LIBRARY 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. 
 
 Class 
 
The Teacher and 
 His Work. 
 
THE TEACHER 
 AND HIS WORK 
 
 Samuel Findley, Ph.D. 
 
 HINDS, NOBLE & ELDREDGE 
 
 3J-33-35 West J5th Street New York City 
 
COPYRIGHT, 1899 
 
 BY 
 SAMUEL FINDLEY 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 THIS book is the outgrowth of almost a lifetime 
 of school work in nearly every grade of schools, 
 from the district school in the country to the city 
 superin tendency . 
 
 Much of the matter contained has done duty, in 
 other forms, at teachers' institutes in Ohio, Pennsyl- 
 vania, West Virginia, and Illinois; and a considerable 
 part has appeared in an educational magazine. The 
 whole has been carefully revised much of it re- 
 written. 
 
 I have not been ambitious to make a large book, 
 but rather to condense within moderate limits as 
 much as possible of helpfulness and inspiration to 
 those who are bearing the burden and heat of the 
 day. Nor have I striven after novelty or display of 
 learning, but I have striven to make simple and 
 plain some of the most vital things in school educa- 
 tion. 
 
 The life of an earnest teacher is of necessity 
 laborious and pains-taking, but it has its compensa- 
 tions. Though at times painfully conscious of weak- 
 ness and short-coming, I find in the retrospect of 
 
 17631)4 
 
the years much more of satisfaction than regret. 
 I rejoice that I have had, and still have, some part 
 in a work so good. 
 
 A hearty God-speed to every worker into whose 
 hands this book may come. 
 
 SAMUEly 
 Akron, Ohio. 
 
 July, 1899. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 I. CHARACTER AND EQUIPMENT OF THE 
 
 TEACHER. 
 II. THE TEACHER'S SPIRIT. 
 
 III. PROFESSIONAL ETHICS. 
 
 IV. PREPARATION AND ADAPTATION. 
 V. SCHOOL ORGANIZATION. 
 
 VI. RECITATION AND STUDY. 
 VII. GOVERNMENT OF THE SCHOOL. 
 VIII. THE MORAL AND RELIGIOUS ELEMENT IN 
 EDUCATION. 
 
Character and Equipment 
 of the Teacher. 
 
* ' For myself, I am certain that the good of human life 
 cannot lie in the possession of things which, for one man to 
 possess, is for the rest to lose, but rather in things which all 
 can possess alike, and where one man's wealth promotes his 
 neighbor's. ' ' Spinoza. 
 

 I. 
 
 CHARACTER AND EQUIPMENT OF THE TEACHER. 
 
 THE chief factor in public education is the 
 teacher. Like teacher, like school. No matter 
 how costly the buildings, the furniture, and the 
 apparatus, and little matter how excellent the text- 
 books, and how wisely arranged the courses of 
 study, the schools will be just what the teachers 
 make them. Good teachers will make good schools, 
 and poor teachers poor schools, under almost any 
 circumstances. Some one has well said that the 
 Socratic method is worth very little without a 
 Socrates in the teacher's chair. Mr. Garfield is 
 credited with saying that Mark Hopkins on one end 
 of a log and a student on the other, would be a 
 good university. And Mr. Emerson, replying to his 
 daughter's inquiries as to what studies she should 
 take, said : " I care little what studies you pursue ; 
 I am far more concerned to know with whom you 
 study." These familiar utterances all point in the 
 same direction. Among all the agencies for the 
 promotion of popular education, the teacher stands 
 pre-eminent. 
 
 It follows that the most direct and effective 
 way to improve public education is to secure a 
 higher order of teaching talent. The want of well 
 
 ii 
 
THE TEACHER AND HIS WORK. 
 
 qualified teachers is the weak place in our system 
 of public instruction. The majority of teachers are 
 doing business with insufficient capital, and they 
 are ever on the verge of bankruptcy. The one 
 great need of our schools is better prepared and bet- 
 ter paid teachers. Less money invested in brick and 
 mortar and more in brains would be to the credit of 
 our intelligence and greatly to the advantage of the 
 rising generation. Many of our communities dis- 
 play commendable liberality in provision for the 
 externals of education ; but much of it is waste 
 because of niggardliness in that which is more 
 essential. 
 
 In harmony with these views are the following 
 words of President Adams, of Cornell : "I believe 
 that no person of impartial judgment can observe 
 our schools in comparison with those of Europe 
 without admitting our great inferiority, especially 
 in the primary and lower grades. We spend large 
 sums in large and well arranged buildings, and in 
 elegant furniture and expensive text-books, and 
 then frustrate the purpose of them all by not having 
 the one thing compared with which all the other 
 things are nothing, namely, a good school." The 
 one way of having a good school is to have in it a 
 good teacher. 
 
 The teacher's incentives to excellence are great. 
 He has great opportunities. His work is noble, 
 requiring good talent and high attainment. Suc- 
 cess in the pursuit of wealth, so much coveted by 
 
 12 
 
CHARACTER AND EQUIPMENT. 
 
 most men, almost invariably cramps and dwarfs the 
 soul. The best success in teaching can be attained 
 only through the enlargement and ennobling of the 
 teacher's whole being. And this is one of the 
 blessed compensations of the work. 
 
 The first and most valuable qualities of the 
 teacher pertain to his personality to the inner sub- 
 stance of his life and character, to his motive, pur- 
 pose, spirit. 
 
 Genuine character is essential. It would be 
 vain to attempt to make a good teacher without good 
 material to start with. It has been said that of 
 a piece of steel you can make almost anything you 
 please, from a plowshare to a watch spring ; the 
 essential thing is that it first be good steel. The 
 teacher's work, in the long run, in the outcome, 
 will be measured by what he is. The true teacher's 
 best teaching is an unconscious emanation from the 
 undermost substance of his character. No assumed 
 appearance of goodness will serve. It requires very 
 little time for pupils to penetrate and perforate any 
 mask their teacher may put on. Some one has said 
 that a squirrel is not surer to know a sound nut 
 than are children to recognize genuine character in 
 their teacher where it exists, and they cannot escape 
 its influence nor withhold their respect. 
 
 But what is included in genuine character? 
 What are its essential elements ? Without attempt- 
 ing anything like an exhaustive analysis, I present 
 the following trinity of character : 
 
THE TEACHER AND HIS WORK. 
 
 i. Integrity. In common acceptation, a man of 
 integrity is an honest man a man that pays his 
 debts, tells the truth, and holds his word sacred. 
 But a glance at its etymology reveals a striking 
 significance in the term. It has the same origin 
 and something of the same significance as the word 
 integer. If we supply a letter which seems to have 
 been omitted for the sake of euphony, we have 
 integerity, which implies entireness, wholeness, 
 completeness. A man of integrity is not necessarily 
 very large or very great, but he is intact ; no part 
 of him is wanting through indulgence in vice or 
 wrong-doing. He has that completeness which 
 comes from standing in proper relation to the 
 Divine. A soul estranged from God has lost its 
 integrity. It is imperfect, incomplete in an ab- 
 normal state. Like a severed branch, it is fruitless 
 and useless. ' ' Apart from me ye can do nothing. ' ' 
 A man of integrity is a man of right principles. He 
 loves God with all his heart and his neighbor as 
 himself, and walks in the way of righteousness. 
 
 2. Purity. I never so much crave a gifted 
 tongue or pen as when I touch this subject. O the 
 excellence of purity ! O the blessedness ! The 
 pure in heart shall see God. There shall in no wise 
 enter into the beautiful city anything that is un- 
 clean ; but those having clean hands and a pure 
 heart shall stand in the holy place. Even external 
 purity is much to be desired. Teachers should 
 always be clean in person and attire, and pure 
 
CHARACTER AND EQUIPMENT. 
 
 in speech. The smutty joke, the impure jest, 
 should never defile the lips of a teacher. It is 
 always a mark of coarseness and want of refinement. 
 Nor should the teacher ever defile himself by the 
 use of strong drink or tobacco. It is hard to 
 reconcile these practices with our good opinion of 
 some who indulge in them. It cannot be that a 
 pure spirit can make its abode in so vile a place as 
 a body defiled with strong drink or tobacco. 
 
 But purity of mind and heart is above all. A 
 man may know himself by the company he keeps 
 when he is alone. If, whenever he is out of the 
 crowd, impure thoughts and desires come like a 
 herd of unclean beasts and hold high carnival in his 
 mind and heart, he may well bemoan himself, and 
 cry out, unclean ! unclean ! 
 
 Marcus Aurelius spoke well when he said, 
 " Such as are thy habitual thoughts, such also will 
 be the character of thy mind ; for the soul is dyed 
 
 by the thoughts A man should use 
 
 himself to think of those things only about which if ' 
 one should suddenly ask, What hast thou now in 
 thy thoughts ? With perfect openness thou mightest 
 immediately answer, This, or that ; so that from 
 thy words it should be plain that everything in thee 
 is simple, pure, and benevolent, and such as be- 
 comes a social being. " 
 
 A majority of teachers are not sufficiently im- 
 pressed with the blighting effect of impurity on 
 young minds. It contaminates wherever it touches. 
 
TEACHER AND HIS WORK. 
 
 Too much vigilance cannot be used to guard 
 against it. Nor can too much vigilance be used by 
 parents and teachers to store the minds of children 
 with choice gems of pure thought, upon which 
 they may feed in times of solitude. 
 
 3. Strength. The third member of this trinity 
 of character, like that of the great Trinity, proceeds 
 from the other two. Strength of character always 
 attends integrity and purity. It includes moral 
 courage, lofty purpose, indomitable will. It has in 
 it toughness of moral fiber endurance. Continu- 
 ance in well-doing under adverse conditions is a 
 manifestation of strength. 
 
 To face danger without flinching is not always 
 evidence of true courage. It may be the result of 
 sheer recklessness or of selfish pride. A man of 
 true courage is not always conscious that he is 
 courageous. There is not unfrequently the highest 
 courage beneath a diffident, retiring exterior. It 
 requires higher courage to stand in a humble lot and 
 discharge faithfully and patiently, day by day, 
 each little duty as it comes, than to go into battle. 
 " The man who, in the midst of poverty and priva- 
 tion, toils unflinchingly and uncomplainingly for 
 the sustenance of his family, in full conscious- 
 ness of the fact that he can never rise superior to 
 his misfortunes, is a man of courage. He who has 
 the best and most unimpeachable right and claim to 
 courage, is the man who, to shield and protect others, 
 accepts open insult and submits unmurmuringly to 
 
 16 
 
CHARACTER AND EQUIPMENT. 
 
 open censure, criticism, and indignity. This is 
 harder than leading an army, harder than wearing 
 a royal crown, harder than preaching truth and right 
 to a generation of fools. ' ' 
 
 A chief ingredient of courage is faith, that soul- 
 sight that looks beneath the surface of things and 
 sees the invisible that clings to the arm of 
 strength. 
 
 It is a seeming paradox that we are strongest 
 when we are weakest. Not until we realize our 
 weakness do we know what true strength is. In 
 the extremity of human weakness, the might of 
 Divine power becomes manifest, and strength is 
 made perfect in weakness. 
 
 No class of the world's workers have greater 
 need to ' ' be strong and of a good courage ' ' than 
 teachers. Their work is always arduous ; but they 
 must often work on patiently and faithfully in the 
 face of opposition and in the midst of misrepresent- 
 ation and undeserved censure. Not unfrequently 
 is a high degree of courage required to resist the 
 temptation to turn aside from the work, through 
 desire for relief from the wearing anxieties and 
 perplexities which attend it. Many a tired and dis- 
 couraged teacher has need to take to himself the 
 words addressed to the valiant Joshua : ' ' Have 
 not I commanded thee ? Be strong and of a good 
 courage ; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed ; 
 for the lyord thy God is with thee whithersoever 
 thou goest. ' ' 
 
THE TEACHER AND HIS WORK. 
 
 An essential part of the teacher's equipment is 
 good scholarship. I use the term rather with ref- 
 erence to quality than extent. Whatever the ex- 
 tent, its quality should be good. It should be clear, 
 accurate, and thorough. A scholar is a learner. A 
 good scholar is one who has learned enough in a 
 masterly way to beget in him scholarly tastes and 
 habits. He knows some things well, and has the 
 ability and disposition to learn more. Some people 
 who never reach the college door are better scholars 
 than some others who have gone through college and 
 carried off a diploma. It has been said that some 
 college graduates are not able to read their own 
 diplomas. 
 
 ' ' Would you advise me to go to college ? ' ' 
 ' ' Should I attend a normal school ? ' ' ' ' How can I 
 best fit myself for teaching ?" are questions often 
 on the lips of young people. The answer to all 
 such questions is, lay a foundation of good scholar- 
 ship. Any superstructure you may attempt to rear 
 otherwise will surely come to naught. Above all, 
 do not attempt any short cuts ; they are a delusion 
 and a snare. If any school, by whatever high- 
 sounding name it may be known, though it be 
 called a national normal university, offers to do for 
 you in two years all that the college undertakes to 
 do in four or five, turn from it ; go not in the way 
 thereof ; for it is a sham and a fraud. Whosoever 
 is deceived thereby is not wise. 
 
 If you have fair talent, and the time and money 
 
 18 
 
CHARACTER AND EQUIPMENT. 
 
 are at command, go to college by all means. 
 But in any event, determine to learn all you can 
 as well as you can. One of the most scholarly 
 women, as well as one of the strongest and best 
 teachers I have ever known, told me that her oppor- 
 tunities for schooling were all summed up in two 
 short winter terms at the district school. And I 
 heard from the lips of a man who is now chancellor 
 of a state university, that he never had the privilege 
 of attending college. That which most concerns 
 each one of us is a readiness to use well his own 
 opportunity, whatever it may be. None of us will 
 be called to give account for talents not committed 
 to him, nor for privileges beyond his reach. 
 
 A foundation element of good scholarship, the 
 want of which should exclude from the teacher's 
 ranks, is good reading. Many claiming ability to 
 teach are sadly lacking in ability to read. I refer 
 not to elocutionary attainment, but to the ability to 
 glean thought from the printed page. One who has 
 acquired the ability to interpret readily, or get 
 rapidly the meaning from, a plain piece of good, 
 standard English, has at least a foundation of good 
 scholarship ; and if to this be added its counterpart, 
 the ability to write good English, the most import- 
 ant requirements of good scholarship are satisfied ; 
 the rest may almost be taken for granted. 
 
 Another part of the teacher's equipment, a con- 
 comitant of good scholarship, is disciplined powers. 
 A teacher should have the ready use of himself. 
 
THE TEACHER AND HIS WORK. 
 
 He should be able to command the prompt attend- 
 ance of all of his faculties. He should be able to 
 think and to think clearly and correctly. He 
 should be able to see clearly all the conditions 
 of a problem, to reason correctly and reach right 
 conclusions. He should have the power of atten- 
 tion. It should not require the spur of novelty and 
 interest to hold his mind to any subject. It is said 
 that Mr. Garfield, when he found his mind wander- 
 ing because the subject in hand proved dry or un- 
 interesting, was accustomed to take himself severely 
 to task. All his powers must be obedient. 
 
 The skillful use of the hand is of great value to 
 the teacher in the class-room. The ability to sketch 
 readily on the blackboard is almost another lan- 
 guage. The time ought to come speedily when 
 this will be deemed an essential part of a teacher's 
 outfit. 
 
 But not every good scholar with disciplined 
 powers can teach well. There is need of skill in 
 the direct work of instruction. Teaching is high 
 art. The teacher must be an adept in the art of 
 putting things and yet more, he must have skill 
 in waking up mind. Virtue must go out of him to 
 energize and quicken the minds of his pupils. He 
 must not do his pupils' thinking for them, but he 
 should have the power of making them think. Sir 
 Joshua Reynolds paid a high compliment to Dr. John- 
 son when he said, " No man had like him the fac- 
 ulty of teaching inferior minds the art of thinking. ' ' 
 
 20 
 
CHARACTER AND EQUIPMENT. 
 
 This skill in teaching is something to be much 
 coveted. Study and practice are the great means 
 of attainment. Seek and ye shall find ; knock and 
 it shall be opened unto you. There is probably as 
 much to be learned about true teaching in the four 
 gospels as anywhere else. They contain the finest 
 examples of good teaching ever recorded. The 
 Great Teacher knew the human mind and how to 
 reach it ; and whoever catches fully the spirit of 
 his method has made high attainment. 
 
 A teacher should grow continually. A growing 
 teacher of moderate attainments is better than one 
 of finished growth with large attainments. Decay 
 usually sets in soon after growth ceases. The 
 stimulation of contact with a mind that has ceased 
 to grow is very small. The waters of a running 
 brook are purer and sweeter than those of a stag- 
 nant pool. He must add fuel who would keep 
 bright fires burning. Only a learner can teach. 
 
 I have ever counted it one of the blessed com- 
 pensations of the teacher's calling that the incen- 
 tives to self -culture are great and constant. Shame 
 and confusion to that large class of teachers who, 
 once having passed the examiner* s ordeal, settle 
 down to the weary round of lesson-grinding, with 
 no ambition or desire for further attainment. When 
 a teacher ceases to grow he should cease to teach. 
 
 A schoolmaster should first be master of him- 
 self. Such mastery is worth whatever striving, 
 even painful striving, it may cost. He is truly 
 
 21 
 
THE TEACHER AND HIS WORK. 
 
 victor who gets the victory over self. It means 
 much ; but I refer more particularly here to the 
 teacher's control of his temper. Mettle is a good 
 thing in horse or man when held in with bit and 
 bridle. A young business man once said to me 
 that he had just learned a rule which he thought 
 would be of great use to him as a business man. 
 On being asked what it was, he replied, " Always 
 let the other fellow get mad." This is an excel- 
 lent rule for the teacher in dealing with parents as 
 well as with pupils. There is much to try the 
 patience of the teacher. Sudden flashes of temper 
 and hasty, unguarded words, often come unbidden, 
 to be repented of afterwards in dust and ashes. 
 Blessed the teacher who is the ruler of his own 
 spirit ; he is greater than he that taketh a city. 
 
 One of the greatest misfortunes that can befall 
 a teacher is to be under the domination of an irri- 
 table temper, and the misfortune to his pupils is 
 scarcely less. Dr. Channing has well said that a 
 boy or girl compelled for six hours a day to see the 
 countenance and hear the voice of a fretful, unkind, 
 hard, or passionate teacher, is in a school of vice. 
 There are few callings more trying to the patience 
 than teaching, and few in which the maintenance 
 of a cheerful and happy temper is more essential. 
 It is not too much to say that the teacher who can- 
 not control his temper should quit the school room. 
 
 It would be easy to extend this inventory of the 
 teacher's equipment almost indefinitely. Good 
 
 22 
 
CHARACTER AND EQUIPMENT. 
 
 eyes and ears, good voice, self-reliance, sympathy, 
 enthusiasm, and many other qualities might be 
 added ; but my aim is to be suggestive rather than 
 exhaustive. I make special mention of only one 
 other item, which should not be wanting in the out- 
 fit of any teacher ; namely, common sense. It is 
 not easy to define, but the lack of it in any one is 
 soon manifest. In a meeting of teachers at Cleve- 
 land, a number of years ago, a paper was read in 
 which there was some enumeration of the qualifi- 
 cations of a good teacher, the concluding remark 
 being, that to all there should be added a consider- 
 able sprinkling of common sense. The superin- 
 tendent of the schools of Washington City, who 
 was present, took exception to this. He said he 
 usually advocated sprinkling, but he thought the 
 teacher should always be immersed in common 
 sense. 
 
 Whatever the form, or method of application, 
 the thing itself is excellent. Common sense leads 
 to a recognition of the fitness of things enables its 
 possessor to see aright and act aright. The teacher 
 who has it will not attempt the impossible in disci- 
 pline or in teaching. He will not wear his life out 
 trying to make of boys and girls what the stuff was 
 never intended to make. He will not keep himself 
 and his pupils always on the rack concerning petty 
 details of conduct. He will not treat the acci- 
 dental dropping of a slate-pencil with as much 
 severity as the telling of a deliberate falsehood. 
 
THE TEACHER AND HIS WORK. 
 
 Common sense is reasonable in all things, duly re- 
 gards the rights and feelings of the humblest child, 
 and always does the nicest things in the nicest way. 
 Now, dear reader, meditate on these things ; give 
 thyself wholly to them ; that thy profiting may ap- 
 pear in all things. Covet earnestly the best gifts. 
 
The Teacher's Spirit. 
 
" Had we tests fine enough we would doubtless find each 
 man's personality the center of outreaching influence. He 
 himself may be utterly unconscious of this exhalation of 
 moral forces, as he is of the contagion of disease from his 
 body. But if light is in him he shines; if darkness rules he 
 shades; if his heart glows with love he warms; if frozen with 
 selfishness he chills; if corrupt he poisons; if pure-hearted 
 he cleanses 
 
 "The soul, like the sun, has its atmosphere, and is over 
 against its fellows, for light, warmth, and transformation." 
 Hillis. 
 
II. 
 THE TEACHER'S SPIRIT. 
 
 IN my experience as a school supervisor, I have not 
 always found it easy to discover the secret of 
 the success or failure of teachers. Some of those 
 from whom I have expetced little have proven very 
 capable and successful. There comes to mind the 
 case of one who was rejected on her examination, 
 but was afterwards employed in an emergency. 
 Her success was very marked. She not only gov- 
 erned and taught well, but she attached her pupils 
 to her strongly, and her influence over them was 
 healthful and inspiring. Many teachers could be 
 named, highly esteemed and successful, now holding 
 principalships and other important positions, who 
 were at first licensed reluctantly and employed with 
 a good many misgivings. 
 
 On the other hand, some possessed of good char- 
 acter, good scholarship, and, to all appearances, a 
 fair measure of all the other requirements, and con- 
 cerning whom there were high expectations, have 
 failed utterly, or have ranked only as mediocres. 
 A striking example is the case of one of the best 
 .scholars I have known one who seemed to know 
 almost everything and betrayed no lack in other 
 directions. She was certificated and employed with- 
 
 27 
 
THE TEACHER AND HIS WORK. 
 
 out the least hesitation, but proved her incompetency 
 before the close of the first day. Her pupils, with 
 keen insight, quickly saw in her something which 
 the school officials had failed to discover. With her 
 advent there seemed to come into the school troops 
 of the imps of mischief, and before the first day was 
 over the school was hopelessly demoralized. 
 
 Another example comes to mind that of one 
 who had shown good ability and great industry as a 
 student, besides great energy and force of character 
 in pushing her way through high school and college, 
 without means and without home aid or even home 
 sympathy. The interest with which friends and ac- 
 quaintances watched her career as a student amounted 
 almost to enthusiasm. With high school and college 
 diploma fairly won, she had no difficulty in securing 
 employment as a teacher. Places awaited her. Dis- 
 appointment, too, awaited her and her friends. In 
 point of real teaching power, she scarcely ranked 
 as a mediocre. Inspiration seemed to be wanting. 
 She repelled rather than attracted her pupils. 
 
 These and other similar cases have made a deep 
 impression on my mind. They have made me think 
 that the signs of a good teacher do not always appear 
 on the surface. The teacher's inner life and spirit 
 determine his real worth. Persons of shallow na- 
 ture, without depth and richness of soul, can never 
 enter into the higher realm of instruction and influ- 
 ence. Being themselves superficial, they cannot see 
 beneath the surface of things. They are not born 
 
 28 
 
THE TEACHER'S SPIRIT. 
 
 again ; they have no newness of life. Their eyes 
 have not been opened ; they have no inner vision. 
 They do not understand their own life, or the life 
 about them, and are never able to put themselves in 
 right relations to their work or their surroundings. 
 
 It was said of an eminent character of old that he 
 was preferred above presidents and princes because 
 an excellent spirit was in him. It is always the ex- 
 cellent spirit in a man that gives him desirable and 
 lasting pre-eminence. What but the excellent spirit 
 in our own Lincoln and Garfield placed them so high 
 in the esteem and affection of a great people, and 
 gave them a fame that will last as long as history is 
 read ? It is the excellent spirit in the teacher that 
 gives him his greatest power, that fits him for the 
 best work of a teacher. 
 
 It is in dealing with such a subject as this that one 
 feels most keenly the poverty of human speech. 
 Bacon has said that the finest part of beauty is that 
 which a picture cannot express. So it may be said 
 that the finest and best in the spirit of a true teacher 
 cannot be expressed in words. Perhaps no one has 
 better expressed the inadequacy of language to em- 
 body deepest thought and finest feeling than Bishop 
 Huntington, in his inimitable classic, " Unconscious 
 Tuition." "All true wisdom, " he says/' involves 
 a certain something that is inexpressible. After all 
 you have said about it, you feel that there is some- 
 thing more which you never can say, and there is a 
 frequent sensation of pain at the inadequacy of 
 
 29 
 
THE TEACHER AND HIS WORK. 
 
 language to shape and convey perhaps, also, the 
 inadequacy of the conceptions to define the secret 
 and nameless thought, which is the delicious charm 
 and crown of the subject, as it hangs in robes of 
 glory before your mind. Any cultivated person, 
 who has never been oppressed by this experience, 
 must be subject, I should say, to dogmatism, prag- 
 matism, conceit, or some other comfortable chronic 
 infirmity. Where the nature is rich and the emo- 
 tions are generous, there will always be a reverential 
 perception that ideas only partly condescend to be 
 embodied in words. So it is always found that the 
 truest effects of eloquence are where the expression 
 suggests a region of thought, a dim vista of imag- 
 ery, an oceanic depth of feeling, beyond what is 
 actually contained in the sentences. You have to 
 judge an orator as much by what he leaves out as 
 by what he puts in. He uses words with the true 
 mastery of genius who not only knows how to say 
 exactly and lucidly, and with the fewest sounds, the 
 thing he thinks, but how to make what he does say 
 indicate that diviner part of wisdom which must re- 
 main forever unsaid. The cleanest rhetorical direct- 
 ness is united with the strongest sense of mystery. 
 You hear thoughts perfectly within the range of the 
 understanding sublimely uttered, and you are made 
 aware of the nearness of a world whose thoughts 
 are more sublimely unuttered." 
 
 Without attempting an exhaustive analysis, I 
 present a few of the more obvious elements of the 
 
TEACHER'S SPIRIT. 
 
 excellent spirit which the teacher should seek with 
 whole heart and soul and mind. 
 
 At the head stands child-likeness. To be child- 
 like is not to be childish. There is nothing in the 
 child-like spirit inconsistent with the sturdiest man- 
 liness or the most mature womanliness. When the 
 disciples of Jesus strove among themselves for pre- 
 eminence in the new kingdom, He took a little child, 
 and having set him in the midst He said: "Whoso- 
 ever shall humble himself as this little child, the same 
 is greatest in the kingdom of heaven. ' ' These words 
 must always impress us with the excellence of child- 
 likeness. It is the passport to the better life. One 
 cannot contemplate without desiring not only to 
 understand it but to possess it. But it is a very high 
 attainment the highest and best the soul reaches in 
 this life. No greater task can a strong man set for 
 himself than to become child-like in the fullest sense. 
 When he has accomplished it he is ready to enter 
 another sphere. 
 
 But what is it to be child-like ? One writer an- 
 swers well in these words: " To be child-like is to be 
 harmless and void of offense ; to be so pure as not to 
 understand the suggestions of impurity ; to be un- 
 selfish and unworldly ; to * take no anxious thought 
 for the morrow' , fully believing and trusting that 
 'our Father knoweth that we have need of these 
 things'; and to be willing to follow wherever he 
 leads the way. ' ' Only a true, pure, loving soul can 
 be child-like. 
 
THE TEACHER AND HIS WORK. 
 
 The chief elements of child-likeness are three : 
 i. Humility. To be truly humble is not to 
 think meanly of one's self, or to underestimate one's 
 own abilities. Humility is a noble grace. " Before 
 honor is humility, ' 'and ' 'with the lowly is wisdom. ' ' 
 It is the opposite of the proud and haughty spirit 
 that * ' goeth before a fall. ' ' Pride is always un- 
 seemly. Few things are more disgusting to right 
 minded people than to see any human being strut 
 before his fellows. Whenever anyone shows that 
 he is satisfied with himself everybody else becomes 
 dissatisfied with him ; whenever a person thinks 
 much of himself, he is lightly esteemed by other 
 people. Humility is the appropriate attitude of 
 mortals. It is the root of all the graces, the spring 
 of all that is lovely in human character. Words- 
 worth tells us out of his own experience that wisdom 
 is nearer to us when we stoop than when we soar. Par- 
 adoxical as it may seem, humility is true exaltation. 
 Some special reasons may be given why we as 
 teachers should be humble. Because, in the first 
 place, we know so little. I refer not alone to the 
 small attainments of the novice and the ignorance 
 of the incompetent and unfaithful. The attain- 
 ments of the wisest are small compared with the 
 whole realm of knowledge, to say nothing of the 
 domain of mystery. This life is too short to know 
 fairly well more than a few subjects, and no man 
 knows any subject to its utmost limits. The man 
 who is proud of his knowledge gives evidence that 
 
THB TEACHER'S SPIRIT. 
 
 his circle of vision is small. We readily sympathize 
 with the feeling of the scholarly Newton, when, near 
 the close of his life, referring to his own attainments, 
 he said/' I feel like a little child that has picked up 
 a few pebbles along the shore, while the great ocean 
 of knowledge lies out beyond. ' ' 
 
 But again, we have reason to be humble because 
 we see so dimly and are so often mistaken. We often 
 think we know, and afterwards find we were mis- 
 taken. What we hold as truth to-day is often dif- 
 ferent from what we held yesterday. Even great 
 ecclesiastical bodies, supposed to be almost infallible, 
 find it necessary to revise their creeds. It would be 
 good for anyone imbued with the correctness of his 
 own opinions, or with the certainty of human knowl- 
 edge in general, to read attentively the works of any 
 half dozen modern writers on psychology or geology. 
 
 Yet again, we have reason to be humble because 
 of our inefficiency. What the average teacher ac- 
 complishes for and with his pupils is insignificant in 
 comparison with what is possible. The possibilities 
 of young minds in the direction of development and 
 culture are very great, under proper stimulation and 
 skillful guidance. But the average results attained 
 in schools are meager. It is fair to say that what is 
 done in schools throughout the land, both in the 
 production of scholarship and in the formation of 
 character, is less than half of what might be accom- 
 plished, with the whole body of teachers fully quali- 
 fied and thoroughly in earnest. 
 
 33 
 
THE TEACHER AND HIS WORK. 
 
 "Why should the spirit of mortal be proud?" 
 Humility is the only fitting attitude of beings so 
 short-sighted, so imperfect, so dependent. " Be 
 clothed with humility ; for God resisteth the proud, 
 and giveth grace to the humble." 
 
 2. Teachableness. The unperverted little child 
 is not only willing to be taught, it is anxious 
 to learn. It is an embodied interrogation. What 
 is it ? What for ? Why ? are some of the familiar 
 forms in which the teachable attitude of the 
 little child is manifest. Teachableness implies 
 obedience ; it also implies an acknowledgment of 
 ignorance. The futile efforts of grown people to 
 conceal their ignorance is sometimes ludicrous. 
 Like the silly ostrich which thinks itself concealed 
 from its pursuers when only its head is buried in 
 the sand, many foolish people imagine themselves 
 secure behind a mask which all the world sees 
 through. The multitude is slow to learn that there 
 can be no successful seeming without being. If 
 people generally made as much effort to learn as 
 they make to conceal their ignorance, the sum of 
 intelligence in the world would be considerably 
 increased. What a gulf there is between a soul 
 that is affected, self -conceited and full of pretense, 
 and one that is simple, unassuming, and docile. 
 Before the one is a self-constructed and almost im- 
 passable barrier; before the other is an open and 
 inviting highway. 
 
 Young teachers are often unduly impressed with 
 
 34 
 
THE TEACHER'S SPIRIT. 
 
 a false sense of the dignity of their position. It 
 has been gravely maintained that a teacher cannot 
 afford to say, in the hearing of his pupils, I do 
 not know as if it were possible for him to know 
 everything. The best attitude of a teacher in this 
 regard is that of a learner a little in advance of his 
 pupils. Of course, teachers ought to know a good 
 deal, and they ought to be very familiar with what 
 they undertake to teach. But to pretend or assume 
 attainments not possessed is never justifiable, and 
 he that does it is sure to come to grief sooner or 
 later. It may be noted in passing that the broader 
 and more thorough one's knowledge, the easier it is 
 to say, I do not know. 
 
 The teachable spirit will lead a teacher to see, 
 acknowledge, and profit by his mistakes. Never 
 stick to a wrong because you have spoken it ; never 
 do a wrong because your word is out. If you have 
 unwisely promised or threatened punishment which 
 you afterwards conclude to be undeserved or im- 
 proper, be frank to confess your mistake to all con- 
 cerned, even though it include the whole school, 
 and refrain from inflicting the punishment. Such 
 a course will not weaken your authority, but will 
 give you a stronger hold upon the school. 
 
