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 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, 
 
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Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 
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The Education of Teachers 
 
 BY 
 
 W, H* PAYNE 
 
 Chancellor of the Uni'oerstty of Nashville and President of ffte 
 Peabody Norma.1 College 
 
 RICHMOND: 
 
 B. F. JOHNSON PUBLISHING CO. 
 
 )901 
 
-^\n^ 
 
 ^3 
 
 GENERAL 
 
 Copyrfght, 1 90 J, 
 By W. H. PAYNE 
 
 Ali r^hts reserotd 
 
PREFACE 
 
 It may help the reader to interpret the doctrines embodied 
 in the following essays if he has before him a brief synopsis 
 of the writer's opinions on the education of teachers. Every 
 man who has patiently studied the problems of education has 
 formed for himself, little by little, an educational creed, or 
 confession of faith ; and it is well on such an occasion as the 
 writing of a book to throw into articulate form the articles of 
 one's faith or belief as they relate to the field of thought 
 traversed by writer and reader. 
 
 Teaching is a spiritual frt and classifies with music, poetry 
 and oratory, rather than with the mechanic arts, the arts that 
 deal with matter and its fixed and uniform relations. 
 
 As teaching has to do with spirit, methods of teaching should 
 not be fixed and invariable, but flexible and fluid, adapted to 
 the modes and phases of variable spirit. In all intelligent and 
 effective teaching, principles, rather than rules, should be 
 held at a premium. Versatile teaching will draw its methods 
 from prolific principles and will reflect the personality of the 
 teacher who uses them. When methods become uniform, 
 teaching becomes mechanical and wooden. 
 
 Teachers should be educated rather than trained, education 
 pointing to versatility and freedom, training to uniformity and 
 mechanism. A teacher's education should be of the liberal 
 type. The teacher himself should first of all be a scholar in 
 spirit and attainment, and his strictly professional studies 
 should also be of the liberal type. 
 
 A teacher's strictly professional education will consist of 
 
 114947 
 
4 PREFACE 
 
 two main elements or parts, the one psychological, the other, 
 for want of a better term, logical ; he must have a knowledge 
 of mind in its organic modes of procedure while engaged in 
 the act of acquiring knowledge, and he must know the educa- 
 tion value of the different knowledges presented for acquisi- 
 tion. The teachers' art will then consist in intelligently 
 adapting means to ends, and will exhibit the play of cause 
 and effect. 
 
 The science of psychology is convertible into the art of 
 teaching only to a limited extent, many of the truths of psy- 
 chology being as remote from human control as certain truths 
 of astronomy. There is now in process of slow formation, 
 within the science of education, a science of education values. 
 So far, its previsions are mainly qualitative, but even with 
 this limitation a rational science of teaching is dependent 
 on a determination of these values. 
 
 Modern pedagogy assumes too large a difference between the 
 mind of the child and the mind of the adult. The difference 
 is in degree, rather than in kind. When the child of six 
 enters school he represents all the modes of mental activity 
 that are manifested by the adult ; and it is safer and better to 
 infer the essential elements of child mind from the known 
 elements of adult mind than to rediscover them by experiment 
 in the modern "psychological laboratory." 
 
 Education is a conservative art, and progress in this art 
 should take place by evolution rather than by revolution. 
 Perhaps the term progressive conservatism best indicates the 
 ideal attitude of the wise teacher. The tonic effect of histori- 
 cal study is conservative ; and a wholesome check to educa- 
 tional fads and vagaries would be a patient study of the 
 history of education. 
 
PREFACE 5) 
 
 Teaching is a beneficent vocation and the highest motive of 
 the teacher is the love of doing good. To be humane in spirit 
 and benevolent in act is to possess the highest qualifications 
 for the vocation oi teaching. The basis of good order and 
 wholesome discipline is the respect and affection which the 
 young have for their benefactors. 
 
 A sense of superiority and a pride of authority have often 
 alienated the student body from the teaching body, and have 
 fostered antagonisms detrimental to peace and good order. A 
 scrupulous respect for the rights and feelings of students 
 should be a first principle in the art of school management. 
 
 Ajs a school is an organization, there must be a certain 
 amount of mechanism in school administration ; but when a 
 love for the mechanical has become the prevalent spirit, the 
 higher life of the school will be destroyed. Where masses of 
 children are to be taught by a comparatively small number of 
 teachers, too much reliance is placed on the mechanics of 
 school administration, and there is many a school system, 
 highly organized as a machine, which provokes the inquiry : 
 Can these dry bones live ? 
 
 The low state of educational science is indicated by the fact 
 that writers who speak with authority have invented a fiction 
 they call Nature, and then, by a curious illusion, have pro- 
 ceeded to build on it as though it were a fact, thus confusing 
 science with mythology. 
 
 W. H. PAYNE. 
 
 W00DLA.WN, MONTEAGLE, May 15, 1901. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 I The Education of Teachers - - - 11 
 II Wholesome Culture ------- 41 
 
 III The Policy of Benevolence - - - 61 
 
 TV Teaching a Spiritual, not a Mechan- 
 ical, Art - 79 
 
 Y Teachers to be Educated, not Trained 95 
 
 VI Education According to Nature - - 115 
 
 YII A Theory of Education Yalues - - 143 
 
 YIII Equity in Examinations 187 
 
 APPENDIX 
 
 I The Universal Vocation - • 215 
 
 II A Theory of Life 249 
 
THE EDUCATION OF TEACHERS 
 
I 
 
 THE EDUCATION OF TEACHERS 
 
 The history of normal schools shows that their 
 original purpose was merely to extend the scholarship 
 of those students who intended to become teachers, 
 the theory being that fitness for teaching consisted in 
 the possession of more than the average amount of 
 learning. This had been the conception held by the 
 ancient universities, which were teachers' seminaries, 
 whose students, obliged to teach as a condition of 
 graduation, bound themselves to teach for a specified 
 time after graduation. It is easy to see how this 
 thought would naturally be transferred to the people's 
 schools at the time when the Reformation had made 
 it necessary that every child should be educated. 
 This new movement required the sudden creation of 
 an army of teachers who were to be improvised, so 
 to speak, by selecting the brighter pupils in the 
 schools and giving them a more thorough and a more 
 extended knowledge of subjects. 
 
 The next movement in normal instruction might 
 have been anticipated. It would necessarily happen 
 
12 THE EDUCATION OF TEACHERS 
 
 that teachers having good scholarship would some- 
 times fail, while other teachers, though having poorer 
 scholarship, would meet with surprising success ; and 
 it was an easy inference that method was another 
 element in a teacher's professional outfit almost co- 
 ordinate with scholarship. Pestalozzi was an illus- 
 trious example of the fact that a man of very limited 
 learning may nevertheless become a great teacher. 
 He had such sovereign confidence in method as dis- 
 tinguished from scholarship that he believed a text- 
 book constructed according to his method would 
 enable an illiterate man or woman to become a good 
 teacher. His dream was to make education universal. 
 To this end he would make of every home a school, 
 and of every mother a teacher; and to the obvious 
 objection that these mothers were too ignorant to teach, 
 he replied that, armed with his method, ignorance 
 was no bar to home instruction. Jacotot also aimed 
 at universal instruction, and in answer to the objec- 
 tion that it was not possible to supply the requisite 
 number of teachers, owing to the prevailing ignor- 
 ance, he resorted to his famous paradox : One can 
 
 TEACH WHAT HE DOES NOT KNOW. 
 
 Following what may be called the Pestalozzian 
 movement in education method became the dominant 
 
THE EDUCATION OF TEACHERS 13 
 
 feature in normal instruction, and scholarship was 
 relegated to a subordinate place. 
 
 The next movement might also have been antici- 
 pated. The brilliant success of Pestalozzi brought 
 forth a lusty crop of competitors and rivals. As it 
 was by his " method " that Pestalozzi had triumphed, 
 each contestant felt obliged to exploit his own method 
 in order to make a stand against the reigning craze, 
 just as in these latter days each ambitious educator 
 must exploit his fad in order to compete on even 
 terms with his brethren who are exploiting their fads. 
 Method was thus pitted against method, and it could 
 not fail to happen that each innovator would finally 
 be forced to defend his hobby by pleading some doc- 
 trine or principle as its basis and final justification. 
 The center of debate has thus been transferred to the 
 field of science where the final stand must be made, 
 and here the contest is waxing warmer and warmer. 
 One educator invokes the name of Spencer, another 
 of Froebel, and another of Herbart, Each is appa- 
 rently deaf to the merits of every system of educa- 
 tional philosophy save his own, holding that his 
 prophet has delivered the final message to the world. 
 
