in laudable things, must himself be a true poem.” He who would not be frustrate of his hope to teach well at any time ought himself to be a lofty exemplar of the virtues he would impress upon his pupils. The teacher who stands before a class for hours every day ought to exert greater influence even than the clergyman who speaks from the pulpit one day in the week, and he ought at least to have an equally lofty character, known and recognized by all men. The teacher who is master of his subject, and who has this nobility of character, needs no help of artifices to assist him in governing his pupils—he has simply to be, and they obey.

Directness of aim is one of the prime necessities for successful gunnery. It is necessary in every effort. The teacher should remember this. “ Many a master,” says one, “runs about mentally just as if he were trying to catch geese on a common. There is the flock assembled in a reasonably compact body. He makes a dash into the middle — of course missing his victim, and off they go in all directions, he after them, first chasing one, then another, till the flock has ceased to be a flock, and he, all out of breath, is no longer within reach of any of them. Run one goose quietly into a corner, — run him down, is the first rule for catching geese, and a good rule, too, whether in classroom or on common.”

This dictum has a direct relation to our discussion. When we bring our minds to bear on the subject of schools and teachers, let us make the aim definite by getting the range on some particular school or teacher. In no way can this be accomplished better than by singling out our own daughter, for that brings in the personal element and gives point to the thoughts. When we take a class or an entire school as our unit, we are apt to dissipate our attention. A class or a school does not come home to a man as his own daughter and her school do. Let us call our daughter Rhoda, and think of her school.

What, therefore, is our desire for Rhoda ? What do we wish for this particular bit of humanity ? Where do we wish her to stand when she comes to maturity ? She is to be cultivated, to be developed, to be a refined member of the social union, and she is destined to take part in the development of other human beings. How shall we fit her in body and mind for this high function ? As we look at her, we determine that she must not become a mere compendium of facts, a walking encyclopædia. She certainly must not be developed into a specialist, for a specialist is one-sided, and Rhoda is to be a well rounded woman.

Whom shall we take for Rhoda’s teacher ? First, she must be a normal woman, with the natural instincts of womanhood. She cannot be a mere specialist herself, even if she teach but a single subject. She must be in touch with everything that belongs to humanity. Look at the great teachers of the past whose biographies have come down to us. It is patent that we are not impressed by what they have done, nor is it their knowledge that impressed their pupils. It is not what a great teacher knows, but what he is, that has made him a power among his pupils. His personality has left the impression and has made him forever loved by his boys or girls. It is not what he did.

The world is full of examples that illustrate this. The biography of Robert E. Lee is a case in hand. When he was president of Washington and Lee University it was not because he was a great scholar that the students idolized him, nor because he was a general of highest rank, but for the reason that every student felt the power of his personality, — felt that in the president he saw one who felt for him as an individual.

The life of that most original of English head masters, Edward Thring, furnishes another instance. As I write there comes to me a letter from one of Thring’s former pupils, for many years engaged in active business affairs. This practical man writes, “Edward Thring was indeed a jewel among men. ... His personality and influence pervaded the whole of Uppingham, and I suppose so strict a man was never so beloved by his boys as he was. I never saw a countenance like his. It was deep-lined, solemn, severe in repose, but it would suddenly light up, the keen blue eyes flash, and the whole expression become joyous, kind, and tender, while his merry laugh rang out, when the humor was on him, or a subject touched him or roused his enthusiasm or sympathy.” Again it is plain from this unpremeditated utterance of an old pupil that it was the man, and not the knowledge, that inspired the boys. What matters it to this writer what Thring taught ? Perhaps another man might have given the Uppingham boys the same facts in grammar or in literature, but it was only Thring the man who could after so many years call forth such words as these. It was his personality that made boys the men that they became. What thought did an Uppingham boy give to the fact that the Headmaster was a great executive ? Was he impressed by Thring’s Napoleonic ability as a commander ? Perhaps now, after years of stress of battle with strong opposition themselves, the boys appreciate the odds against which their master struggled; but then little did they reck if Thring wrestled with his antagonistic trustees or with the Uppingham authorities, to get opportunity to develop the school as it should be developed, or to get proper drainage when health and even life depended upon prompt action. Whatever impression Thring’s ability as a director may make, that is not the trait first suggested by the mention of his name. No, it is the beloved man who is recalled! So, Rhoda’s teacher must be a real person with all human sympathies, with nobility of mind and heart, possessing innate and cultivated graces, and with sufficient education.