 The teachable spirit will make a teacher ready 
 to receive counsel from the parents of his pupils as 
 well as from those above him in authority. A 
 teacher ought to be reasonably jealous of any inter- 
 meddling or interference with his own prerogative. 
 
 35 
 
THE TEACHER AND HIS WORK. 
 
 He must control and teach his school, and in many 
 things he must be a law unto himself. He should 
 moderately but firmly resist all such interference on 
 the part of superintendent, board, or parents, 
 as tends to weaken his authority and influence, or 
 to hinder in any way the fullest exercise of his ap- 
 propriate function as a teacher. Yet he should 
 keep an open mind to the suggestions of all who are 
 concerned in his pupils' well-being. Even when 
 suggestions are prompted by over-officiousness, he 
 should weigh them well, and adopt, as far as practi- 
 cable, all that is good in them. No self-conceit or 
 self-will should prevent the teacher from profiting 
 by suggestions of good, from whatever source they 
 may come. 
 
 3. Trustfulness. The affectionate, trustful 
 spirit with which the little child clings to its natural 
 protectors is the symbol and ideal of true faith in 
 the human soul. Credulity and superstition are 
 but the semblance and counterfeit of true faith. 
 Genuine faith is the soul's inner sense whereby it 
 sees the invisible. The soul without faith is blind 
 to all beyond the realm of external sense. Some 
 one has said that faith is certitude without proof. 
 Faith has proofs of its own which are incommuni- 
 cable proofs addressed more to the heart and con- 
 science than to the rational faculty. For one with- 
 out faith to deny the existence of the objects of 
 faith, is like a blind man denying the existence of 
 light and color. 
 
 36 
 
THE TEACHER'S SPIRIT. 
 
 Faith is the hand of the soul which holds on 
 when sense and reason are unable to point the way. 
 
 Faith is something nobler and better than mere 
 belief in human creed and dogma. It is the vital 
 principle of the soul which links it to the divine, 
 and gives strength in weakness and peace in adver- 
 sity. It makes the soul hopeful and buoyant, and 
 gives courage to undertake and persevere. Men of 
 high purpose and action have ever been men of 
 great faith. There can be no high ideal of life 
 without it. 
 
 Faith in the teacher gives him high ideals and 
 expectations for his pupils, and enables him to in- 
 spire them with like high ideals. No heartless 
 skeptic should be permitted to instil the insid- 
 ious and blighting poison of his own unbelief into 
 the minds and hearts of youth. 
 
 There are doubtless other elements of the child- 
 like spirit, but these three are chief. L,et them suffice. 
 
 Next after child-likeness may be named a 
 spirit of earnestness. The world owes far more 
 to earnest men and women than it does to genius. 
 It is not by strokes of genius but by earnest plodding 
 that the world's work is done. Few are highly 
 gifted ; great talent is scarce ; but all may be in 
 earnest. One man thoroughly in earnest is worth a 
 regiment of dawdlers. If the present membership 
 of all branches of the Christian church were to be- 
 come at once thoroughly in earnest, the world 
 would be christianized within a decade. 
 
 37 
 
THE TEACHER AND HIS WORK. 
 
 Real earnestness in the teacher does not mani- 
 fest itself in fussiness or noise. Shallow water 
 ripples and bubbles ; the deep stream runs still. 
 Earnest souls are deep and calm, but they move on 
 with irrisistible force. Something of earnestness is 
 due to the blood in the arteries, to the secretions of 
 the liver and stomach, and to natural temperament, 
 but more to heart and conscience. It is not want- 
 ing where there are a high sense of duty and clear 
 and right views of life. 
 
 Another word of kindred meaning is enthusiasm. 
 This word of noble origin is sometimes put to base 
 uses. It is not unfrequently used synonymously 
 with fanaticism, whereas in its original signification 
 it means God within. An enthusiast is inspired or 
 God-filled. A truly earnest soul is an enthusiast in 
 the good sense. There is always about him a glow 
 of warmth, a fervor, that keeps all his powers in 
 working condition and makes it good and pleasant 
 to be near him. How different the atmosphere of a 
 school room which has in it a teacher with glowing 
 fervency of spirit from that of one having in it a 
 shallow, languid, indifferent teacher the one a 
 continual benediction and inspiration, the other a 
 weariness and pain to behold. 
 
 The earnest teacher takes interest in his pupils 
 and puts heart into his work. Teachers are some- 
 times advised to lock their school cares in the school 
 room at the close of each day. If by this is meant 
 the leaving behind of wearing and fruitless worry 
 
 38 
 
THE TEACHER'S SPIRIT. 
 
 about trifles, or about things which thoughtfulness 
 cannot remedy, the advice is good. The more of 
 this the better. Blessed the teacher who can do it. 
 But I cannot always avoid the suspicion that it is 
 taken to mean the giving as little thought as pos- 
 sible to the school and its well-being. School du- 
 ties and responsibilities do sit lightly on the shoul- 
 ders of some teachers ; but an earnest teacher will 
 give much earnest thought to his school out of 
 school hours. He will carry his school on his heart 
 somewhat as a good mother her children. Presi- 
 dent Garfield has told, concerning his experience as 
 a teacher, that he was wont, on waking in the 
 morning, to lie in his bed and draw in imagination 
 the plan of his school room on his pillow, so as to 
 get each pupil as vividly as possible before his 
 mind. Then he would study each in turn, his ten- 
 dencies and peculiarities, that he might determine 
 what he should do for each that had not yet been 
 done. In my own first years of teaching I often 
 taught all night long ; and in later years I have 
 spent sleepless nights over troublesome school prob- 
 lems ; and I do not think my success has been less 
 for so doing. 
 
 Another excellent trait, which might properly 
 have been included in the child-like spirit, is in- 
 genuousness. It is the opposite of craftiness or sly 
 cunning. An ingenuous person is open, frank, 
 candid, and free from equivocation. He is ' ' actu- 
 ated by a native simplicity and artlesness, which 
 
 39 
 
THE TEACHER AND HIS WORK. 
 
 make him willing to confess his faults, and make 
 known his sentiments without reserve. ' ' Ingenuous- 
 ness is not inconsistent with a reasonable prudence, 
 or a proper sense of propriety as to when to speak 
 and when to keep silence. "A fool uttereth all his 
 mind ; but a wise man keepeth it in till afterwards. ' ' 
 Craftiness and disguise usually accompany a 
 sense of ill-desert or ill-design, but find no place in 
 a truly noble soul. 
 
 The Scotch poet utters only worldly wisdom 
 when he advises, 
 
 " Conceal yoursel as weel's ye can 
 
 Frae critical dissection ; 
 But keek through ilka ither man 
 Wi' sharpened sly inspection." 
 
 More like other- world wisdom are these words 
 from Emerson : ' * Speak what you think now in 
 hard words, and to-morrow speak what to-morrow 
 thinks in hard words again, though it contradict 
 everything you said to-day. " 
 
 And these from Bacon : ' ' Simulation and dis- 
 simulation commonly carry with them a show of 
 fearfulness, which in any business doth spoil the 
 feathers of round flying up to the mark. Round 
 dealing is the honor of man's nature. The ablest 
 men that ever were had all an openness and frank- 
 ness of dealing, and a name of certainty and 
 veracity." 
 
 The ingenuous teacher readily gains the confi- 
 dence of his pupils, and they unconsciously grow 
 into his likeness. 
 
 40 
 
THE TEACHER'S SPIRIT. 
 
 Still another element of the excellent spirit is 
 magnanimity. A magnanimous person is literally 
 great of mind magnus, great, animus, mind. He 
 takes a broad, generous view of all things, and is 
 disposed to look on the good in life and conduct. 
 Magnanimity is often in common phrase called large- 
 hear tedness. It is that dignity or elevation of soul 
 ' ' which enables one to encounter danger or trouble 
 with tranquility and firmness, to disdain injustice, 
 meanness and revenge, and to act and sacrifice for 
 noble objects." 
 
 The magnanimous spirit in the teacher lifts him 
 above the petty annoyances of the school room, and 
 keeps him from magnifying the weaknesses and 
 faults of his pupils. How often is the whole work 
 and influence of the teacher marred and hindered by 
 a narrow self-seeking ! A teacher should never allow 
 himself to become a party in any case involving the 
 conduct of a pupil. No misdemeanor of a pupil 
 should be treated as a personal offense, or an insult 
 to the teacher, but rather as an offense against good 
 order and propriety. The teacher should never be 
 either plaintiff or defendant, with a pupil as the 
 party of the other part. His correct attitude is that 
 of counsellor and friend sometimes that of judge 
 and executor. 
 
 Many of the minor faults of pupils should be 
 seen by the teacher as though he saw them 
 not. A story is told of a, Scotch tutor, who 
 had the right view of this matter. A friend, 
 
THE TEACHER AND HIS WORK. 
 
 walking with him one day through the campus, 
 observed a student at a little distance limp- 
 ing in imitation of the lame tutor, and expected 
 to see the offender sharply reprimanded. Surprised 
 that the tutor gave the matter no attention, the friend 
 asked, ' 'Why do you not stop that impudent fellow?' ' 
 "An 5 ye na' look at him, ye '11 na' see him," replied 
 the tutor. The magnanimous teacher will sometimes 
 refrain from looking that he may not see. 
 
 The large-minded, large-hearted teacher will har- 
 bor no grudge against either pupils or their parents. 
 This is a matter of much importance, and one to which 
 teachers should give earnest heed. A very success- 
 ful and much loved clergyman of my acquaintance, 
 makes it a rule of his life never to entertain animos- 
 ity or ill-will toward a fellow man. It is a good 
 rule one that will add greatly to the happiness and 
 usefulness of all who observe it. How much of this 
 world's good is destroyed, and how much of individ- 
 ual comfort is taken out of life, by the malevolent 
 feelings and enmities indulged among men ! The 
 teacher's highest success, as well as his own comfort, 
 requires the "laying aside all malice, and all guile, 
 and hypocrisies, and envies, and all evil speaking." 
 
 But the last and greatest and best is love. This 
 it is that Prof. Drummond calls "The Greatest Thing 
 in the World. " It is the most enduring thing in the 
 world. Prophecies shall fail, tongues shall cease, 
 knowledge shall vanish, and even faith shall be lost 
 in sight and hope in fruition ; but love is eternal and 
 
THK TKACHKR'S SPIRIT. 
 
 never fails. It is the most powerful thing in the 
 world. It delivers souls from sin and death, and 
 nothing else has ever done or can do that. ' ' Thou 
 hast loved my soul out of the pit ' ' is the language 
 of an ancient teacher. 
 
 Love in the teacher's heart is the mightiest force 
 in the school room. Every teacher ought to have 
 a great big heart full of it, and should be most ready 
 to pour it out on those who need it most. The real 
 test of love in a teacher's heart is its readiness to 
 flow for the unlovely the wayward and neglected. 
 What a benediction, what a blessing, is a loving 
 teacher to the heart-hungry waifs found in nearly 
 every school ! 
 
 One blessed thing about love is that the more of 
 it one gives the more he has. ' ' To love abundantly 
 is to live abundantly, and to love forever is to live 
 forever." Truly love is the greatest thing in the 
 world ! 
 
 L,ove, like nearly all good things, has its counter- 
 feits. A weak and sickly sentimentalism is not un- 
 frequently put forward in its place. Many teachers 
 use more of sentiment than sense in dealing with 
 their pupils, shown by petting and fondling them, 
 and by laxness in discipline and slackness in re- 
 quiring the performance of school duties. I^ove 
 does not always caress ; it sometimes smites. Truest 
 love leads to greatest faithfulness, and this all teach- 
 ers should ponder well. Those parents and teachers 
 who, in good spirit and with painstaking, correct 
 
 43 
 
THK TKACHKR AND HIS WORK. 
 
 the faults of children and hold them rigorously to a 
 high standard of excellence in- all things, show 
 greater love by far than those who languidly and 
 weakly indulge them to their hurt. 
 
 If any discouraged teacher asks how he may at- 
 tain the excellent spirit thus imperfectly set forth, 
 I answer, Not in your own strength and not in a 
 day. No one does or can purify his own life. 
 "Apart from me ye can do nothing." "As the 
 branch cannot bear fruit of itself except it abide in 
 the vine, no more can ye except ye abide in me. ' ' 
 The essential thing at the outset and always is a 
 right attitude for receiving proffered help. A man 
 can no more elevate and ennoble himself by his own 
 unaided efforts than lift himself over the fence by 
 pulling at the straps of his boots. All efforts at 
 reformation and right living, without the soul's 
 coming into right relation to the Divine, are futile 
 and vain. But these natural and proper relations 
 once fully restored and established the soul once 
 planted in its appropriate soil, it grows naturally 
 and even luxuriantly, and brings forth, in time, 
 rich and abundant fruit. 
 
 44 
 
Professional Ethics. 
 
. . . c ' Whatsoever ye would that men should do 
 to you, do ye even so to them." 
 
III. 
 
 PROFESSIONAL ETHICS. 
 
 ETHICS and morals are synonymous terms, hav- 
 ing reference to human conduct, behavior, duty. 
 In professional ethics are included the mutual obliga- 
 tions and duties of members of the same profession, 
 each to each and to the profession at large ; and 
 these are no less binding than those of any other 
 human relation. The teacher who disregards the 
 rights and feelings of a fellow teacher, is as blame- 
 worthy as he is when he neglects or refuses to pay 
 his grocery bill. He is debtor in both cases, and 
 is in honor and in duty bound to discharge the 
 debt. 
 
 A modern writer has said that the greatest of all 
 arts for the mass of mankind is conduct, and that 
 every art has its ideal, the standard of perfection, 
 toward which the efforts of all who practice it are 
 more or less consciously directed. The ideal of the 
 fine art of conduct has its embodiment in the Golden 
 Rule. To live by this rule in form and spirit is the 
 perfection of conduct. One main source of our un- 
 rest, a chief obstacle in the way of our peace and 
 happiness, is our failure to realize this ideal. 
 
 The self element is strong and persistent. We 
 see all things with selfish eyes, and fail ' ' to see 
 
 47 
 
THK TKACHKR AND HIS WORK. 
 
 ourselves as others see us. " ' ' The greatest foe of the 
 good life is the intense and irrational impulse each 
 of us has to assert himself, even to the loss or injury of 
 others, to take more than his due share of the good 
 things, and less than his share of the work, the hard- 
 ships, and the sufferings of human life." 
 
 Obedience to the law of love is the sum of good 
 morals. The Golden Rule is the best attainable 
 working rule of life : L,ove thy neighbor as thyself ; 
 put yourself in his place ; do as you would be done 
 by ; or, as expanded by Confucius, the great Chi- 
 nese teacher of morals, ' * That which you hate in 
 superiors, do not practice in your conduct toward 
 inferiors ; that which you dislike in inferiors, do 
 not practice toward superiors ; that which you hate 
 in those before you, do not exhibit to those behind 
 you ; that which you hate in those behind you, do 
 not manifest to those before you ; that which you 
 hate in those on your right, do not manifest to those 
 on your left; that which you hate in those on your 
 left, do not manifest to those on your right. This 
 is the doctrine of measuring others by ourselves." 
 A modern moralist suggests that though the 
 Golden Rule does not teach us precisely what is 
 just, or true, or kind in each particular case, it does 
 teach us to act according to the knowledge we have 
 of the just and the true, in a kind and sympathetic 
 way ; and that to live in obedience to this rule re- 
 quires the cultivation of the intellectual power of 
 imagination and the capacity of sympathy. ; ' The 
 
PROFESSION Aly 
 
 better we can imagine objects and relations not 
 present to sense, the more readily we can sympa- 
 thize with others. Half the cruelty in the world is 
 the direct result of stupid incapacity to put one's 
 self in the other man's place." 
 
 It becomes teachers to walk close to the line of 
 the Golden Rule in all their relations. Could they 
 always do so, it would be to them a crown of glory, 
 and a great inspiration and uplift in the lives of 
 thOvSe under their instruction. 
 
 Every member of a profession, being entitled to 
 all its privileges and immunities, is under obligation 
 to exert his best abilities to maintain its dignity 
 and honor, to exalt its standing, and to extend its 
 usefulness. He is in duty bound to be himself, as 
 far as in him lies, an honor and an ornament to his 
 profession. 
 
 Every teacher owes it to his profession to be the 
 best teacher, the most efficient, the most successful 
 teacher he is capable of becoming. And his duty 
 to his profession, and to himself as well, requires 
 him to refrain from doing whatever tends to lower 
 the public estimate of teachers and teaching. 
 
 It becomes the teacher to magnify his office. He 
 should earnestly strive after such personal attain- 
 ments and such special fitness for the work, and so 
 carry himself in all his relations, as to reflect honor 
 upon his calling. This is one of the first duties he 
 owes to his profession, and in meeting this obliga- 
 tion he promotes his own highest interest. In a 
 
 49 
 
THE TEACHER AND HIS WORK. 
 
 narrow view, his duty to his profession may at 
 times seem to clash with his own interest, but in a 
 broad and right view it does not. 
 
 Teachers sometimes complain of the low place 
 teaching has in public esteem. No other influence 
 is so great in this direction as the unprofessional 
 conduct of teachers themselves. The lack of deli- 
 cacy and sense of propriety manifested in the impor- 
 tunity and persistence with which teachers often 
 press their claims for appointments, to say nothing 
 of such grosser violations of good taste and good 
 morals as underbidding, and in other ways crowding 
 a fellow- teacher out of his place, does much to bring 
 teachers and teaching into disrepute. There seems 
 no good reason why the same general rules of pro- 
 priety which prevail in other professions, in the 
 matter of securing employment, should not be ob- 
 served among teachers. 
 
 A lawyer must wait for clients to come to him. 
 It is altogether unprofessional for him to make any 
 advances or take any steps in the direction of secur- 
 ing business. When he has made due preparation 
 and has been duly licensed to practice law, he may 
 put up a sign, insert his card in the newspapers, 
 and wait for business to come. A lawyer, now on 
 the bench, once said to me that only the scavengers 
 of the profession were ever known to seek clients or 
 make direct application for employment. Such 
 seems to be the unwritten law in the legal profession. 
 
 The physician, likewise, must wait for patients. 
 
PROFESSIONAL ETHICS. 
 
 Imagine an enterprising young physician calling at 
 the residence of a sick man, presenting his testi- 
 monials, and asking to be employed to take charge 
 of the case. No, the physician who has any regard 
 for his reputation in his profession always waits to 
 be called. It is deemed unprofessional for a mem- 
 ber of the medical profession even to draw attention 
 by special advertising of any kind, in the news- 
 papers or otherwise. He who does it is liable to get 
 to himself the name of quack. A friend in Phila- 
 delphia once called my attention to the very modest 
 signs of the physicians of that city: "Dr. John 
 Smith," on a simple door plate nothing more. 
 
 It is worthy of note in regard to both these pro- 
 fessions that those most highly cultured and refined 
 are most scrupulous in the observance of these pro- 
 prieties. 
 
 Perhaps the case of the clergyman is more analo- 
 gous to that of the teacher. The lawyer serves his 
 individual clients, and the physician his individual 
 patients; while the clergyman serves his parish and 
 the teacher his school district. How does the clergy- 
 man secure his parish ? He, too, waits to be called. 
 It has been reported that there are place-hunters 
 among the clergy, and that there are schemes and 
 devices for securing good places, to which knowing 
 ones sometimes resort; but such cases are excep- 
 tional. The large majority of clergymen observe 
 the commonly recognized proprieties of their profes- 
 sion in such matters. I have known but one instance 
 
T^ACHB^R AND HIS WORK. 
 
 in which a preacher made direct application to be 
 employed as pastor of a church. In that case the 
 disgusted officials denied the applicant the oppor- 
 tunity of being heard as a candidate. 
 
 The custom is different among teachers. They 
 make direct and open application for places, and are 
 expected to doso, and not only so; they often com- 
 pete with each other and strive for positions like 
 tradesmen in the market. The sense of delicacy 
 and regard for the proprieties, which largely prevail 
 in other professions, seem almost wanting among 
 teachers; and this not in the lower ranks only, nor 
 among those who seek schools as stepping-stones to 
 more lucrative employment. Those who hold the 
 higher and more permanent positions are often the 
 chief scramblers. 
 
 These things ought not so to be. Teachers ought 
 to receive rather than make proposals. There may 
 be no disgrace in making open application for em- 
 ployment under a board of education, but it is 
 indelicate and unseemly, to say the least. There is 
 a measure of embarrassment about it, often amount- 
 ing to humiliation, that is far from agreeable to a 
 sensitive and refined nature. Teachers of cultivated 
 taste and refined feelings will naturally shrink from 
 obtruding themselves upon the attention of those 
 who, for aught they know, may have reasons 
 against their employment. It certainly would be 
 better for all concerned, if the same unwritten rules 
 of propriety were in force among teachers which 
 
PROFESSIONAL ETHICS. 
 
 prevail in the other professions. All the schools 
 would have teachers, as many teachers would have 
 places as now, and teachers and teaching would 
 be held in higher repute. At the very least, it 
 should be deemed unprofessional in the extreme for 
 a teacher to make direct or indirect application for a 
 place that is not known to be vacant. 
 
 It is the duty of school authorities to seek out 
 the teachers best adapted to their needs and condi- 
 tions; and to an intelligent and right-minded trustee 
 or director all importunity of teachers for positions 
 must seem an impertinence. It would be well for 
 boards of education everywhere to assert their pre- 
 rogative and discriminate against all importunate 
 place- vSeekers. 
 
 But, unfortunately, boards of education are often 
 the- greatest offenders against propriety in these 
 matters. They encourage place- hunting. They re- 
 quire teachers, even their old and tried teachers, to 
 make application year after year, even going so far 
 in some cases as to refuse to consider those who do 
 not formally apply a species of humiliation which 
 teachers should always resent. The excellent grace 
 of humility can be cultivated in other ways. I call 
 to mind, in this connection, an interesting little 
 episode to which I was witness several years ago. 
 A new member of a city board of education had 
 secured the chairmanship of the committee on teach- 
 ers; and to signalize his advent to this important 
 position, he notified the teachers, seventy or eighty 
 
 53 
 
TEACHER AND HIS WORK. 
 
 in number, that all who desired re-election must 
 present to said committeeman an application in due 
 form. The first teacher approached on the subject 
 was the very efficient and popular lady principal of 
 the high school, whose place would have been hard 
 to fill. She emphasized with her foot the single 
 word which came from her lips " Never! " It is 
 scarcely necessary to add that the committeeman 
 changed his plan. It is a very absurd procedure for 
 a board of education to require of its teachers a 
 formal application for reappointment, when, as not 
 infrequently is the case, the corps contains teachers 
 whom the board does not wish to re-employ. 
 
 All the proprieties of the case require a board of 
 education to re-elect promptly and without solicita- 
 tion all the approved teachers of its corps who do not 
 give notice of a purpose to retire, and the same 
 proprieties require the teachers to accept their ap- 
 pointments with reasonable promptness, and to hold 
 inviolate the contract thus made. 
 
 The election should take place at or before the 
 close of the schools at the end of the school year, 
 and those not to be retained should have private 
 information of the fact before it is known to the 
 public. It is cowardly in a board of education to 
 put off the election until after the schools have 
 closed and the teachers have scattered. It leaves 
 teachers in a state of suspense and anxiety for 
 which there is no justification. At least, the 
 escape from ' i unpleasantness ' ' which it is some- 
 
 54 
 
OF 
 
 )FKSSIONAl y KTHICS. 
 
 times meant to afford, is not a sufficient justifi- 
 cation. 
 
 There ought to be, if there is not, a day of reck- 
 oning for the needless anxiety and pain which teach- 
 ers are sometimes made to suffer by the thought- 
 lessness and heartlessness of boards of education. 
 Cases often arise in which it becomes necessary to 
 discontinue the services of teachers, but in all such 
 cases the teachers concerned have rights and feel- 
 ings which trustees are in duty bound to respect. 
 Cases like the following are not rare, in which an 
 excellent lady suffered hardship and wrong at the 
 hands of a board of education she had served faith- 
 fully for a number of years. The election was 
 deferred until late in the summer vacation. This 
 lady, as well as the others, had been asked whether 
 she desired re-election and replied in the affirmative. 
 She left for her home in a distant state, telling her 
 friends she would return when schools opened in 
 September. So confident was she of re-election that 
 she declined an offer of a position elsewhere. But 
 when the list of teachers appeared in the papers 
 after the election, her name was not among them, 
 and the inquiries of her friends could elicit no ex- 
 planation. Her living, which she shared with a 
 widowed mother, was cut off without warning or 
 a word of explanation, her reputation was damaged 
 needlessly, her spirit was broken, and her health 
 seriously impaired. She was a lady of more than 
 average ability and attainments, and of excellent 
 
 55 
 
TKACHKR AND HIS WORK. 
 
 Christian character and womanly qualities; but for 
 some reason unknown to her, she was not in favor 
 with her trustees. Whether or not the school au- 
 thorities had sufficient ground for discontinuing her 
 services, the heartless and cowardly way in which 
 it was done cannot be too severely censured. Trus- 
 tees and supervisors, who treat their teachers thus 
 stand greatly in need of some elementary lessons on 
 the Golden Rule. 
 
 Not many years ago the people of a flourishing 
 little city on the Western Reserve were much agi- 
 tated over the unceremonious decapitation of nearly 
 a score of teachers out of a corps of a hundred or 
 more, in most cases without the slightest previous 
 intimation of their impending fate. The board met 
 in secret session, and most of the victims had 
 their first information of what had befallen them 
 from the next day's papers. Several of those be- 
 headed had served in their places faithfully and 
 efficiently for a quarter of a century. An aggrava- 
 tion of the wrong was in the gibbeting of these old, 
 faithful servants in the headlines of sensational 
 articles in the daily papers. 
 
 There will, of course, come a time when old 
 teachers who have served long and well must be re- 
 tired; but there ought to be found a more humane, 
 a less cruel way of doing it. With proper relations 
 between superintendent and board and between 
 superintendent and teachers, much of the hurt of 
 such retirements might be avoided. 
 
 56 
 
PROFESSIONAL ETHICS. 
 
 There are some things for teachers to consider in 
 relation to such matters. It behooves them to recog- 
 nize fully the fact that the schools exist not for 
 them, but for the children, and to remember always 
 that it is the part of wisdom to prepare in fair 
 weather for the rainy day that is sure to come. It 
 is not always, nor generally, the part of wisdom to re- 
 sent and resist an adverse decision of the powers 
 that be. The general presumption is that such 
 action is not wholly without good ground. The first 
 duty of a teacher who fails of re-election is to look 
 well within for the cause before he lays blame at 
 other doors. After a rigid self-examination he 
 should deal candidly and honestly with himself, 
 in accordance with the facts he finds, and be pre- 
 pared to profit by his experience in a new field. It 
 is never the part of wisdom for a teacher who has 
 lost his place to make of himself a disturbing ele- 
 ment in community by remaining to find fault with 
 his successor, hoping thereby to secure his own re- 
 instatement. Better far devote his energies to 
 fitting himself for better work in a new field, when- 
 ever it shall open. 
 
 Teachers who have been re-elected should recog- 
 nize their obligation to respond without unreasonable 
 delay. It should be considered unprofessional for a 
 teacher to withhold his acceptance until the last 
 moment, except with consent, in the hope of secur- 
 ing a better offer. And once a position has been 
 accepted, the binding obligation of the contract 
 
 57 
 
THE) TEACHER AND HIS WORK. 
 
 should be recognized and scrupulously kept. It has 
 been sometimes charged, and not without reason, 
 that the obligation of a contract rests lightly upon 
 the teacher's conscience. A teacher's contract with 
 a board of education is as binding as any other con- 
 tract, and should be so considered. Once the en- 
 gagement is entered into, the teacher is not at 
 liberty to entertain a proposition from any other 
 source, except with the full and free consent of the 
 other party to the contract. 
 
 Teachers should be examples of integrity and 
 honor in all these things, even though it should 
 prove for the time to their pecuniary disadvantage. 
 It will pay in the long run. It is a pleasure to 
 make honorable mention of a case brought to my 
 notice, in which a young lady teacher showed a high 
 sense of honor. She had been recommended to two 
 boards of education, and had accepted the first 
 offer. A few days later, from the other board came 
 the offer of a more desirable position at a salary 
 fifteen dollars a month better. "The position," 
 she replied, "is just what I wanted, and I would 
 gladly have accepted it; but my word is out, I can- 
 not take it." 
 
 Another similar case comes to mind. I was in 
 correspondence with a young man about his taking 
 the principalship of the schools of a village. The 
 letter containing a definite offer of the position was. 
 delayed some time by falling into wrong hands, and 
 he accepted a country school at a much smaller 
 
 58 
 
PROFESSIONAL ETHICS. 
 
 salary. When the letter reached him he expressed 
 his disappointment and regret, but ended the matter 
 by saying, ' ' I have promised to teach my home 
 school, and father thinks I cannot honorably ask to 
 be released." These are examples worthy of imi- 
 tation. 
 
 Teachers are sometimes too eager for advance- 
 ment. They are scarcely well settled in one posi- 
 tion before they begin to cast about them for a 
 better one. Gen. Sherman's advice to a graduating 
 class at West Point is equally appropriate for teach- 
 ers: " Do not be impatient for promotion. " The 
 success that comes by earnest work and patient 
 waiting is worth having. Many people have made 
 shipwreck by pushing themselves into ( ' good 
 places " before they have well proved their powers. 
 The itch for promotion is not a favorable symptom. 
 Concern for fitness and faithfulness in present duty 
 are more desirable and more promising than ambi- 
 tion for self-advancement. Make a demand for 
 your services. High qualifications are always in 
 demand. It is true that modest worth is sometimes 
 crowded out by brazen incompetence. But be not 
 impatient; incompetence will have run its course 
 and will make way for you by the time you are 
 fully ready. Eminent fitness waits not long for 
 opportunity. 
 
 59 
 
Preparation and Adaptation. 
 
4 'The first characteristic of life everywhere is change, 
 growth, adaptation to modifying circumstances and events." 
 
IV. 
 PREPARATION AND ADAPTATION. 
 
 THE more one thinks about the work of teaching, 
 the more exalted, the more noble does it seem. 
 When directly engaged in the work, I usually had 
 a considerable measure of enthusiasm sometimes, 
 as I now see, more zeal than wisdom. But looking 
 back over the way by which I have come, and look- 
 ing out upon the present aspect of the work, I am 
 filled with a more intense enthusiasm. I am glad 
 that it was my privilege, since there was no other 
 way for me, to grope along with some glimmerings 
 of light here and there on my pathway. I rejoice 
 that my mistakes were no greater, and that with 
 each slip or fall I had courage to rise and renew my 
 efforts. 
 
 It is some comfort to reflect, in view of one's 
 own short-comings and failures, that success in life 
 is ^ rare except through repeated failures. Robert 
 Louis Stevenson has declared that our business in 
 life is not to succeed, but to continue to fail in good 
 spirits. Failures stand thick in every pathway. 
 The successful people are those who will not ac- 
 knowledge themselves beaten because they stumble 
 and fall, but persist in getting up and pressing for- 
 ward. The life of the Great Man of Nazareth even 
 
THK TEACHER AND HIS WORK. 
 
 was full of failures. ' ( He failed in His preach- 
 ing only a few received Him; He failed in his teach- 
 ing very few believed Him; He failed to convince 
 the world of His mission they rejected Him and 
 crucified Him/' Yet how grandly He succeeded! 
 He showed the greatness of His spirit by His pa- 
 tient endurance and persistence through a whole 
 life of failure. 
 
 There is great satisfaction in the retrospect of a 
 life of hardness endured, of obstacles surmounted, 
 of attainments made. It is one of nature's benefi- 
 cent provisions that in such a retrospect the follies 
 and mistakes grow dim as they recede, and all that 
 is worthy and noble grows brighter as the years 
 goby. 
 
 This old world has seen no other such age as the 
 present. Things are not what they were. We are 
 making history very fast now. Any observant and 
 thoughtful person who can look back over fifty 
 years of life, cannot fail to be profoundly impressed 
 with the rush of events. This last decade of the 
 old century holds more of good for the world 
 than any other decade of the century. The good 
 time coming is hastening. It is grand to live in 
 such a time, and grander still to have an important 
 part in forming the character and shaping the life of 
 such an age. What an honor to be called to the 
 work of teaching in this day! especially when 
 one's eyes have been opened to see the work in its 
 true light. 
 
 64 
 
PREPARATION AND ADAPTATION. 
 
 It is not easy to estimate how large a part teach- 
 ers have had in the marvelous development of the 
 race in the last fifty years, much less to estimate 
 truly the part they have in guiding the forces which 
 are now operating for the further uplifting of hu- 
 manity. A soldier in the midst of the fight cannot 
 always see how the battle is going, nor can an actor 
 on any part of the world's stage always judge cor- 
 rectly of the true relations and the full effect of the 
 part he is playing. Certain it is that the schools of 
 this day are much in advance of those of fifty years 
 ago. The discipline is better, and the teaching 
 is better. The pupils are more tractable, more 
 easily governed, and better behaved; and as a rule 
 they are surrounded by a more wholesome and 
 invigorating moral atmosphere. 
 