 It results from this brief historical statement that 
 experience has developed three main factors in the 
 
14 THE EDUCATION OF TEACHERS 
 
 professional education of teachers : scholarship, method 
 and doctrine. Under scholarship is included little more 
 than a thorough knowledge of the subjects included in 
 the ordinary school course. By a sort of forecast it is 
 determined what subjects a student may be called on 
 to teach ; these he is made to master with great thor- 
 oughness, and with the ever present thought that they 
 are to be the instruments of his calling, and that their 
 chief value lies in their instrumental use. The nar- 
 rowing effect of this mode of study is still further in- 
 tensified by the student's preoccupation with method. 
 Much of the working power of his mind is absorbed 
 in the effort to answer the ever recurring question : 
 **How shall I present this subject to my class?'' 
 Insistence on technique reaches its culmination in the 
 practice school when the student, in a class not his 
 own, and in the face of perfunctory critics, is made 
 to exemplify the methods that have been prescribed 
 by the teacher in charge of this branch of the pro- 
 fessional work. I am far from saying that this ques- 
 tion of method is unimportant. My only purpose in 
 this place is to show that under the conditions named 
 the attainment of real scholarship becomes impossible. 
 Perhaps liberal learning is not desirable as a qualifica- 
 tion for the teaching oflBice. That may be an open 
 
THE EDUCATION OF. TEACHERS 15 
 
 question ; but if it be considered a condition essential 
 to high success in the teacher's vocation, it must be 
 secured under different conditions. In the pursuit of 
 liberal learning, or culture proper, the mind must 
 work in an air of freedom, and must be absorbed in 
 the subject itself, and not in the utilities that it may 
 be made to serve. What Plato says of the study of 
 arithmetic is true of every study that is to enter into 
 a liberal education : * ' Not cultivating it with a view 
 to buying and selling, as merchants and shopkeepers, 
 but for purposes of war, and to facilitate the conver- 
 sion of the soul itself from the changeable to the tru« 
 and the real." 
 
 I shall now venture to speak of scholarship, method 
 and doctrine, or science, in what seems to me to be 
 the sequence of their importance, and shall try to give 
 in outline my conception of the attainments, general 
 and professional, which constitute real fitness for the 
 teaching office. 
 
 It is a flagrant misuse of the term scholarship to 
 limit its content to the branches of study included in 
 the ordinary normal school course, or even in a college 
 course. Scholarship includes spirit as well as matter, 
 an attitude of mind and disposition of soul, as well as 
 the knowledge communicated in class rooms. Many 
 
16 THE EDUCATION OF TEACHERS 
 
 a man has been graduated from college and university 
 without in any true sense becoming a scholar ; while 
 many a man has brought from the high school, and 
 even from the farm and the shop, the essential spirit 
 and some of the literary attainments of the genuine 
 scholar. In respect of knowledge, scholarship implies 
 breadth, perspective, a lifting of the intellectual hori- 
 zon, making of the man "the spectator of all time 
 and all existence " ; and in respect of spirit, it implies 
 delicacy of taste, a tempered imagination, and that 
 awakened zeal in learning which makes the man 
 ' ' curious to learn and never satisfied. ' ' The scholar 
 must advance far enough in the literary life to reach 
 that state which Macaulay calls ' ' intellectual emanci- 
 pation," that consciousness of power and that poise 
 of judgment which, in the realm of thinking, makes 
 the man ' ' a law unto himself ' ' in the formation of 
 his own opinions. A sense of mastery and power, a 
 free flight of the liberated spirit, an abiding pleasure 
 in intellectual pursuits, a conscious participation by 
 the individual in the moral life of the race, these are 
 some of the marks of the scholarly vocation. The 
 study that does not lead up to these high endowments 
 misses its supreme prerogative. It is not to be ex- 
 pected that even under the best conditions a student 
 
THE EDUCATION OF TEACHERS 17 
 
 will manifest in any full measure the spirit of the 
 scholar while his studies are in progress ; but it is to 
 be expected that the conditions under which he studies 
 should be favorable to the growth of this spirit, and 
 that as he enters more and more fully into the benefi- 
 cent school of experience, riper and more abundant 
 fruits will be gathered from the seeds of this early 
 planting. 
 
 It is very certain that students who are pursuing 
 their studies under the galling stress of official and 
 officious criticism, and are constrained to ask at each 
 step of their progress, ' ' what utility can I draw out 
 of this, ' ' are working under conditions that are hostile 
 to the rise and growth of the scholarly spirit. An 
 atmosphere of freedom should pervade every school. 
 Every course of study, however elementary, should be 
 liberal in its spirit and purpose. Studies should be 
 learned for their own sake, and not with reference to 
 the utilities that they may be made to serve; for 
 "they teach not their own use, but that is a wisdom 
 without them and above them, won by observation." 
 The more perfect tlie form and manner in which a 
 study is learned, the greater will be its utilities when 
 experience calls for them ; and it is no paradox to say 
 that this form and manner will be most perfect when 
 
18 THE EDUCATION OF TEACHERS 
 
 the study is learned without the least reference to its 
 future utilities. A divine admonition warns us against 
 disquieting ourselves concerning the three great wants 
 of the physical life — food, drink and raiment, and 
 directs us first of all to make sure of that which 
 includes them all, the Kingdom of God, that perfect 
 state of soul which is righteousness and peace and joy. 
 This sharp insistence on the technical and the prac- 
 «/ tical, which I think has wrought such harm in the 
 
 education of teachers, has resulted from a false con- 
 ception of the teacher's ai*t, which degrades it into 
 a handicraft or trade with rules as rigid as those of 
 the mason and the carpenter. Teaching is a spiritual 
 act or art in which mind comes into mysterious and 
 quickening contact with mind, soul with soul, heart 
 with heart, life with life. Analogies drawn from our 
 dealings with matter utterly fail us when we come to 
 deal with spirit. We are not dealing with uniform 
 material and fixed dimensions, but with all the varia- 
 tions and diversities of impalpable spirit. The pro- 
 ducts of our art are not uniform, but multiform, and 
 our processes must needs be so variable that we cannot 
 follow rules, but^ must be guided by principles. We 
 are not working in that sphere of activity where two 
 times two is four, but where two times two is often 
 
THE EDUCATION OF TEACHERS 19 
 
 ten. In its highest aspect, teaching is a process of 
 provocation, or induction, whereby a free and impress- 
 ible spirit takes on moral and scholarly qualities by 
 near presence to a soul highly charged with moral and 
 scholarly qualities. "What better advice can be given 
 to a teacher than this : ' 'Become addicted to the schol- 
 arly vocation imtil you are possessed by the scholarly 
 spirit ; charge yourself highly mth benevolence, and 
 be kindly affectioned towards^ those whom you would 
 guide and teach ; make large investments in yourself, 
 to the end that you may become * noble and gracious, 
 the friend of truth, justice, courage, temperance?' " 
 
 The studies whose special value lies in the fact 
 that they are catholic, or breadth-giving, are geogra- 
 phy, history and literature; hence the teacher who 
 would endow himself with a proper frame or attitude 
 of mind should addict himself in an especial manner 
 to these three subjects. 
 
 In geography the central thought is the fact that 
 the earth is the home or dwelling place of the human 
 race. From this point of view geography becomes a 
 humane or culture subject of the first quality, and the 
 effect of this study is to make the student cosmopolitan 
 and catholic, tolerant and beneficent. 
 
 The charm and value of history lie in its delinea- 
 
20 THE EDUCATION OF TEACHERS 
 
 tions of national life, its record of the struggles en- 
 dured by the race and the steps taken in its upward 
 and onward progress. In its pages we witness the 
 slow and painful evolution of human liberty and the 
 gradual development of the moral and intellectual 
 life. Seeing the struggles and sorrows of the race, 
 we are brought into sympathetic relations with the 
 human family and are prepared to do service towards 
 the betterment of the world. 
 
 Literature brings us into special and intimate rela- 
 tions with the very heart, mind and life of the race 
 through its choicest spirits and noblest representatives. 
 The highest attainments of the race in thought and 
 feeling, its highest, purest aspirations and ideals be- 
 come our heritage and endowment through the reading 
 and mastery of good books. Yirtue becomes capitalized 
 in the literature of the race, so that in the moral life 
 we may start with the attainments made by the better 
 spirits of our age. These three humane studies give 
 us poise, vision, and tempered zeal, and so prepare us 
 to deal intelligently with the problems of human 
 education. 
 
 The best defence for the general study of the phy- 
 sical sciences is not their practical utility which ac- 
 crues to the race through specialists ; but their culture 
 
THE EDUCATION OF TEACHERS 21^ 
 
 value, as they enable the mind to interpret the cosmos, 
 to unravel the mysteries of our physical environment. 
 As they deal with matter and not with life, and par- 
 ticularly not with human life, they cannot be classed 
 with geography, history and literature as humane 
 studies; but as they deal with general causes and 
 reach large generalizations they give the mind a firm 
 grasp on details, explain phenomena and make the 
 cosmos intelligible. Their study greatly increases the 
 comprehensive power of the hmnan mind and gives a 
 comfortable sense of mastery over infinite details. For 
 the great mass of men these studies serve, not for 
 ability, but for delight. We need to know astronomy, 
 not that we may draw utilities from the stars, but that 
 we may be made worshipful and reverent. 
 