Rhoda’s teacher must needs know her subject, but experience tells us that it is not the greatest scholar who becomes the greatest teacher. How many women and men of limited intellectual endowment have inspired their pupils to progress far beyond the limits that they themselves ever reached!

The true teacher trains his pupil in the proper use of his natural powers, and aims to make him independent of the assistance as well as of the authority of others. He develops in him an ability to think, to foresee consequences, to calculate their effects, and, in short, to govern himself.

The mechanical teacher, on the other hand, controls by rules, holds the pupil up by stays, and begets no strength in him. When the teacher withdraws this support, when the pupil is freed from these rules, he is unable to stand alone, unless, indeed, strength has come to him in some other way. As well might we expect to increase physical vigor in a pupil by exercising in his stead in the best equipped gymnasium.

Knowledge is good, but wisdom is better. The college valedictorian, trained to take knowledge in, rather than to impart it, may have much of it with but little wisdom ; he may be able, as a teacher, to drill boys and girls in Greek or Latin de clensions, and cram them with facts, useful or valueless; but if he cannot produce in them what Spencer calls “pleasurable excitement,” and interest, he is a failure. His would be the sort of teaching that harps upon obedience and discipline, and endeavors by force of rule and rod to oblige the pupil to study and learn. The will cannot be forced, but the real teacher knows well that it can be led. He remembers the remark of Rousseau that “the teacher’s province is less to instruct than to guide,” that “he must not lay down precepts, but teach his pupils to discover them.” This was the way of that great teacher, Agassiz, certainly.

Obstacles were made to be surmounted, and there are so many of them in the way that it seems unnecessary to create others. Yet there are teachers who think it a part of their work to obstruct the progress of their pupils by setting up factitious difficulties, for the sake of discipline, forsooth. Rhoda’s teacher will have none of this.

There was once a very bright girl who could not be aroused in her classes in mathematics. She was overflowing with interest in her other school work, but could look upon this single subject with no warmer feelings than simple endurance. It was found, on inquiry, that a teacher who for a considerable period had directed her work disliked this particular line of thought. It was then said, and properly said, that if this teacher had been interested in the science, the pupil would have been likewise interested.

It is vain for a teacher to attempt to work up an appearance when the reality is not there; girls and boys readily see through all such thin disguises. No word is needed; the feeling of the teacher is known at once, and the pupil takes a sympathetic attitude, believing that the teacher is right, and that following her cannot lead him far astray. The same holds good in regard to the moral and religious character of the teacher. No spoken words are needed to put the pupil in accord with her in this higher domain. The instructor of character goes about among her pupils shedding upon them the light of her beneficent example, leading them to appreciate and enjoy instinctively what is grand and true. In fact, it is better that the ordinary teacher should not endeavor to give too much direct religious instruction, for religion can no more be taught than any other virtue can. Virtues are lived, and the strong imitative faculty of the child leads to the cultivation of traits that are admired. The true teacher aims to train the pupil to be strong enough to live her individual life without the help that some teachers think necessary to give their pupils. Pupil and teacher are inevitably destined to part at some time, and the teacher who encourages her charge to be dependent upon her trains her to weakness and to sure failure when the parting time comes.

There are enthusiastic teachers who are inspired by the spirit of rush; but the school should not be a place of hurry and confusion. The air of calmness and peace should pervade its sphere of influence. The very word school gives the cue. The Greek words σολή and σχολαστικός must not be forgotten in our age of haste. To the Greek in his calm civilization, σχολή signified a place of leisure, and σχολαστικος was a person who employed his leisure in cultivating his mind. The teacher who is always pressed cannot perform his duty in a proper way. The spirit of hurry demands inevitably its sacrifice. It is true also that there is a spirit of thoroughness that is wearing, that exhausts the vitality. One who cannot discriminate between things that may properly be lightly touched, and those of more importance, is at a vast disadvantage. Textbooks exist that show plainly that the editor was obsessed by the feeling that his work must be spoken of as “exhaustive,” and he carries every point to the utmost verge of explanation, giving as great weight to those matters of little importance as to those of real value to the reader, and not complimenting him by supposing that he is in the possession of brains. In this case thoroughness is the thief of time and strength.