 For his important work the teacher requires 
 special preparation and special adaptation. I refer 
 not now to the general preparation, in the way of 
 scholarship arid professional knowledge, which 
 every teacher should have, a vouc'her for which, 
 in the form of a license, he should secure before 
 making an engagement to teach; but rather to the 
 special preparation necessary for a particular field of 
 labor. The work should be undertaken with full 
 knowledge and well matured plans. If he is to 
 teach in a graded school, the teacher should know 
 beforehand what grade or grades he is to teach, and 
 should make himself familiar with every detail of 
 
 65 
 
TKACHKR AND HIS WORK. 
 
 the work prescribed for his department, the text- 
 books used, the rules and regulations for the gov- 
 ernment of the schools, and the prevailing practices 
 and customs of the school and of the community, 
 which sometimes obtain almost the force of law. In 
 these days of close supervision of graded schools, it 
 is comparatively an easy matter for the teacher to 
 gain such a knowledge of the work in any depart- 
 ment as to enable him to adapt himself readily to 
 his place in the system. 
 
 The new teacher in a country school has a more 
 difficult task. In most rural communities the 
 teacher is, in great measure, a law unto himself. 
 He must devise his own plans and methods and 
 carry them out as well as he can without the guid- 
 ance and support upon which the teacher in graded 
 schools relies, and to this end he has need of special 
 preparation. 
 
 i. He should acquaint himself with the com- 
 munity in which he is to teach. Country neighbor- 
 hoods not far apart sometimes differ widely, and 
 the measures which a teacher may successfully carry 
 out in one may not answer at all in another. About 
 the year 1850, I taught successfully a school in 
 a Scotch-Irish community in the Miami Valley. 
 On account of larger salary I accepted a call to 
 teach the following winter in an adjoining district, 
 containing a considerable German element, and 
 undertook to carry out there the plans and methods 
 which had proven so successful in the other school. 
 
 66 
 
PREPARATION AND ADAPTATION. 
 
 The result was a failure. My management did not 
 meet with general approval, and the school dwindled 
 to almost nothing before the end of the term. My 
 patrons and I did not see from the same standpoint, 
 and were not in harmony. 
 
 Besides a knowledge of the intelligence and 
 character of his community, the teacher of a coun- 
 try school should have, before beginning his work, 
 a good understanding of the prevailing educational 
 sentiment of his district. It is a matter of the first 
 importance for him to know whether his people are 
 progressive or otherwise, and whether or not he 
 may rely upon their co-operation in carrying out 
 improved plans of organization, management, and 
 instruction, that he may make his plans accordingly. 
 
 2. A teacher should know as much as possible 
 about the previous management of 'his school. It 
 would be profitable for him to know whether 
 it has been controlled by reason and love, or by force 
 and fear, and whether the government has been 
 rigid or slack. As to the teaching, it would be well to 
 know whether that has been thorough or superficial, 
 and what habits of application and self-reliance 
 have been formed in the pupils. Of course definite 
 and full knowledge of these things can only be 
 obtained by actual test in the school room ; but 
 a general impression, of great service in forming 
 plans, may be gained by a teacher who knows how 
 to keep eyes and ears open and use his tongue 
 wisely. This last is of special importance. Words 
 
 67 
 
THK TEACHER AND HIS WORK. 
 
 of disparagement or criticism are not at all in place 
 at such a time. Whatever of good is learned con- 
 cerning previous management should be com- 
 mended; but what is not commendable should be 
 passed in silence. No word of censure or disparage- 
 ment of previous management should escape * the 
 lips of the new teacher. 
 
 3. Concerning present conditions, his informa- 
 tion should be as full and exact as possible. The 
 number of pupils likely to attend, the number of 
 classes and the stage of advancement of each in 
 each study, the text-books used, the maps, charts, 
 and other appliances furnished, are some of the 
 things concerning which the teacher would do well 
 to inform himself before beginning his work. It 
 would greatly facilitate the work in country schools 
 if teachers were required to leave for their suc- 
 cessors a complete record of all these things. Such 
 a record might include a roll of each class, the 
 standing of each member in each study, and a gen- 
 eral statement of the work accomplished. 
 
 4. He should know of any special difficulties or 
 peculiar cases that may exist. There is some di- 
 versity of sentiment among teachers on this point, 
 some maintaining that if there is a bad boy in the 
 school, or a troublesome parent in the district, the 
 teacher will learn the fact soon enough, and to be 
 informed beforehand may beget prejudice or bias in 
 his mind. To this it may be answered that a teacher 
 is supposed to have some discretion; and if, knowing 
 
 68 
 
PREPARATION AND ADAPTATION. 
 
 the disposition and tendencies of a bad boy, lie 
 is unable to deal wisely with him, he is not likely to 
 manage him more successfully by coming upon him 
 unawares. To be forewarned is to be forearmed. 
 
 I recall an instance in which a teacher turned to 
 good account her foreknowledge of the bad boy 
 in her school. A lady was compelled to give up her 
 school in term-time on account of sickness at home, 
 and her successor, before taking charge, spent a day 
 in the school with the old teacher. It happened on 
 this day that the bad boy manifested himself. He 
 was a stout lad, with a large head, short, thick neck, 
 and a bulldog face. The teacher whipped him in 
 the forenoon, and in the afternoon the father came 
 and there was a ' ' heap of trouble. ' ' The new 
 teacher thought the prospect not very inviting, but 
 she studied the situation and kept her own counsel. 
 The following Monday morning she took charge. 
 Soon after the opening of school, looking over to 
 the bad boy's corner, she said, "Jimmy, will you 
 come to my desk? " When Jimmy came forward, 
 wondering what was to happen, she asked, "Jim- 
 my, do you know where I board? with Mrs. 
 Smith, down on the corner of the next street be- 
 yond the cooper shop." And Jimmy answered, 
 "Yes ma'am; I know where Mrs. Smith lives." 
 " I wonder," continued the teacher, "whether you 
 would be so kind as to run down and ask Mrs. 
 Smith to give you my knife; it lies on the table 
 in my room." Of course he would, and away he 
 
 69 
 
THE) TACHBR AND HIS WORK. 
 
 runs, and in a few minutes returns and hands the 
 knife to the teacher. As he takes his seat there is 
 on his face an expression which plainly says, " She'll 
 do. She understands me. She's the right kind of 
 a teacher/' The teacher had gained a friend, and 
 the bad boy suddenly disappeared from that school 
 and was known there no more that term. 
 
 5. The condition of the school house and its 
 surroundings should be looked to. This is the 
 business of the directors, but as they are apt to 
 neglect it, it will pay the teacher to give it his 
 attention. He should visit the premises before 
 the opening day and see that all things are in readi- 
 ness. All broken furniture should be repaired or 
 replaced, broken lights of glass reset, door and 
 window fastenings put in order, broken gates, 
 fences and walks made good, and house and out- 
 buildings made clean and kept so. Especially 
 should all obscene pictures and vulgar pencilings 
 about the premises be erased, covered with paint, 
 or burned with fire. Some schools are schools 
 of vice because of the vileness tolerated about the 
 premises. No amount of effort and pains necessary 
 to prevent such a condition is too great for the 
 teacher. Better abate the school as a nuisance than 
 that such things continue. 
 
 6. The teacher should prepare himself. By con- 
 sidering well the work before him and the surround- 
 ing conditions, and by communing with his own 
 heart, he should seek to bring himself into right 
 
 70 
 
PREPARATION AND ADAPTATION. 
 
 attitude and right relations to all his environment. 
 He should consider that the contract he has entered 
 into with the school directors is not the only con- 
 tract by which he is bound; but that between the 
 lines there is written another, more sacred, more 
 binding, with each child to come under his care and 
 instruction, to be to each all that the word teacher 
 implies a faithful and true friend, a guide and in- 
 spiration. The true teacher will so feel the binding 
 obligation of this higher contract as almost to lose 
 sight of the one he has with the directors, looking 
 upon the latter merely as a necessary form prelim- 
 inary to that which is more vital and real. 
 
 It is very important for the teacher to form a 
 just estimate of his work, taking into account all 
 the conditions and surroundings. Indulgence in 
 too high ideals is probably not the besetting sin 
 of teachers. A high ideal is very desirable when 
 tempered with good judgment. It is possible for 
 one's ideals to carry him away into the realm of the 
 visionary and the impracticable. It is well for the 
 teacher to bear in mind that his school district does 
 not lie in Utopia, and to discriminate pretty clearly 
 between what, under existing circumstances, can be 
 done and what cannot be done. It is never worth 
 while to attempt the impossible. A wise mariner will 
 not deliberately run his ship upon a rock, on the 
 ground that the rock has no business to be there. 
 It is sometimes best to tack a little. 
 
 I recall an interesting case of a young man of 
 
THE TEACHER AND HIS WORK. 
 
 good ability and fair scholarship, who engaged to 
 teach a country school in one of the Western Re- 
 serve counties. He had a high ideal, and was 
 ambitious to excel. When he received his certifi- 
 cate from the examiners he expressed his deter- 
 mination to have the best school in the county. 
 He had not been teaching long, however, when 
 trouble began. He had progressive ideas and un- 
 dertook to carry out measures which may have 
 been well enough in themselves, but which met 
 with determined opposition in that community. In 
 the discord and contention that arose, the teacher 
 said and did some unwise things, and about the 
 middle of the term the directors met and discharged 
 him. He had the satisfaction of collecting his full 
 salary, after two trials in court, though, doubtless, 
 his attorney's fees absorbed the most of it. For 
 the want of a little tact and adaptation to existing 
 conditions, the teacher suffered seriously in reputa- 
 tion as well as in pocket, and the district lost the 
 greater part of a winter's schooling. 
 
 It is well sometimes to stoop a little when one's 
 head is in danger. It is said that Benjamin Frank- 
 lin, when a young man, had occasion to call on old 
 Dr. Cotton Mather. On taking leave, Dr. Mather 
 showed him out through a dark passage, and at one 
 point said to him, "Stoop a little here." But 
 Franklin, not clearly understanding the direction, 
 walked on and his head struck a beam overhead. 
 Whereupon Dr. Mather turned and said, ' ' Young 
 
 72 
 
PREPARATION AND ADAPTATION. 
 
 man, if you'll learn to stoop a little as you go 
 through the world, you'll save yourself many a 
 hard thump." 
 
 A word of caution may not be out of place here. 
 One must not be always stooping. It is well to 
 learn when to stoop and when to stand and walk 
 erect. Be this your rule: Never stoop or yield 
 when a question of right or duty is involved, even 
 at the risk of some hard thumps; but in matters of 
 mere preference or expediency it is wise to avoid all 
 needless thumps. And even when thumps must be 
 taken in the performance of duty, there is often a 
 way of breaking the force of the blow by interposing 
 a cushion of blandness and suavity. 
 
 Much experience and observation lead me to lay 
 down this rule for young teachers, to be taken with 
 exceptions and modifications above noted: Adapt 
 yourself and your methods to the needs and expecta- 
 tions of the people you serve. 
 
 I was much interested, some years ago, in the 
 experience of two girls who went out from the same 
 high school, and taught successively the same coun- 
 try school. The first, Miss B., made herself very 
 much at home among her patrons, and was very 
 popular. She boarded at the house of a farmer not 
 far from the school. When the good house-wife 
 was unusually busy and the supper was late, she 
 would get for herself a slice of bread and a cup of 
 milk ; and when milking time came she would some- 
 times say, ' * L,et me have a pail ; I can milk. ' ' 
 
 73 
 
THE TEACHER AND HIS WORK. 
 
 Thus she made herself not only agreeable but help- 
 ful. She had the happy faculty of adapting her- 
 self to her surroundings, and of putting herself in 
 sympathy with those among whom she labored. 
 She carried the same spirit into her school, and in 
 the same way won the hearts of her pupils. She 
 became a very popular teacher, and soon received 
 a call to a better position. 
 
 The next season, Miss R., the other one of the 
 two girls, was employed to teach the same school 
 and boarded at the same place. She was the more 
 scholarly, and in many respects the more promising, 
 of the two. But her notions of the fitness of things 
 were very different from those of Miss B. On 
 her return from school at the close of the day, 
 she retired to the parlor with her book or magazine, 
 and awaited the call to tea. She knew little about 
 cows or milking, and cared less. She took no 
 interest in the things which interested the people 
 about her, and was altogether out of harmony with 
 her surroundings. Her pupils and their parents 
 were not slow in coming to the conclusion, justly or 
 unjustly, that she felt herself above them, and her 
 influence, in school and out, was small. She gave 
 up the school in disgust before the end of the term. 
 
 This is a true story. The two cases are typical 
 ones, from which young teachers may learn an im- 
 portant lesson. 
 
 74 
 
School Organization. 
 
" I have seen the school in operation, so perfectly sys- 
 tematized, all its arrangements so complete, and its depart- 
 ments so perfectly adjusted, that the working of its ma- 
 chinery not only produced no friction, but created order, 
 interest, and zeal, such as secured the desired object. . . . 
 On the other hand, I have often wit- 
 nessed the utter failure of apparently competent teachers, 
 for the want of system in the arrangement and classification 
 of their schools. Organization is the first business of the 
 school room, and nothing else should be attempted until 
 this is complete." Orcutt. 
 
V. 
 
 SCHOOL, ORGANIZATION. 
 
 THE proper organization of a school consists 
 mainly in such an adjustment of the school 
 machinery, such classification of the pupils and 
 assignment of work to each, and the adoption of 
 such regulations as will secure constant employ- 
 ment, efficient instruction, and the greatest moral 
 influence. The aim and tendency of all the adjust- 
 ments and arrangements should be to ' ' remove 
 friction, induce order, and secure cheerful and ef- 
 fective work." 
 
 There is reason to believe that the importance 
 and difficulty of school organization are under- 
 estimated. This is especially true of the rural 
 schools. One who has had large experience bears 
 this testimony: " I have visited more than a thou- 
 sand country schools, and I have not found one 
 in twenty well organized. Many of the worst 
 organized schools I have found in the hands of 
 teachers claiming from five to forty years' ex- 
 perience." In an examination of teachers on 
 "Theory and Practice," one thing asked of the ap- 
 plicants was to describe a well organized school. 
 Not one of the twenty-six applicants gave evidence 
 of any clear knowledge on the subject, and more 
 
 77 
 
THE TEACHER AND HIS WORK. 
 
 than half of them betrayed utter ignorance of what 
 is implied by organization, though many of them 
 were of mature years and considerable experience 
 as teachers. Some seemed to confound organiza- 
 tion with preserving order and conducting recita- 
 tions. 
 
 Much of a teacher's success depends upon his 
 skill in organizing. A school may be so organized 
 and operated as to become almost an automatic 
 mechanism, reducing the demand upon the teach- 
 er's attention and vitality to the minimum. To 
 this end the organization should be as simple as 
 possible. A school may be too much organized. 
 Devices may be multiplied and the machinery be- 
 come so complicated as to tax the teacher's 
 strength and skill to keep all in operation. A sim- 
 ple machine is more easily operated and less liable 
 to get out of order than one more complicated. 
 
 One of the first things requiring attention in the 
 organization of a school is classification or grading. 
 Every school should be a graded school. Pupils of 
 equal or like attainments should be placed in the 
 same class or grade and receive the same instruc- 
 tion. A close classification in a system of graded 
 schools requires all the pupils of a given grade, 
 or standard, as it is called in England, to pursue 
 the same studies at the same time, keeping abreast 
 in all. What is sometimes called a loose classifica- 
 tion permits pupils to pursue different studies 
 with different classes. The former is much more 
 
SCHOOL ORGANIZATION. 
 
 desirable. The latter is justifiable, in city schools, 
 only in exceptional cases or as a temporary ex- 
 pedient. 
 
 The number of classes or grades in a system 
 of graded schools usually corresponds to the num- 
 ber of years required by the average pupil to com- 
 plete the course of study. In most cities and towns 
 there are eight yearly grades below the high school. 
 By this classification, pupils who fail of promotion 
 are compelled to fall back a year; and strong, bright 
 pupils cannot advance faster than the class to which 
 they belong, except by jumping an entire year. 
 Thus there is often a conflict between the good 
 of the individual pupil and what seems to be the 
 general good. Some remedy for this evil has been 
 found in the plan of semi-annual classification, 
 which makes two distinct grades for each year of 
 the course of study. This makes the steps between 
 grades shorter, and the transition from grade to 
 grade easier. Pupils who fail of promotion fall 
 back but half a year, and capable and ambitious 
 pupils may sometimes leave their grade and ad- 
 vance to the next without undue effort or strain. 
 The plan has been in successful operation in the 
 schools of Akron for more than twenty years. A 
 class has been graduated from the high school and 
 promotions have been made in all the schools twice 
 each year. The chief advantages are a closer and 
 better classification and shorter and easier steps 
 from one class to another. It is sometimes objected 
 
 79 
 
THE TEACHER AND HIS WORK. 
 
 that the frequency of promotions does not permit 
 pupils to remain long enough with the same teacher 
 for the best results. This might be overcome by 
 the German plan of promoting the teachers with 
 their pupils. 
 
 It should be observed that semi-annual classifi- 
 cation cannot be readily carried out in the smaller 
 towns, because of the tendency to multiply classes 
 and to give to each teacher too large a number of 
 daily recitations. It is practicable only when a 
 sufficient number of pupils of like attainments can 
 be brought together to form schools of not more 
 than two semi-annual grades each. 
 
 With pupils old enough to prepare and recite 
 lessons, the best classification for effective work 
 is that which gives to each teacher two grades. 
 Some teachers prefer an entire school of one grade. 
 It requires less daily preparation on the part of the 
 teacher, and some lessons and exercises can be 
 given to the whole school at once, thereby saving 
 labor and affording time and opportunity for giving 
 help in the preparation of lessons to those that need 
 it. But an entire school of forty or fifty pupils 
 makes too large a class to recite together in the 
 principal studies, such as arithmetic, grammar, 
 or history. A division into sections becomes a 
 necessity, and only those who have tried it can 
 appreciate the difficulty of hearing two divisions 
 of the same class recite successively the same lesson 
 in the same room. I have never known the 
 
 80 
 
SCHOOIv ORGANIZATION. 
 
 experiment to be tried with satisfactory results. 
 All things considered, that is the best classification 
 which gives to each teacher two different grades for 
 alternate study and recitation. It should be care- 
 fully noted here that no possible classification can 
 relieve the teacher from painstaking individual 
 instruction. With the best classification that can 
 be made, under the most favorable conditions, the 
 teacher who fully understands his business will 
 still find a necessity for dealing with individuals. 
 Children cannot be well taught in bulk. Individuals 
 must be studied and instruction and training must 
 be adapted to the needs of each. One of the hard 
 problems for the young teacher is so to conduct the 
 class recitation as to meet and supply the need 
 of each individual in the class; but it is a problem 
 which must be solved. Complete success can be 
 attained in no other way. 
 
 The classification of country schools presents 
 serious difficulties, requiring the exercise of good 
 judgment, patience, courage, and perseverance. 
 Of course no such classification as that which pre- 
 vails in city schools is possible in the country. The 
 wide range of subjects which must be taught by one 
 teacher and the small number of pupils of same 
 attainment and ability in a country school are in- 
 superable obstacles. Besides, the irregular habits 
 of many country people in regard to school attend- 
 ance have a tendency to increase the difficulties; 
 and because of the difficulties, few country teachers 
 
 81 
 
THE TEACHER AND HIS WORK. 
 
 make more than the feeblest attempts at classifica- 
 tion. Every country school should be classified, 
 and its classification should be the best that exist- 
 ing conditions will allow. Proper efforts in this 
 direction may be made to serve as an antidote for 
 irregular attendance and other existing evils. The 
 starting point is the adoption of a course of study, a 
 matter we shall consider later. This becomes the 
 guide in classification. In no case should there be in 
 a country school more than one grade for each year 
 of the course of study, and often in practice there 
 will be less. Classes can often be consolidated with 
 advantage. Pupils who read well in the third 
 reader may be merged with the fourth reader class 
 with profit to themselves and the school. Instead 
 of forming a new geography class each year, or 
 whenever there are three or four pupils ready to 
 take up the subject, let these pupils push ahead in 
 other studies and fall into the next class in geog- 
 raphy when the time comes to start it; then ease 
 up a little all around in the other studies and push 
 the geography for a time. By thought fulness and 
 skillful management of this kind, the number of 
 classes may be kept at the minimum and more and 
 better work accomplished. The classification would 
 not be exact or close, but it is not best that it 
 should be. The organization of any school should 
 be sufficiently flexible to admit of adjustment 
 and adaptation to existing conditions. When exact- 
 ness or niceness of organization conflicts with the 
 
 82 
 
SCHOOL ORGANIZATION. 
 
 highest good of the pupils, the organization should 
 yield. Yet all this is consistent with a steady 
 holding of the main course. A ship-master often 
 finds it necessary to tack this way and that way, 
 yet he steadily holds the main course and reaches 
 his destination. 
 
 Very gratifying progress has been made in the 
 past few years in grading country schools and sys- 
 tematizing their work. The schools in many town- 
 ships are successfully pursuing a carefully devised 
 course of study, and granting certificates of gradua- 
 tion to those who complete it. Enough has been 
 done in this direction to demonstrate the desirable- 
 ness and practicability of classification and system 
 in these schools, and the present indications are 
 that in a short time the shiftless, slipshod ways 
 heretofore generally prevalent will be relegated 
 entirely to sleepy hollow. 
 
 The preparation of the best course of instruc- 
 tion for any system of schools is an undertaking at 
 once important and difficult. Its importance is 
 apparent; its difficulty becomes more and more 
 apparent as the subject is studied. The man that 
 presumes to say with positiveness that this or that 
 course of instruction is absolutely best in all respects 
 for a school or a system of schools gives good 
 ground for the suspicion that he has more to learn. 
 There is room for honest difference of opinion 
 among the wisest. 
 
 The ability to construct a judicious course of 
 
 83 
 
THE TEACHKR AND HIS WORK. 
 
 study implies at least three things: i. A right 
 understanding of the ends of education. 2. A clear 
 and comprehensive knowledge of the nature and 
 capabilities of the being to be educated. 3. A 
 correct estimate of the educative value of the vari- 
 ous branches of knowledge. Probably the best 
 that anyone can do is to adapt to existing condi- 
 tions, by his own thought and experience, the con- 
 clusions of the wisest and best who have studied 
 the problem. 
 
 These and other questions, immediately con- 
 front one who undertakes, in an intelligent way, to 
 prepare a school course of study: What studies 
 shall be included? In what order shall they be 
 taken up? How many and what subjects shall 
 be prescribed for simultaneous study ? How much 
 time shall be given to each? What portion of 
 each subject shall be assigned to each grade or to 
 each period of time ? 
 
 It is not my purpose to discuss all these ques- 
 tions in detail. I shall confine my observations 
 mainly to the first, with some attention to one or 
 two phases of some of the others. 
 
 The experience, thought, and observation of 
 more than forty years devoted to public school work 
 have led me to the conclusion that more is attempted 
 and less of real value accomplished in our ele- 
 mentary schools than comports with the highest 
 well-being of the pupils. There is a tendency to 
 display of ostentatious learning rather than to solid 
 
 84 
 
SCHOOL ORGANIZATION. 
 
 attainment in practical knowledge and useful culture. 
 There is inflation in education as well as in finance. 
 
 The essentials, the warp and woof of an ele- 
 mentary course of instruction for the common 
 schools of this country seem to me to include mainly 
 these three: English, penmanship, and arithmetic. 
 A youth well grounded in these is better prepared 
 for life than one who has a smattering of many 
 sciences without proficiency in these essentials. To 
 these should be added, under favoring conditions, 
 the less essential, but yet important branches of 
 vocal music, drawing, and as much geography and 
 American history as may be gained from an ordi- 
 nary first book on these subjects. Time spent in 
 memorizing the details of geography and history is 
 waste, and might be used to greater profit. 
 
 The study and practice of mother tongue must 
 of necessity occupy a large share of time and atten- 
 tion in elementary schools, inasmuch as the pupil's 
 success at every stage depends upon his mastery of 
 the vernacular. My observation is that more pupils 
 fail in the high school because of defective training 
 in English than from all other causes. An intelli- 
 gent comprehension of ordinary English and tol- 
 erable accuracy and facility in its use should con- 
 stitute the chief corner stone of our American 
 education. Language training in common schools 
 should include 
 
 i. Reading. Intelligent and intelligible reading 
 is fundamental. If after attending school seven or 
 
 85 
 
THE TEACHER AND HIS WORK. 
 
 eight years pupils of average natural ability are 
 found unable to read at sight, fluently and with 
 expression indicating a good grasp of the thought, 
 any piece of ordinary English composition, the 
 training is seriously at fault. No part of school 
 work is more important than this, and none makes 
 greater demand for skill and painstaking on the 
 part of the teacher; but these are just the qualities 
 which teachers should have. Nor should pupils 
 leave the common school without a taste for good 
 reading and some knowledge of what is worth 
 reading. This is a large and rich field which well 
 repays cultivation. It reaches into the whole range 
 of literature and literary study. 
 
 2. By practice in written spelling, and by the 
 fixed habit of attention to the correct spelling of all 
 the words he uses, the pupil should be able, at the 
 end of this common school course, to write a letter 
 or other composition without misspelling words in 
 common use. 
 
 3. Language lessons. Every school exercise 
 should be a language lesson. The pupil's attention 
 should be strongly and persistently directed and 
 held at every point to the right use of words and 
 the right construction of sentences. Systematic, 
 daily exercises in sentence-building, letter-writing, 
 business forms, and oral and written descriptions 
 should be continued throughout the course, with 
 a view to gaining a practical knowledge and use of 
 the language. The time usually spent in city 
 
 86 
 
SCHOOL ORGANIZATION. 
 
 grammar schools, and in many country schools, in 
 memorizing grammatical definitions, rules, notes, 
 and exceptions, and in analyzing and parsing 
 knotty sentences, could be far more profitably spent 
 as above indicated. Grammar, as a science, except 
 some of its simpler elements, should not be studied 
 until the pupils are more mature and have gained 
 by use such a practical knowledge of the language 
 as will enable them to pursue the study with satis- 
 faction and profit. 
 
 As to penmanship, all pupils who continue in 
 school long enough to complete such an elementary 
 course as that here contemplated, can and should 
 acquire the ability to write legibly and neatly. Bad 
 writing is not a sign of greatness, though some 
 great men have been miserable writers. 
 
 In arithmetic, the first and chief aim should 
 be to secure accuracy and rapidity in the perform- 
 ance of the fundamental operations. Accurate and 
 rapid addition, subtraction, multiplication, and di- 
 vision are attainments likely to be of more practical 
 value to the majority of pupils than all else in 
 arithmetic; and much higher attainment in this 
 direction is practicable than that usually reached. 
 To this let there be added a thorough and practical 
 knowledge of common and decimal fractions, de- 
 nominate numbers, mensuration of ordinary sur- 
 faces and solids, and the more common applications 
 of percentage, and the more abstruse and difficult 
 parts of the subject may, without loss, be omitted 
 
 87 
 
THE TEACHER AND HIS WORK. 
 
 entirely, or reserved for study after pupils have 
 pursued an elementary course in algebra and 
 geometry. 
 
 The course of instruction for elementary schools 
 here briefly outlined would, if followed, consider- 
 ably reduce what is at present attempted in most 
 schools; but I am convinced that the greater thor- 
 oughness and accuracy contemplated would be more 
 than an equivalent for the reduction, constituting a 
 better outfit in life for those who go no farther, as 
 well as a better preparation for those who are to 
 pursue a higher course of study in higher institu- 
 tions of learning. 
 
 Before leaving this part of the subject I wish to 
 add that there should be in every elementary school 
 a place on the program for general exercises, which 
 may include oral observation lessons, talks on com- 
 mon things, or, as the modern and more high- 
 sounding phrase is, nature study. The supply 
 of material for such purposes is unlimited; the only 
 difficulty lies in choosing. And here, as always in 
 school work, the value depends on the wisdom and ' 
 skill of the teacher. 
 
 Teachers and school supervisors in this day need 
 to be reminded that it is neither profitable nor pos- 
 sible to teach in the common schools all that is 
 desirable to know. The educational problem is one 
 of selection, and method, and spirit. 
 
 88 
 
SCHOOL ORGANIZATION. 
 
 The course of study for the high-school depart- 
 ment of a system of schools must of necessity vary 
 with conditions. The high school is comparatively 
 a recent growth, and its place and function in our 
 educational system is not yet very clearly defined. 
 It arose in answer to a demand in our modern 
 society for something more in the education of the 
 masses than the barest rudiments of knowledge. 
 In many instances it has attempted but little besides 
 instruction in what are known as the common 
 branches; while in other cases it has been expanded 
 into a miniature college and made to appear suf- 
 ficient for the complete education of youth. It has 
 not, as a general rule, been organized and conducted 
 with reference to any higher course of training; so 
 that those seeking a liberal education have generally 
 found it necessary to leave the high school and 
 resort to the special preparatory school or to private 
 tuition in order to make preparation for entering 
 college. 
 
 The high school is likely to remain an important 
 feature of our public school system; but the time 
 has come for it to find its appropriate field and 
 confine itself to it, according to its means and 
 opportunities, that it may furnish the best of what 
 it undertakes to furnish. It should be adapted to 
 its own community to the needs of the life 
 about it. 
 
 There is no good reason why there should not 
 be such an adjustment and adaptation of the high 
 
 89 
 
THE TEACHER AND HIS WORK. 
 
 school and the college to each other that the in- 
 struction and training of the high school may be 
 alike serviceable as preparation for college and for 
 the work of life. It will not be practicable in all 
 cases for the high school to give its students com- 
 plete preparation for college; but its work, as far as 
 it goes, should be along right lines and should be so 
 well done as not to require doing again. 
 
 The length of the high school course of study is 
 not a fixed quantity. In the township or the vil- 
 lage high school, two years may be all that existing 
 conditions will warrant; in other cases three years 
 may be best. The fully equipped city high school 
 should have a course of four years. Such a course 
 should consist mainly of the following four lines of 
 study: 
 
 1. Language and literature, including the read- 
 ing and study of good English authors, English 
 grammar and composition in the ratio of three 
 lessons in grammar and one in composition, Eng- 
 lish orthography and derivation, and sufficient 
 Latin for college entrance. 
 
 2. Mathematics, including advanced arithmetic, 
 elementary algebra, and plane geometry. 
 
 3. Natural science, including human physiology, 
 botany, zoology, physical geography, and the ele- 
 ments of physics and chemistry. 
 
 4. General history and the Constitution and 
 government of the United States. 
 
 90 
 
SCHOOL, ORGANIZATION. 
 
 There are other subjects for which claim is 
 made and which find place in the course of study of 
 many high schools; but the high school cannot 
 teach well everything that is desirable to know. 
 The question here also becomes one of choice and 
 selection. A few subjects dealt with in a somewhat 
 masterly way, is clearly better than a mere smatter 
 of many subjects. 
 
 If any one of the above four lines of study is to 
 have pre-eminence it should be the first. Nothing 
 in general education is of greater value than in- 
 struction and training in language, and specially 
 the mother tongue. English should be the major 
 study for all English-speaking pupils. Even in our 
 higher institutions of learning, the study and prac- 
 tice of English is gaining more and more the place 
 of pre-eminence. But the time has come for the ex- 
 ercise of greater common sense in the matter of edu- 
 cation. Nothing could be more irrational than our 
 stereotyped methodsof training in our own language. 
 To beget in our pupils the ability to speak and write 
 good English, we consign them to weary months 
 and years of memorizing grammatical definitions, 
 rules, notes and exceptions, to be applied in the 
 analysis and parsing of knotty sentences; and find- 
 ing them still unable to write a passable letter or 
 composition, we compel them to memorize dreary 
 pages of definitions and rules concerning rhetorical 
 figures, invention, style, taste, etc., with results 
 about the same as before. 
 
THE TEACHER AND HIS WORK. 
 
 A child learns to walk by walking; lie learns to 
 skate, not by a profound study of the laws of gravi- 
 tation and motion, but by buckling on his skates 
 and striking out upon the ice. He displays awk- 
 wardness at first, and perhaps tumbles a few times, 
 but he is soon able to perform with ease and grace 
 evolutions which the most profound scientist un- 
 practiced would not attempt. Thus it is that from 
 infancy to manhood the child is constantly learning 
 to do with ease and skill things at first difficult 
 which can be learned only by practice. The very 
 important attainment of skill in the use of language 
 is no exception. Right practice in speaking and 
 writing is the only rational way of acquiring a good 
 use of English. A closer and more intelligent fol- 
 lowing of nature's methods of child training would 
 greatly enhance the efficiency and usefulness of the 
 schools. 
 