 The biological sciences have the same defense. 
 Human physiology, seemingly the most practical of 
 them all, is best defended on the ground that it ex- 
 plains the curious mechanism of the living human 
 body. Save in the limited domain of hygiene, a 
 knowledge of physiology is only indirectly useful to 
 the mass of men. In the main there is the same 
 reason for knowing the structure of the human body 
 as for knowing the structure of a steam engine ; the 
 knowledge resolves a mystery : — we can comprehend 
 
22 THE EDUCATION OF TEACHERS 
 
 a wonderful piece of mechanism. It is a debatable 
 question whether, on the whole, a knowledge of phy- 
 siology is conducive to the health and happiness of the 
 laity. If we could tamper with the mind as we can 
 with the body, who can doubt that a knowledge of 
 psychology might be harmful rather than helpful? 
 Whether a physician's knowledge of his own body is 
 conducive to his health and happiness is doubtful; 
 indeed the contrary may be maintained with much 
 show of reason. 
 
 The teacher's interest in psychology is twofold It 
 is a prime culture subject in the sense that it enables 
 him to comprehend the world within, the world of 
 spirit ; and its main principles are readily convertible 
 into rules for guidance, teaching being in the main an 
 applied psychology, just as medicine is an applied 
 physiology. To serve these purposes in a high degree 
 psychology should be a positive science, dealing with 
 the actual facts of the spiritual life, and not a specu- 
 lative science dealing with mere hypothesis and cloth- 
 ing the treatment in congenial obscurity. It should 
 represent in a natural sequence the series of processes 
 through which the mind passes while engaged in the 
 art of learning; motive, will, attention, acquisition, 
 retention, representation and elaboration. Studied 
 
THE EDUCATION OF TEACHERS 23 
 
 from this point of view, psychology has the same con- 
 crete, attractive interest for the teacher that physiology 
 has for the physician. The main facts and laws of 
 the spiritual life are as plain and as easy of compre- 
 hension as the main facts and laws of the physical 
 life. 
 
 The teacher should aspire to know something about 
 art, if not in the way of execution, at least in the way 
 of appreciation ; just as he may be addicted to poetry 
 and music without being either a poet or a musician. 
 From the noble creations of architecture, sculpture 
 and painting, he should find contemplative delight 
 and refreshment of spirit, and gain delicacy of taste 
 and some power of aesthetic discernment. Such ex- 
 travagance of beauty as there is in the world of form 
 and color is not without some high purpose and should 
 not fail to yield some high uses. To this end there 
 must be some development and training of the aes- 
 thetic sense, which is the mission of art. Alike in 
 literature and in art the aim of the student should not 
 be criticism, but appreciation. To pose as a critic 
 before the masterpieces of literature, architecture, 
 sculpture and painting is ridiculous. The only be- 
 coming attitude for the mass of intelligent men is 
 appreciation, enjoyment. "What a sorry business to 
 
24 THE EDUCATION OF TEACHERS 
 
 sit in judgment on Wordsworth, Wren, Canova, and 
 Turner ! But what a privilege and delight to enter 
 somewhat into the beautiful world which these masters 
 have created for us ! 
 
 Under scholarship there should be included a knowl- 
 edge of what we may call the major educational classics 
 of the world. It is almost a liberal education to be 
 well versed in this literature ; for it is literature in the 
 best sense of the term which De Quincey calls ' ' the 
 literature of power. ' ' Much of the so called educa- 
 tional literature of these days is not of this rank, but 
 would, by comparison, classify more appropriately 
 with cookbooks and gazetteers. 
 
 It is hardly possible to overestimate the value of the 
 history of education. In all ages of the world the 
 wisest and the best men of their time have devoted 
 themselves to the betterment of the race through pro- 
 cesses and systems of education, and the record of 
 these great humane movements, showing how the art 
 of education has been perfected through successive 
 failures and successes, is certainly the most instructive 
 page of human history. The great need of teachers 
 is vision, broad and accurate ; a discriminating outlook 
 upon the drama of existence as it portrays the strug- 
 gles of the race upwards towards the light. Each 
 
THE EDUCATION OF TEACHERS 25 
 
 age of the world iias verified Plato's Allegory of the 
 Cavern. The race has been saved by a remnant, but 
 the consoling fact is that this remnant has grown 
 steadily larger, and we may hope that finally aU men 
 will turn their faces to the light, and that the cavern 
 of ignorance and bigotry will become tenantless. A 
 just historical perspective will make us optimistic, will 
 give us poise, will make us courageous, and will arm 
 OS with the moral power and resolution of the race. 
 In one of his moments of inspiration Rousseau ex- 
 claimed, '^ A teacher! What a noble soul he ought 
 to be ! " To teachers of this sort, to teachers worthy 
 of the name, the kindly light coming from the history 
 of education is worth a whole library of ' * devices. ' ' 
 Rightly conceived and rightly taught, this is a culture 
 subject of the highest type, while at the same time its 
 practical bearings are of hourly value. A certain 
 style of school building, once in vogue, was con- 
 demned and abandoned fifty years ago by the wisest 
 school men of the country; but strange to say this 
 abandoned plan is still copied in expensive structures 
 to the discomfort of pupils and the waste of public 
 funds. Without a knowledge of the successes and 
 failures in school administration, it is easy to miss 
 what is best in current practice, and quite possible to 
 
 u-^ 
 
26 THE EDUCATION OF TEACHERS 
 
 rediscover abandoned systems and methods. A con^ 
 stitutional cure for fads would be the historical spec- 
 tacle of the wrecks and ruins thickly strewn along the 
 path of educational experiment ; for all along the ages 
 education has been experimental science, and what 
 remains in the best current practice is the survival of 
 the fittest, the small residue out of many ambitious 
 systems and projects. When one becomes enamored 
 of a fad, it would be a wholesome caution to recall 
 De "Witt Clinton's premature apotheosis of Lancaster 
 and Bell. Both for culture and for guidance, a 
 teacher should be ' ' the spectator of all time ' ' in the 
 field of educational history. 
 
 In respect of scholarship in the narrower sense of 
 the term, in a knowledge of the subjects to be taught, 
 the normal schools supported by the State have always 
 been true to the best traditions. They have uniformly 
 aimed at thoroughness and have never disgraced sound 
 learning by a profitable resort to expeditious methods. 
 
 No risk is incurred in declaring that in the high and 
 legitimate sense of the term the college and the uni- 
 versity of the future will be of the normal type ; that 
 is, their avowed purpose will be to educate men and 
 women, not to be mainly useful to themselves and 
 their families by the gathering of wealth and renown, 
 
THE EDUCATION OF TEACHERS 2T 
 
 but to become living factors in the education of the 
 race. Education is becoming more and more an ethnic 
 problem ; the conception is growing that the supreme 
 aim of living in this world is the perfection of the 
 race; that in an active and real sense all men and 
 women must become educators; and that the main 
 and particular purpose of the higher institutions of 
 learning is to prepare students for the work of elevat- 
 ing and perfecting the race. Perhaps in an uncon- 
 scious way the universities of the age are now moving 
 towards this larger conception. The chairs of educa- 
 tion established in so many of them serve a high pur- 
 pose for the general student, as well as a special 
 purpose for the student who expects to teach. It will 
 ultimately appear that their largest following will be 
 from students who are in quest of a liberal education. 
 In other words, it can hardly be doubted that the uni- 
 versity of the future will be modeled after the con- 
 ception so happily expressed by Herbert Spencer: 
 ''The subject which involves all other subjects^ and 
 therefore the subject in which the education of eoery 
 one should culminate^ is the Theory a/nd Practice of 
 Education y 
 
 It will be the aim of the student, through religion, 
 through history, through literature, through science, 
 
28 THE EDUCATION OF TEACHERS 
 
 to epitomize and embody in himself the net attain- 
 ments of the race in virtue, in discipline, in learning, 
 in culture, and all to the end that he may be an agent 
 in the education and perfection of human society. 
 The golden age of the world is to be the age that is 
 most wisely and wholly devoted to the betterment of 
 humanity ; in that age all men and all women will be 
 either teachers or educators, and all schools will be 
 avowedly normal in spirit and purpose. 
 
 ' 'And the law giver will appoint guardians : some 
 who walk by intelligence, and others by true opinion 
 only." In this quotation Plato marks the distinction 
 between guidance that proceeds from the interpreta- 
 tion of a principle, and guidance that proceeds from 
 the application of a rule. As teaching has to do with 
 spirit, and as spirit is multiform in the modes of its 
 operation, education is a free or liberal art whose 
 practice requires that versatility which springs from a 
 broad intelligence and from a comprehensive knowl- 
 edge of general principles. It cannot be too often 
 repeated that teaching bears no likeness to the me- 
 chanic arts where rigid rules and exact measurements 
 are required. It is even doubtful whether procedure 
 by fixed rule is ever permissible in real teaching. 
 