We know that there are two periods of leisure in the life of man, childhood and age. The first is adapted to the purposes of education, and the other to counsel and meditation. There are favored mortals who are privileged to extend the time of leisure over their entire lives; but in comparison with the whole of humanity, they are few in number. They have opportunities for benefiting the world that others cannot hope for. Professors and other instructors in institutions of learning should belong to the favored class; but their chances for leisure are lessened by the fact that they are so poorly paid that they are forced to focus all their attention on the effort to make provision for the physical needs of their households and themselves. Clergymen should also belong to this class, but too often their stipends are so niggardly that they, too, are obliged to forego every advantage that leisure could and ought to bring.

Childhood is, therefore, the only real period of leisure that can be counted on by mankind in general, and this is the period of education proper, the time of school days.

If, now, a school is a place of leisure, not of bustle and haste; if by education we mean training, the development of the child, mind, body, and soul, the acquisition of power, the establishment of character; if by teacher we mean a person capable of performing this great and beneficent work, a man or a woman who can be properly described as a “combination of heart, head, artistic training, and favoring circumstances, an artificer in mind and noble life, ” rather than a hearer of lessons, then we are brought to the conclusion that there are very few teachers anywhere, and but little education. Perhaps, however, the case is not quite so desperate as it appears, and we may at least comfort ourselves with the recollection that there have been great teachers in the past; and we may believe that many are now at work forming the character of the coming generation, even in the beginning of the twentieth century. The trouble is that in this world of storm and stress they are at a disadvantage, and the merely mechanical teacher can almost always make a better impression on the average parent. A father or a mother is ordinarily not an educational specialist, and is obliged to come to a decision after a superficial survey which does not give the work of the real instructor time to show itself. Nature, whom, indeed, we must follow, does not make haste. The seed does not become a tree in a day or a week, even in a forcing house; and yet many parents expect the teacher to show at the end of a brief period the rings that the oak takes years to develop.

We are now to say where this leisure and these opportunities are to be enjoyed. Rhoda’s teacher must have a schoolroom. That necessitates a building, and the room must have four walls. These walls and this building should be so constructed as to cultivate good taste. The adornment should be simple and true. No sham stone can find a place on the walls. The wood must be wood the stone stone, the plaster plaster. There must be harmony of colors, symmetry of proportion, and floods of sunlight, and the light must fall on every desk and table at the right angle to be favorable for the eyes. There should be casts and pictures to please and cultivate, but there should be no approach to luxury. Adornments must not be supplied with the prodigality sometimes seen, where profusion amounts to confusion and over-adornment gives rise to disgust. There must, of course, be desks adaptable to the varying sizes of the pupils, with seats likewise adaptable. Finally, there must be space and air, — space enough to enable all to move about without inconvenience to others, and air sufficient to enable them to breathe with ease and health. Such requirements do not make heavy demands upon the bank account. Sunlight and air are provided free by Providence; proper desks and seats are no more costly than bad ones; casts and engravings are offered at prices that quite take them out of the class of luxuries; harmony and proportion are things for which no architects make extra charges.

What courses of instruction shall the model teacher carry on in her model schoolroom ? It is evident that the teacher is of much greater importance than any course of study; but it seems to us of the twentieth century that there is little or no knowledge not appropriate for a girl. Girls go to college nowadays, of course, though the going to college has already entered its second stage, and is no longer the fad that it once was. It is conceded that a girl has as good a right to a college education as a boy has; but it is far from being proved that all girls should take that course. It has been discovered that studies once thought to be outside of the sphere of woman are studies that she is adapted to shine in.