 The daily program is an important item in 
 school organization. Every school should have 
 a carefully prepared time-table, in which every 
 exercise should have its appropriate time and place. 
 It should include study as well as recitation, so that 
 teacher and pupils may know what each pupil 
 should be doing at any given hour of the day. The 
 program should stand on the blackboard in sight of 
 the school, or be neatly and plainly written on 
 paper and posted in a conspicuous place in the 
 school room. 
 
 92 
 
SCHOOL ORGANIZATION. 
 
 To make a good program requires full knowledge 
 and due appreciation of all the work of the school, 
 that the exercises may come in right order and 
 each receive its proper share of time and attention. 
 For this reason it is scarcely possible to prepare 
 a general program that would work well in any 
 particular school. A suit of clothes made to order 
 after careful measurement usually fits better than 
 one ready-made. All the conditions and surround- 
 ings of a school must be well considered in prepar- 
 ing its time-table. The average country school 
 presents many difficulties, and so does the large 
 city grammar school, where two or more teachers 
 work together in the same school. 
 
 Some principles of general application may be 
 stated: 
 
 1. Lessons which require the greatest mental 
 effort should have a place early in the session, fore- 
 noon or afternoon, when the pupils are fresh and 
 vigorous. Such studies as arithmetic and grammar 
 should come early. Such exercises as spelling, writ- 
 ing, and drawing are appropriate for the later periods. 
 
 2. Studies should be so arranged as to afford as 
 much variety as possible. A change of work is 
 rest. Monotony is irksome and wearing. It is not 
 best for any class to have two consecutive recita- 
 tions. If mental and written arithmetic both have 
 a place on the program as separate and distinct 
 exercises, it is better that they come in different 
 parts of the day; and so of writing and drawing. 
 
 93 
 
THE TEACHER AND HIS WORK. 
 
 3. In country schools the younger pupils should 
 have shorter periods and recite oftener than older 
 pupils. Ten minutes may be long enough for an 
 exercise with the youngest classes, while thirty 
 minutes may not be too long for some of the older 
 ones. 
 
 4. Writing and drawing require steadiness of 
 nerve, and should not be placed immediately after 
 recess or the opening of school, nor be immediately 
 preceded by vigorous gymnastic exercises. 
 
 5. After a program has been tried, it may be 
 found necessary to modify it. Bearings may need 
 to be slackened in one place and tightened in an- 
 other, until every part runs smoothly and the whole 
 machinery performs its work satisfactorily. But 
 frequent changes of program are to be avoided. 
 Every change should be well considered before it is 
 made. 
 
 6. The program should be followed. One exer- 
 cise should not be allowed to trespass upon the time 
 of another. Occasional variation from this rule 
 may be allowable under some conditions, but it 
 should be the exception. The rule should be for 
 each class to have its own time and no more. Any 
 studying or reciting at recess or after school would 
 be a violation of this rule. The periods of relaxa- 
 tion should be as scrupulously observed as any 
 other. The evil resulting from the detention of 
 pupils at recess or after school for lessons over- 
 balances the good. Nothing is more obligatory 
 
 94 
 
SCHOOL ORGANIZATION. 
 
 upon the teacher than to see that every duty is per- 
 formed in its time. Every minute of school time 
 should be used in study, in recitation, in some 
 general exercise, or in needed relaxation. The 
 teacher should permit no dawdling or trifling either 
 in himself or in his pupils. 
 
 The following program was prepared by a coun- 
 try teacher for use in his school, which contained 
 five grades: 
 
 8:3o to 8:50 Music lesson for entire school. 
 
 8:50 to 9:05 Fifth reader, A grade. 
 
 9:05 to 9:20 Fourth reader, B grade. 
 
 9:20 to 9:35 Primer class, B grade. 
 
 9:50 to 10:00 Second reader, D grade. 
 10:00 to 10:12 Third reader, C grade. 
 10:12 to 10:30 Writing, entire school. 
 10:30 to 10:40 Recess. 
 10:40 to 10:55 Arithmetic, A grade. 
 10:55 to 1 1 :io Arithmetic, B and C grades. 
 11:10 to 11:30 Number lesson, D and B grades. 
 1 1 130 to ii :45 Spelling, A and B grades. 
 11:45 to 12:00 Spelling, C grade. 
 12:00 to 1:00 Noon recess. 
 
 i :oo to i :2o Grammar, A and B grades. 
 
 1:20 to 1:35 Language lesson, C and D grades. 
 
 1:35 to 2:00 Primer and First reader, B grade. 
 
 2:00 to 2:20 Physiology or history, A and B grades. 
 
 2 :2o to 2 130 Recess. 
 
 2 130 to 3 :oo Primer and First reader, B grade. 
 
 3:00 to 3:20 Geography, A and B grades. 
 
 3:20 to 3:40 Geography, C grade. 
 
 3:40 to 3:55 Second reader, D grade. 
 
 3:55 to 4:00 Closing exercises. 
 
 EXPLANATORY NOTES. Some time is gained in arithmetic by 
 allowing one class to place work on the board while another class 
 is reciting. 
 
 History and physiology alternate. 
 
 Writing is taught from the blackboard, the pupils using foolscap 
 paper. 
 
 95 
 
THE TEACHER AND HIS WORK. 
 
 The proper seating of a large school is a part of 
 the organization which requires skillful manage- 
 ment as well as good taste. It has been said that 
 in the seating of his school a teacher exhibits his 
 ideal of symmetry and fitness. It is proper to give 
 a school a good appearance by keeping that which 
 is unsightly in the back-ground as much as possible, 
 and placing in the front that which is pleasing to 
 the eye, provided it can be done without wounding 
 the feelings of the homely or ill-clad, or exciting 
 the vanity of the good looking or well dressed. 
 Perhaps better not be done at all if it cannot be 
 done without revealing its purpose. 
 
 Size, sex, grade, disposition and habits of pupils 
 should each have some weight in considering the 
 seating of a school. 
 
 When other considerations do not interfere, 
 pupils should sit in the order of size, beginning at 
 the rear with the largest. 
 
 It was once the custom to seat the girls on one 
 side of the room and the boys on the other side. 
 Then it was that the teacher sometimes inflicted 
 capital punishment on a troublesome boy by making 
 him sit among the girls. The custom now gen- 
 erally prevails of seating without much reference to 
 sex, and it is better so. 
 
 In a city school of two grades it is a good plan 
 to alternate by grades. Suppose the grades are A 
 and B. In the first row of seats place A grade 
 pupils in the seats with odd numbers and B grade 
 
SCHOOL ORGANIZATION, 
 
 pupils in the seats with even numbers. Reverse 
 this in the next row, and so on. This gives to 
 each pupil the greatest degree of isolation. When 
 one grade is called out to recite, the pupils of the 
 other grade are left distributed over the room in 
 alternate seats. The plan conduces to symmetry 
 and good appearance as well as to good order. 
 
 But all these plans are more or less liable to 
 interruption by the habits and tendencies of the 
 pupils. A pupil lacking in self-control may be 
 found in a bad neighborhood, and it may become 
 necessary to move him or some of his neighbors. 
 And this, by the way, is a prerogative which the 
 teacher should always maintain. A pupil's claim 
 to a particular seat because he occupied it last term, 
 or any other term, should not be conceded for a 
 moment. Every pupil should be entirely subject 
 to the direction of the teacher in this as in all other 
 matters pertaining to the school. 
 
 A school, as well as an army, needs a system of 
 tactics, by which its movements may be directed 
 and its work carried on. The system should be 
 as simple as possible, consistent with good order and 
 efficiency. All signals and movements for mere 
 display or show should be discarded. The import- 
 ant thing is the execution of all necessary movements 
 without waste of time and without unnecessary 
 confusion or noise. 
 
 97 
 
THE TEACHER AND HIS WORK. 
 
 Whether it is best, in assembling and dismissing, 
 to march in and march out in military order is a 
 question with two sides. It is more satisfactory to 
 most teachers, and in some large city schools it is 
 almost impossible to secure proper order in any 
 other way. Schools well trained in this way are 
 handled more easily and with less confusion, and 
 there is greater safety in case of fire. But experi- 
 ence and observation have led me to the conclusion 
 that the discipline which allows larger liberty and 
 yet prevents rude and boisterous conduct, is of a 
 higher order and exerts a more wholesome influ- 
 ence. In watching the marching and counter- 
 marching of children in some large schools, I have 
 been reminded of the lock-step march sometimes 
 witnessed in state prisons. There is always some- 
 thing repulsive about it. Nevertheless, this is to 
 be said: Almost any system of tactics that secures 
 discipline and order is preferable to the disorder and 
 uproar that sometimes prevail in schools. 
 
 The signals used in school to secure the move- 
 ment of classes are of some importance. Some 
 teachers use mainly signals addressed to the eye; 
 others address the ear exclusively. The things 
 of most importance are that the signals be given in 
 a quiet, self-possessed manner, and that they be 
 implicitly and promptly obeyed. Effort to these 
 ends should never be relaxed until it succeeds. 
 
 I have come to think that a call-bell on a teach- 
 er's desk is a useless appliance. It sometimes 
 
SCHOOL ORGANIZATION. 
 
 causes more disorder than it prevents. For moving 
 classes there are no better signals than the numerals, 
 one, two, three, spoken by the teacher in a soft 
 voice one, ready; two, rise; three > pass. The im- 
 portant thing, I repeat, is that every signal be 
 implicitly and promptly obeyed. 
 
 Concerning all the details of school organization, 
 it should be remembered that they are only means 
 to an end. The main work of the school should 
 never be subordinated to any ideal of system or 
 mechanism. 
 
 99 
 
Recitation and Study. 
 
1 * The teacher should study carefully the art of teaching 
 
 well at the recitation It is there his 
 
 mind comes specially in contact with his pupils' minds, and 
 there that he lays in them, for good or for evil, the founda- 
 tions of their mental habits. " Page. 
 
VI. 
 RECITATION AND STUDY. 
 
 THE term recitation is here used in its broad 
 sense to imply all those class exercises in school 
 which are designed for instruction, for testing, for 
 training, or for any or all of these combined. 
 
 The work of the school culminates in the recita- 
 tion. It is here that the teacher teaches. The 
 school is a success or a failure according to the 
 character of its recitations. George Rowland, late 
 superintendent of the Chicago schools, does not ex- 
 aggerate the importance of the recitation when he 
 says : 
 
 11 Whether we regard the prime purpose of the 
 school as mental or moral instruction and discipline, 
 the formation of character, or the manual skill that 
 shall aid in securing a comfortable livelihood, the 
 recitation is that about which centers all the activi- 
 ties of school life, giving it success or stamping it 
 with failure. 
 
 1 ' The personal influence of the teacher is of the 
 first importance; the power to control and direct 
 invaluable ; the magnetism which shall inspire and 
 incite to earnest, loving effort, a necessity to the 
 accomplished, successful teacher ; but all of these 
 qualifications find full scope in the recitation, and 
 
 103 
 
THE TEACHER AND HIS WORK. 
 
 without this end they have little cause or reason 
 to be. 
 
 ' ' The recitation is the controlling influence, 
 determining the length and character of the lessons, 
 the manner of their preparation, the conduct of the 
 pupil, his hours of study, his interest in school, 
 and his regard for his teacher, and gives the color, 
 the value, to all his school-days, his waking and his 
 sleeping hours. It is the recitation, with its direct 
 influences, which makes him a trusty friend or a 
 hopeless truant, a student or a scamp, and which 
 will guide him along the paths of honest and suc- 
 cessful industry, or into the by-ways of indolence 
 and worthlessness. Here he finds the rewards of 
 well-doing or condemnation of his negligence, an 
 incitement to renewed endeavor or an excuse for 
 feeble exertion and lax endeavor. 
 
 11 In the recitation, too, the teacher gives proof 
 of her calling, or shows her unfitness for her posi- 
 tion. In the recitation is concentrated the devo- 
 tion, the thought, the life of the teacher, and 
 the work, the purpose, the zeal, the perform- 
 ance of the pupil. Here is displayed the life of the 
 school, and here is decided whether the school shall 
 be a means of growth and development, or a source 
 of unworthy motive, of false aims and ignoble 
 character. ' ' 
 
 The character of the recitation will necessarily 
 vary with the subject, the age and attainments of 
 the pupils, and perhaps other conditions. The 
 
 104 
 
RECITATION AND STUDY. 
 
 recitation of first year pupils in a primary school 
 would differ in many particulars from the recitation 
 of a high -school class in chemistry or geometry. 
 The subject will here be considered in a general 
 way, and not in its application to each and every 
 grade of pupils. 
 
 Some things worthy of mention necessarily 
 precede and attend the recitation. Lessons must be 
 assigned. And this is a most important matter, 
 demanding the teacher's most thoughtful attention. 
 The want of discriminating attention to the char- 
 acter and amount of work assigned constitutes one 
 of the elements of weakness and failure in a good 
 many schools. It is too often left to the last mo- 
 ment before the dismissal of the class, and then dis- 
 posed of hurriedly and without due consideration, 
 resulting in many cases in a want of adaptation to 
 the circumstances and needs of the class, and conse- 
 quent discouragement and loss of life and interest 
 on the part of the pupils. The teacher should 
 make a careful study of the capacities and needs, as 
 well as the prevailing habits and tendencies of his 
 class, and adapt the lessons accordingly. He 
 should never forget that in the tasks he assigns his 
 pupils he sets up for them a standard of effort and 
 attainment an all-important matter. 
 
 In connection with the assignment of lessons, 
 there is need to anticipate the difficulties to be met 
 and to prepare the pupils for meeting them. To do 
 this well requires thoughtfulness and skill. The 
 
 105 
 
TEACHKR AND HIS WORK. 
 
 wise teacher will not remove or solve the difficulties, 
 but will indicate the right point of attack and incite 
 the pupils to attack vigorously and persistently. 
 Perhaps in nothing else is the real teaching power 
 of the teacher more manifest than in his manage- 
 ment of this matter. 
 
 Pupils must be taught how to study and trained 
 into right habits of study. Studying is the chief work 
 of the pupil in school, and the best intellectual ac- 
 complishment the schoolcan give him is right 
 habits of study. In these latter days too much reli- 
 ance is placed on oral teaching to the neglect of 
 study. The great aim seems to be to make every- 
 thing easy and pleasant for the pupils, but the 
 results in power and skill are meager. My observa- 
 tion is that large numbers of pupils reach, yes, and 
 leave, the high school without well formed habits 
 of study. They manifest very little power to in- 
 vestigate a subject, or to gain knowledge from the 
 printed page by independent effort. 
 
 Much may be done in the recitation to give di- 
 rection and character to the study of the pupils ; 
 but the teacher should observe closely the habits 
 and tendencies of each pupil, find out his difficulties 
 and hindrances, and by suggestion, admonition, en- 
 couragement by any and every means, guide and 
 incite each to his best effort. No teacher can do 
 more than this ; none should be content to do less. 
 Personal interviews with individual pupils, in the 
 spirit of friendly helpfulness, will often avail much. 
 
 1 06 
 
RECITATION AND STUDY. 
 
 I have sometimes found it profitable to give my 
 pupils an example of study. Seated in front of the 
 class, I have often taken up the lesson in order, 
 reading and repeating aloud until I had learned the 
 lesson as I wished the pupils to learn it. 
 
 Here are some rules for study worth keeping in 
 mind : 
 
 1 . Study with interest. The listless conning of 
 lessons as mere tasks is without much profit, and is 
 doubtless often positively injurious. The interest 
 of the pupil depends largely upon the teacher, but 
 it should come from some source. There should be 
 a sparkle in the eye and a glow of interest on the 
 countenance. 
 
 2. Study systematically. Study each lesson in 
 its proper time. Begin at the right place and pro- 
 ceed in order. It is well first to read the whole 
 lesson over to get a general view, then return to 
 the beginning, take up each topic in its order, and 
 master it. 
 
 3. Study with foxed attention. The degree of at- 
 tention is the measure of success. Fitful spurts 
 and dashes avail but little. The power to hold the 
 mind down to the matter in hand is an attainment 
 of great value. It is the roadster that leans into 
 the collar without flinching that moves the load. 
 
 4. Study to know and remember rather than to 
 recite. Learning that filters through the mind like 
 water through a sieve leaves small residuum. 
 "Knowledge is fixed in the mind by repetition and 
 
 107 
 
TEACHER AND HIS WORK. 
 
 reviews, by connecting its parts together by natural 
 association, and by making frequent application 
 of it." 
 
 5. Study thoughtfully. Think clearly, vigor- 
 ously, independently, while you study, and after- 
 wards reflect on what you have studied. It is 
 thought that moves the world. The great thinker 
 is king among men. 
 
 6. Study with a view to clear and forcible ex- 
 pression. Study so thoroughly, think so completely, 
 as to be able to state clearly and tersely. 
 
 Every pupil should be held to a strict account. 
 When a lesson has been once announced, every 
 member of the class should know henceforth what 
 it is. No one should be allowed to ask in 
 study hours what the lesson is. Even the 
 pupil who, because of absence, may not have 
 heard the lessons announced, should be expected 
 to learn about his lessons from the teacher 
 or from some class-mate before the opening of 
 school. lyet this be known and maintained as 
 " the law of the house," and it will not only save 
 much interruption and annoyance ; it will tend to 
 beget in the pupils habits of attention and prompt- 
 ness. 
 
 Every pupil should also be held to a strict ac- 
 count for the mastery of the lesson. Having seen 
 to it that the task assigned is not greater than may 
 be accomplished by reasonable effort, the teacher 
 
 108 
 
RECITATION AND STUDY. 
 
 should tolerate no shirking or dodging. I^et it be 
 understood that it is not an excuse for failure, but 
 the mastery of the lesson that is expected. Let it 
 be understood, too, that the lesson must be pre- 
 pared and recited in its own time, and not after 
 school or at any other time. I am convinced, 
 after many years of observation and experience, 
 that more harm than good comes of ' ' keeping after 
 school " to make up lessons. I have practiced it 
 enough to know something about it. Where the 
 practice becomes chronic and shows no sign of 
 abatement, it should be authoritatively prohibited. 
 The time and effort of teachers bestowed in this di- 
 rection can be turned to far better account, to say 
 nothing of the listlessness and disgust it fosters in 
 pupils. 
 
 The teacher should prepare himself thoroughly 
 for the recitation. This is trite ; it has been often 
 said, but it needs to be repeated. The prepar- 
 ation needed implies more than an understanding 
 of the subject-matter of the lesson, though even in 
 this many come short. The teacher's knowledge 
 should be fresh and his interest should be quickened. 
 He should have a well-matured plan of presenting 
 the lesson, and his whole mind and heart should be 
 aglow with fervent interest in the pupils. His 
 heart should go out toward them with intense desire 
 for their growth in intelligence and goodness. His 
 interest in his pupils, in the subject, and in his own 
 plans and devices, should amount to an enthusiasm. 
 
 109 
 
THE TEACHER AND HIS WORK. 
 
 And all this is possibly to him that willeth. The 
 door of attainment stands wide open ; whosoever 
 will may enter. 
 
 Absolute control of the pupils is essential to a 
 good recitation. The best methods in the world 
 will fail in the hands of a teacher who cannot con- 
 trol his class. Good order must be maintained and 
 attention must be secured and held. There is little 
 use in attempting to conduct recitations in school 
 until the reins of government are well in hand. 
 
 It is also important that the teacher have clearly 
 in mind the true ends of the recitation. There is 
 in many schools too much aimless, slip- shod lesson- 
 saying, without purpose and with small result. 
 There are several clearly defined objects to be se- 
 cured by class recitations which may be considered. 
 
 i. Stimulation. The farmer prepares the 
 ground before he sows the seed ; and there is some- 
 thing akin to this in the work of class instruc- 
 tion. The mind must be in an active, receptive 
 state. A mind preoccupied or wholly indifferent is 
 not ready for instruction. This phase of the work 
 of preparation is mainly incidental, growing largely 
 out of the general character of the recitation and 
 the tone and spirit of the school. Much of it comes 
 from direct contact of the teacher's mind with the 
 minds of the pupils, energizing, inspiring, stimu- 
 lating. An eminent and well-known Ohio teacher 
 said a good many years ago, ' ' After all, this matter 
 of education consists largely in stimulation. ' ' It is 
 
 no 
 
RECITATION AND STUDY. 
 
 unmistakably the best part of teaching. The value 
 of a recitation may be gauged by the measure of its 
 stimulation. 
 
 2. Examination and testing. The recitation 
 seeks to test the thoroughness of the pupils' study. 
 It inquires as to the faithfulness with which the pupils 
 have memorized the matter contained in the lesson, 
 but it does not stop here. It reaches to the under- 
 standing. "Do you understand?" "What do 
 you understand ? ' ' ' ' How do you understand ? ' ' 
 "Give an example," "Put it in other words," 
 " Make your meaning clear," are some of the ways 
 in which the skillful class manipulator probes the 
 understanding of his pupils. 
 
 The recitation is also a test of power. Mental 
 power is of more value than knowledge, and the 
 pupil should have frequent opportunity of ex- 
 hibiting and exercising his growing power power 
 to observe, power to grasp thought, power to 
 analyze and reason, power of expression. Various 
 school exercises, such as the analysis of sentences, 
 translations, composition, and the solution of prob- 
 lems, afford ample means of exercising and testing 
 mental power. Similarly, recitations may be made 
 tests of skill in such arts as reading, writing, draw- 
 ing, computation, and the like. 
 
 3. Instruction. This is prominent in primary 
 teaching, but it has also a place in more advanced 
 teaching. The method depends upon the subject 
 to be taught and other conditions. Sometimes the 
 
 in 
 
TEACHER AND HIS WORK. 
 
 Socratic method may be used almost exclusively; at 
 other times direct dogmatic statement may be best. 
 The important thing is the self-activity of the 
 learning mind. 
 
 There seem to be three uses of instruction in the 
 ordinary class recitation. (#) The wrong impres- 
 sions and misconceptions of pupils must needs be 
 corrected. This is usually best done by skillful 
 questioning and cross-examination, leading the 
 pupil to discover and correct his own errors. The 
 usual rule is to tell the pupil nothing directly which 
 he can be led to discover for himself a rule cor- 
 rect in principle but often overstrained and misap- 
 plied. () Additions may be made to the pupils' 
 stock of knowledge of the subject in hand. The 
 best way of doing this will be determined by the 
 nature of the subject, the attainments and habits 
 of the pupils, and other conditions. Sometimes it 
 may be sufficient to point out the sources of infor- 
 mation ; at other times it may be best to give the 
 information directly. The teacher's chief concern 
 should be to arouse interest and stimulate effort as 
 much as possible, (c) New subjects must be de- 
 developed. This part of the work of instruction 
 requires special skill. It should be done in such way 
 as not to relieve the pupil from the necessity of 
 effort, but rather to incite him to his best effort. 
 It should not remove the difficulties, but indicate 
 the point of attack and incite the pupils to attack 
 vigorously and persistently. The teacher's work 
 
 112 
 
RECITATION AND STUDY. 
 
 in developing new subjects may be described as a 
 going before and blazing the way over which the 
 pupils are to construct for themselves an open 
 highway. 
 
 4. Training. Some teachers who excel as in- 
 structors are poor drill-masters. They are skilled 
 in the art of putting things, but do not appreciate 
 the value of practice, which makes perfect. Of 
 course it is neither practicable nor desirable to make 
 a complete separation between instruction and train- 
 ing in class exercises. They are mutually comple- 
 mentary. Each will often disclose a necessity for 
 the other. But there is a time and place for each. 
 The great stress laid upon the skillful presentation 
 of subjects in modern teaching has tended to the 
 disparagement and neglect of drill. We are apt to 
 forget that one presentation is not sufficient to 
 make even the adult mind master of any important 
 truth, and that once doing is not sufficient to make 
 one an adept in the practice of any art. We must 
 learn again and again in order to know thoroughly, 
 and we must do again and again that which we 
 would do skillfully. There is true wisdom for all 
 time in the old Jesuit maxim, " Repetitio mater 
 studiorum" 
 
 5. Expression. This is at the same time a 
 means and an end. It is the chief means of attain- 
 ing the other ends of the recitation, and is itself a 
 most important end. Every well conducted recita- 
 tion is a training as well as a testing of the pupils' 
 
 OF THE 
 1 1 Rif\se*r* *%(*- 
 
THE TEACHER AND HIS WORK. 
 
 power of expression. A man is well educated who 
 has the power of forming clear ideas and of giving 
 them accurate and elegant expression. The teach- 
 er's work in teaching consists largely in leading pu- 
 pils to see and to tell what they see in training 
 them to think and to express thought. And these 
 two are very closely related. Max Muller says 
 language and reason are only two names or two 
 aspects of one and the same thing. ' ' No reason 
 without language, no language without reason. " 
 I would say, rather, they sustain to each other the 
 relation of body and spirit. Language is embodied 
 thought, and in our present state we know as little 
 about thought without language as we know about 
 soul without body. At all events, thought and 
 language are interdependent. Clear thinking 
 begets clearness and elegance of speech, and clear 
 and forcible language in turn tend to clearness and 
 completeness of thought. Hence, expression is a 
 matter of paramount importance in the recitation. 
 
 Good utterance, good articulation, in the reci- 
 tation, is worth all the effort it may cost to secure 
 it. It is good for its own sake, and it is good in its 
 tendency. Clear enunciation and clear thought go 
 together, as do slovenly utterance and muddiness 
 of thought. 
 
 All important principles, definitions and rules 
 which are worth learning at all should be memo- 
 rized verbatim, and repeated until they become as 
 familiar as the multiplication table. This has more 
 
 114 
 
RECITATION AND STUDY. 
 
 than a double value. Besides the knowledge and 
 mental discipline gained, it has full value in the 
 familiarity secured with the best forms of expres- 
 sion. The memorizing of good English for pur- 
 poses of language culture is not generally esteemed 
 as it deserves. 
 
 Errors of speech in the recitation should be 
 assiduously corrected without diverting attention 
 unduly from the subject in hand. It is usually 
 sufficient, when an error is made, for the teacher to 
 speak the correct form, it being understood that the 
 pupil must at once make the correction and proceed 
 without further interruption. 
 
 It should be the teacher's constant aim to keep 
 his pupils up to their best endeavor in acquiring ac- 
 curacy and facility in the use of language. He can 
 have no truer measure of their real progress. The 
 first need is a high ideal on the part of the teacher. 
 L,et him reflect much on the possibilities in this di- 
 rection, and let the clear and forcible expression of 
 thought be ever before his mind as a fundamental 
 object of the recitation. 
 
 Some of the more common methods of recitation 
 deserve to be noticed. Oral lessons are specially 
 adapted to younger pupils and partake more or less 
 of the nature of conversation, tending in varying 
 degree to secure the ends of the recitation already 
 named. At the beginning of the child's school life 
 the teacher is at the maximum, but soon becomes a 
 
THE TEACHER AND HIS WORK. 
 
 diminishing quantity. As the child advances the 
 teacher recedes. Probably no school exercises 
 require greater judgment and skill than the oral les- 
 sons in the first years of school life. The best oral 
 lessons are those that may soonest be dispensed with 
 because of the ability they give the pupil to help 
 himself. 
 
 Written recitations have a place and a value as 
 soon as pupils can write readily from dictation. 
 Spelling and language exercises may be written at 
 an early stage, and as soon as lessons in geography, 
 arithmetic, etc., are learned from books, there is 
 special advantage in occasional written recitations. 
 They constitute a more thorough test of pupils' 
 knowledge than oral recitations. The questions 
 are likely to be prepared with more care, and each 
 pupil must put himself on record for every question 
 and problem given. In oral recitation, a glib 
 talker may pass for more than he is worth, but not 
 so when he comes to write what he knows in 
 plain characters. Imperfect or partial answers will 
 then appear in their true character. Occasional 
 written recitations, without occupying more than 
 the usual time, may often prove a revelation to 
 both teacher and pupils. It would not be wise, 
 however, to use the written method exclusively, or 
 to make it the main dependence. 
 
 For pupils somewhat advanced the method by 
 topics has special advantage. It requires more 
 comprehension and thorough preparation, and more 
 
 116 
 
RECITATION AND STUDY. 
 
 fully cultivates and tests the power of expression 
 than any other method. Properly conducted, it 
 compels the pupil to make careful analysis of the 
 subject and to classify and arrange his thoughts in 
 an orderly way, so as to tell what he knows in a 
 smooth, connected statement. Study and recitation 
 thus become what they ought to be, a real training 
 in thought and expression. It is true that the 
 topic method in the hands of a weak teacher may 
 degenerate into mere babble about unimportant and 
 unrelated details ; but as much may be said of any 
 method. The letter killeth, the spirit quickeneth. 
 No method is good enough to dispense with the 
 quickening and life-giving power of the living 
 teacher. 
 
 Some use of the topic method may be profitably 
 made in grades lower than those to which it is 
 usually applied. The little people in the primary 
 geography class, for example, may be encouraged 
 to tell in several successive sentences what they 
 have learned about a given country, city, lake or 
 river, and thus gradually acquire the power to 
 stand on their feet and express themselves. 
 
 The catechetical method has always been, and 
 is likely to remain, the teacher's main reliance in 
 the recitation. For stimulating and directing the 
 pupil's mind, as well as revealing to him his own 
 weakness and the insufficiency of his preparation, 
 there is nothing like searching questioning. To be 
 a good teacher, one must be master of the art of 
 
 117 
 
TEACHER AND HIS WORK. 
 
 questioning. A good question is thought-provoking, 
 and throws the pupil as much as possible upon his 
 own resources. The teacher's questions should 
 generally follow in logical order and lead to a sys- 
 tematic unfolding of the subject. They should 
 always be couched in clear and unmistakable terms, 
 and always adapted to the comprehension of the 
 pupils. Questions need not always be hard to 
 answer. On the other hand, many questions 
 should be asked which the pupils can readily answer. 
 This will add to the interest and life of the reci- 
 tation, and give the pupils courage. But not 
 many recitations should pass without some ques- 
 tions calculated to search, and probe, and test. 
 There should be tests of memory, of imagination, 
 of invention, of thought. 
 
 Some of the best high-school recitations I have 
 ever heard have been those in which the pupils 
 questioned each other. This was the usual 
 method of one of the best high-school teachers I 
 ever knew. The teacher presided over the recita- 
 tion, the pupils did the work and they did it 
 thoroughly. They delved into every nook and 
 corner of the subject, and brought out things new 
 and old. It led to a more masterly preparation of 
 lessons, and often to such an exhibition of mental 
 gymnastics as I have rarely witnessed elsewhere. 
 But it is too sharp and effective an instrument to be 
 wielded by any but skillful hands. 
 
 Pupils may answer (i) simultaneously. For 
 
 118 
 
RECITATION AND STUDY. 
 
 rapid review, and for drill on tables, dates in his- 
 tory, and all such things as need to be fixed in the 
 memory by frequent repetition, the simultaneous 
 method is appropriate. But it will not serve the 
 more important ends of the recitation. It is an in- 
 sufficient test. It encourages shirking. No teacher 
 has sufficient power and skill to teach a large class 
 well in bulk. There is always need to individualize. 
 
 (2.) Pupils may be called upon to recite con- 
 secutively. This is convenient and insures regular 
 participation in the recitation by every member 
 of the class ; but in a large class there would be 
 temptation to inattention, and cases have been 
 known of pupils preparing only the part of the 
 lesson likely to fall to them in regular course. 
 
 (3.) The promiscuous method of calling upon 
 pupils to recite should be the teacher's main reli- 
 ance. Under the skillful use of this method no 
 pupil will consider himself exempt at any time, as 
 every question will be directed to every member of 
 the class. If any show signs of inattention, the 
 teacher will naturally pay his respects to such 
 more frequently, until they conclude to mend their 
 ways. It will require some care to give to each his 
 portion in due season. Those that always recite 
 well and those that always recite badly are the two 
 extremes to be watched. 
 
 A few general suggestions concerning class 
 management and the conduct of recitations will 
 close this chapter. 
 
 119 
 
THE TEACHER AND HIS WORK. 
 
 1. Secure and hold the attention of every 
 member of the class throughout the entire recita- 
 tion. The recitation should never begin without 
 attention, nor should it proceed in any part while 
 any pupils are inattentive. The degree of atten- 
 tion secured is the measure of the teacher's success. 
 An experienced and skillful inspector of schools 
 and school work, on entering a school, will imme- 
 diately and almost unconsciously observe the char- 
 acter of attention in the class and in the school. It 
 cannot be held permanently by merely commanding 
 it. It comes through healthy interest, largely the 
 result of the teacher's personality and the teacher's 
 methods. Some devices are of temporary advan- 
 tage, such as asking the question before designating 
 the pupil who is to recite ; but the teacher must get 
 the reins well in hand, there must be a right 
 spirit in the school, and the pupils must be 
 deeply interested in their work. If these things 
 be in the school and abound, attention will not be 
 lacking. 
 