 THE EDUCATION OF 
 
 tiSACHJERS^ 29 
 
 In our dealings with spirit all analogies drawn from 
 the manipulations of matter are full of mischief. 
 
 In all the arts that deal with the imponderable, the 
 free or liberal arts, procedure by fixed rule is impossi- 
 ble ; the utmost and the best that can be done in the way 
 of preparation for the practice of these arts is a clear 
 comprehension of general principles. A school that 
 should propose to teach the art of statesmanship 
 would be laughed out of existence in a month. 
 Neither journalism, oratory, nor literature, can be 
 taught as an art, as a system of processes. Each man 
 must construct his own art out of his fund of intelli- 
 gence and out of the special requirements of time, 
 place, and circumstance. In medicine, no one but a 
 quack follows a fixed rule of practice. In his college 
 the physician learns the science of medicine and out 
 of general principles he draws his art, in each case 
 modifying his practice to suit temperament, age and 
 sex. He will have as many arts as he has patients. 
 In the practice of the law the same thing is true. In 
 the law school the student learns a science, and when 
 he comes to practice he will have as many arts as he 
 has cases. In the practice of teaching the relation of 
 art to science is the same as in the instances just cited. 
 In his professional school the teacher should learn a 
 
30 THE EDUCATION OF TEACHERS 
 
 science, out of which, on the occasion of experience, 
 he should construct his art. The texture and character 
 of this art will depend on the net personality of the 
 teacher, on the quality of the science he has learned, 
 on the character and disposition of his pupils, and even 
 on the environment of his school ; so that there will 
 be as many arts of teaching as there are teachers, even 
 as many as there are pupils. 
 
 Whether a science can be turned into a successful art 
 will of course depend in the main on the intelligence 
 of the teacher. Some men cannot learn a science, 
 and some men, having learned a science, are incompe- 
 tent to convert it into an art. We may suppose that 
 many teachers stand in this case. What are they to 
 do? Manifestly if one is stupid and must teach, he 
 will do better with rules than he could do without 
 them ; but such a man has mistaken his calling ; he 
 should be drawing water or hewing wood. A turn 
 of the political wheel may put a stupid man in a posi- 
 tion where statesmanship is required, and if he must 
 act, it will be better for him to follow a blind rule 
 than to follow his mere caprices or guesses ; but such 
 a man has no call to play at statesmanship ; he should 
 follow some vocation compatible with his stupidity. 
 
 In order to be readily convertible into an art, a 
 
THE EDUCATION OF TEACHERS 31 
 
 science should not be composed of ultimate principles, 
 but of wbat logicians call axiomata media^ or middle 
 principles, that stand between the broadest generaliza- 
 tion and the narrower empirical rules. To say that 
 education is life may in some occult or metaphysical 
 sense be true, but it is a formula so void of meaning, 
 so remote from experience, that it is a mere philo- 
 sophic or poetic ornament ; it can be converted into 
 no utility. Psychology readily shades off into meta- 
 physics, or the search for ultimate causes, and finally 
 loses itself in that region of obscurity which is so con- 
 genial to speculative minds. When psychology has 
 reached that state it is worthless for a teacher's use. 
 As a teacher must himself be sane, his science must 
 be sane also. Muddiness is often mifitaken for depth. 
 A statement may be profound, yet clear. Any state- 
 ment that is not clear, that cannot be interpreted by 
 the intelligence, should be cancelled from the teacher's 
 science. 
 
 Education is a derived or composite science drawing 
 its matter chiefly from religion, ethics, sociology, psy- 
 chology and logic. Teaching, for the most part, is 
 an applied psychology and logic, but education derives 
 its inspiration and aim from the other sciences named. 
 In one very important department, as yet without a 
 
32 THE EDUCATION OF TEACHERS 
 
 name, the science of education has matter all its own, 
 matter not derived from any other science. It is that 
 department which discusses and determines the educa- 
 tion value of studies. The discussion of these values 
 is as old as Plato's philosophy and as new as Herbert 
 Spencer's, while between come contributions from 
 Kabelais, Montaigne, Locke, Bacon, Hamilton, Whe- 
 weD, and Bain. Ultimately we shall have within the 
 great science itself a science of values, a sort of materia 
 medica of the teaching art, and until this step has been 
 taken it is difficult to see how any further rational pro- 
 gress can be made in the art of human education. It 
 is just as important for a teacher to know the education 
 value of literature as for a physician to know the thera- 
 peutic value of quinine. Under the conception that 
 education is a process of growth taking place through 
 nurture and exercise, studies become foods and disci- 
 plines, and to prescribe them wisely one needs to know 
 their several values. 
 
 Method may be defined as a mode of procedure 
 based on some principle or law. Divorced from the 
 principle which justifies it, a method becomes a rule, 
 and rules are the bane of teaching. This statement 
 will make clear the objection that has been urged 
 against the practice current in many normal schools of 
 
THE EDUCATION OF TEACHERS 33 
 
 making the main part of its professional instruction 
 consist of methods and devices to the neglect of schol- 
 arship and science. Freedom, versatility, variety, 
 adaptation, are pedagogic virtues of the first order ; 
 but there is no freedom in mere method, in method 
 isolated from the principle that underlies it. Freedom 
 is to be found in some large truth, in some principle 
 that includes many instances and so suggests many 
 applications. The science of mechanics comprises 
 only one or two general principles, but these princi- 
 ples include an infinite number of instances and so 
 admit of a countless number of applications. It has 
 been well said that nothing is so uniform as ignorance. 
 The uniformities of rule invariably lead to routine, 
 and routine destroys the life of teaching. The only 
 uniformity that can be desired in method is typical 
 uniformity, that is, likeness to a type or class, and not 
 to an individual of a class. The general principle that 
 perception begins with masses and then descends to 
 parts, gives rise to that method in reading which pre- 
 sents words before letters, or sentences before words ; 
 but twenty good teachers of reading may follow this 
 general principle and each may introduce into her 
 practice some modification or variety that will make 
 twenty methods in the aggregate, but they will all be 
 
34 THE EDUCATION OF TEACHERS 
 
 correct methods because they all conform to one ra- 
 tional type. In a company of ladies there may be a 
 hundred costumes, each reflecting the taste and per- 
 sonality of the individual wearer, but all conforming 
 to one type or style. Even so every real teacher will 
 introduce into her methods something of her own per- 
 sonality, but at the same time they will agree in type 
 with the methods of other teachers who follow the 
 same general principle. 
 
 Whether a teacher's methods shall be inspiring and 
 creative, or obstructive and deadening, will depend 
 on whether, to borrow Carlyle's imagery, he is a live 
 coal, or a dead cinder ; and it is necessary to be kept 
 in mind that in some way a student must be trans- 
 formed into a quickening spirit before he can become 
 a real teacher. In a school devoted to the education 
 of teachers there must be a prevalent spirit provoca- 
 tive of high moral aims, devotion to duty and love 
 of the scholarly vocation. This spirit should be so 
 prevalent and so tonic as to form the vital breath of 
 every learner; it should proceed, not from one in- 
 structor, but from all ; and it should be so effective 
 that it can be felt as a living, vitalizing power where- 
 ever students congregate — in chapel, in classrooms, in 
 lecture halls, in art rooms, in library, everywhere. 
 
THE EDUCATION OF TEACHERS 35 
 
 By virtue of this indefinable but real spirit some 
 schools predispose their students to scholarly habits, to 
 sobriety and refinement of manners, to beneficent pur- 
 poses, to noble ambitions ; and this spiritual tuition is 
 infinitely better than mere drill, learning, or method, 
 and must certainly acaompany them if education is to 
 be a transforming and perfecting power. If the term 
 enthusiasm had not lost its primitive and noble mean- 
 ing it might sufiice to say that all real teaching must 
 be pervaded by enthusiasm ; but it is now better to 
 say that all real teachers must be inspired, in the same 
 sense that biblical teachers and prophets were inspired ; 
 that education will fall sadly short of its transforming 
 and creative power unless it is accompanied by a cer- 
 taiu noble ardor and elevation of spirit, unless it affects 
 the noble passions and emotions of the learner. Edu- 
 cation is shorn of more than half its power when it is 
 addressed to the head to the exclusion of the heart. 
 An educated man is not a mere intellectual gymnast 
 with a large endowment of solid learning, but a man 
 whose emotional and intellectual powers have been 
 duly trained and brought into just equipoise ; a man 
 who can not only think, reason and discern, but can 
 love, admire and worship ; who can recognize beauty 
 as well as truth, whose highest motives are feelings 
 
36 THE EDUCATION OF TEACHERS 
 
 tempered with reason. It is in such an atmosphere as 
 this that a teacher should be educated. Nothing less 
 stimulating will serve the noble purpose of his calling. 
 