When we look back to the day when Vassar College opened its doors, and recollect how society shuddered at the thought that girls would be tempted to pursue a college course, we see that there has been progress. We recall the care with which the first announcements were worded in order that they might not arouse more prejudice than necessary. It is plain that the projectors dared not jeopardize the success of the enterprise by offering the girls all the college opportunities that their brothers had. You will see that it was gingerly said that they might well carry on this or that study, because this and that seemed to be “appropriate for girls;” botany, for instance, would be a good study, for flowers and girls seemed to have an established sympathy. Chemistry would do likewise, for does it not come handy in cooking? French would serve on a foreign trip, and so on. Now we know that women have made their mark in biology, in mathematics, and in what not ? If the announcement of Vassar College had encouraged some of the studies now successfully pursued by girls and women, its end would have been near its opening day; at least, so it seems to one who read its first circulars and watched its first steps.

Shall Rhoda go to college, then ? Yes, if Rhoda wishes to — if her cast of mind promises success in that life. If she be nervous and delicate, the regularity of the college work and the training she will receive there will do her good; if she be robust, she will be able to enter upon the work of the classroom and even of the gymnasium without damage; but it is always to be premised that the leisure necessary for the scholastic life must never be taken from her. If in the college she is to be submitted to pressure and excitement, let her beware.

Suppose that Rhoda is not of the college type; then her teacher will plan for her differently. The fitting course for college, it may as well be confessed, is the narrowest that can be imagined. It places the girl in the position of the athlete training for a four de force, for a contest, not for a life. From her must be taken during her preparatory years all that does not directly bear upon the examinations that are to be tried at the close. There is usually no time for rest, no opportunity to carry on any “cultivating” work. Every day there must be the same hard grind, with the eye unflinchingly, perhaps tremblingly, held to the goal, — the dreaded examination. The study that she undertakes is not for the improvement of the human being, not even to determine that she is fitted for a college course, but simply — so she thinks, at least — to enable her to answer a certain set of questions. It is, as it is usually performed, a test of the ability to recall at will facts drilled into her mind by a trainer. There are some colleges that see the wrongness of this dry and “catchy” kind of examination paper, and endeavor to make the questions such as really to furnish a test of the intellectual condition of the candidate; but some of them offer a premium for very cram, and award the prize to the drill-master, thus making the fitting school that is able to send the largest number with the highest marks stand as the best; whereas that school is really the best that gives the candidate the most complete moral and physical preparation for college work and life. Therefore in her school days the girl who is not destined for college has the advantage. The other will have her opportunity for broadening after she has successfully passed the college gates; but we cannot forget that there are many advantages in the possession of these opportunities at an earlier age. A girl came to me, for example, the other day who had gone through the college preparatory course in a Latin School; but circumstances kept her out of college. She was fitted for the chance to broaden her intellectual horizon in college, but now the chance was taken from her. She found that ground had been lost, and she sought admission to classes in school that were not preparatory for admission examinations. Therefore, if Rhoda is not destined for college, she will receive from her teacher the cultivating training which will prepare her for a full life, will enlighten her whole being, will add to her appreciation of all that is true and beautiful, and will send her out the well rounded woman who is so greatly needed in every social circle.

The college for girls has become to a certain extent a professional school. It is a necessity that women who take up the grand profession of the teacher should have had a college course; perhaps, even, that they should become specialists. Doubtless specialists are of advantage to the world; but special development in the man or woman is of more worth for the race as a whole than it is for the individual in particular. A certain man is said to have spent his life in counting the spots on the sun. He accomplished much for the science of astronomy, perhaps, in laying a foundation of facts for others to build upon; but was it not done at the cost of his own starvation, at a cost too great ?

Can too high an estimate be set upon the teacher? Have I set too high an estimate on Rhoda’s teacher? Is it true that there is no higher profession ? Is there anything better for a man to do than to train the immortal ?

If we doubt, let us reflect that He who spake as never man spake stands for all time as The Teacher. There is no higher name than his. He took little children in his bosom; He trained his followers, not by precept more than by example; true, He left precepts for the world, but it is his personality that counts in the upbuilding of character.