 2. Do not do the pupil's work for him. The 
 minimum of talking and explanation on the part of 
 the teacher and the maximum of active exertion 
 on the part of the pupils, is the ideal of excellence 
 in the recitation. The best teacher soonest makes 
 himself useless to his pupils. The teacher should 
 study and practice economy of speech ; his words 
 should be few and well chosen. To impart his own 
 knowledge is not the true work of the teacher, but 
 
 120 
 
RECITATION AND STUDY. 
 
 rather to stimulate and direct his pupils in their 
 efforts to obtain knowledge for themselves. 
 
 3. Have a definite plan for every recitation and 
 follow it. Many a recitation fails for want of pur- 
 pose and plan. With an end in mind to be reached, 
 drive hard to reach it. High school and college 
 students have been known to side-track the recita- 
 tion by skillfully raising questions and getting the 
 teacher started on some favorite theme nearly or 
 remotely related to the subject in hand, and thus 
 the time passes and the students escape the humili- 
 ating exposure of their unfaithfulness in study. 
 The teacher should stick to the text and hold his 
 pupils to it. 
 
 4. Be elementary and simple. Dr. Joseph 
 Alden bears testimony to the value of simplicity 
 in teaching in these words : * ' In an experience of 
 twenty-five years as a college teacher, I have dis- 
 covered that I have been successful according as I 
 have been elementary and simple in my teaching. " 
 The teacher should not speak to his pupils in an un- 
 known tongue. Simple words and short sentences 
 should be his rule. 
 
 5. Maintain a cheerful and patient spirit. Pet- 
 ulance is one of the besetting sins of teachers. It 
 is a great misfortune, both to himself and to his 
 pupils, for a teacher to fall under the domination of 
 an irritable, fault-finding temper. The teacher 
 must learn to bear with stupidity and waywardness; 
 he will find much of both. Dr. Channing says 
 
 121 
 
THE TEACHER AND HIS WORK. 
 
 truly that the boy or girl compelled for six hours a 
 day to see the countenance and hear the voice 
 of a fretful, unkind, hard or passionate teacher, is 
 in a school of vice. Be patient, be cheerful. 
 
 6. Keep in sympathy with your pupils. lyearn 
 to " put yourself in his place/' Cherish a real in- 
 terest in the welfare and progress of each and every 
 pupil. Keep growing yourself and watch for 
 growth in your pupils. 
 
 7. Do not accept as known and understood 
 what the pupil is unable to state clearly. What 
 you give your pupils in the way of instruction, re- 
 quire them to give back to you. Only a weak 
 teacher will accept the statement, ' ( I know it, but 
 I cannot tell it.' ' 
 
 8. Review frequently. Dr. H. Clay Trumbull 
 says in his book entitled Teaching and Teacher s> 
 ' ' From one-quarter to one-half of the entire time 
 occupied by a teacher in the teaching process could 
 be employed to advantage in one form or another of 
 review. " " Repetition is the mother of studies. " 
 
 9. Censure sparingly. Reproof is ten-fold 
 more effective when spoken by lips more wont to 
 speak words of praise. 
 
 10. Praise judiciously. Praise is a powerful 
 stimulus when bestowed with discrimination ; but 
 words of praise should not be spoken when unde- 
 served. 
 
 122 
 
School Government. 
 
11 Nothing is so easily wrecked as the soul. As mechan- 
 isms go up toward complexity, delicacy increases. The 
 fragile vase is ruined by a single tap. A chance blow de- 
 stroys the statue. A bit of sand ruins the delicate mechan- 
 ism. But the soul is even more sensitive to injury. It is 
 marred by a word or a look. Men are responsible for the 
 ruin they work unthinkingly." Newell Dwight Hillis. 
 
VII. 
 SCHOOL GOVERNMENT. 
 
 MY present undertaking is to record in the most 
 direct and simple language, for all who may 
 choose to read, something of what I have observed 
 and thought, in the course of a varied experience of 
 more than forty years, on what seems to me the 
 most difficult and important part of the teacher's 
 work, the government of the school. I shall make 
 no effort at profundity, nor yet at fine writing. 
 Without fear of the charge of egotism before my 
 eyes, I shall draw freely from my own experience 
 when that seems to serve the purpose best, not 
 omitting to tell of mistakes and failures, as well as 
 of well directed and successful effort. 
 
 I have often witnessed the painful striving of 
 young teachers in an unequal contest with a school 
 of fifty or more young people brimful of animal life 
 and mischief. I have watched with intense inter- 
 est and sympathy the first efforts of young girls 
 fresh from the high school, going to their new work 
 full of hope and high expectation, and shedding 
 bitter tears of disappointment by the end of the first 
 or second week, I have sometimes been led to say 
 that these novices are not fairly ready to begin 
 until they have had several good cries. 
 
 125 
 
TEACHER AND HIS WORK. 
 
 It is for such mainly that I write, in the hope of 
 helping some of them to get their eyes open to see 
 something of the character and scope of the work 
 something of the possibilities of power and skill for 
 themselves, and of good for their pupils. 
 
 My own apprenticeship was spent in country 
 schools, unattended by any special difficulty or any 
 unusual experiences of any kind. My pupils were 
 for the most part tractable and docile, and all of 
 them in large measure proof against injury from my 
 blind blundering efforts ; else my life would now be 
 miserable from the recollection of the harm done. 
 A courage bred of ignorance, as it now seems, in some 
 measure supplied the lack of experience and skill. 
 
 But when I first came to take charge of a large 
 city school, the case was very different. It was a 
 much stronger and wilder team I then had to man- 
 age. I had thought the government of a school 
 comparatively easy, but the illusion was soon dis- 
 pelled. My first city school was a large grammar 
 school of perhaps a hundred and twenty pupils, all 
 seated in one large room to which were attached 
 recitation rooms where my two assistants taught 
 their classes. It was a very trying ordeal for a 
 young schoolmaster, and the more so because in the 
 same building was a demoralized high school, from 
 which the contagion of disorder and insubordination 
 extended to the other departments. 
 
 My resources were soon exhausted. I had been 
 opposed, both in theory and practice, to the use of 
 
 126 
 
SCHOOL GOVERNMENT. 
 
 the rod in schools, and had publicly maintained that 
 view, but I underwent a speedy conversion. The 
 rod was brought in and vigorously used, and with 
 good effect. Since that time my theory has been 
 and still is that it is better to control a school with 
 the rod than that it should be uncontrolled. This 
 is no warrant for the injudicious or unnecessary use 
 of the rod when higher and better means of control 
 may be available and effective. But of this more 
 may be said later. 
 
 Broadly viewed, the right government of the 
 school is a difficult and laborious part of the teach- 
 er's work, requiring a large amount of energy, 
 courage, judgment, tact, and skill. The govern- 
 ment of a large city school requires higher talent 
 and greater executive ability than the command of 
 a regiment of soldiers. And the importance of good 
 government in a school is more than commensurate 
 with its difficulty. It is vital and essential. The 
 success of the school in general depends upon it, and 
 its influence in the formation of individual character 
 is very great. It is doubtless true that the kind 
 and measure of control which the teacher exercises 
 is a gerater factor in the formation of individual 
 character than all his direct instruction. 
 
 It then behooves every one who is called to teach 
 to inform himself thoroughly as to the possibilities 
 for good which lie in the government of the school, 
 its underlying principles, and its best means and 
 methods. It also behooves him to exercise full 
 
 127 
 
THE TEACHER AND HIS WORK. 
 
 diligence in the use of every available means for the 
 attainment of power and skill in the art of govern- 
 ment. A resolute purpose and a definite aim at the 
 outset are very essential. My advice to young 
 teachers in starting has always been, Control your 
 school by the best agencies at your command, but 
 by any and all means make sure of control. Make 
 no provision for any other outcome ; entertain no 
 misgivings. 
 
 I propose now to consider more at length and in 
 several particulars the ends to be sought. 
 
 i . Good Order. This may not be an ultimate 
 end ; it may be considered a means to a higher end ; 
 still it is an end of no mean importance. 
 
 What constitutes good order in school is a ques- 
 tion involving much more than appears at a superfi- 
 cial view. That is not always best which appears 
 best. The highest degree of quiet is not necessarily 
 the best order, though a reasonable measure of quiet 
 should prevail. Indeed it is not easy to define or to 
 state specifically what constitutes good order. It is 
 in some measure a relative term. What may be 
 good order in one school or with one teacher might 
 not be so in another school or with another teacher. 
 And sometimes the order in a school cannot be pro- 
 nounced good until the means and methods by which 
 it is secured are known. Of two schools, one may 
 be very quiet, every movement may be character- 
 ized by promptness and precision, and all the pupils 
 may be attentive to their work ; the other may not 
 
 128 
 
SCHOOL GOVERNMENT. 
 
 be so quiet, there may be less of exactness and more 
 of freedom in movement, and the eyes of the pupils 
 may not be quite so closely confined to their books. 
 Yet, if I should observe in the first that the teacher 
 stood like a sentinel on guard, constantly on the 
 alert to discover the slightest infractions of order, 
 scarcely venturing to turn his back to the school, 
 and in the other I should observe that the teacher 
 gave himself to the work of instruction, depending 
 in large measure upon the pupils to keep themselves 
 in order, and the pupils were doing their work with- 
 out apparent constraint, I would not hesitate to 
 pronounce in favor of the latter ; the order is better. 
 I was a close and interested observer, for several 
 years, of a lady's management of a certain high 
 school. The pupils, numbering more than a hun- 
 dred, were seated in one large assembly room with 
 recitation rooms attached. Some of my first visits 
 
 after Mrs. S took charge of the school gave me 
 
 an unfavorable impression. The school seemed 
 noisy and disorderly. After several visits, I ven- 
 tured to suggest very gently that the school seemed 
 rather noisy. The reply was, ' ' Wait a little ; I 
 hope to bring it out all right. 5) The first sign of 
 improvement observed was a growing interest 
 among the pupils in their work. It soon became 
 apparent that the teacher was unusually strong, 
 both morally and intellectually, and that she was 
 looking ahead. She patiently endured some things 
 for the time which most teachers would have 
 
 129 
 
THE TEACHER AND HIS WORK. 
 
 attacked directly and vigorously, and probably not 
 without some friction and ill will. She secured the 
 respect of the pupils and by degrees became com- 
 plete master of the situation ; but the school never 
 became noted for its quiet or nice order. It was a 
 working school rather than a quiet school. The 
 teacher's motto was, ' ' Keep the pupils busy. Give 
 them plenty of work to do and see that they do it 
 well." Nothing was done for show. Everything 
 was valued for its bearing on character and on the 
 legitimate work of the school. The pupils had 
 large liberty. They were permitted to cross the 
 room in an orderly way at any time, without asking 
 leave, to consult the dictionary or encyclopedia. 
 No " whispering reports" were taken, yet pupils 
 who wasted time or made disturbance by whisper- 
 ing were sharply dealt with until the habit was cor- 
 rected. There was no marching and countermarch- 
 ing no military tactics. All the pupils' move- 
 ments were natural and free, without rudeness or 
 boisterousness. There was no sitting with folded 
 arms and no tip-toeing with arms behind the back. 
 The pupils were subject to the will of the teacher, a 
 good spirit prevailed, and effective work filled the 
 hours. 
 
 Who shall say that the order in this school was 
 not good ? It was not such as we sometimes hear 
 called " fine," or " beautiful," but good it certainly 
 was. It was such as only a teacher of unusual 
 power can secure and maintain. For a weak or a 
 
 130 
 
SCHOOIv GOVERNMENT. 
 
 mediocre teacher to undertake to manage so large a 
 school in such a way would prove a disastrous fail- 
 ure ; but it is an ideal toward which all may strive. 
 Not many teachers can give to their pupils such 
 large liberty and yet hold the school well in hand. 
 To be able to train young people into the right use 
 of such liberty is a high attainment, a noble art. 
 
 The teacher must be master. The school must 
 be controlled ; order must be maintained. The 
 character of the forces at the teacher's command for 
 the attainment of this end determines better than 
 anything else his real worth as a teacher. 
 
 Perhaps I should add that a school is in good 
 order when every pupil is in his own place and in 
 good spirit attending to his own business in such 
 way as not to disturb or hinder any other pupil. 
 
 2. To restrain and correct whatever is wrong in 
 the conduct and habits of pupils. The ordinary 
 school is not exactly a reformatory ; yet the teacher 
 as well as the parent must be vigilant in checking 
 and overcoming the tendencies of children to evil. 
 In nearly every school are some pupils of depraved 
 tendencies ; and unless there are strong counter- 
 acting and correcting influences, they will contami- 
 nate and pervert others. Especially is this true of 
 large schools in cities and towns. Without a 
 strong, watchful teacher, such schools are liable to 
 become schools of vice. Under almost any condi- 
 tions, the demoralizing tendency of a large school, 
 when not well controlled, is great. It is often 
 
THE TEACHER AND HIS WORK. 
 
 surprising with what readiness children from good 
 homes fall into the practices of evil companions, in 
 schools under weak or lax government. Rudeness, 
 falsehood, profanity, and vileness are very conta- 
 gious. 
 
 On the other hand, a strong teacher, with high 
 moral character and purpose, is a great power for 
 good. In such case it is literally true that one can 
 chase a thousand. 
 
 It is not enough that the teacher be vigilant 
 and skillful in detecting and punishing evil-doers, 
 though this is well as far as it goes. He must 
 build up the good as well as destroy the evil. The 
 great desideratum is a health-giving and invigora- 
 ting moral atmosphere, and this, only an upright, 
 pure and strong teacher can beget. What great in- 
 centives to purify himself and be strong are ever 
 before the teacher whose eyes are open to see his 
 work ! This is one of the blessed compensations of 
 the business of teaching. With a discovery of its 
 possibilities there is apt to come an intense desire to 
 realize one's ideal in his own life and character, and 
 this for the sake of his pupils rather than himself. 
 
 3. To beget the habit and spirit of obedience. 
 The great lesson of life is the lesson of obedience. 
 Schiller tells us that the first great law is to obey, 
 
 and 
 
 44 Obedience is the Christian's crown." 
 
 One of the sacred writers has said, " To obey 
 is better than sacrifice.'* The teachers of the land 
 
 132 
 
SCHOOL GOVERNMENT. 
 
 can do no greater service to the State than to train 
 their pupils to obedience. Moral lessons and les- 
 sons in civics are well enough ; but they have their 
 chief value as auxiliaries in begetting the spirit of 
 obedience. Without the spirit and habit of obedi- 
 ence, no amount of moral and civic instruction or of 
 formal acts of devotion will avail much. I would 
 rather have my child in a school where he is trained 
 to implicit obedience, than in one where long 
 Scripture lessons are read and long prayers are said, 
 with slackness in the matter of obedience. Scrip- 
 ture lessons and prayers are good in their place, 
 and they may properly have a place in school, but 
 the great thing is training in right life and conduct. 
 
 I doubt whether even teachers themselves re- 
 alize how great a power for good lies in the training 
 of the public schools in the direction of obedience. 
 And here I wish to testify to the great gain that 
 has been made in recent years. The discipline of 
 the schools is far better than it was at a time within 
 the recollection of many now living. Teachers 
 have greater power and higher skill in governing. 
 There is far less of antagonism and harsh discipline, 
 and far more of gentleness and refinement. The 
 pupils are more tractable and obedient. The re- 
 straining and uplifting influence of the schools is 
 very great. Many a young anarchist is taught les- 
 sons in the schools that will last him for a lifetime. 
 
 If it be said that law-breaking, recklessness and 
 crime abound, let it be remembered that many pow- 
 
 133 
 
TEACHER AND HIS WORK. 
 
 erful agencies for evil are at work, and were it not 
 for the counteracting influence of the schools and 
 churches, the outlook would be gloomy indeed. 
 Our land seems to be more than ever the dumping- 
 ground for the refuse of the Old World's population, 
 and these herd in our great commercial centers, 
 making each a danger center. Out of the children 
 of this mixed multitude the schools must make 
 American citizens ; and never before in the world's 
 history were schools so well fitted for so great a 
 work as are the American free schools of to-day. 
 I/et teachers be encouraged to renewed zeal and 
 higher endeavor. 
 
 4. To beget a sense of individual responsibility. 
 Daniel Webster was once asked what he considered 
 the greatest thought that had ever occupied his 
 mind. He replied, ' 'The thought of my own indi- 
 vidual accountability. ' ' And it is a thought that 
 tends to impress every right-minded person most 
 profoundly. It is a serious thing to live the life 
 of a man or a woman in the world, knowing that 
 every one of us must render a strict account, 
 that even ' ' every idle word that men shall speak 
 they shall give account thereof.'' There is not 
 much strength or stability of character without a 
 considerable measure of this sense of oughtness ; 
 and its strong development in anyone is almost a 
 guarantee of safety in the voyage of life. Its de- 
 velopment in pupils is a matter of cultivation and 
 growth. Teachers are apt to feel that little can be 
 
 134 
 
SCHOOL GOVERNMENT. 
 
 done in this direction, and so put forth little effort. 
 Perhaps it is caught rather than taught. Certain it 
 is that the teacher who acts from a deep sense of 
 his own accountability, and whose first question is 
 always, What is the right thing to do ? will steadily 
 gain ground. In all dealings with pupils in mat- 
 ters of conduct, it is well to appeal to their sense of 
 duty, even though it be known to be weak. There 
 is no better or surer way of quickening this sense. 
 Did you do right ? Is your record clean ? Is your 
 conscience clear ? are questions which, coming from 
 the lips of a faithful and earnest teacher, can scarcely 
 fail of an effect. The discovery of the want of 
 moral sense in pupils should stimulate rather than 
 discourage effort. 
 
 Of course, the years before school life begins is 
 the important period. The moral sense and moral 
 standards of children are largely the product of the 
 influences which surround them during this early 
 period. In this there is strong reason for public 
 kindergartens in the cities, for the large class of 
 children whose infant lives are spent in an atmos- 
 phere of vice and crime, and whose early moral 
 training would be otherwise entirely neglected. It 
 would be true economy as well as true philanthropy 
 to provide free kindergartens for these children, 
 with compulsory attendance from the age of three 
 or four to six or seven. 
 
 But I am more and more impressed with the 
 weight of responsibility which comes upon our 
 
 135 
 
THE TEACHER AND HIS WORK. 
 
 public school teachers for this same class of chil- 
 dren. For many of them the public school is almost 
 their only opportunity ; and I am sure that teachers 
 of warm heart and earnest purpose can do much for 
 them. 
 
 5. To beget self -control. There is probably no 
 better test of the government of a school. That 
 school is best governed that has in it most of self- 
 government. The school that is kept under by the 
 vigilant eye and the strong hand of the teacher, and 
 is ready to break into disorder whenever the teach- 
 er's back is turned, is not well governed, no matter 
 how quiet and orderly it may be under the teacher's 
 eye. 
 
 It should be the aim of the teacher to beget such 
 a spirit in his school that he can at any moment 
 without warning leave the room, in the full confi- 
 dence that for a reasonable time good order will be 
 maintained and the work of the school go on with- 
 out his presence. This is not an unattainable ideal, 
 in proof of which I might cite numerous examples. 
 A large grammar school in southern Ohio has been 
 known to run in good order for an entire half day, 
 without the teacher or a substitute. Work being 
 assigned for the entire session, the pupils did it and 
 retired in good order at the proper time. I knew a 
 school in Cleveland, of about third year or third 
 reader grade, that ran in perfect order for a full 
 week, in the care of a little girl who was a member 
 of the school. These may be considered excep- 
 
 136 
 
SCHOOL GOVERNMENT. 
 
 tional cases, but they point out the direction in 
 which the teacher's effort should be bent. 
 
 The immediate results of judicious effort in 
 this direction are most gratifying to both teacher 
 and pupils. The government becomes easy for 
 the teacher and pleasing to the pupils. But the 
 more remote and more important results are seen 
 in the growing power of self-control in the pupils, 
 and these are valuable beyond estimate. The chief 
 business of each individual life in this world is to 
 get self-mastery. The master of self is master of 
 all. The highest praise is " not to the strong man 
 1 who taketh a city,' but to the stronger man who 
 'ruleth his own spirit. ' This stronger man is he 
 who by discipline, exercises a constant control over 
 his thoughts, his speech and his acts. Nine-tenths 
 of the vicious desires that degrade society, and 
 which, when indulged, swell into the crimes 
 that disgrace it, would sink into significance before 
 the advance of valiant self -discipline, self-respect, 
 and self-control. By the watchful exercise of these 
 virtues, purity of mind and heart becomes habitual, 
 and the character is built up in chastity, virtue, 
 and temperance. ' ' 
 
 Such results are worth the teacher's highest 
 thought and best effort, and the encouraging thing 
 is that they are in large measure attainable. L,et 
 the teacher seek first for himself personal worth 
 and high ideals, then press steadily onward. 
 
 6. To keep pupils up to their best. This is an 
 
 137 
 
THE TEACHER AND HIS WORK. 
 
 ideal which has grown apace in my mind as the 
 years go by. It ought to be the ideal of every 
 teacher, toward the realization of which he should 
 ever strive intensely. Every pupil at his best 
 what a grand attainment ! It would preclude all 
 over-strain as well as all inattention and idling. It 
 would imply riveted attention, intense application, 
 to the work in hand thoroughness of investiga- 
 tion, persistence to the point of complete compre- 
 hension, and clear and smooth expression. It 
 would also imply the best effort of each in conduct 
 best effort at resistance of evil, best exercise of 
 right thought and feeling, full purpose and volition 
 in the direction of the right and good, and prompt 
 and efficient action. 
 
 Does it not appear that there are grand possibili- 
 ties in the government of the school, to him that 
 has been born into the spirit of the true teacher ? 
 
 We are now to consider some limitations in the 
 government of the school. The teacher is not an 
 absolute monarch. His power is limited and condi- 
 tioned by the statute and the courts, by the " rules 
 and regulations' 1 of the board of education, and 
 by parental prerogatives. And this is well ; for 
 there is always a tendency in human nature to the 
 abuse of power. The charge of mismanagement 
 and abuse lies against every human agency for the 
 exercise of control among men. The State, the 
 family, and the school must all plead guilty. All 
 
 138 
 
SCHOOIy GOVERNMENT. 
 
 have contributed to the sum of human misery by 
 the unwise and unskillful exercise of authority. 
 Undoubtedly, family government is most at fault, 
 and its evil consequences are most widely spread 
 and most baneful. There may be some comfort to 
 teachers in the reflection that they are not the 
 greatest sinners. 
 
 It behooves the teacher to know well the limits 
 and bounds of his prerogative. In the first place, 
 he should familiarize himself with all the require- 
 ments of the statutes which have any bearing upon 
 him or his work. In this, most teachers are very 
 negligent. Probably not one teacher in ten has 
 ever read the school law of the State in which he 
 lives and labors. Everyone should have a copy of 
 the law, and should at least be sufficiently familiar 
 with it to refer to it readily on any question which 
 may arise in the discharge of his duties. He should 
 also be a doer of the law, showing himself in all 
 things law-abiding ; for how shall one train his 
 pupils to obedience who is himself disobedient ? 
 
 The teacher is subordinate in authority to the 
 board of education that employs him. The authori- 
 tative control and direction of the school is vested 
 by the statute in the board of education, and the 
 teacher derives his authority partly from the board 
 and partly from the unwritten law of custom and 
 common sense. It sometimes seems strange that 
 there is in the statute so little direct recognition of 
 the teacher's authority. His right to be obeyed 
 
 139 
 
THE TEACHER AND HIS WORK. 
 
 and to enforce obedience is everywhere assumed 
 rather than expressly declared. As to the distri- 
 bution of powers between the board and the teacher, 
 there is considerable diversity of practice. I have 
 known some country schools in which the teacher 
 was almost supreme dictator, making and enforcing 
 his own rules and regulations, even to the extent of 
 adopting text-books, the board doing little besides 
 putting the teacher in charge and signing the pa- 
 pers necessary to draw his pay at the end of the 
 term. On the other hand, I have known city 
 boards that went to the opposite extreme of meddle- 
 some interference with the internal management 
 and instruction of the school. 
 
 It is the part of wisdom for boards of education 
 to secure competent and faithful teachers and give 
 them liberty. Many a worthy and efficient teacher 
 has left the work in disgust because of the med- 
 dlesome interference of school directors. Superin- 
 tendents of city schools are most frequently the vic- 
 tims of this kind of interference. None but superin- 
 tendents themselves know how hard a thing it 
 sometimes is for one in such a position to do his 
 whole duty toward teachers and pupils, and at the 
 same time " get along" with a meddlesome board, 
 or even with one officious member. I am free to 
 say that this, more than anything else, led me to 
 seek relief from the position of superintendent, 
 when I would otherwise have been glad to con- 
 tinue the work. The outside world will never 
 
 140 
 
SCHOOIy GOVERNMENT. 
 
 know how many school superintendents have quietly 
 retired, or have been retired, because of too much 
 manhood to submit to the dictation of ignorance 
 and arrogance ; nor will it ever be known how 
 many others meekly submit for the sake of holding 
 their positions in peace. All honor to such super- 
 intendents as Drs. E. E. White, Andrew J. Rickoff , 
 B. A. Hinsdale, and Robert W. Stevenson, for their 
 examples of courage and manly independence. 
 
 Of course, there is a legitimate and reasonable 
 exercise of the authority conferred on boards of ed- 
 ucation by the statute, to which superintendents and 
 teachers should render all due respect and obedience. 
 
 limitations of school authority having virtually 
 the force of law are set forth in various court de- 
 cisions which have been rendered from time to time. 
 Many of these are discussed at some length in a se- 
 ries of articles which appeared in the Ohio Educa- 
 tional Monthly some time ago. A brief summary 
 of the more important points is here presented: 
 
 1 . Reasonable and necessary rules adopted by 
 the teacher are valid, even though not formally ap- 
 proved or adopted by the board, and they are bind- 
 ing upon pupils equally with the rules of the board. 
 
 2. Rules requiring prompt and regular attend- 
 ance are deemed reasonable and necessary to the 
 highest welfare of the school, and may be enforced 
 by reasonable measures ; but locking tardy children 
 out on a cold winter morning has been pronounced 
 unreasonable. 
 
 141 
 
THE TEACHER AND HIS WORK. 
 
 3. It has been held in Ohio that the board of 
 education has full authority to require or forbid re- 
 ligious exercises in the school ; but in some other 
 States the right of the board to require any form of 
 religious exercise has been challenged. It is the 
 opinion of the writer that, whatever may be the 
 constitutional or legal right in the case, it is not or- 
 dinarily the wisest policy for the board either to re- 
 quire or to forbid religious exercises. 
 
 4. In the absence of statutory prohibition, the 
 courts uniformly sustain the teacher in the inflic- 
 tion of corporal punishment, but hold him crimin- 
 ally liable for excessive punishment through anger 
 or malice, and, in some cases, even through error of 
 judgment. 
 
 5. The power of suspension and expulsion is 
 carefully guarded by statute in Ohio. The teach- 
 er's power is limited to temporary suspension, for 
 such time only as may be necessary to convene the 
 board of education. A pupil can be expelled only 
 by a two-thirds vote of the board, after the parent 
 or guardian has had the opportunity of being heard. 
 Neither suspension nor expulsion can extend beyond 
 the school term in which it occurs. 
 
 6. The parent and the teacher have concurrent 
 authority over the pupil on the way to and from 
 school, the teacher's authority extending more par- 
 ticularly to all matters affecting the well-being of the 
 school. After the pupil reaches his home, the parent ' s 
 authority is fully resumed and the teacher's ceases. 
 
 142 
 
SCHOOL GOVERNMENT. 
 
 7. The question of the parent's right to select 
 the studies to be pursued by his child has given rise 
 to diverse decisions, but the weight of the more re- 
 cent authority denies to the parent the right to 
 make such selection. All the courts concede the 
 right of the board of education to prescribe a course 
 of study for the schools under its management ; but 
 the parent's claim to some liberty of choice among 
 the prescribed studies is not wholly unreasonable, 
 especially when it works no interference with other 
 rights or interests. There is room here for the 
 play of common sense and good spirit on the part of 
 the teacher. While he should not weakly and 
 meekly yield to the demands of ignorant and selfish 
 arrogance, he should ever welcome the advice and 
 assistance of parents in doing what is best for each 
 pupil. It may often be looked upon as a relief to 
 have parents thus share the teacher's responsibility. 
 Besides, there are in almost every community intel- 
 ligent parents who have plans for the higher edu- 
 cation of their children. It seems only fair that 
 they should be able to shape their elementary train- 
 ing with some reference to these plans, whenever it 
 can be done without detriment to other interests. 
 
 In view of all these limitations and conditions of 
 school authority, and in the light of observation 
 and experience, the following statements may be 
 accepted as guiding principles : 
 
 i . In all matters pertaining to the direct govern- 
 ment of the pupils the supreme authority of the teacher 
 
 143 
 
TEACHER AND HIS WORK. 
 
 should be recognized. It is the province of the 
 teacher to seat his pupils ; to maintain order; to di- 
 rect the movements of the pupils in the school 
 room, and when entering and leaving it ; to direct 
 the pupils in study ; to conduct recitations and give 
 such oral instruction in the prescribed branches as 
 he may deem best ; to enforce obedience to the 
 written and unwritten rules of good behavior ; and 
 to inflict such reasonable punishments as may be 
 necessary to correct pupils' faults and secure obedi- 
 ence. And in the exercise of his prerogative in all 
 these and other similar matters he should be as free 
 from interference from all sources as the board of 
 education itself in the exercise of its legitimate 
 functions. This supremacy of the teacher in all 
 that legitimately pertains to the work of a teacher 
 does not preclude helpful suggestion and advice 
 from the superintendent, from parents, or from any- 
 one capable of rendering such assistance ; but it 
 does preclude all arbitrary dictation or constraint 
 of the teacher in matters pertaining to the imme- 
 diate control and instruction of the pupils. The 
 success or failure of the school depends upon the 
 teacher, and very largely upon his government. He 
 should have liberty to govern. He should not be 
 hampered by the board with unnecessary restric- 
 tions, nor by the interference of meddlesome parents. 
 It is not only right but necessary for the teacher to 
 resist all interference with his own special preroga- 
 tives in the school. It was good advice that Dr. 
 
 144 
 
SCHOOL GOVERNMENT. 
 
 White once gave to a body of teachers, when he said 
 in substance, If parents are disposed to interfere in 
 the management of the school, treat them respect- 
 fully and politely, hear attentively and patiently all 
 they have to say, and then go and do just as you 
 please. 
 
 Of course, all this implies ability on the teacher's 
 part. It would be absurd and ridiculous for him to 
 make strong claim of prerogatives he is not capable 
 of exercising. Here a word may be said, paren- 
 thetically, about the mistake frequently made, 
 especially by young teachers, of leaning unduly 
 upon the superintendent or some other superior au- 
 thority in the control of his pupils. The teacher 
 must govern his school himself. He cannot do it by 
 proxy. Nobody else can do it for him. A board 
 of education can uphold and encourage its teachers 
 by sustaining them, even though they make some 
 mistakes, and the superintendent can do the same, 
 while he advises and prompts from behind the 
 scenes ; but whenever either board or superin- 
 tendent finds it necessary to come between the 
 teacher and the school, and take the reins of gov- 
 ernment, there is little hope of the teacher's suc- 
 cess in governing. Injudicious help from the su- 
 perintendent tends to hasten the teacher's failure. 
 It is not a good sign for a teacher to send up many 
 cases of discipline to any higher authority. This 
 sometimes becomes a matter of some delicacy for 
 the superintendent, inasmuch as teachers are liable 
 
THE TEACHER AND HIS WORK. 
 
 to misjudge his motives when he discourages the 
 referring of many cases of discipline to him. It is 
 not for the superintendent's sake, but the teacher's, 
 that I emphasize the matter here. 
 
 A firm determination to be master is a desirable 
 state of mind in young teachers. I have felt called 
 upon a good many times to say to young people 
 about to begin the work of teaching, ''Govern your 
 schools! Control your pupils by the highest and 
 best means within your resources ; but CONTROL 
 them." 
 
 2. The teacher should have due regard for paren- 
 tal authority. This is almost a corollary of the first 
 proposition. He should readily concede to parents 
 in their sphere as much as he claims for himself in 
 his own, and he should always remember that the 
 parents of his pupils have a higher and deeper in- 
 terest in them than he has. This second proposi- 
 tion may have some bearing upon the practice of 
 detaining pupils after the expiration of school 
 hours. Is it in harmony with proper regard for 
 parental prerogatives to detain pupils at the noon 
 recess beyond the home dinner hour, thus interfer- 
 ing with the order of the family? Or to detain 
 them after the close of the afternoon session, when 
 parents may have important appointments for them, 
 or may require their help at home? These lines 
 may recall to some who read them the practice of 
 the writer, in days gone by, in some of these par- 
 ticulars. But no matter. Sometimes we grow wiser 
 
 146 
 
SCHOOL, GOVERNMENT. 
 
 as we grow older. I leave the foregoing questions 
 to be answered by each reader for himself. Of one 
 thing I am sure : it is not in harmony with the 
 proposition now under consideration for a teacher 
 to speak disrespectfully or disparagingly of a pupil's 
 parents in the hearing of the pupil. There is some- 
 times a strong temptation to transgress here. When 
 a rude and insolent boy comes with "my father 
 
 says ," how natural the reply, " your father 
 
 isn't running this school!" but all such replies 
 would better remain unspoken. A teacher should 
 studiously avoid whatever might tend to lower his 
 pupils' respect and esteem for their fathers and 
 mothers. As a rule, the teacher is liable to suffer 
 most in this regard. 
 