 In the way of facilities for instruction in science, 
 literature and art, the best is not good enough for a 
 school whose high mission is the education of teachers. 
 A good laboratory, a good library and a good art gal- 
 lery should therefore be thought indispensable adjuncts 
 to a normal school. The world of matter is to be 
 interpreted, the world of letters is to renew the moral 
 life, the world of beauty is to be revealed and ad- 
 mired, and unless these three worlds make large con 
 tributions to the teacher's equipment he has not made 
 the investments which become his high office. 
 
 "While, through delicacy of feeling and breadth of 
 intellectual vision, a teacher should be responsive to 
 the spirit of his age, he should be wisely conservative 
 in his opinions and policy. In no other department 
 of human activity should the maxim nihil per saltum 
 be so rigorously construed. Both as a process and a 
 policy education is a growth, and the margin between 
 the work of today and the attempt of to-morrow 
 should be a narrow one. What we now have in theory 
 and practice is the net product of the best thought 
 and truest effort of the psist \ that it is radically wrong 
 
THE EDUCATION C TEACHERS 37 
 
 is inconceivable. Education should be progressive, but 
 this progress should be along historical lines. The 
 future should be a logical evolution out of the past 
 and the present. In this domain revolution is treason. 
 To be swayed about by every wind of doctrine is the 
 mark of an unsound mind. To be absorbed in new 
 and doubtful experiments is to betray a sacred trust. 
 Innocent children should be shielded from the experi- 
 ments of callow teachers who would use them as 
 material for their ' ' laboratories. " It is appalling to 
 think that the normal schools of the country should 
 send out into society relays of half educated teachers 
 devoted to the exploitation of fads, and bent on revo- 
 lution under the name of progress. The policy of 
 such schools should be a progressive conservatism. 
 They should encourage a hearty respect for the past 
 and its legacies, and should at the same time create an 
 aspiration for a better future. ' 'All the centuries of a 
 nation are the leaves of one and the same book. The 
 true men of progress are they who have for point 
 of departure a profound respect for the past. All 
 that we do, all that we are, is the outcome of secular 
 toil."* 
 
 The moral world is passing through a process of 
 
 *Renan, Souvenirs, XXILXXIIL 
 
38 THE EDUCATION OF TEACHERS 
 
 peaceful transformation which is to end, we may 
 believe, in a state of society that is perfect in its kind. 
 This process of transformation is education in its 
 catholic and proper sense. Those who are charged 
 with this supreme mission are the world's teachers; 
 to be fit for this high service their own education 
 must be catholic, wholesome and conservative. 
 
WHOLESOME CULTURE 
 
II 
 
 WHOLESOME CULTUEE 
 
 I FIND a fitting introduction to whai I wish to say 
 in this chapter, in the following quotation from an 
 editorial in the New York Tribune^ on the then re- 
 cent death of Professor Lincoln, of Brown University : 
 
 * * Professor Lincoln, who was buried in Providence 
 yesterday, after half a century of active service in 
 Brown University, received during his closing years 
 a unique testimonial of the affection and respect of his 
 pupils. A fund of $100,000 was raised by the alumni 
 of the college, from which he was to draw an annuity 
 while he lived, and which was to be a standing memo- 
 rial of his work. It was a remarkable tribute paid to 
 one of the really great educators of New England, 
 and attested the personal appreciation of a large body 
 of students who had drawn inspiration from his no- 
 bility of character, liis devotion to good letters and 
 his thoroughness and enlightened methods as a teacher. 
 Many college professors there are who do faithful work 
 in their time, and here and there will be one whose 
 memory will be perpetuated after death by the endow- 
 
42 WHOLESOME CULTURE 
 
 ment of a new chair, or the naming of an additional 
 building on the campus ; but it is almost an unprece- 
 dented thing for a body of alumni representing the 
 graduating classes of fifty years to unite with enthusi- 
 asm in providing the memorial in the honored old age 
 of the teacher. 
 
 ' ' The glory of the medigeval universities was trans- 
 sitory, their reputation and popularity depending upon 
 great teachers who rallied throngs of students around 
 them. One man would make a school of learning 
 famous, and while he lived and taught, the lecture 
 halls would be crowded with sympathetic youths 
 touched by the fire of his earnestness. "When lie died 
 the university would languish and a rival school with 
 another great teacher would draw upon its resources. 
 Modern colleges are educational machines with too 
 many cogs and wheels to receive the impulse of a 
 single will. One man cannot now make a university 
 as in mediaeval times ; but an educator of noble im- 
 pulses and an overmastering love of what is immortal 
 in literature can still be a tremendous force in mflu- 
 encing the labors of colleagues and in directing and 
 quickening the aspirations of students. What Arnold 
 was at Rugby, Lincoln was at Brown, during his lialf- 
 century of laborious service. Every associate in ad- 
 
WHOLESOME CULTURE 43 
 
 joining class rooms felt the stimulus of his enthusiasm 
 for study, and was sobered by his sense of responsi- 
 bility in training young men for useful work in the 
 world. Every student breathed in his lecture room a 
 higher atmosphere than could be found anywhere else. 
 There was no force in the old college of Roger Wil- 
 liams' state so ennobling and so invigorating as the 
 example and influence of this warm-hearted and full- 
 minded Latin professor. 
 
 * ' Educators, as the world grows older, seem to ac- 
 quire technique and finish without gaining creative or 
 informing power. There is perfection of system and 
 elaboration of method, but how rare it is to find in 
 school or in college, teachers of the type of Arnold 
 and Lincoln endowed with the incomparable gift of 
 inspiring enthusiasm for learning and good letters! 
 To read Horace's ' ' Ars Poetica" or Goethe's ''Faust" 
 under Lincoln was something more than to master the 
 grammatical difliculties of a language. It was, in 
 Byron's phrase, ''to feel, not understand the lyric 
 flow," to study not the mechanism, but the spirit of a 
 literature, and to be conscious of coming into close 
 communion with intellectual genius. The graduates 
 of the classes in University Hall may have forgotten 
 their rules of Latin syntax and prosody and have mis- 
 
44 THE EDUCATION OF TEACHERS 
 
 laid their German accent; but whatever ardor they 
 may retain for orderly processes of study or whatever 
 love they may have for what is ennobling in literature, 
 bears the impress of the hand and heart of Lincoln." 
 
 What I admire in this quotation is the thought that 
 the powpr of a teacher lies in his worth as a man 
 rather than in his skill as a drillmaster, and that his 
 title to a grateful remembrance will at last be found 
 in those services which were inspired by sympathy and 
 affection, rather than in the conscious additions which 
 have been made to the pupil's knowledge. At least 
 the half, and perhaps the better half, of education 
 consists in the formation of right feelings. The great 
 mobiles to action are the emotions. He who teaches 
 us to look out upon the world through eyes of affec- 
 tion, sympathy, charity and good will, has done more 
 for us and for society than he who may have taught 
 us the seven liberal arts. Good teaching, like good 
 preaching or good oratory, must be persuasive. It 
 not only sets forth truth in a clearer light, but will 
 invest truth with a warm halo of feeling. 
 
 The school should be strong in the affections of its 
 students. After they have left it their thoughts ought 
 to turn back to the scenes of their school life, to places, 
 persons and associations, with that fondness, affection, 
 
WHOLESOME CULTURE 45 
 
 and reverence which children ever feel for the homes 
 
 of their childhood. The jonng Alexander loved 
 Philip, his father, but Aristotle, his teacher, was even 
 dearer to him. The most affecting incident in ' ' Tom 
 Brown at Rugby" is the boy's return to the old 
 Chapel, and there alone and in silence, his heart heav- 
 ing with emotion, kneeling at the tomb of the beloved 
 Doctor. The attachments which a student feels for 
 his Alma Mater are emotional, not intellectual ; they 
 relate, not to what he has learned, but to what he has 
 felt. I have seen gray-haired men return to their 
 university after years of absence ; but the places they 
 visited, the places to which they are attached, are not 
 the lecture rooms, but the old trees under whose shade 
 they once lounged and chatted, and the playgrounds 
 which once witnessed the friendly ardor of their 
 boyish encounters; and the names which they most 
 fondly call up are not those of their drillmasters but 
 of those whom they learned to love for their good 
 offices and amiable qualities. The heart of Mary 
 Lyon has immortalized Mount Holyoke, and to-day 
 her beautiful spirit is reflected from the faces of 
 thousands who are reproducing her devotion and 
 good works. At intervals during my professional life 
 I have met gray-haired men and women who were 
 
4:6 THE EDUCATION OF TEACHERS 
 
 students of the Albany E^ormal School in the days of 
 its greatest glory, and in the heart of each there was 
 a shrine sacred to the memory of David Page, and the 
 immortality of this great teacher is due, not to his 
 intellect, great as it was, and not to his methods, good 
 as they were, but to the humanity, to the heart, that 
 was in him. The world is to be redeemed, not by 
 change of intellect, but by change of heart ; the real 
 leaven of society is charity and good will, not logic, 
 not even liberty and justice. If students are to put 
 this better spirit into the world they must put it into 
 their work ; if it goes into their work it must come 
 from their lives, and their lives must borrow it from 
 other lives that have been touched and transformed 
 by it. 
 