 When teachers themselves become parents, they 
 sometimes see a good many of these things with 
 different eyes from those they formerly used ; and 
 still more when they become grandparents. 
 
 3 . The highest good of each and every pupil should 
 be the end and aim of the teacher in all his plans and 
 methods. Sometimes the good of pupils is in a 
 measure sacrificed to appearances, or to a false no- 
 tion of nice order. The great question with the 
 teacher should ever be, not, how will this look? 
 or what would visitors say ? but what will be best 
 in the long run for these young lives ? Sometimes 
 much good is sacrificed to a mere whim or caprice 
 of the teacher, or to his ease and convenience. He 
 that would save his life shall lose it. 
 
THK TEACHER AND HIS WORK. 
 
 Certain conditions favorable to good govern- 
 ment in school seem to deserve some attention. 
 Among these are : 
 
 i. A suitable number of pupils. The number 
 of pupils which should constitute a school is 
 not a fixed quantity. It varies with other con- 
 ditions. Something depends upon the age and 
 grade of the pupils, and a good deal upon the ex- 
 perience and skill of the teacher. It is fair to say 
 that even a good teacher cannot secure the highest 
 ends of government, say nothing of instruction, 
 when the number of pupils much exceeds forty, 
 without an undue expenditure of his own vitality. 
 I know that teachers do sometimes keep sixty and 
 even seventy or more pupils in seeming good order. 
 For several years it was my lot to have charge of 
 large city schools, ranging from a hundred to a 
 hundred and fifty pupils, with assistants in class- 
 rooms ; but I have no desire to repeat the experi- 
 ence. When the number of pupils seated in one 
 room under the control of one teacher passes fifty, 
 the labor of management and control increases in 
 more than an equal ratio. The old-time large 
 school under a principal, with assistant teachers in 
 class-rooms, is happily disappearing. The wiser 
 plan is to give to each teacher in a separate room 
 her appropriate number of pupils, and that number 
 should range from twenty-five to forty, according, 
 to circumstances. It is injustice, amounting to 
 cruelty, to place an inexperienced girl, not yet out of 
 
 148 
 
SCHOOL GOVERNMENT. 
 
 her teens, in charge of a school of fifty or sixty pu- 
 pils of any age or grade. In every system of city 
 schools, small schools of not more than twenty or 
 twenty-five pupils should be provided for novices, 
 until by experience they gain strength and con- 
 fidence. If this were done, there would be fewer 
 failures in government, and many children would 
 be better governed and better taught. 
 
 2. Comfortable and pleasing surroundings. Few 
 teachers fully appreciate the effect of surroundings 
 on the government of a school. Unswept floors, 
 mutilated desks and benches, dirty windows, dingy 
 walls, and foul atmosphere, invite the demons of 
 mischief and disorder, while the opposite conditions 
 repel them. 
 
 A school house site should be selected with care. 
 Heathf ulness and convenience of access should have 
 due consideration far more than they usually re- 
 ceive ; but I wish to speak more particularly of 
 beauty of prospect and surroundings. The culture 
 and refinement of a community or neighborhood 
 may often be fairly judged by the location and con- 
 dition of its school house. School authorities in 
 cities cannot always choose with strict reference to 
 beauty of situation ; they should at least always 
 avoid dark alleys, crowded and noisy streets, and the 
 clatter and din of railroad stations and shops and 
 factories. But there is small excuse for locating a 
 country school house in an unsightly place, for a 
 good site can almost always be obtained at small 
 
 149 
 
THE TEACHER AND HIS WORK. 
 
 cost. The most beautiful spot that is not too re- 
 mote from the center of the district should be 
 selected in or near a grove of forest trees, if pos- 
 sible ; if not, trees should be planted without delay. 
 Ample grounds should be secured not less than 
 two or three acres, and the teacher should feel it his 
 duty as well as his pleasure to interest the pupils in 
 improving and beautifying the grounds. I look 
 back over a period of forty years with pleasure 
 to a neat, white school house on the border of an 
 Illinois prairie, near a beautiful grove, in which I 
 taught for two years. Many a morning and even- 
 ing hour in springtime did I spend with my boys in 
 bringing young maple trees from the grove and 
 planting them about the school house, while the 
 girls made flower beds and planted flowers ; and I 
 was pleased to learn recently that my name is still 
 associated in that community with the trees we 
 planted, now grown large and beautiful. 
 
 While such things have a direct bearing upon 
 the government of the school, they have a higher 
 influence that is far-reaching. "A school house so 
 situated that the children who frequent it can look 
 out in all directions upon scenes of romantic wild- 
 ness or quiet beauty, will teach many lessons better 
 than they can be learned from books. We are 
 taught unconsciously by the objects that surround 
 us ; and towering mountains and peaceful valleys, 
 golden grain and shaded forests, rough wild rocks 
 and pleasant gardens, villages dotting the neighbor- 
 
 150 
 
SCHOOL GOVERNMENT. 
 
 ing plains, and vessels gliding along the distant 
 river, all have truth for the intellect and beauty 
 for the heart. Scenes like these leave upon the 
 susceptible mind of a child a deep and lasting im- 
 pression. Accustomed to look upon the beautiful 
 in nature, he will learn to appreciate the beautiful 
 in life. Thus instructed, he will be more apt to 
 shun the low and the groveling, the profane and the 
 vulgar, and to exemplify the sentiment, 'How 
 near to what is good is what is fair ! ' " Thus 
 wrote a devoted teacher who has gone to his 
 reward. Another, still living, has written in 
 similar strain : ' ' Beautiful surroundings have 
 much to do in creating a love for the beautiful. A 
 school house so situated that the children are 
 brought face to face with the beautiful in nature, 
 and surrounded on all sides with such scenery as 
 must necessarily make them love the beautiful from 
 the very association, will have its beneficial effects 
 not only on the discipline and order of the school, 
 but also in the formation of the moral character of 
 the pupils. Children coming from such a school 
 cannot fail to have a more refined taste and a purer 
 moral character than those schooled amid surround- 
 ings which lack every essential element of beauty. 
 The teaching of the beauty surrounding us is un- 
 conscious, but the lessons learned are none the less 
 pleasing and none the less valuable. Every moun- 
 tain-slope, every verdant valley, every winding 
 stream, every charming landscape, has its influence 
 
THE TEACHER AND HIS WORK. 
 
 in forming character. L,et children, then, always 
 be surrounded with the beautiful, that the life 
 within may be made to grow beautiful in harmony 
 with the life without.'' 
 
 For like reasons, due regard should be had 
 in the planning and construction of school houses, 
 to utility, convenience, healthfulness, comfort, and 
 architectural beauty. Many school houses and 
 schools of the past have been schools of vice, in 
 large measure because of the discomfort, deformity 
 and unsightliness of the appointments and sur- 
 roundings. Simple beauty is not costly. Good 
 judgment and taste are more needed than money. 
 No gaudy extravagance is necessary ; it is simply 
 a matter of proportions, of adaptation, of form, of 
 color. 
 
 It should be to teachers a matter of conscience 
 as well as a pleasure to see that the school premises, 
 within and without, are well kept. In so doing 
 they help themselves while they bless the commu- 
 nity. The proper ventilation and heating of the 
 school room and the comfortable seating of the pu- 
 pils bear directly upon the government of the 
 school as well as upon the health and happiness of 
 the pupils ; and the same may be said of the taste- 
 ful arrangement and ornamentation of the room. 
 To a consecrated and efficient teacher, it will often 
 prove but a labor of love to transform a dingy and 
 unsightly school room into one of taste and simple 
 beauty. Whitewash for the walls, paint or even 
 
 152 
 
SCHOOL GOVERNMENT. 
 
 soap and water for the wood- work, inexpensive cur- 
 tains for the windows, pictures that may be had al- 
 most without cost, a profusion of flowers and 
 autumn leaves, are better educators than whips, 
 leather straps, or branches of birch or beech. 
 
 In 1849 I made an engagement to teach, for ten 
 months, in a little frame school house by the road- 
 side, in southwestern Ohio, at an annual salary of 
 $200. The school house contained little beside some 
 rude desks and benches, a stove, a water pail, and 
 a broom. There were no shades for the windows, 
 and nothing whatever suggestive of taste or beauty. 
 Soon after the opening of the term, some good 
 genius suggested the thought of doing something to 
 improve the appearance of the school room. Deem- 
 ing it useless to apply to the school directors, I 
 went to town at the first opportunity and purchased 
 sufficient five- cent calico to make curtains for all 
 the windows, and tape and small nails with which 
 to hang the curtains. I also purchased a number 
 of cheap, bright-colored pictures. I think the 
 whole cost did not exceed three dollars. Taking 
 some of the older girls of the school into my confi- 
 dence, I parceled out among them the work of hem- 
 ming the curtains, and putting in the hem at the 
 top a sufficient length of tape by which to hang 
 them. When all were completed, I remained after 
 school one evening long enough to put the curtains 
 in place, two on each window, neatly draped over 
 a large nail at each side. The pictures were tacked 
 
 153 
 
TEACHER AND HIS WORK. 
 
 on the wall in such a way as to produce the best 
 effect, and the transformation was complete. It 
 was worth more than double the expenditure to 
 witness the surprise and delight of the pupils as 
 they assembled the next morning. A country 
 school house with curtains on the windows and 
 pictures on the walls was a thing hitherto unheard 
 of in all that region, and the fame of the school 
 and its teacher soon went abroad cheap fame per- 
 haps it was ; but certain it is that no other invest- 
 ment I ever made brought more speedy returns or a 
 larger percentage on the investment. Calls to 
 other districts, at an increased salary, soon came. 
 it is needless to add that discipline in that school 
 became almost a vanishing quantity. 
 
 3. A judicious organization of the school. By or- 
 ganization is meant the orderly arrangement of school 
 and school work a time and place for everything 
 and everything in its own time and place. It needs 
 neither argument nor illustration to show that all 
 the ends of good government may be more fully 
 as well as more readily attained in a well organ- 
 ized school than in one not well organized. 
 And here it is to be observed that the highest 
 degree of organization is not necessarily the best. 
 The more simple a machine, the less friction its 
 operation is likely to generate. The organization 
 of a school should be as simple as possible just 
 enough of machinery to do the work effectively 
 and no more. 
 
 154 
 
SCHOOL GOVERNMENT. 
 
 The proper seating of pupils belongs to the or- 
 ganization of the school, and it is the absolute pre- 
 rogative of the teacher. I have heard teachers 
 complain of difficulty arising out of the claim of 
 pupils to certain seats because of previous occu- 
 pancy. A boy has been known to say, " I sat in 
 this seat all last term, and it's mine. No such 
 claim should be conceded for a moment. A 
 pupil's seat is his to occupy only so long as, in the 
 judgment of the teacher, his own or others' interests 
 are best subserved by his sitting there. A change 
 of seats is often desirable, and the teacher should 
 expect and exact obedience in this as in everything 
 else pertaining to the conduct of the school. 
 
 It was the custom in former years to seat schools 
 with reference to sex. The girls occupied one side 
 of the room and the boys the other. In Cleveland, 
 thirty-five years ago, and even later, boys and girls 
 were taught in separate schools. In certain grades, 
 there was a school of boys on one side of the 
 hall and a school of girls of corresponding grades 
 opposite. And when, in Akron, thirty years ago, 
 boys and girls in all departments were seated pro- 
 miscuously, it was looked upon as a doubtful inno- 
 vation. But the practice is now generally prevalent 
 throughout the country. It is more natural and 
 home-like, it promotes good order, and in the hands 
 of a wise teacher its tendency is refining and enno- 
 bling to both sexes. 
 
 Due regard should be had to size in seating. 
 
 155 
 
THE TEACHER AND HIS WORK. 
 
 This applies more particularly to country schools, 
 in which pupils of all ages and sizes attend the same 
 school. In any case, large pupils should not be 
 compelled to occupy seats too small for comfort or 
 tending to induce an unnatural or unhealthful 
 posture of any part of the body ; nor, on the other 
 hand, should small pupils be permitted to sit in 
 seats too high or too large for their small and tender 
 bodies. Proper support of feet and back is specially 
 important, and the teacher is culpable who permits 
 a little child to occupy a seat during the hours of 
 school with feet dangling or back not properly sup- 
 ported. Attention to such details would save a 
 good many curved spines and femurs and strained 
 and unhealthy muscles, as well as prevent a good 
 deal of restlessness and disorder in school. 
 
 In city schools of two grades, a good effect is 
 produced by alternate seating. The pupils of the 
 two grades should be alternated in rows across the 
 room from side to side as well as from front to rear. 
 Thus no two pupils of same grade would occupy 
 adjoining seats, and when one grade is called out 
 for recitation, the other grade is regularly dis- 
 tributed over the room, with the greatest degree of 
 isolation and the minimum of temptation to com- 
 municate. 
 
 Some regard may properly be had, in the seating 
 of a school, to the conduct of pupils, or perhaps 
 better, to the degree of self-control attained. Pupils 
 most in need of the restraining and directing 
 
 156 
 
SCHOOL GOVERNMENT. 
 
 influence of the teacher's presence, may sit near the 
 front, where they will be more directly under the 
 teacher's eye ; while those who can be depended on 
 to govern themselves may have seats in the more 
 remote parts of the room. 
 
 I once made the experiment of seating a large 
 city school according to rank or standing in scholar- 
 ship. At the beginning of each month the pupils 
 were ranked in the order of their standing for the 
 previous month, and seated accordingly. It proved 
 a very strong incentive to effort. The more ad- 
 vanced and capable pupils strove for the honor seats 
 in the upper section, and the less capable ones 
 strove to reach a place as far as possible from the 
 (< tail " of the class. But the device cannot be com- 
 mended for its high moral effect in strengthening 
 and ennobling character. The more earnest and 
 skillful a teacher becomes, the less is he inclined to 
 resort to such devices. The following words con- 
 cerning the same matter are from Dr. White's book 
 on School Management : 
 
 ' * We have never visited a school using this de- 
 vice without feeling a deep sympathy for the pupils 
 seated in the lowest section, some of whom deserve 
 higher commendation than those in the seats of 
 honor. How often it is true that the low standing 
 of pupils is not due to a lack of fidelity or praise- 
 worthy effort, but to circumstances beyond their 
 control, as a lack of opportunity for home study, 
 the absence of needed assistance, etc. What a 
 
 157 
 
THE TEACHER AND HIS WORK. 
 
 contrast there is in the home advantages of the 
 pupils in a public school ! 
 
 " More frequently, perhaps, a failure to reach a 
 high standing is due to a lack of natural ability, 
 especially ability to do easily what is required in 
 school ; and certainly dullness is not a dishonor, 
 though it may be a misfortune. Nothing in school 
 management is more clearly reprehensible than the 
 placing of a stigma, directly or indirectly, on dullness 
 or other accident of birth. All pupils enter a school 
 with equal rights, and are entitled to equal consid- 
 eration. The dull child, whose standing does not 
 crowd ' 100, ' has as much right, if he be faithful, 
 to look to the school for kindness and honor, as the 
 brightest. No teacher has the right to put a faith- 
 ful child, though dull, in a seat on which rests a 
 shadow of dishonor. There is no place in any 
 school for injustice or inhumanity. No wise parent 
 would willingly send a dull child to a school where 
 dullness is made a disgrace." 
 
 An important part of the organization of a 
 school or a system of schools is the classification 
 of the pupils. Every school should be classified ; 
 the degree and kind of classification will depend on 
 a variety of conditions. When only a small number 
 of pupils can be brought together and their attain- 
 ments vary widely, as in the country schools, no 
 very close classification is practicable ; but when 
 several hundred pupils can be assembled at one 
 place, there will usually be a sufficient number, of 
 
 158 
 
SCHOOIy GOVERNMENT. 
 
 like attainments, to form classes to be instructed 
 together, and thus result what are called graded 
 schools. It is not necessary to the present purpose 
 to consider at length the subject of classification. 
 The important thing is that each and every pupil 
 be kept where he will have the fullest opportunity 
 and the best incentive to use his time and energies 
 profitably. This is a matter of much importance. 
 The boy whose work is too heavy for him is liable 
 to become discouraged and relax his efforts, and so 
 become a disturbing element ; while the boy with 
 too little to do is ever subject to the solicitations of 
 him who finds work for idle hands to do. It may 
 not always be wisest to adhere rigidly to a strict 
 classification. If the work of a given grade proves 
 too light for a given pupil, and he is not prepared 
 to undertake the work of the grade next above, let 
 him recite some one study in both grades for a time, 
 with a view to overtaking the grade above him. 
 For purposes of this kind, and for other reasons, 
 half-yearly grades and promotions are preferable. 
 The steps being shorter, the pupils pass more 
 readily from grade to grade either way, and a closer 
 and more exact classification becomes possible. 
 But semi-annual classification is practicable only 
 where the number of pupils is sufficient to give to 
 each teacher a proper quota of pupils without an un- 
 due number of classes. The point I wish to em- 
 phasize here is that the ends of good government 
 in school are promoted by giving to each pupil 
 
 159 
 
THE TEACHER AND HIS WORK. 
 
 work suitable in amount and kind and seeing that 
 he does it. 
 
 A question sometimes mooted among teachers is 
 the best number of grades to constitute a school. 
 Most teachers prefer one grade. It is claimed that 
 when a school consists of but one grade there is 
 greater economy of time and labor. The teacher 
 has fewer lessons and exercises to prepare, the en- 
 tire school can take the same written work at the 
 same time, and the teacher has more time to render 
 needed assistance to individual pupils. I am in- 
 clined to the opinion expressed by Dr. Harris in one 
 of his St. Louis reports, that, all things considered, 
 two grades in a school are best, with alternate study 
 and recitation. This is especially true of pupils old 
 enough to learn lessons from books. The habit of 
 quiet, persistent, and unaided study far outweighs all 
 the assistance the teacher' may give in the pupil's 
 study hour. The teacher's time to help rather to 
 stimulate and encourage to effort is in the recita- 
 tion hour. The danger is that with a teacher ever 
 at hand to render assistance in study the pupils will 
 be systematically trained into dependence and help- 
 lessness. My observation is that the tendency of 
 modern methods of instruction is altogether too 
 much in this direction. It should be one of the 
 chief aims of school instruction and school discipline 
 to train pupils into self-reliance and self-helpfulness. 
 Of course it is easier to help a pupil yes, easier to 
 do his work for him than to see that he does it 
 
 1 60 
 
SCHOOL GOVERNMENT. 
 
 properly himself ; and from the standpoint of the 
 teacher's convenience or ease, or present popularity 
 with the pupils, one grade is probably preferable 
 to two. But with the best results in character and 
 scholarship in view, I think a different conclusion 
 must be reached. 
 
 There are some other elements in the organiza- 
 tion of a school upon which it seems scarcely neces-' 
 sary to dwell at length, the subject having been 
 treated elsewhere in this volume. What has already 
 been said about providing for each pupil his appro- 
 priate amount of work implies the necessity for a 
 carefully prepared course of study. It should be well 
 understood that a course of study is designed to fa- 
 cilitate and not to hinder the work of the school. It 
 should be followed with reasonable strictness, but 
 not slavishly. A measure of flexibility is necessary in 
 this as in most things pertaining to the organiza- 
 tion and management of the school. When organi- 
 zation and system conflict with the highest good of 
 the pupils, organization and system should yield. 
 I have known teachers, and even superintendents, 
 who seemed not to understand this. 
 
 A daily program is a matter of importance, and 
 it should extend to study as well as to recitation 
 not with too much rigidity, but so as to serve as a 
 general guide to pupils in the proper use of their 
 time. The program of recitations should be care- 
 fully adjusted and then followed with a good degree 
 of strictness. One exercise should not be permitted 
 
 161 
 
THE TEACHER AND HIS WORK. 
 
 to trench upon the time of another. It is better to 
 stop in the midst of the solution of a problem than 
 to over-run time. A lesson in promptness may be 
 of more value than a lesson in arithmetic. When 
 two or more teachers have to do with the same 
 school, promptness in changing classes is especially 
 incumbent on all. In such case it is a good prac- 
 tice to assign the next lesson at the beginning of 
 the recitation, and when the closing signal is struck 
 let the class be excused at once, without waiting 
 " for just one more word of explanation " or " one 
 further illustration." All that can possibly be 
 gained by delay at such a time never compensates 
 for the jar it occasions and the consequent friction 
 and irritation. 
 
 The organization of a school is scarcely complete 
 without some code of rules and regulations, written 
 or unwritten preferably the latter. In most well- 
 managed schools, country as well as city, will be 
 found a system of rules and regulations, prepared 
 by the superintendent or some other competent per- 
 son, adopted by the board of education, and printed 
 with the prescribed course of study. These should 
 be general and reasonable, and susceptible of en- 
 forcement. Before adopting any rule for the 
 government of a school or a system of schools, it is 
 well to consider whether it can be fairly carried out, 
 as well as whether the results of its enforcement 
 will be good. But I have more immediate refer- 
 ence here to the rules and regulations, which 
 
 162 
 
SCHOOL GOVERNMENT. 
 
 concern the closer relations of teacher and pupils, 
 and lie wholly within this province. These may be 
 more specific and should grow out of existing con- 
 ditions. I have intimated that they need not be 
 written, and generally they need not be formally 
 stated. I^ike Topsy, they are not made but grow. 
 Or perhaps, for the most part, they do not even 
 grow, but are found ready-made in the conscious- 
 ness or the moral sense of the pupils, and need only 
 to be made operative by the presence and personality 
 of the teacher. To this end they should be very 
 clearly outlined in the teacher's mind. 
 
 The sum of what I would say to the young 
 teacher here is, Do not write out and hang up, or 
 even formally announce, a long list of requirements 
 and prohibitions. Rely upon the pupil's moral 
 sense to whatever extent it exists, and cultivate it 
 where it is lacking. When thou shalt or thou shalt 
 not needs to be spoken, say it with becoming em- 
 phasis, and enforce it. 
 
 There remains to be considered the most impor- 
 tant, the most essential condition of good school 
 government, namely : 
 
 4. A teacher. The teacher makes the school, 
 is a trite but true saying. The success or failure of 
 the school depends upon the teacher. And here 
 two things are absolutely essential : The teacher 
 must be clothed with authority, and he must be 
 able to exercise authority. Herein is the sum of 
 the whole matter. Of the first of these conditions 
 
 163 
 
THE TEACHER AND HIS WORK. 
 
 I have already spoken ; I need not dwell upon it 
 here at length. Certain it is that the teacher must 
 govern the school if it is governed at all, and he 
 can govern best when he has fullest liberty and is 
 freest from outside interference. The driver of a 
 spirited team of horses is not apt to be greatly aided 
 in his undertaking, when a nervous passenger at 
 his side lays hold of the reins. 
 
 It is necessary and right for a teacher to main- 
 tain his supremacy in all that legitimately pertains 
 to the work of instruction and discipline, and 
 to resist all interference with the free exercise of his 
 functions as a teacher ; but this implies ability and 
 fitness on his part. For him to make strong claim 
 of prerogatives which he is incapable of exercising 
 would bring only merited contempt. 
 
 All I propose in this connection is to indicate 
 some of the elements of governing power in the 
 teacher. 
 
 Well, "lyCt him first be a man," as Rousseau 
 puts it. ' ' Whoever is well educated to discharge 
 the duty of a man, cannot be badly prepared to fill 
 up any of those offices that have a relation to him. 
 He will, on occasion, as soon be- 
 come anything else that a man ought to be as any 
 person whatever. ' ' The first essential of strong per- 
 sonal influence is manhood manliness. Would 
 you govern your school easily and well, be a manly 
 man or a womanly woman. 
 
 The chief cause of failure in government among 
 
 164 
 
SCHOOL, GOVERNMENT. 
 
 teachers is want of character. Children read char- 
 acter by instinct. No mere appearance of virtue or 
 assumed goodness can command their respect and 
 confidence ; it must be genuine. A teacher of selfish 
 nature and low purpose may keep order and secure a 
 measure of outward obedience by force of authority 
 and will, but he is powerless to secure the higher re- 
 sults of good control. Would you rule supreme in the 
 school room, would you hold sway in the hearts of 
 your pupils, prompting and inspiring them to noble 
 living and high endeavor, be yourself pure, and true, 
 and strong. 
 
 It is one of the blessed compensations of the 
 teacher's office that it affords such strong and con- 
 stant incentive to self -improvement. His contact 
 with young and vigorous life, and his contempla- 
 tion of the possibilities of growth and attainment, 
 tend to elevate his ideals and inspire him to seek 
 for their realization in his own life, not for himself 
 alone, but also for the sake of his pupils. 
 
 To be strong in government the teacher needs a 
 large element of humanity in his composition. His 
 breast should be full of the milk of human kindness. 
 He should be an ardent lover of his kind, a true 
 philanthropist. 
 
 " There's nought in this bad world like sympathy." 
 
 It is the golden rule in the heart. The teacher 
 who has this power of putting himself in his pupil's 
 place has an immense advantage. He can draw 
 near to him, can come into the inner chamber of his 
 
 165 
 
THE TEACHER AND HIS WORK. 
 
 young life, when the door would be shut and barred 
 against the cold and unsympathetic teacher. 
 
 This humane or sympathetic spirit is near of kin 
 to love, that greatest and best thing in the world ; 
 it is eternal and never fails. Love is the most pow- 
 erful thing in the world ; it saves from sin and 
 death, and nothing else can do that. And another 
 blessed thing about love is that the more one gives 
 the more he has. But like nearly all good things, 
 it has its counterfeits. A weak and sickly senti- 
 mentalism is not unfrequently put forward in its 
 place. Genuine love is not shown by petting and 
 fondling pupils, nor by laxness in discipline or in- 
 dulgence and slackness in requiring the perform- 
 ance of school duties ; but rather by kind and faith- 
 ful correction of their faults, and by painstaking in 
 holding them up to a high standard of excellence. 
 
 There is also an ingenuousness a frankness, 
 candor and openness of mind which tends to 
 strengthen the hands of the teacher. It inspires 
 confidence and good will. It is the opposite of sly 
 cunning, craftiness, and equivocation. A teacher 
 should see sharply and be able to discern motives ; 
 he should not be easily deceived or imposed upon ; 
 but he should not be himself a dissembler or trick- 
 ster. 
 
 The teacher should be in earnest. One man 
 thoroughly in earnest is worth a regiment of dawd- 
 lers. The bulk of the world's work is done by 
 honest striving, not by strokes of genius. Real 
 
 1 66 
 
SCHOOL GOVERNMENT. 
 
 earnestness in the teacher does not reveal itself in 
 fussiness or noise, but rather in his glowing counte- 
 nance and fervid tones. It arises out of a high 
 sense of duty and clear and right views of life. A 
 truly earnest soul is deep and calm, and there is al- 
 ways about him a glow of warmth which makes it 
 good and pleasant to be near him. How different 
 the atmosphere of a school room which has in it a 
 teacher with glowing fervency of spirit, from that 
 of one having a languid, listless, indifferent teacher! 
 The one stimulates and inspires ; the other dissi- 
 pates and stupefies. 
 
 In order to govern well, a teacher must have 
 courage. He should hear and heed the voice of the 
 Great Teacher, saying to him, " Be strong and of 
 a good courage. Be not afraid, neither be thou dis- 
 mayed. 
 
 ' ' The brave man is not he who feels no fear, 
 For that were stupid and irrational, 
 But he, whose noble soul its fear subdues, 
 And bravely dares the danger nature shrinks from. ' ' 
 
 It sometimes requires no small measure of cour- 
 age for the teacher to stand upright and do the 
 thing he knows is duty. It is sometimes no small 
 undertaking for him to maintain his prerogative 
 and enforce obedience. I once knew an experienced 
 and successful teacher to shrink and quail before a 
 large high school on first taking charge of it. The 
 battle was lost in the first half hour, and the teacher 
 was compelled to retire after a few days of fruitless 
 effort to regain control. 
 
 167 
 
THE TEACHER AND HIS WORK. 
 
 It is not an easy thing to deal justly and impar- 
 tially with pupils under all circumstances, especially 
 when the teacher's advancement, or perhaps his 
 position, is at stake. It sometimes requires a good 
 deal of courage. I once knew a case in which a 
 young high-school teacher displayed the right kind 
 of grit. One of her pupils, the son of a very promi- 
 nent citizen, was indolent and had neglected his 
 studies. When the time came for promotion, the 
 teacher reported against him marked him ' ' failed. ' ' 
 When the case came to the superintendent's atten- 
 tion he said it would never do. The boy's father 
 was too prominent a man to be offended. It must 
 be fixed up in some way. But the teacher refused 
 to alter the record, saying she would lose her posi- 
 tion first. What cringelings most men are, and 
 how admirable is true courage ? 
 
 The wise teacher regards public opinion, but he 
 regards conscience and duty more. 
 
 A schoolmaster should be the master of himself. 
 He that would manage and control others, must 
 first be able to manage and control himself. The 
 teacher needs to have all his powers well in hand, 
 ready for every work and prepared for every 
 emergency. He should have the ready use of him- 
 self, and all his powers should be obedient to his 
 will. Especially should he be able to control his 
 temper. There is much to try the patience of the 
 teacher. Indeed there are few callings more trying 
 to the patience, and none in which the maintenance 
 
 1 68 
 
SCHOOL GOVERNMENT. 
 
 of a calm and cheerful temper is more essential. 
 Some of the qualities which give the teacher his 
 greatest power, the ardent spirit, the warm heart, 
 become, without due control, the sources of his be- 
 setting sins. Sudden flashes of temper and hasty, 
 unguarded words come unbidden, to be repented of 
 afterwards in dust and ashes. Mettle in horse or 
 man is a good thing when held in with bit and 
 bridle. 
 
 Good executive ability is essential to good gov- 
 ernment. This is the sum or resultant of many 
 qualities force of character, strong will, good judg- 
 ment, tact, energy, promptness, persistence. It 
 implies a knowledge of what to do and how to do it, 
 as well as courage and efficiency in action. It im- 
 plies boldness without recklessness, promptness 
 without rashness, persistence without obstinacy. 
 Good judgment, or what is usually known as good 
 common sense, is really the basal element of good 
 executive ability. No amount of will power or 
 energy can supply the lack of good judgment. In- 
 deed the more will power one has without good 
 judgment, the worse he is off. The wise adaptation 
 of means to ends is all-essential. What is best to 
 be done and what ought not to be done must be 
 decided in the school room, without much delibera- 
 tion, many times every day. Blessed are the teach- 
 ers who have large natural endowment in this 
 direction. Yet those of us who are not thus en- 
 dowed should not give way to discouragement. An 
 
 169 
 
THK TKACHER AND HIS WORK. 
 
 English school inspector of large experience has 
 said: " Everyone may acquire the power of ruling 
 others by steadily setting himself to do so, by think- 
 ing well over his orders before he gives them, by 
 giving them without falterkig or equivocation, by 
 obeying them himself, by determining in every case 
 and at whatever cost to see them obeyed, and above 
 all, by taking care that they are reasonable and 
 right, and properly adapted to the nature of child- 
 hood, to its weaknesses and needs. ' ' 
 
 Not the easiest nor the least important part of 
 our subject, are the instrumentalities or means for 
 securing the ends of good government in school. 
 This branch of the subject seems to fall naturally 
 into two divisions; namely, the moral instrumen- 
 talities, and the mechanical instrumentalities. If, in 
 considering these, there should seem to be some 
 overlapping, or some repetition of things already 
 said, sufficient excuse may be found in their im- 
 portance. 
 
 Under moral instrumentalities I include 
 
 i. The personality of the teacher. This is the 
 sum of all the teacher is, and it plays a very import- 
 ant part in the government of the school. It is 
 what may be called the moral power of the teacher's 
 own person, his unspoken and unconscious influence. 
 