 We have all heard music that was wonderful in 
 technique, but void of soul. It exhibited the com- 
 pass and power of the instrument, and the trained 
 deftness of eye and finger, but as it did not proceed 
 from the heart it did not touch the heart. It was not 
 music, but noise scientifically and laboriously produced. 
 The intellect, while ' ' a cold logical engine, ' ' may dis- 
 cover truth, but only an intellect warmed by the heart 
 can make truth lovable and therefore persuasive and 
 conquering. There is something to admire in the cold 
 
WHOLESOME CULTURE 47 
 
 exactness with which truth is proclaimed from the ros- 
 trum, but if this truth is not mixed in due proportion 
 with feeling, there can be no real oratory, for there 
 can be no persuasion. 
 
 Goldsmith described the good village preacher as 
 one who ''lured to brighter worlds and led the way" ; 
 with scarcely a turn in the thought this is a happy de- 
 scription of the good teacher. It was Plato who said 
 that " we do not readily learn from a teacher whom 
 we do not love ' ' ; and it is certain that all the great 
 teachers of the world have been men of humane 
 instincts, of warm sympathies and ardent affections, 
 and have owed their immortality quite as much to a 
 responsive heart as to a sound head. It is a sad day 
 for education when the belief prevails that it is only 
 the head which should enter into the service of the 
 teacher, and that a deep emotional nature is a source 
 of weakness rather than of strength. Other things 
 being equal, he is the best teacher to whom pupils 
 most readily turn for consolation and direction in 
 sorrow or misfortune. There is something gravely 
 wrong in that teacher, whether man or woman, who 
 gains no other feeling in his pupil's heart than mere 
 respect. 
 
 The tendency of professional life is to break men 
 
 ^ 
 
 »U 
 
48 THE EDUCATION OF TEACHERS 
 
 up into fragments, to employ one set of faculties or 
 activities while suffering the unused members to lan- 
 guish or perish, and thus to mar the original whole- 
 ness of our nature and so rob our service of its normal 
 quality. It should be the whole man who preaches, 
 teaches, pleads, plows, spins, or sings, and we sin 
 against our better nature and powers when we allow 
 any form of specialization to destroy, or even mar, 
 the beautiful wholeness or wholesomeness of our origi- 
 nal creation. 
 
 All who are engaged in school work may profitably 
 reflect on the dangers of specialization, for the direct 
 tendency is to exalt the instrument at the expense of 
 the man. ' ' Who is that gentleman yonder ? ' ' said 
 a traveler to a stranger whom he met on the highway. 
 ''That, sir, is not a gentleman," said the stranger, 
 ' ' but a grammarian, and I am a logician. ' ' 
 
 Nothing more is intended in these remarks than to 
 point out the dangers that beset every man who be- 
 comes addicted to a special pursuit or to a special 
 study. Every profession, trade, or calling is narrow- 
 ing in its tendency and will infallibly dwarf the man 
 who follows it unless he finds relief in some breadth- 
 giving pursuit that is alien to his special vocation. A 
 sinister consequence of this tendency when not thus 
 
WHOLESOME CULTURE 49 
 
 checked is to betray us into false judgments concerning 
 other pursuits and other branches of learning. We 
 must all specialize our pursuits by the intensity of our 
 devotion to them, but in some way we must make 
 ourselves so catholic in our sympathies that we shall 
 be able to give a hearty welcome to the favorite pur 
 suits of other men. One of my venerated colleagues 
 in the University of Michigan was an acute metaphy- 
 sician. While in his library one morning I observed 
 that among his books were the latest and best treatises 
 on physics and biology. When I expressed surprise 
 at this anomaly, his quick response was: ''Do you 
 imagine that I am content to be merely a dried up 
 metaphysician?" He had learned the happy art of 
 reconciling breadth with depth. 
 
 As the school proposes to train men and women — 
 gentlemen and ladies — rather than grammarians and 
 logicians, it is of the first importance that those who 
 teach should be men and women in this catholic and 
 wholesome sense. I feel sure that my words will not 
 be misconstrued when I say that a teacher's usefulness 
 diminishes in proportion as he sinks into a mere spe- 
 cialist, but that the prime quality of an instructor is 
 breadth of intellectual vision and of scholarly attain- 
 ments. I have mingled somewhat with college men 
 
 4 
 
60 THE EDUCATION OF TEACHERS 
 
 and have been an observer of their opinions and ways, 
 but I have only very rarely seen a specialist who had 
 any respect for any specialty save his own. In the 
 main most college fends and jealousies have their 
 origin in this narrowing of the intellectual perspective, 
 in this contraction of the intellectual horizon ; and so 
 it has come to pass that seats of liberal learning are 
 sometimes occupied by men of the most illiberal spirit. 
 
 I have spoken of the extension of our sympathies 
 to subjects and pursuits different from and perhaps 
 remote from our own as a necessary condition for high 
 service in a school ; and I now wish to speak approv- 
 ingly of another extension of sympathy and aims which 
 is even more important. My acquaintance with col- 
 leges and college men has led me to another observa- 
 tion — that in many cases the instructor's interest in the 
 pupil ceases the moment the recitation period is over ; 
 that the instances are rare in which students think of 
 their teachers in any other light than that of drill- 
 masters ; and that it is only in exceptional cases that 
 they are held in afiectionate and grateful remembrance 
 as friends, advisers and guides. I believe that this is 
 the highest standard by which a school or teacher can 
 be tried. 
 
 It is well to recollect that a student does not present 
 
WHOLESOME CULTURE 61 
 
 himself to his several instructors in fractions, bringing 
 the logical faculty into one class room, the aesthetic 
 into another, the reminiscent into a third, etc., but 
 that all the powers of the mind are present and in 
 waiting, and that it is but the semblance of teaching 
 which addresses itself to but one mode of mental ac- 
 tivitj. It is perhaps even more important to remem- 
 ber that the student brings with him his susceptibility 
 of feeling as well as his capacity for thinking — that 
 he can be hurt by harshness and unkindness, and 
 helped by courtesy and gentle speech. The root and 
 basis of character is in the heart, in the depths of the 
 sensative and emotional nature ; hence there is no such 
 thing as character-building in teaching which does not 
 address itself to the heart as well as to the head. 
 
 It is a mistaken uotion that there is something pro- 
 fessional in an icy dignity, in rude speech, in uncouth 
 manners, and in austere if not unkind reproof. Any- 
 thing that distinguishes the teacher from the gentle- 
 man or the lady is an evidence of unfitness for this 
 high office ; but the gentleman is first of all a gentle 
 man, courteous, kind, considerate, respectful, especi- 
 ally in his dealings with those who by age, position, 
 or acquirement, are his inferiors. Multa rever&ntia 
 
62 THE EDUCATION OF TEACHERS 
 
 pueris dehitur is a very old but a very wise saying : 
 great reverence is due the young. 
 
 So far as equipment goes, scholarship, wide and 
 thorough, must be regarded as the teacher's mainstay; 
 he must be a man of learning if he would secure and 
 hold the respect and confidence of his constituents and 
 patrons, and even of his pupils, and without this re- 
 spect and confidence he can maintain no professional 
 standing, and is likely to abandon a calling in which 
 success requires attainments that he does not possess. 
 If public education is to prosper there must be a per- 
 manent teaching class with well defined traditions, 
 rights, prerogatives, and duties, and the members of 
 this class must not only maintain their own seK- 
 respect, but must secure public respect; they must 
 constitute one of the learned professions and as such 
 must inherit and transmit all that is implied in pro- 
 fessional spirit and standing. I sharply distinguish 
 teachers of this class from accidental, provisional, or 
 non-professional teachers, those who teach for a term 
 or a year through caprice or necessity, without any 
 special competency, and then pass to some regular 
 employment. Money spent on such teachers is in the 
 main wasted. 
 
 The professional teacher must be not only a scholar, 
 
WHOLESOME CULTURE 53 
 
 but also a man of science; he must understand the 
 principles which underlie the practice of his art, must 
 profess an educational creed, must be versed in some 
 school of educational thinking, must be addicted to 
 some mode of philosophizing on human nature and 
 its wants. I use the term science to designate that 
 special knowledge which is required for the rational 
 practice of the educating art, and which distinguishes 
 the teacher from the scholar, constituting what the 
 logicians call the specific difference between genus and 
 species, between scholar and teacher. In a quasi 
 sense, a teacher's knowledge of subjects, as of gram- 
 mar, algebra, or latin, is professional knowledge, for 
 he must employ it in the practice of his art, though 
 in another sense it is non-professional, for in this 
 respect a teacher is merely on a par with all well edu- 
 cated men; but a doctrine of education, along with 
 its derived methods of teaching, is professional knowl- 
 edge in a legitimate sense : it is knowledge which a 
 teacher should be presumed to have, but which a 
 general scholar need not be presumed to have. 
 
 There is a radical antagonism between the culture 
 aim and the technical aim, when pursued simulta- 
 neously; it is like attempting to weave the fabric 
 and make the garment at one and the same time; 
 
64 THE EDUCATION OF TEACHERS 
 
 either the fabric, or the garment, or very likely both, 
 will be spoiled. Mr. Bain notes the difficulty of 
 ' ' reconciling the whole man with himself, ' ' that is, 
 man simply as a man with man as an instrument. 
 Plato declares that arithmetic as taught to merchants 
 and shopkeepers is incompatible with arithmetic when 
 taught for discipline and culture. For purposes of 
 liberal training, studies should be disinterested, they 
 should be pursued for their own sake and not for the 
 utilities that can be extracted from them. A student 
 is in an unwholesome mental and moral condition 
 when he feels constrained to say of his studies, ' ' How 
 can I turn this knowledge to practical account in the 
 way of earning my bread?" Under such conditions 
 learning ceases to be liberal, it sacrifices freedom and 
 breadth to the exactions of utility. To paint because 
 painting is a delight is a very different thing from 
 painting to earn one's bread ; just as the ardor of an 
 amateur is different from the industry of an artisan. 
 Moderate bibliomania is a generous passion, but its 
 virtue can be destroyed by buying books to sell. 
 Speculation soars on free and lofty wings, but it is 
 brought to earth when tied to staid utilities. 
 
 The only complete relief from this antagonism be- 
 tween the liberal and the technical is to be found in 
 
WHOLESOME CULTURE 55 
 
 making them successive and not simultaneous; in 
 securing liberal training first, and then superadding 
 to it that special training required for the practice of 
 an art. On the Continent, for example, men whose 
 ultimate aim is to become physicians or clergymen 
 first become scholars through the training of the gym- 
 nasium and the university ; and with this endowment 
 of culture, breadth and discipline, they then apply 
 themselves to the mastery of their chosen profession 
 or calling. In this country a young man enters a law 
 school or a medical college without breadth and culture, 
 learns his art under the stress of these limitations, and 
 enters upon life maimed and hampered in many ways. 
 The professional training of teachers is on a higher 
 plane. Young men and women while gaining their 
 technical training in normal schools are at the same 
 time caiTying forward their academic training; and 
 while they rarely become scholars and possess but 
 little of the scholarly spLi*it, they have at least the 
 rudiments of an education along with some knowledge 
 of their art. 
 
 Every consideration disposes me to speak kindly of 
 normal schools and of the men and women who shape 
 their policy and do their work. They doubtless per- 
 form a service which could be performed so well in 
 
66 THE EDUCATION OF TEACHERS 
 
 no other way, and whatever faults affect their work 
 9,re due to existing conditions that cannot be materially 
 changed. So far as they affect the teaching service of 
 the country, the upper limit of their field falls a little 
 within the high school grade of the public school. 
 Their field is the country school, and in the city 
 school it reaches upwards to the eleventh grade. 
 Ideally, all teachers, of whatever grade, should be 
 scholars both by instinct and attainment ; but under 
 existing conditions this ideal is unattainable, and the 
 best professional training that is practically attainable 
 by the great mass of those who teach is doubtless given 
 in the normal schools of the day. Their academic 
 work is mainly of the secondary or high school type, 
 and their technical training is mainly in method and 
 in the elements of psychology. Their courses of 
 study are not in themselves of the liberal type, and 
 they fall still farther short of this end because the 
 student's thought is kept so continuously on the me- 
 chanics of his art. The culture aim and the technical 
 aim are in sharp and constant collision, to the great 
 detriment, almost to the defeat, of both. Their tech- 
 nical training is too mechanical, too rigidly exact, 
 seeming to assume that the rules of treatment and 
 construction applicable to matter are also applicable 
 
WHOLESOME CULTURE 57 
 
 to spirit. These schook have contributed but little in 
 thought, doctrine or personnel to the permanent teach- 
 ing profession of the country. If I am not mistaken in 
 my observations, their graduates have made but slight 
 contributions to the educational thought of the day, 
 have shown but little skill in solving the graver prob- 
 lems in public education, and are but slightly repre- 
 sented among the recognized leaders of public opinion 
 in matters of educational doctrine and practice. 
 
 When I speak of the imperfections of normal 
 schools I have in my mind the quality of their work 
 as related to what may be called the higher teaching 
 service of the country, or to the teaching profession 
 properly so called. As I view them, these schools 
 fail to meet the needs of this higher service in two 
 particulars : they do not create scholars, and they do 
 not give their students what I have just called science. 
 Their aim is so empirical and so practical that culture 
 aims are made impossible. In academic work their 
 graduates seldom reach that stage of growth known 
 as ' ' intellectual emancipation, ' ' that stage of learning 
 where the mere drillmaster is abandoned and the stu- 
 dent comes into possession of the free and voluntary 
 use of his powers, where learning is a delight and 
 constitutes the natural vocation of the mind. For 
 
58 THE EDUCATION OF TEACHERS 
 
 anything above routine service, fixed methods of 
 teaching are an obstruction to growth and progress. 
 They absolve the teacher from all efforts at invention 
 and destroy the possibility of his best gift, versatility, 
 the power to adapt himself to new conditions, to rec- 
 ognize exceptional cases, and to rise superior to the 
 iron rule of tradition and routine. For artistic work 
 in teaching, for that spontaneity of effort which is 
 implied in all high service affecting spirit, I think the 
 happiest conditions are these : the zeal of an amateur 
 supported and directed by a knowledge of general 
 principles. Outside of these conditions I see no op- 
 portunity for growth. In the lower teaching service 
 it may be that purely routine work is best, but I am 
 now thinking of that higher service to which a college 
 is devoted. 
 
 I have dwelt a little on the situation of normal 
 schools, not for the purpose of criticising them, for 
 the uniformity of their organization and the intelli- 
 gence of those who conduct them oblige me to believe 
 that they respond to existing c®nditions ; but rather to 
 show how very difficult it is to hold the delicate bal- 
 ance between the culture aim and the technical aim, 
 to reconcile the artist with the artisan, the man with 
 the instrument. 
 
THE POLICY OF BENEVOLENCE 
 
Ill 
 
 THE POLICY OF BENEVOLENCE 
 
 Schools exist and are maintained not for the sake 
 of their teachers, but for the sake of their pupils. 
 So far as the prime purpose of a school is concerned 
 the pupil has clear precedence over the teacher. The 
 interest, the needs, the convenience and the comfort 
 of students are to be consulted first, and in all these 
 respects the teacher is to adjust himself to his pupils. 
 A recitation is to be set for a given hour, not because 
 this hour suits the convenience of the teacher, but 
 because it is the most convenient hour for his pupils. 
 Students come to be served, not to serve. Our highest 
 function is that of service to our pupils, in the same 
 sense that the highest office of parents is to serve their 
 children. This is scriptural condescension. The valid 
 ground on which obedience is enjoined on children, 
 pupils and citizens is that docility is the necessary con- 
 dition of being served. The world's divine Teacher 
 came down to men not to be ministered unto, but to 
 minister. I know how contrary this doctrine is to 
 the assumption often made that the wishes, wants and 
 
b2i THE EDUCATION OF TEACHERS 
 
 pleasures of the teacher stand first, and that the stu- 
 dent must adjust himself to the caprices cf his in- 
 structor. This is no doubt the cause of much of that 
 antagonism between teacher and pupil which in some 
 schools leads to insubordination and riot, and in others 
 to a sort of armed neutrality or smothered spirit of 
 insurrection that is a constant menace to good govern- 
 ment. 
 
 In some institutions, by what we may call university 
 license, offences are committed against the person, in 
 the way of hazing, which would be counted as pun- 
 ishable crimes if committed outside of college walls. 
 In such cases university tradition is mightier than civil 
 law, and the ordinary processes for punishing crimes 
 are found to be powerless. Now what is the explana- 
 tion of such facts? I know of but one explanation 
 of this anomaly. In a state of war, deceit, theft, rob- 
 bery and murder cease to be crimes when they are 
 practiced on the enemy ; they in fact become virtues, 
 and are rewarded as such. So in college life, a stu- 
 dent who gains an advantage by ruse, artifice, fraud, 
 or force over his enemy — ^his teacher — not only does 
 not lose caste among his fellows, but he thereby be- 
 comes a hero if his offence is sufficiently great to 
 attract public notice. 
 