 Bishop Huntington contrasts two schools some- 
 what as follows: In one is a presiding presence, 
 which at first puzzles the observer to analyze or ex- 
 plain. The first thing noticeable is the absence of 
 
 170 
 
SCHOOL GOV^RNM^NT. 
 
 effort. Ease and repose are combined with natural 
 and spontaneous energy. There is nothing of lan- 
 guid indifference, nor of feverish excitement. ' 'The 
 teacher accomplishes his ends with singular pre- 
 cision. He speaks less than is common, and with 
 less pretension when he does speak; yet his idea is 
 conveyed and caught, and his will is promptly done. 
 When he arrives order begins. When he addresses 
 an individual or a class, attention comes, and not as 
 if it were extorted by fear, nor even paid by con- 
 science as a duty, but cordially. Nobody seems to 
 be looking at him particularly, yet he is felt to be 
 there, through the whole place. He does not seem 
 to be attempting anything elaborately with anybody, 
 but the business is done, and done remarkably well. ' ' 
 In another school is a teacher of a different 
 style. Here there is no end of painful and labori- 
 ous striving. The teacher "is a conscious pertur- 
 bation; a principled paroxysm; an embodied flutter; 
 a moral stir; an honest human hurly-burly. In his 
 present intention he is just as sincere as the other. 
 Indeed, he tries so hard that, by one of the common 
 perversions of human nature, his pupils appear to 
 have made up their minds to see to it that he shall 
 try harder yet, and not succeed after all. So he 
 talks much, and the multiplication of words only 
 hinders the multiplication of integers and fractions, 
 enfeebles his government and beclouds the recita- 
 tion. His expostulations roll over the boys' con- 
 sciences like bullets shot obliquely over the ice; and 
 
 171 
 
TEACHER AND HIS WORK. 
 
 his gestures illustrate nothing but impotency and 
 despair." 
 
 If we ask the former of these teachers the secret 
 of his power, he will not be able to tell. If we tell 
 the latter that his feverish and restless striving is 
 his weakness, he will be unable to apply at once an 
 effective remedy. If we ask what makes the differ- 
 ence in the two teachers, a satisfactory answer can- 
 not be found in difference of method, or in anything 
 said or done by either. We must look within. 
 There is obviously, in each case, some undercurrent 
 of influence, some internal quality of manhood, act- 
 ing as an unseen force in producing the visible re- 
 sults. Is it not fair to infer that there is always, 
 apart from the teacher's direct purpose or conscious 
 effort, an unconscious teaching which takes its 
 quality from the very essence of the teacher's char- 
 acter, so that oftentimes he teaches most when he 
 is not aware that he is teaching at all ? We cannot 
 otherwise account for the disparity often observed 
 between conditions and results. Every experienced 
 supervisor of schools who has observed closely has 
 had occasion to note this disparity. Sometimes 
 when external conditions seem most favorable, the 
 results are very disappointing. And again where 
 little has been expected the best results appear. 
 
 A writer in a late number of School Education 
 tells of a teacher who took charge of a room in good 
 condition. She had had ten years' experience, a 
 superior education, and commanding presence. In 
 
 172 
 
SCHOOL GOVERNMENT. 
 
 three days the room was idle and noisy; in ten days, 
 in very serious disorder; in a month, in rebellion. 
 Those who had been the best pupils under other 
 teachers, seemed inspired to do all the evil deeds 
 possible to children of eleven or twelve years old. 
 
 This teacher's successor was a lady of little ex- 
 perience, of girlish figure and presence, and with 
 small knowledge of graded school work. In three 
 days the pupils were orderly and studious; in a 
 week they began to ask what they could do for her; 
 and in two weeks it became necessary to forbid 
 their coming about her desk in droves before the 
 opening of school. The little ruffians of her prede- 
 cessor were well behaved and studious, ambitious 
 to please their teacher by good conduct and hard 
 study. Every apparent advantage was with the 
 first teacher; yet she would ruin the best disposition 
 in a short time, while her successor would make the 
 sourest ones amiable. 
 
 And so it is generally that the most effective 
 teaching is not that which is done of set purpose, 
 but that which flows out unconsciously from the 
 teacher's inner life and character. 
 
 2. The moral atmosphere of the school room. 
 Every school room has an atmosphere of its own. 
 It may be clear and pure, invigorating and life- 
 giving; or it may be murky and foul, filled with ex- 
 halations of moral poison. 
 
 I have come to think of schools as living organ- 
 isms, each having its own peculiar temper or spirit, 
 
THE TEACHER AND HIS WORK. 
 
 somewhat as we speak of the mettle of a horse. It 
 is said that every locomotive that runs on the track 
 has a temper of its own, and that though two loco- 
 motives be made of the same material and of same 
 dimensions, and every way as nearly alike as it is 
 possible for master- workmen to make them, they 
 will differ widely in what may be called temper or 
 mettle. One will be nervous and fiery, starting at 
 a touch of the lever, while the other will be power- 
 ful but sluggish, slow to start and slow to stop. 
 To such an extent is this true, as I have been told 
 by those who have stood on the foot-board, that an 
 experienced engineer about to start on a trip is as 
 much concerned to know what locomotive he is to 
 take out, as is the coachman to know what team he 
 is to drive. 
 
 The school has something akin to this. Each 
 has its own peculiar spirit, or moral atmosphere, so 
 to speak; and upon this moral atmosphere depends in 
 large' measure the results in character. To be in a 
 school whose atmosphere is charged with spiritual 
 power is of itself a good education. 
 
 Of course, the spirit or temper of the school 
 comes largely from the teacher. It is mainly an 
 emanation from the inner recesses of his soul; so 
 that if the spirit of a school is wrong and needs cor- 
 recting, the place for the teacher to begin is often 
 with his own spirit. When the spirit and purpose, 
 voice and manner, of a strong teacher are right, 
 they rapidly become all-pervading, and constitute 
 
 174 
 
SCHOOL GOVERNMENT. 
 
 the most powerful instrumentality in the govern- 
 ment of the school. 
 
 3. Moral Sanctions. Under this head I include 
 (i.) the individual moral sense conscience. In 
 appealing judiciously to the individual moral sense 
 the teacher accomplishes a double purpose: he culti- 
 vates and increases this power, while he utilizes for 
 present purposes what already exists. And no 
 matter how dormant or how feeble this power, the 
 teacher should not neglect to call it into exercise. 
 True, it is very discouraging work to appeal to the 
 moral sense of pupils who seem to have none. But 
 the feebler this power, the more careful and per- 
 sistent will the conscientious teacher be in calling it 
 into exercise, to the end that it may grow. Pupils 
 should often be brought face to face with the right 
 and wrong in their conduct. Is it right ? is always 
 a good question for the teacher to ask in dealing 
 with the conduct of pupils. 
 
 (2.) I include also under the head of moral 
 sanctions the public opinion of the school. This 
 should always be on the teacher's side, which of 
 course should be the side of right. The teacher 
 with the public sentiment of his school against him 
 has a hard lot. If this condition cannot be changed, 
 the relation should be dissolved. It sometimes hap- 
 pens that the general moral sense of a school has 
 been so far perverted that the majority of the pupils 
 sympathize with wrong and wrong doers. It is a 
 very bad symptom in a school when a considerable 
 
THE TEACHER AND HIS WORK. 
 
 number of the pupils are ever ready to manifest 
 their pleasure at the success of mischief and wrong. 
 I was once present at an interview between the lady 
 principal of a high school and a young man, one of 
 her pupils. The young man said to her very petu- 
 lantly: 'Td like to know what you have against 
 me. I hav'nt been doing any thing. " The teacher 
 replied: "I can tell you very quickly what I have 
 against you. You are always on the side of wrong. 
 You show that you are pleased when any disorder 
 occurs or when anything wrong is done in the school. 
 I want to find you on the other side. ' ' The young 
 man stood convicted; the teacher had made her case. 
 4. Direct Instruction. Besides the silent in- 
 fluences and subtile forces which proceed from the 
 life and character of the teacher and the general 
 tone and spirit of the school, there is some place for 
 conscious and formal instruction. The understand- 
 ing must be enlightened, the feelings and sympa- 
 thies must be enlisted on the side of right and duty, 
 and the will must be trained to virtuous choice and 
 action. This opens the broad field of moral instruc- 
 tion and training, into which I cannot fully enter 
 now. Suffice it to say here that the teacher should 
 avoid sermonizing. Abstract moral lectures are as 
 a rule distasteful and irksome to young minds. 
 Brief familiar talks, on suitable occasion, with free 
 use of concrete examples and illustrations, beautiful 
 bits of poetry, choice maxims, and gems of thought 
 and sentiment, are among the most effective means 
 
 176 
 
SCHOOL GOVERNMENT. 
 
 of cultivating the sense of right and duty in the 
 young, at whatever stage of advancement. 
 
 5. Careful diagnosis and thorough treatment. 
 An ignorant and unskilled physician is called a 
 quack. His diagnosis of disease is very superficial, 
 and his treatment is generally aimed at the symp- 
 toms and not at the seat or cause of the disease. 
 He deals largely in external applications, which 
 may temporarily mitigate the trouble, but with a 
 strong probability of its breaking out in a worse 
 form in the same or a different place. He some- 
 times also administers opiates, which alleviate the 
 pain without removing the disease. 
 
 But the wise and skillful physician gives little 
 heed to mere symptoms, except as they point to the 
 deeper cause. He seeks out the cause and labors 
 to remove it. He strives to secure better action of 
 the heart, lungs, and liver; better digestion and as- 
 similation of the food; in short, a higher state of 
 vitality in the system. He knows that if these 
 things can be secured, the symptoms will take care 
 of themselves. He knows, too, that opiates and 
 ointments applied directly to the symptoms are not 
 only for the most part useless, but often positively 
 harmful, resulting in a lowering of vitality. 
 
 Constitutional treatment is best, in school man- 
 agement as well as in the practice of medicine; yet 
 it is doubtless true that a large part of the discipline 
 in schools consists in dealing with mere surface 
 symptoms. Many teachers waste their energies 
 
 177 
 
THE TEACHER AND HIS WORK. 
 
 and wear out their lives in dealing with whispering 
 and other forms of petty disorder which they never 
 succeed in permanently correcting. Better and 
 more lasting results may be secured by searching 
 out and removing the causes of disorder. When 
 the spirit of the school is right, when the pupils are 
 interested in study and filled with right purposes 
 and desires, the petty misdemeanors upon which so 
 many teachers waste their efforts, and which are 
 usually but symptoms of a want of right spirit and 
 purpose, will speedily disappear. And more espe- 
 cially the grosser forms of wrong-doing among pupils 
 can be dealt with effectively only by reaching the 
 springs of conduct. 
 
 I was once called upon by the principal of one 
 of the schools under my supervision for advice and 
 assistance in the matter of profanity among the 
 boys of her building. She had reason to believe 
 that the practice was very prevalent among them, 
 and was at a loss to know how to deal with it. 
 
 I have known cases in which it was publicly an- 
 nounced that every boy caught swearing would be 
 whipped severely; and this might seem to be a 
 simple and direct remedy. But it would be worth 
 considering whether the boy who swears and is 
 whipped would be likely to swear less or more 
 probably the latter, but with greater care about 
 being caught at it. 
 
 In the case mentioned, at the request of the 
 principal, I spent the greater part of a day in her 
 
SCHOOL GOVERNMENT. 
 
 building, going from room to room, learning all I 
 could as to the extent of the evil, and doing all that 
 was possible to remedy it. The method of proced- 
 ure in the different rooms varied somewhat, accord- 
 ing to the age of the pupils and other conditions, 
 but in the main it was about as follows: 
 
 "I have come to see you to-day," I said to the 
 boys, ' 'on a rather unpleasant errand. I have heard 
 that a good many of the boys of this building use 
 profane language, and I have come to see about it. 
 I have not come expecting to punish anyone, but I 
 wish to persuade the boys who are in the habit of 
 using bad words to give up the practice. I suppose 
 most of them do it without thinking how wrong it 
 is and how much harm it does. It is very wrong, 
 does no good to anyone, and does a great deal of 
 harm. It is a very useless practice. The Savior 
 says you cannot change the color of a hair by 
 swearing. If I could, by standing here and swear- 
 ing great blistering oaths, change one of these gray 
 hairs to jet black, or one of these black ones to a clear 
 white, how much good would it do? How much 
 would I gain? But I could not even do that. 
 Swearing would not make a white hair black nor a 
 black one" white. No, swearing is a very useless 
 habit. 
 
 ' ' Swearing is a very degrading practice. It low- 
 ers one in his own eyes as well as in the eyes of all 
 who know him. When you hear a company of men 
 cursing and swearing, do you say: 'What excellent 
 
 179 
 
THE TEACHER AND HIS WORK. 
 
 people, what refined gentlemen?' Do you not 
 rather think: 'What degraded men, what base fel- 
 lows these are?' What would you think to hear 
 your teacher swear ? or your Sunday school super- 
 intendent, or the pastor of the church you attend ? 
 No, good people do not swear. It always seems to 
 me, when I hear anyone swear, that he is calling 
 attention to his own badness. It seems as if he 
 said 'L,ook at me, everybody ! see how vile I am ! 
 see what a bad heart I have ! see how much bad- 
 ness comes out of my mouth !' 
 
 "Besides all this, swearing is very wicked and 
 cannot go unpunished. The profane swearer is 
 without excuse, seeming to defy God and his law; 
 and when we remember that God is just and 
 punishes sin, we shudder at his daring." 
 
 Having by such words as these, made the 
 strongest possible impression on the minds of the 
 boys, I went on to say further : 
 
 "I hope every boy here who has fallen into this 
 practice wishes to get out of it; and the best way to 
 start in forsaking a wrong course is to make an 
 honest confession. I would like to know how many 
 do use profane language. I shall not urge you to 
 tell me, but if you do so of your own free will I 
 shall be gratified. I shall not punish, nor even 
 chide, anyone. You may rise. (All stand.) 
 Those who are willing that I should know the 
 truth about the matter may remain standing;, and 
 those who prefer not to report concerning themselves 
 
 1 80 
 
SCHOOL GOVERNMENT. 
 
 may be seated. (Not more than two or three boys 
 in the entire building took their seats at this test.) 
 I am pleased to find you so frank. I hope no one 
 will be tempted to make an incorrect report. Now, 
 those who never use profane language may be 
 seated. (At this, a few, perhaps four or five in a 
 room, took their seats.) All may now be seated. I 
 am very much pleased at the spirit you have shown. 
 I take it as a sign that you really prefer right to 
 wrong, and only needed to have your attention 
 called to the matter. 
 
 "I have one thing more to ask of you, and I feel 
 quite sure you will be willing to grant it. I want you 
 to set your faces against this bad practice. If you 
 have formed the habit, determine at once to break it. 
 Some of you may have to try pretty hard; but it 
 will be easier now than when you are older. The 
 longer any habit grows, the stronger it becomes. If 
 you forget and fail, do not give up but try again 
 and again. By all agreeing together you can be a 
 great help to each other. If some day on the play- 
 ground you should hear a bad word from John's 
 lips, step up to him, ky your hand on his shoulder, 
 and say to him, kindly, 'Did you forget, John? you 
 promised not to use bad words/ 
 
 "Now, if you are ready, boys, we'll take a rising 
 vote. All who promise to set themselves against all 
 bad language and to use only the language of good 
 people, may stand. (All but one or two rose 
 promptly. ) 
 
 181 
 
T^ACH^R AND HIS WORK. 
 
 "You have done a good thing to-day, boys. 
 Now stand by your colors. I shall come again 
 soon, to see how you get along. " 
 
 And the boys felt that they had done a good 
 thing, and were very happy over it. 
 
 6. Training into right habits. It is not enough 
 that the feelings and sympathies of pupils be occa- 
 sionally aroused and enlisted on the side of right 
 and duty, nor that they be consciously and form- 
 ally instructed in right doing; they must be con- 
 stantly and persistently prompted and held up in 
 the right, until the habit of right doing is formed. 
 Right habits are the result of training. No psychical 
 law is more fundamental in education or of more 
 general application than that stated by Dr. Reid 
 when he says : "I conceive it to be a part of our 
 constitution, that what we have been accustomed to 
 do, we acquire not only a facility but a proneness to 
 do on like occasions; so that it requires a particular 
 will or effort to forbear it, but to do it requires very 
 often no will at all." 
 
 It is largely this law of our human nature that 
 makes education possible. And training is far more 
 effective than talking. The secret of successful 
 school management is not in telling pupils what is 
 right and chiding and scolding them for not doing 
 it, but rather in the strong will, the persistent pur- 
 pose of the teacher, that secures the doing of the 
 right until it becomes habitual. If the pupils are 
 tardy and irregular in attendance, let the whole 
 
 182 
 
SCHOOL GOVERNMENT. 
 
 weight of influence and authority be brought to 
 bear, until promptness and regularity become a 
 habit. A little more than twenty-five years ago, 
 tardiness was very prevalent in the Akron schools. 
 I remember that one teacher of a grammar school 
 had a record of more than two hundred cases of 
 tardiness in her first month, and lost count before 
 the month was up. By judicious effort this condi- 
 tion was completely changed in a few months, and 
 by continuous training the habit of promptness and 
 regularity became fixed, and so continues to this 
 day. Cases of tardiness are now rare, and some 
 schools run month after month without a single 
 case. In the same way, bad habits of any kind may 
 be overcome and good habits may be established 
 instead. 
 
 7. Incentives. Motives are the springs of 
 human will and action. Conduct is determined by 
 the springs from which it flows. Psychologists 
 have felt the difficulty of classifying motives. Dr. 
 McCosh says: "To endeavor to give a complete 
 and exhaustive list would be a bold undertaking. 
 Such a classification would at the best be very im- 
 perfect/' They have been loosely classed as natural 
 and artificial, as low and high. There is prob- 
 ably no better general classification than that given 
 by Dr. Haven. He says: "As to the nature of 
 the motives from which we act, they are manifestly 
 of two kinds, and widely distinct, viz. , desire and 
 duty the agreeable and the right, each constituting 
 
THE TEACHER AND HIS WORK. 
 
 a powerful motive to action. We find ourselves 
 under the influence of these motives, acting, now 
 from desire, now from sense of duty, now in view 
 of what is in itself agreeable, and now in view of 
 what is right, and the various motives which in- 
 fluence us and result in action, may be resolved into 
 one or other of these powerful elements. " 
 
 These two are often antagonistic a law in the 
 members warring against the law of the mind. "It 
 is only when desire and duty coincide that the 
 highest happiness can be reached, when we no 
 longer desire and long for, because we no longer 
 view as agreeable that which is not strictly right 
 a state never fully realized in this life." It is just 
 here that the subject of incentives comes into the 
 domain of the school and the teacher. The incent- 
 ives to which the teacher appeals and which he 
 makes effective, determine the measure of results in 
 character which he secures. It is the duty, and it 
 should be the aim and purpose of the teacher to di- 
 rect all his effort and bring to bear all the weight 
 of his influence and authority, to the end that his pu- 
 pils shall more and more bring desire into subjection 
 and make duty the controlling motive in their lives. 
 
 The subject is one of transcendent interest and 
 importance, but I can not pursue it further here. 
 For a fuller and better discussion of the whole sub- 
 ject of school incentives the reader is referred to Dr. 
 White's Elements of Pedagogy, p. 320, and to his 
 later work, School Management : , p. 130. 
 
 184 
 
SCHOOL GOVERNMENT. 
 
 8. Self -reporting . To this many teachers object. 
 They not only deny its value as an agency for good, 
 but condemn it as positively harmful. One writer 
 condemns the practice because of the in justice likely 
 to be done. Conscientious pupils will report faith- 
 fully, while the evil-disposed will report untruth- 
 fully and receive greater credit than those more de- 
 serving. Another objection is stated in these 
 words ; "It trains the children to be liars. Feeling 
 that those who report the fewest faults are they 
 who will receive the best marks and reports, irre- 
 spective of conduct, it is a short step, for even an 
 honest pupil, from truth to falsehood; and even 
 those who have always been accounted truthful 
 have such temptations placed before them that, with 
 the weakness incident to the moral nature of child- 
 hood, they in many cases become untruthful/' 
 
 All this seems to take a good deal for granted. 
 An ignorant blunderer may do a great deal of mis- 
 chief with the finest and sharpest of tools. It will 
 not be denied that harm is likely to come from 
 stupid and clumsy handling of self -reporting in 
 schools. But it need not be assumed that a pupil's 
 reports to his teacher must necessarily be made the 
 basis for "credits," "marks and reports," to such 
 an extent as to place him under strong temptation 
 to lie. 
 
 The careless and indiscriminate use of self- 
 reporting is to be condemned; but that school is in a 
 very deplorable state in which there is not place for 
 
 185 
 
THE TEACHER AND HIS WORK. 
 
 some kind and some measure of self-reporting. I 
 have seen schools in which it was the custom for 
 the teacher at the close of the day to call the roll 
 publicly, and each pupil was expected to report his 
 misdemeanors for the day, while the teacher stood 
 as a recording angel to write them in a book. I 
 can conceive of conditions under which even this 
 would be better than the surveillance and espionage 
 prevalent in some schools; but neither is to be com- 
 mended. There is a better way. 
 
 I have seen a teacher, at the close of the day, 
 seated at her desk with pencil in hand, as the pu- 
 pils filed by on leaving the room, and anyone who 
 had anything to report whispered it for none but the 
 teacher's ear. With right relations existing be- 
 tween teacher and pupils, a plan like this may be 
 used with good effect. 
 
 The best system of general self-reporting I have 
 ever seen in operation, was in a large high school. 
 The school occupied a large assembly room with 
 recitation rooms attached. The principal (a lady), 
 at her own cost, supplied each pupil with a small 
 pass-book, costing but a penny or two, in which to 
 keep a daily record of deportment. The books 
 were suitably ruled and the pupils received definite 
 instructions as to the manner of keeping the record. 
 The books were taken up and inspected weekly. I 
 sat at the desk with the principal one Saturday 
 while she "went through" these books. In one 
 she wrote, "Well done, James; your record is 
 
 186 
 
SCHOOIy GOVERNMENT. 
 
 good." In another, "I am pleased with the effort 
 you are making, Mary." In another, "Try to be 
 strong, Henry; do not give way to temptation." 
 One book she put aside, saying, "I must see that 
 boy; I fear that he has not reported correctly." 
 
 It is easy to see what a power a faithful and 
 strong teacher may wield by such an instrument- 
 ality. But it is perhaps fair to say that self- 
 reporting is a sharp two-edged sword which requires 
 skillful handling. There seem to be two necessary 
 conditions of success in the use of this measure. 
 The first is a high moral sense in the teacher, and 
 the second is a reasonably healthy moral tone in the 
 school. If the first is wanting, results in character 
 will be meager, whatever instrumentalities may be 
 employed. If the second only is lacking, it be- 
 hooves the teacher to bend every effort toward 
 awakening a higher sense of honor among the 
 pupils. 
 
 Whatever policy may be deemed expedient 
 or wise concerning general and formal self-re- 
 porting in school, frank individual confession 
 of faults ought to be encouraged and secured. 
 And it is possible to secure the confidence and 
 esteem of pupils to such an extent that it be- 
 comes comparatively easy to get from them a 
 direct and truthful account of many things con- 
 cerning which they might otherwise be disposed 
 to prevaricate or falsify. The confidence must be 
 mutual. Confidence begets confidence. The boys 
 
THE TEACHER AND HIS WORK. 
 
 at Rugby said, "It's a shame to tell Arnold a lie, 
 he trusts a fellow so;" and Rugby boys were like 
 other boys. The teacher who trusts his pupils, 
 even at the risk of being sometimes imposed upon, 
 will win their confidence and strengthen their moral 
 nature. 
 
 The principal of a large city school found it 
 necessary to prohibit ball playing on the school 
 grounds. He explained that, because of the large 
 number of boys on the small play-ground, there 
 were many complaints of injury to the smaller boys, 
 and he expressly prohibited even the throwing of a 
 ball on the grounds. Not many days after, at re- 
 cess, he heard the rattling of broken glass, and on 
 going into the basement he found a ball which had 
 evidently just been thrown through a basement 
 window. When his own school (the upper depart- 
 ment, containing 150 pupils) assembled, the prin- 
 cipal inquired, "A light of glass broken at recess, 
 was there not, boys? " "Yes, sir," several voices 
 responded. "Well," said the principal, "I do not 
 wish to hear about it from anyone but the boy who 
 did it. If the boy that threw the ball is in this 
 room, he may raise his hand." There was a mo- 
 ment of suspense, and a craning of necks all over 
 the room to see whose hand, if any, would come up. 
 Soon a hand was raised, and with it came a manly 
 voice, "I did it, sir." "Thank you, Jesse," said 
 the principal; "you may explain to me after the 
 close of school. That is all now." After school 
 
 188 
 
SCHOOL GOVERNMENT. 
 
 Jesse explained that he had the ball in his pocket 
 and threw it at another boy without thinking of the 
 order against ball-playing, and added, "I won't do 
 it any more." The principal commended him for 
 his frankness and reminded him of the rule requiring 
 payment for damage to property. "Yes, sir," he 
 said, "I'll bring it in the morning. " 
 
 The effect on a school of one incident like this 
 is more valuable and more lasting than a score of 
 moral lectures. Of course just such incidents as 
 this are not of frequent occurrence without a healthy 
 moral sentiment in the school and mutual confi- 
 dence between teacher and pupils. What I wish to 
 emphasize is that it is possible to secure such a state 
 of sentiment in a school, such a sense of honor, that 
 a large majority of the pupils will frankly and 
 truthfully report their own misdemeanors. And 
 how desirable such a condition is ! How it lightens 
 the labor of government, and how much more 
 agreeable and satisfactory the relations between 
 teacher and pupils! It is the ideal toward which 
 the noblest and best teachers have ever striven. It 
 was Arnold's way of governing boys, and Garfield's, 
 and Horace Mann's. It is worthy of note that two 
 such men as Horace Mann and President Garfield 
 have made strong appeals to teachers in favor 
 of greater confidence and more cordial co-opera- 
 tion between teacher and pupils. There ap- 
 peared, some years ago, in the published proceed- 
 ings of the Ohio Teachers' Association, a report 
 
 189 
 
TEACHER AND HIS WORK. 
 
 submitted by Mr. Garfield, in which strong ground 
 was taken in favor of self-reporting. Among the 
 advantages of the plan were urged the following : 
 
 1. "By manifesting confidence in students, it 
 begets the same in return, and thus forms a basis 
 on which a school can be more easily and pleasantly 
 controlled. 
 
 2. * 'It relieves the teacher in the main from that 
 disagreeable system of espionage which is frequently 
 unsuccessful, and by many is regarded dishonorable. 
 
 3. "It is better in its personal effects upon the 
 character of both pupils and teacher; by calling into 
 exercise a nobler principle of human nature, and a 
 more delicate sense of honor. ' J 
 
 About the same time, Horace Mann, by appoint- 
 ment of the Ohio College Association, prepared an 
 address to Ohio college faculties, in which were 
 set forth in strong light the evils of distrust and 
 antagonism between teachers and students, and the 
 great value of mutual confidence, trust, and co- 
 operation. The chief weight of his argument was 
 directed against the false "code of honor, M so gen- 
 erally in force among students, which binds them 
 to screen one another in wrong-doing. Now a mo- 
 ment's reflectien is sufficient to satisfy anyone that 
 this "code" among pupils is to a large extent the 
 result of their teachsrs' attitude and bearing toward 
 them. When teachers are in full sympathy with 
 their pupils, repose confidence in them, duly regard 
 their rights and feelings, and treat them with 
 
 190 
 
SCHOOIy 
 
 openness and kindness, the "code" soon loses its 
 hold, and confidence and co-operation take the 
 place of suspicion and antagonism. 
 
 This view does not imply any laxness of disci- 
 pline or any yielding of the teacher's prerogative. 
 It implies, rather, more ready obedience and better 
 discipline, with less of friction and more of good 
 feeling and good will. There must be obedience, 
 and where it is not rendered voluntarily and cheer- 
 fully, it must be secured by constraint. And the 
 stronger the teacher to exact and enforce obedience, 
 when necessary, the sooner will the need of con- 
 straint cease. 
 
 Nor does the reign of confidence and good will 
 imply that the teacher is to be altogether blind to 
 pupils' faults, or easily deceived or imposed upon; 
 but rather the opposite. While sympathizing and 
 kind, he should be a terror to evil doers. He should 
 be sharper than the sharpest boy. He should be 
 thoroughly familiar with boys' tricks. He should 
 readily discriminate between well-meant playfulness 
 or the bubbling over of animal life, and mean 
 trickery. Skillful and thorough treatment of mean- 
 ness or wrong-doing favors rather than hinders the 
 growth of the right spirit in a school. 
 
 The principal of the city school before mentioned 
 had at another time a school in which the sense of 
 honor was not very highly developed. One day at 
 recess, as he was ringing a large hand-bell at the 
 window to call in the pupils, the clapper of the bell 
 
 191 
 
THK TEACHER AND HIS WORK. 
 
 fell out among the boys on the play ground. He 
 looked out, but saw only a sea of upturned faces. 
 When the boys came in and were seated, he in- 
 quired, ' 'Boys, did any of you see the bell-clapper?' ' 
 There was no response; nobody knew anything at 
 all. And no device or power of persuasion could 
 elicit any information. After the order was given 
 to take books and proceed with study, the principal 
 went into the lowest primary room, and, being on 
 good terms with the little people, he asked, "Little 
 boys, did any of you see the bell-clapper?" "Yes, 
 sir; yes, sir;" shouted a chorus of voices. "Eli 
 Jennings, a big boy up in your room, picked it up 
 and put it in his pocket. ' ' On returning to his own 
 room, the principal took his watch in his hand and 
 said with a good deal of emphasis, "The boy who 
 has that bell-clapper will place it on my desk inside 
 of two minutes, or there will be serious trouble for 
 him." Eli, who sat in a front seat, grew very red 
 and began to move nervously in his seat; but before 
 the time had more than half expired, he rose in the 
 presence of the whole school of a hundred pupils, 
 stepped forward, and placed the clapper on the prin- 
 cipal's desk. The effect upon the school, as well as 
 upon Eli, was salutary. 
 
 Having considered at some length the more im- 
 portant moral instrumentalities of school govern- 
 ment, I now propose to close this paper with some 
 observations on what may be called the external or 
 mechanical agencies. There is doubtless something 
 
 192 
 
SCHOOL GOVERNMENT. 
 
 of the moral element in every right means of gov- 
 ernment; but in some more than others the external 
 and mechanical seem to predominate. 
 
 Government is more than persuasion, more than 
 personal influence; it is at bottom coercion. Force 
 sufficient to overcome resistance is the very essence 
 of government. Authority and power must go 
 together. A government not obeyed is no govern- 
 ment. 
 
 Some things already named as conditions favor- 
 able to good government might be mentioned 
 among the external agencies; as, 
 
 1. Proper seating. When the teacher has 
 placed each pupil in a comfortable seat and in best 
 relations to his fellow-pupils and to all the sur- 
 roundings, he has at least made a good start in the 
 matter of control. 
 
 2 . Proper employment. Each pupil should have 
 enough and not too much to do, and there should 
 be a judicious alternation of study and recitation. 
 
 3. Proper ventilation and heating. Fresh air 
 and a suitable degree of temperature in a school 
 room will sometimes drive out the demons of dis- 
 order more effectually than birch branches or hazel 
 sprouts. 
 
 These and other similar agencies may be classed 
 as preventives, and preventives which prevent are 
 valuable; it has been said that an ounce of preven- 
 tion is worth a pound of cure. But the whole store 
 of preventives will not always suffice to obviate the 
 
 193 
 
T^ACHKR AND HIS WORK. 
 
 necessity for curative or corrective agencies. The sick 
 need a physician; and the remedies of best physicians 
 are often disagreeable even painful in the extreme. 
 
 Punishment is a necessity of government in the 
 family and in society, and in the school likewise. 
 The right of the teacher of youth to administer 
 punishment is universally recognized, though there 
 is diversity of sentiment as to kind and degree, and 
 it is one of the most important and difficult of the 
 teacher's duties. One writer says: "The amount 
 and kind of punishment administered at school 
 is one of the best tests of a teacher's capacity 
 and fitness for the station he occupies. No sub- 
 ject connected with school management is more deli- 
 cate, none more important, and none requires more 
 judgment, discretion, or wisdom. As a general 
 rule, the best teachers are those who punish least; 
 and the wisest, those who make the best choice when 
 punishment must be inflicted. Whatever savors 
 of ill temper or brutality, whatever tends to the in- 
 jury of the body, mind, or sensibilities of the child, 
 is to be unsparingly condemned. ' ' 
 
 Punishments in school as well as in the family 
 and in society have in too great measure been ad- 
 ministered without reason, in mere caprice or pas- 
 sion, defeating the true ends of punishment. When 
 to punish, what punishment to inflict in a given 
 case, and how to puriish, are questions of great im- 
 portance, requiring mature judgment and good 
 heart on the part of parents and teachers. 
 
 194 
 
SCHOOL 
 
 The following principles laid down by Bentham 
 have some value for general guidance: 
 
 1. The punishment should exceed the apparent 
 advantage derived from the commission of the 
 offense. 
 
 2. The greater the offense, the greater should 
 be the pains taken to secure its punishment. 
 
 3. Punishment should never be greater than is 
 needed to prevent a repetition of the offense. 
 
 4. Regard should be paid to the sensibility of 
 the offender, as dependent on age, sex, health, 
 social position, etc. 
 
 5. Punishments should be increased in magni- 
 tude as the detection of the offense is uncertain or 
 remote. 
 
 6. When the offense is not an isolated act, but 
 an act indicating the existence of a habit, the pun- 
 ishment should outweigh the apparent advantages, 
 not merely of the act, but of the habit. 
 
 To these may be added 
 
 Due regard should always be had to the motive 
 and spirit of the wrong-doer. The same outward 
 act does not always require the same kind and de- 
 gree of punishment. Teachers should discriminate 
 sharply between wilful disobedience and mere child- 
 ish thoughtlessness. 
 
 Not every wrong act requires punishment. 
 Sometimes instruction, encouragement, and sympa- 
 thy are more effective antidotes to misconduct than 
 punishment. 
 
 195 
 
TKACH3R AND HIS WORK. 
 
 The chief ends of school punishment are 
 
 1. Reformation. In the state, punishments are 
 retributive. In the family and the school they are 
 mainly corrective. Children are punished for their 
 faults. The good of the wrong-doer is the para- 
 mount consideration. Hence school and family 
 punishments should contain no element of vindic- 
 tiveness. 
 
 2. Warning. The knowledge that punishment 
 is likely to follow wrong-doing has a restraining in- 
 fluence. In this way punishment is preventive as 
 well as corrective. The wise and efficient ruler is a 
 terror to evil-doers as well as a praise to them that 
 do well. 
 
 3. Condemnation of wrong-doing. The right 
 must be approved, the seal of condemnation placed 
 on wrong. Virtue must be exalted, vice condemned 
 and made odious. 
 
 Some characteristics of judicious punishment 
 may be mentioned. 
 
 i. Punishment should be administered with de- 
 liberation. Anything like haste or passion is out of 
 place and is liable to defeat the end in view. 
 Teacher and pupil should both have time for reflec- 
 tion. The pupil may come to a better mind and the 
 punishment may be averted, or at any rate less 
 severity may be necessary. School punishment of 
 any kind imposed with calmness and deliberation is 
 always more efficacious and less likely to embitter 
 the pupil. 
 
 196 
 
SCHOOL GOVERNMENT. 
 
 The necessity may occasionally arise for deal- 
 ing swiftly and summarily with the offender, but 
 the rule is the other way. 
 
 2. Punishment should be certain , or at least not 
 capricious. The certainty of even light punishment 
 is a more effective preventive of offenses than capri- 
 cious severity. It does not follow that there is no 
 place in school administration for mercy and for- 
 giveness; but that with an even hand and a steady 
 rein every case is to be dealt with on its merit and 
 not according to the mood or caprice of the teacher. 
 
 3. Punishment should be adapted in kind and de- 
 gree to the conditions and circumstances of the case. It 
 should be consequential as far as may be. The 
 discipline of consequences is best where it is practic- 
 able. It is this that Rousseau and Herbert Spencer 
 dwell upon with so much emphasis. And concern- 
 ing the same, Mr. Fitch, an experienced English 
 school inspector, points out that when a child sees 
 that his punishment is the direct consequence of his 
 fault, he cannot rebel as he might otherwise. "You 
 eliminate altogether the feeling of personal resent- 
 ment and the sense of injustice if you make the 
 punishment thus, whenever possible, obviously ap- 
 propriate to the fault and logically its sequel. The 
 principle once seen, covers a good many school 
 offenses. The obvious punishment for late coming 
 is late going; for doing an exercise ill is to do it 
 again well; for injury to the property of others, 
 restitution at one's own cost/' etc. But Fitch and 
 
 197 
 
THE TEACHER AND HIS WORK. 
 
 Compayre both point out very clearly the imprac- 
 ticability of depending solely on natural conse- 
 quences for the correction of the faults of children. 
 Fitch says: "Experience proves to us that it is 
 wholly inadequate as a theory of moral government, 
 either for a school or a state/' And Compayre : 
 "There is nothing more brutal, more inhuman, than 
 the system which, suppressing all human interven- 
 tion of the teacher in the correction of the child, 
 leaves to nature alone the task of chastising him. 
 . . . The system of natural consequences sup- 
 presses moral ideas the idea of moral obligation 
 and duty." 
 
 It is pre-eminently the duty of parents and 
 teachers to interpose, in behalf of childhood, such 
 milder though more arbitrary punishments as tend 
 to avert the cruel and relentless penalties which 
 nature provides for wrong-doing. To this they are 
 called, and when they withhold needed chastise- 
 ment and indulge the evil-doer, their guilt is great. 
 
 He is the true teacher who by every suitable 
 means corrects his pupils' faults and saves them 
 from wrong-doing and its inevitable consequences, 
 and often the best he can do is to substitute arbi- 
 trarily his own lighter penalties for the far more 
 painful natural results of imprudent conduct. 
 
 Of the modes of punishment I shall speak but 
 briefly. Reproof, privation, seclusion, demerits, 
 withdrawal of all signs of esteem and confidence, 
 and temporary suspension, kindly and firmly ad- 
 
 198 
 
SCHOOL GOVERNMENT. 
 
 ministered, will usually fulfill the more important 
 conditions of effective punishment. 
 
 Expulsion and the rod are for flagrant offenses 
 and obstinate cases. The former is in the power of 
 the board of education only. 
 
 Concerning the use of the rod in schools, much 
 has been said on both sides. Arguments against its 
 use have been, for the most part, founded upon its 
 abuse rather than its legitimate and judicious use. 
 It is certainly better a school should be controlled 
 by the use of the rod than that it should go un- 
 controlled. ' 'The rod and reproof give wisdom, ' ' 
 says Solomon. There seems to be designedly a 
 close connection between the corporeal sensibilities 
 and those that are mental and moral. "The intel- 
 lect, the sensibility, and the will are all more or less 
 affected by any suffering that may be inflicted upon 
 the nervous sensibility, and if, when inflicted, there 
 is a clear apprehension on the part of the sufferer as 
 to its intent, and if it be administered in proper 
 spirit and in proper quantity, it follows that, unless 
 the subject of such punishment is beyond the reach 
 of reformation, this means may and will reclaim 
 him." 
 
 Nevertheless, it is to be borne in mind that the 
 best teachers rarely resort to the use of the rod, 
 some of them never. The right attitude of the 
 teacher is to maintain the right to use the rod, but 
 avoid the use. Mr. Fitch tells of one of the best 
 day schools he ever examined, in which the disci- 
 
 199 
 
THE TKACH^R AND HIS WORK. 
 
 pline was singularly high-toned, manly, and cheer- 
 ful, without one case of corporal punishment in its 
 whole history. Yet the master begged the inspec- 
 tor to make no mention of the fact in reporting on 
 the school. "I do not mean to use it," the master 
 said, "but I do not want it to be in the power of 
 the public or the parents to say I am precluded 
 from using it. Every boy here knows that it is 
 within my discretion, and that if a very grave or 
 exceptional fault occurred I might use that discre- 
 tion." 
 
 Good Dr. Arnold, of Rugby, is quoted as saying: 
 "The proud notion of independence and dignity 
 which revolts at the idea of personal chastisement 
 is not reasonable and is certainly not Christian. It is 
 the sin that degrades and not the punishment of it. " 
 
 Horace Mann maintained that the rod could not 
 be entirely banished from the school-room until a 
 sufficient number of angels have been imported from 
 heaven to supply all the schools with teachers; and 
 he might have added a sufficient number of little 
 angels to supply all the schools with pupils. But 
 Horace Mann is also quoted as saying: "Corporal 
 punishment should never be inflicted but in cases of 
 extremest necessity." 
 
 Well would it be if all teachers who find occa- 
 sion to use the rod at all would use it so discreetly 
 that legislatures and school boards would find no 
 occasion to limit their prerogative or narrow their 
 discretion in the matter by any formal enactment. 
 
 200 
 
SCHOOL GOVERNMENT. 
 
 I find fitting close to this chapter in the words of 
 Mr. Fitch: 
 
 "The great triumph of school discipline is to do 
 without punishments altogether. And to this end 
 it is essential that we should watch those forms of 
 offense which occur oftenest, and see if, by some 
 better arrangements of our own, temptation to 
 wrong may be diminished and offences prevented. 
 If your government is felt to be based on high prin- 
 ciples, to be vigilant and entirely just, to be strict 
 without being severe, to have no element of caprice 
 or fitfulness in it; if the public opinion of the school 
 is so formed that a scholar is unpopular who does 
 wrong, you will find not only that all the more de- 
 grading forms of personal chastisement are unnec- 
 essary, but that the need of punishment in any form 
 will steadily disappear.'' 
 
 201 
 
The Moral and Religious Element 
 in Education. 
 
* ' One religion after another perishes, but the religious 
 sense which creates them all never dies." 
 
VIII. 
 
 THE MORAI, AND RELIGIOUS 
 IN EDUCATION. 
 
 IT has been sometimes asserted by men claiming to 
 speak with authority in such matters that the 
 chief end of education is to fit men for getting on in 
 the world to train men for their particular occupa- 
 tions. It may be freely admitted that every man 
 should be fitted for some honorable and useful oc- 
 cupation and should pursue it persistently, but as a 
 means rather than an end. A man's life is more 
 than meat and drink. The necessity laid upon men 
 to labor for food, clothing, and shelter, is itself a 
 valuable part of their moral discipline; but there is 
 a spirit in man whose cravings can never be satis- 
 fied by the bread he earns. 
 
 That training is best for a man which is best 
 calculated to develop all his capabilities. The par- 
 ticular sphere in life which anyone is to occupy can- 
 not be determined beforehand, and it would seem 
 very unwise to spend years in shaping and fitting a 
 human soul for a niche it may never occupy. Far 
 better would it seem to seek the perfection of our 
 human nature in every direction and in all its capa- 
 bilities. If to the highest physical development and 
 the best scientific, literary, and aesthetic culture we 
 
 205 
 
THE TEACHER AND HIS WORK. 
 
 add supreme regard for God an acknowledgment 
 of His sovereignty and a practical recognition of our 
 relations to Him as His children, we probably have 
 the highest human conception of the perfection of 
 our nature. Human perfection is not a fixed 
 quantity, but rather an infinite progression. It con- 
 sists in forever growing. 
 
 But in the light of such an ideal, how very in- 
 adequate is our school education. It is partial, 
 one-sided, incomplete. It cultivates the lower fac- 
 ulties, leaving the higher and nobler powers to the 
 blight and decay of inactivity, or to such chance 
 development as other and less systematic agencies 
 may afford. The schools do much in the way of 
 intellectual development, and the results attained in 
 this direction are not to be disparaged; but they 
 fail in great measure to recognize the fact that the 
 human soul is endowed with other and higher facul- 
 ties equally susceptible of cultivation and growth. 
 The schools do much for the head, but far too little 
 for the heart. 
 
 The great educational want of our day is heart 
 culture, and the great desideratum in the teachers 
 who are to bless coming generations is heart power. 
 Momentous changes are taking place in the world. 
 The human family seems to be in a transition state. 
 The old foundations are breaking up; the old land- 
 marks are being removed. Men are no longer con- 
 tent with the creeds and dogmas to which they have 
 been wont to trust. It is a time which tries men. 
 
 206 
 
THE) MORAI, AND RKUGIOUS 
 
 It is a time when they feel the need of something 
 better than creed and ritual. Men realize more and 
 more the need of a power of vision which will en- 
 able them to see other than material things, an un- 
 derstanding which will enable them to apprehend 
 higher thoughts than the subtleties of human 
 philosophy. There is higher knowledge than sense- 
 knowledge. There are truths which deeply con- 
 cern us which never can be reached by scientific 
 method. The highest development of mere intel- 
 lect can never attain to a knowledge of the highest 
 truths. "He that loveth not, knoweth not God, for 
 God is love. ' ' The power to apprehend spiritual 
 truth proceeds from the heart. "With the heart 
 man believeth unto righteousness/ 1 The divine 
 educator of our race begins and ends with the heart 
 as that which determines the character. A man is 
 what his heart is. The heart gives tone and temper 
 to the whole being. It is the fountain whence the 
 streams of life issue; and the stream cannot be 
 good unless the fountain be pure. Any system of 
 education which neglects the cultivation of the 
 heart seeks to purify the stream without any regard 
 to the fountain. 
 
 There is in every man a native power of spiritual 
 apprehension which is subject to the general law of 
 human development. It may, by proper stimula- 
 tion and exercise, be made to live and grow strong; 
 or it may be dwarfed and enfeebled by neglect and 
 disuse, until there is no consciousness of the posses- 
 
 207 
 
THE TEACHER AND HIS WORK. 
 
 sion of any such power. And furthermore, all our 
 faculties are so closely related that all suffer from 
 the neglect of any. The highest intellectual culture 
 is never reached where the cultivation of the heart 
 is wholly neglected. A French writer has said that 
 the continual operation of the intellect without the 
 presence of God dries up and exhausts the soul. 
 
 Moral and intellectual development should be 
 carried on simultaneously. Each is the complement 
 of the other. To separate them is to defeat the 
 object of both. But were it possible to separate 
 them, and to give precedence to either, moral cul- 
 ture has the first claim. ' 'The moral and religious 
 part of man's nature is the highest part. Of right 
 it has sovereignty and dominion over all the rest. 
 The whole scheme of creation, at least so far as it 
 relates to man, was based on the supremacy of the 
 moral faculties. ' ' Civilization is but the ascendency 
 of the moral and religious element of human nature 
 in the aggregate. 
 
 It is hard to account for the aversion of men to 
 the cultivation of their higher faculties. Vast multi- 
 tudes seem to live only in their lower nature. Bun- 
 yan's man with the muck-rake aptly illustrates the 
 tendency of men to follow their lower animal in- 
 stincts rather than their higher spiritual intuitions. 
 This man is represented as shut up in a dingy room 
 with a muck-rake in his hand. He looked no way 
 but downward, while a shining one was above him 
 with a beautiful crown of gold in his hand, which 
 
 208 
 
MORAI, AND RELIGIOUS 
 
 he offered him in exchange for his muck-rake. But 
 the man refused to look up and continued raking to 
 himself the straws, little sticks, and dust which lay 
 on the floor of his room. 
 
 The higher and better the culture proposed, the 
 more determined and violent the opposition of men 
 who live only in their lower nature. The man who 
 said, "Makin' them thar picters don't do my boy 
 no good/' doubtless believed he had settled at a 
 stroke and forever the whole question of drawing 
 as a branch of education. He is but a type of a 
 very large class, for whom aesthetic culture has no 
 attraction, and to whom moral and religious instruc- 
 tion is absolutely repugnant. For want of early culti- 
 vation, their higher faculties lie dormant. They 
 are no more capable of apprehending the things of 
 the spirit than the deaf man of recognizing sound, 
 or the blind man of distinguishing color. 
 
 An unwarranted distinction is sometimes made 
 between morality and religion. Morality is religion 
 in practice. Morality without religion is a form 
 without the substance. Any system of education 
 which ignores all moral training would scarcely 
 find an advocate in this or any other enlightened 
 land. All are agreed that the instruction in the 
 schools should tend to the formation of upright 
 character in the pupils; but at the mention of re- 
 ligion, which is the only foundation of all good 
 morals, opposition is at once aroused. There must 
 be no religious instruction in schools supported by 
 
 209 
 
THE TEACHER AND HIS WORK. 
 
 the state. This false sentiment has, doubtless, 
 in great measure, grown out of the practice of con- 
 founding religion with sect, and dogma, and theo- 
 logical systems. It should be borne in mind that 
 the dissensions, intolerance, and bitterness, which 
 have in the past attended theological disputation, 
 are not chargeable to religion, but to the want of it. 
 Much of the opposition to moral and religious in- 
 struction in schools which now exists is directly 
 chargeable to the churchmen. When they lay 
 down their weapons of warfare, and when earnest 
 effort to lead men in the way of pure and noble liv- 
 ing takes the place of theological disputation, we 
 may expect much of this opposition to disappear. 
 The great progress made in this direction in recent 
 years gives hope for the future. 
 
 Religion is defined by Dr. Watts as "duty to 
 God and our neighbor," and by Worcester as "an 
 acknowledgment of God as our Creator, with a feel- 
 ing of reverence and love, and consequent duty and 
 obedience to Him; duty to God and His creatures." 
 And this is the sum of all morality. There is not a 
 moral maxim nor an ethical principle deemed valu- 
 able by civilized and enlightened men which is not 
 included in the Christian religion. The great cen- 
 tral fact of Christianity is Christ giving Himself to 
 help men into the way of right living. True re- 
 ligion is the voice of God speaking to the hearts of 
 men, calling them to Himself, that they may be 
 like Him. And may not the youth in our schools 
 
 210 
 
MORAL AND REUGIOUS 
 
 be taught to recognize that voice and heed its warn- 
 ings and invitations ? Horace Mann has, well said : 
 
 "The domain of education extends over the 
 three-fold nature of man; over his body, training it 
 by the systematic and intelligent observance of 
 those benign laws which secure health, impart 
 strength, and prolong life; over his intellect, invig- 
 orating the mind, replenishing it with knowledge, 
 and cultivating all those tastes which are allied to 
 virtue; and over his moral and religious suscepti- 
 bilities also, dethroning selfishness, enthroning con- 
 science, leading the affections outward in good will 
 toward men, and upward in gratitude and reverence 
 to God." 
 
 The happiness of individuals, and the purity, 
 prosperity, and permanence of society, imperatively 
 demand the cultivation of all those susceptibilities 
 of our nature whose proper development tends to 
 range the will on the side of God and right. There 
 is no safety, either to the individual or to society, 
 in any other course. Are we not already reaping 
 the fruit of our false views and neglect in this mat- 
 ter, in the low state of public morals, the corruption 
 of the public conscience, the betrayal of public trust, 
 and the general disregard of moral obligation, which 
 seem at times to threaten the very foundations of 
 society? The Prussian maxim, ' ' What you would 
 have appear in the life of the nation, you must put- 
 into its schools// is sound and wise. If we are to 
 enjoy the blessedness of the " nation whose God 
 
 211 
 
TEACHKR AND HIS WORK. 
 
 is the I^ord," we must teach the fear of God in our 
 schools. 
 
 It has been urged that there is diversity of 
 opinion among men in matters of religion, and that 
 on this account religious instruction should have no 
 place in public schools. There are wide differences 
 of opinion among men on scientific subjects. Shall 
 science on that account be excluded from the 
 schools ? There are also differences of opinion in 
 regard to the administration of government even 
 in regard to the principles on which govern- 
 ment is founded. Shall we, on that account, for- 
 bear to administer government ? Because a teacher 
 belongs to one political party or another, must he 
 be restrained from instructing his pupils in the prin- 
 ciples of good government ? A sense of propriety 
 should restrain teachers from all partisan and sec- 
 tarian instruction and influence; but the principles 
 and practice of pure religion and good citizenship 
 should be emphasized and enforced. The young 
 people should be taught and required to render unto 
 Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and unto God 
 the things that are God's. A Chicago school report 
 contains this sound and wise sentiment: "Secta- 
 rianism and partisanship have no place appropriate 
 for them in any institution under government sup- 
 port or control; but for patriotism and pure religion 
 an appropriate place is found in every institution 
 controlled and supported by government." 
 
 But it is maintained that religious instruction 
 
 212 
 
THK MORAI, AND RELIGIOUS 
 
 cannot be given in public schools without interfering 
 with the rights of private conscience. The very 
 first right of conscience, and that upon which lib- 
 erty of conscience depends, is the right to be en- 
 lightened. It is strange, indeed, that to instruct 
 and enlighten the conscience, and teach men to 
 obey its dictates, should be deemed a violation of 
 the rights of conscience. But admitting that there 
 may be involved some things contrary to the blunted 
 conscience of some individuals, does that settle the 
 question ? Would not the exclusion of all religious 
 instruction and training from the school be a far 
 greater violation of the rights of conscience ? I^et 
 us look at the bearing of this question in some other 
 directions. Do we, as a rule, permit private con- 
 science to interfere with public good ? For exam- 
 ple, do we feel bound to respect the Mormon con- 
 science ? Did we respect the slaveholder's con- 
 science in 1 86 1 ? Must we deny to the government 
 the right of self-preservation because some of its 
 citizens are conscientiously opposed to bearing arms 
 in its defense ? Much less should we deny the State 
 the right of self-preservation by securing the integ- 
 rity as well as the intelligence of her citizens. 
 
 It is also maintained that religious instruction 
 belongs to the family and the church, and not to 
 the school. To this it is a sufficient answer, that a 
 large number of youth would be left without any 
 moral or religious training; and if it is incumbent 
 on the State to undertake any part of the work of 
 
 213 
 
TEACHER AND HIS WORK. 
 
 instruction, there is none so essential to her welfare 
 as that which secures uprightness and purity in the 
 lives of her citizens. Vast multitudes of children 
 are reared in godless homes, scarcely a tithe of 
 whom ever come under the influence of church or 
 Sunday school; and of those who do attend Sunday 
 school with more or less regularity, not all, by any 
 means, can be said to receive effective moral and 
 religious training. I am constrained to say that 
 the influence of many Sunday schools, on account 
 of their low standard of discipline, and the low 
 order of teaching talent employed, are far less effi- 
 cient in producing good moral character than 
 the thorough discipline and instruction of the 
 public school, even where no direct moral in- 
 struction is given. I believe the tendency in 
 many Sunday schools is to both moral and intel- 
 lectual dissipation. Not all Sunday schools deserve 
 this censure; but in a majority of them there is need 
 of a much higher standard of instruction and disci- 
 pline. The Sunday school ought to have a higher 
 mission than the entertainment or amusement of 
 the children. 
 
 The public school is the only place where moral 
 and religious training and influence can be brought 
 to bear on a majority of those whose homes are de- 
 void of them; and no other agency is capable of 
 producing such definite results in this direction. 
 Not even the Christian ministry is above the teach- 
 ing profession in the variety, adaptation, and power 
 
 214 
 
MORAI, AND RELIGIOUS 
 
 of its appliances, and in the immediateness and pro- 
 ductiveness of the results which may be gained by 
 their use. The minister teaches at intervals, while 
 the teacher's work goes on from day to day. The 
 preacher can point to the right path, but he cannot 
 make his hearers walk in it. He cannot constrain 
 the will, and bind it firmly to duty; nor can he ex- 
 ercise the power of personal authority and discipline, 
 or stamp his own entire individuality, with all the 
 weight of his varied knowledge and force of char- 
 acter, upon his people, as can the true teacher upon 
 his pupils. He labors to impress those whose habits 
 are fixed, and whose sensibilities are blunted. The 
 teacher operates upon the impressible minds and 
 hearts of youth, whose souls are all aglow, and 
 whose hearts are plastic under the gentlest touches 
 of his hand, and tenderly responsive to all his 
 thoughts and feelings. Oh that the teachers 
 of our land felt the weight of responsibility 
 which rests upon them ! What trusts are com- 
 mitted to them ! and what opportunities they have 
 for good ! 
 
 I am not unaware that there are difficulties 
 in the way. I admit the seeming force of some of 
 the objections urged against religious instruction in 
 schools supported and controlled by the state; and 
 I freely confess my inability to comprehend, in all 
 their bearings, the complicated social and political 
 problems which the question involves, yet it seems 
 to me that the obligation is laid upon us, and we 
 
 215 
 
THE TEACHER AMD HIS WORK. 
 
 dare not shrink from the duty because of the diffi- 
 culties. The true solution of the problem can be 
 found only by going forward in the accomplishment 
 of the work. One consideration of great weight in 
 my mind is the fact that all the difficulties attending 
 the question have their origin in human imper- 
 fection, or, to use a stronger term, in human per- 
 verseness. It is not to be supposed that if the 
 human family were in its normal condition there 
 would be doubt in the minds of any about the pro- 
 priety of teaching all the children in the schools to 
 fear God and keep His commandments. The true 
 course for teachers to pursue is to press forward 
 steadily and carefully, gaining wisdom and skill by 
 experience, and trusting to the Great Teacher of 
 mankind to direct the issue. There is much need 
 for the exercise of prudence. "The servant of the 
 I^ord must not strive, but be gentle unto all men, 
 apt to teach, patient; in meekness instructing them 
 that oppose themselves." 
 
 We must of necessity recognize the direct agency 
 of an unseen but efficient power, coming to us from 
 above, to work in and renew the forces of our 
 humanity. But this does not diminish aught of 
 human responsibility. The cultivator of the soil 
 recognizes the fact that sunshine and rain are es- 
 sential to vegetable growth, but he is, on that ac- 
 count, no less assiduous in his efforts so to prepare 
 the soil that the sun and rain may operate under the 
 most favorable conditions; nor is he any the less 
 
 216 
 
MORAL AND RKUGIOUS 
 
 vigilant in preventing the growth of noxious weeds 
 which hinder the growth he seeks to foster. 
 
 There is a prevalent impression that the best 
 moral instruction is that which is least formal, that 
 which may be imparted in connection with other 
 subjects of instruction, or which may be given inci- 
 dentally, without the setting apart of time for the 
 purpose. It is doubtless true that much valuable 
 instruction may be imparted in this way. The 
 teacher who is filled with an ardent desire to do his 
 whole duty in this matter can find many occasions 
 for impressing the minds of his pupils with valuable 
 moral lessons. But experience shows that, amid 
 the multiplicity of subjects requiring the teacher's 
 time and attention, no fitting place is likely to be 
 found for a subject to which no definite place is as- 
 signed. This is doubtless one of the reasons for 
 the neglect of moral and religious instruction in 
 most schools. No one would expect the success of 
 an attempt to teach grammar or arithmetic in this 
 casual or incidental way. Not only should this 
 work have its own appropriate time, but it should 
 be carried on after a carefully devised plan. 
 
 First in order and importance among the things 
 to be taught, and requiring constant inculcation, is 
 the fear of God. "The fear of the Lord is the be- 
 ginning of wisdom. " Jacob's favorite son, one of 
 the purest and strongest characters in history, gave 
 the key to his life when he said, "I fear God." 
 The fear of God includes in it reverence and love 
 
 217 
 
THE TKACHER AND HIS WORK. 
 
 for God as our father, a recognition of His authority 
 over us, and the obligation resting upon us of obedi- 
 ence and submission to Him. No other power is 
 so efficient in the right development of moral char- 
 acter as a vivid conception of God's active presence, 
 and conscious intelligent interest in human affairs. 
 The thought of God's personal presence and our ac- 
 countability to Him should be kept constantly be- 
 fore the minds of the young. "Thou God seest 
 me," and "Every one of us shall give account of 
 himself to God," are appropriate mottoes for every 
 school room. 
 
 Horace Greeley never uttered profounder truth 
 than when he said in an educational address, "The 
 true idea of God clearly unfolded within us, moving 
 us to adore and obey Him, and to aspire after like- 
 ness to Him, produces the highest and best growth 
 of our nature. Nothing else so thoroughly awakens 
 the moral sense within us, and leads to the corn- 
 complete enthronement of conscience over the 
 lower desires, appetites and passions. ' ' 
 
 The moral sense may be awakened very early. 
 The chief danger arises from its neglect until selfish 
 desires and base passions have grown strong. If 
 from childhood men were taught to follow the first 
 intimations of conscience, and honestly to obey 
 them and carry them out in action, the power of 
 conscience would grow so strong as to become the 
 controlling principle of the life. 
 
 But if conscience is to be enthroned it must be 
 
 218 
 
THE MORAI, AND RELIGIOUS KLKMKNT. 
 
 enlightened. An unenlightened conscience is a 
 blind guide. All our youth should be instructed in 
 the principles of Christian ethics. They should be 
 taught to know the right and inclined and con- 
 strained to do it. For purposes of instruction there 
 is no other instrumentality which can compare with 
 the teachings of the Bible. It is the best text-book 
 of morals. It has been provided by an authority 
 higher and wiser than boards of education or state 
 legislatures. Man's creator is its author. He knew 
 the tendencies and capabilities of human powers as 
 no man can know them, and He has given in this 
 book the instruction best adapted to produce the 
 purest and strongest character. 
 
 "How pure, how perfect are Jehovah's laws, 
 From them the soul its best instruction draws; 
 Truth, virtue, love, and wisdom they impart, 
 Light to the eyes and rapture to the heart. 
 Bright is the gloomy cavern's jeweled oar, 
 Sweet is the roving bee's collected store; 
 But what can nature, what can art bestow, 
 Like the pure words that from Jehovah flow? " 
 
 There should be no enforced use of the Bible in 
 schools, under present conditions, nor should its use 
 be prohibited by either state or local enactment. It 
 should be left, as its author has left it, entirely free. 
 The perfunctory reading of the Bible in school, by 
 a teacher who does not acknowledge its authority 
 and love its precepts, will have little influence for 
 good, if its effect be not positively pernicious. 
 More important than the Bible in school, is its 
 
 219 
 
THE TKACH^R AND HIS WORK. 
 
 spirit in the heart of the teacher. He may impress, 
 directly and indirectly, the thought of the being and 
 love of God, and the knowledge of the obligations 
 arising from our relations to Him and to each other; 
 and the pupils may receive, as an emanation from 
 the teacher's inner life and character, an elevated 
 religious spirit. Yet, in communities where no se- 
 rious opposition exists, the daily use of the Bible is 
 desirable; and my experience and observation lead 
 me to conclude that the earnest and judicious 
 teacher will rarely meet with any interference. 
 
 The general atmosphere of the school and the 
 personal influence of the teacher may be powerful 
 instruments of moral culture. The degree of faith- 
 fulness and efficiency with which school duties are 
 performed, determines in a great measure the 
 moral tone of the school. The standard which the 
 teacher fixes for himself; and the standard he re- 
 quires of his pupils in the accomplishment of the 
 work of the school, go very far toward fixing the 
 pupil's moral standard for life. The pupil who has 
 been punctual and regular in his attendance at 
 school, and prompt and thorough in the prepara- 
 tion and recitation of all his lessons for the ten or 
 twelve years of his school life, will rarely fail to be- 
 come an efficient and reliable man or woman. 
 
 The discipline of the school may be so exercised 
 as to beget in the pupils the power of self-control, 
 regard for the rights and feelings of others, and 
 hatred of deception and every form of wrong. In 
 
 220 
 
MORAI. AND REXIGIOUS 
 
 the exercise of discipline, the teacher should keep 
 constantly before his mind the highest good of his 
 pupils. With teachers of weak moral character, the 
 first question generally is, How will this or that 
 measure affect myself? What will people think? 
 or how will it affect my reputation ? But with the 
 true teacher, the great question is, How will it 
 affect the character and life of my pupils ? 
 
 The motives to which the teacher is accustomed 
 to appeal will have great influence on the character 
 of his pupils. If the motives are low and selfish, 
 the moral nature will be debased. The incentives 
 set before the young should be such as tend to 
 quicken the conscience and to develop and strengthen 
 the moral nature. There is probably no other topic 
 more fundamental and vital in education than this. 
 It demands the most thoughtful consideration of 
 parents as well as teachers. And in connection 
 with this the inner life and character of the teacher 
 is of supreme importance. It has been said in re- 
 gard to painting that "the characteristic traits of 
 the artist, despite his efforts to the contrary, find 
 their expression on the canvas." The masterpieces 
 of Rembrandt have been pronounced coarse and 
 gross, while those of his contemporary, Vandyke, 
 are invariably spoken of as the embodiment of 
 purity and refinement. These individualities are 
 noticeable in their portraits of the same persons. 
 The teacher is an artist, who, all unconsciously, it 
 may be, is constantly transferring to his pupils the 
 
 221 
 
TH& TEACHER AND HIS WORK. 
 
 lineaments of his own soul. Every teacher exerts 
 on the moral nature of his pupils an influence either 
 good or bad. A silent, unconscious influence goes 
 out from his inner life and character, which cannot 
 be measured. Some people have been so deeply 
 impressed with the thought of the great power of 
 the teacher's influence, as to conclude that all the 
 moral and religious influence of the school which is 
 of any worth, must come from the teacher's char- 
 acter and life; and that there is no need of direct 
 and formal instruction. The fact must not be over- 
 looked that the inculcation of right moral principles 
 vitalizes and increases the teacher's moral influence. 
 Precept and example are the complement of each 
 other. The Great Teacher exerted a power of per- 
 sonal influence unequaled by any other teacher of 
 our race. Yet He taught, from day to day and 
 from house to house, the principles of pure morality 
 and religion, as well as the practical duties of every- 
 day life. 
 
 The subject is one of transcendent interest and 
 importance. The gravest responsibility that now 
 rests upon the teachers of this country is the right 
 moral training of the youth of the land. Upon this 
 depends the prosperity and permanence of our free 
 institutions. 
 
 X?* 
 
 / OF THE 
 
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Home and School 
 
 A MONTHLY MAGAZINE 
 
 devoted to education in schools 
 of every grade and in the home. 
 
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 lar's worth of good in that time." fronton Register. 
 
 " One of the best papers, both for parent 
 
 and teacher, of which I have any knowledge. " 
 
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