THE POLICY OF BENEVOLENCE 63 
 
 I believe that in all schools there is some shade or 
 degree of this secular antagonism, and that the expla- 
 nation of this phenomenon lies in some false relation 
 that has been allowed to grow up through years, 
 perhaps through centuries, between students and 
 teachers; and it is my further belief that the fault 
 in this case lies mainly at the door of the teaching 
 body. What is this fault, or, rather, what are these 
 faults? In the main they seem to me to be the 
 following : 
 
 Teachers assume too great a difference in rank 
 hetween themselves amd their jnij[nls. In the early 
 days of universities, when the little learning that 
 existed was a monopoly of the clergy, the pride of 
 letters put an almost impassable gulf between the 
 teacher and his pupils. The teacher was a prince, a 
 ruler, made such almost by divine favor and appoint- 
 ment, while his pupils were his vassals, his subjects, 
 made such by their ignorance and dependence. 
 
 In some quarters there still exists university courts, 
 university codes, and even university prisons ; and it 
 is not long since the university whipping-post has 
 passed out of use. The severity of the old-time school 
 and college discipline is notorious ; it was harsh, often 
 cruel, and at times inhuman. Harsh family discipline 
 
64 THE EDUCATION OF TEACHERS 
 
 is offset and tempered by that respect and affection 
 which spring from kinship, and resentment, if ever 
 felt, soon dissolves under parental tenderness and 
 benevolence ; but the wounds left by tutorial punish- 
 ment do not readily heal ; the scar that was left on 
 the twig remains on the tree. Whatever the original 
 cause may have been, the fact remains that there is 
 an inherited tendency on the part of students to look 
 upon teachers as their natural enemies, just as a brood 
 of chickens, anterior to experience, is terrified and 
 scattered by the shadow of a swooping hawk. The 
 distance between teacher and pupil is even lengthened 
 in modern times, especially in public schools, by the 
 fact that children are taught in such masses that direct 
 contact is made well-nigh impossible, and hence all 
 education, in its true and deeper sense, made equally 
 impossible. This isolation of pupil from teacher I 
 count as the radical vice in school administration. It 
 makes sympathy either difficult or impossible; and 
 lack of sympathy breeds distrust, dislike and even 
 defiance. In American colleges and universities the 
 faculty is the college court, but a court of anomalous 
 constitution, its members being at once prosecutors, 
 witnesses, jurymen, judges, and in their corporate 
 action, executioner. By a further anomaly the student 
 
THE POLICY OF BENEVOLENCE 66 
 
 is tried and convicted in his absence, and so, without 
 the privilege accorded to the worst of criminals in 
 civil courts of introducing evidence in his own behalf 
 and of cross-questioning the evidence brought against 
 him. Is it any wonder that students distrust decisions 
 of such a court ? Is it any wonder that they are restive 
 under a system of government which appears to them 
 little less than an oligarchy, and that they sometimes 
 resort to measures, fair or foul, which have in them 
 some promise of protection or relief? 
 
 For this evil of the first magnitude there are two 
 means of relief, and of these I now wish briefly to 
 speak. 
 
 Evidently om- first duty is to descend somewhat 
 
 from the heights of our assumed superiority, and to 
 
 regard our pupils more as our equals in point of social 
 
 position, moral worth, general intelligence and honesty 
 
 of purpose. Our pupils are our inferiors only in 
 
 knowledge and experience, but this is a difference in 
 
 degree, not in kind, and merely signifies that we are a 
 
 body of learners auning at the same goal, some only 
 
 fairly started, others in the heat of the race, and still 
 
 others, perhaps, in sight of the prize which lies at 
 
 life's close. The fact that we are all leamei*s should 
 
 stamp such a corporation of teachers and students with 
 6 
 
66^ THE EDUCATION OF TEACHERS 
 
 the seal of unity and equality. This was the original 
 idea of a university, a corporate body of learners in 
 which the more proficient taught the less proficient as 
 a sort of payment to the future for a debt incurred in 
 the past. This is the meaning of the device we love 
 to honor: Education is a debt due prom past to 
 
 FUTURE generations. 
 
 This fact of virtual equality should be instructive 
 in more ways than one. Are we sensitive to the good 
 opinion of others? So are our pupils. Would it 
 shock, mortify and hurt us to be reproached in public 
 or in private for our ignorance or our stupidity? Our 
 pupils are similarly hurt, for their feelings are as acute 
 as ours. Do we find it hard to bear our daily burdens 
 when ill, or in trouble, or in sorrow of any sort? So 
 do our pupils. Are our burdens lightened, or our 
 backs strengthened, by a kind word or an approving 
 smile? They, too, are affected and helped in a like 
 maimer. Do we who are older and wiser and stronger 
 stand in need of charity, forbearance and mercy? So 
 ehould we be kind and merciful to those who are pre- 
 sumably weaker and less wise. And we need not fear 
 to face this question of equality in its other phase. If 
 the faults of our pupils are to be noted, corrected and 
 possibly punished, so may not our own faults be 
 
THE POLICY OF BENEVOLENCE 67 
 
 subject to some process of reproof and amendment? 
 As our pupils are not above correction, so neither 
 are we. 
 
 Another fact must not be overlooked. Many stu- 
 dents, perhaps the most of them, labor under some 
 stress of circumstances, some res angthstm domi. It 
 is home sacrifice that allowed them to enter school, 
 and it is still home sacrifice and personal sacrifice that 
 keep them there. I well know that the issue of this 
 burden-bearing is strength, a higher and better type 
 of manhood and womanhood, and that a life of ease 
 is not a thing to be desired; but we may at least 
 forbear to place on willing shoulders any unnatural or 
 unnecessary burdens, and may employ our best efforts 
 and wisest, kindest plans towards fortifying our pupil's 
 ability to do and to dare, to suffer and to bear. In 
 Fuller's quaint phrase, we may '' strengthen the 
 back ' ' even if we cannot ' ' lighten the burden. ' ' 
 
 The second measure of relief which I propose is a 
 coUege court of equity, as distinguished from that col- 
 lege court of law known as the Faculty. Students 
 have some ground for looking on the Faculty as a sort 
 of Star Chamber, where their fate is determined 
 within closed doors, and in a manner more or less 
 arbitrary. Virgil's va/riurth et TwutahUe serwper might 
 
68 THE EDUCATION OF TEACHERS 
 
 aptly be applied to thig college court. In its hearings 
 and decisions a Faculty is merely a large jury, and 
 juries are untrustworthy in proportion to their size, 
 because individual responsibility becomes smaller as 
 the divisor becomes greater. Safety lies in fixing 
 responsibility on an individual or on a small number 
 of known individuals. In such cases evidence will be 
 weighed with extreme care, and decisions will be made 
 with extreme caution. At best a college Faculty is a 
 court of law in which decisions are reached through 
 forms and processes more or less arbitrary and inflexi- 
 ble. Mere law as distinguished from equity is heart- 
 less, unfeeling, unsympathetic ; and it not infrequently 
 happens that a decision may be strictly legal, but at 
 the same time unjust. This fact has become so appa- 
 rent in the history of judicature that courts of equity 
 have been established to supplement courts of law, so 
 that appeals may be taken for review to a smaller jury 
 where justice may be tempered with mercy and where 
 the letter that kills may be offset by the spirit which 
 gives life. It is no doubt best that the college Faculty 
 should remain, in the main, what it now is, a court of 
 law, but with the necessary proviso, that it is supple- 
 mented by a court of equity. If, in the final sum- 
 ming up, it appears that a student lacks merely a poor 
 
THE POLICY OF BENEVOLENCE 
 
 one-fifth in the requirements for graduation, it is just 
 and proper that the Faculty should follow the strict 
 letter of the law and deny him graduation; but in 
 this and all similar cases there should be the privilege 
 of appeal to a higher court where the decision of the 
 lower tribunal may be reviewed in the light of equity 
 as well as of law. I see no good reason why the 
 course of college judicature should not be substantially 
 the same as that of civil judicature. Experience has 
 shown in the last case that there must be channels of 
 appeal from lower tribunals to higher, to the end that 
 injustice and oppression may be prevented by appeal- 
 ing from the tyranny of form and the prejudice of 
 passion to the wider principles of jurisprudence and 
 the larger precepts of equity. I feel sure that such 
 a system of college judicature would commend itself 
 to the student body and would prevent that suspicion 
 and alienation which tend to maintain a gulf between 
 it and us. A college judicial system might be com- 
 posed of three courts as follows: The Faculty, or 
 court of law; the executive conmaittee, or court of 
 appeal; and the president, or court of equity, the 
 court of last resort. ^N^either of these lower courts 
 should be suspicious or envious of the one next above 
 it, through the feeling that its own prerogatives may 
 
70 THE EDUCATION OF TEACHERS 
 
 be set aside, or its own dignity compromised. Neither 
 of these bodies should assail the decision of another, 
 but in thought and speech should confirm it. In this 
 way each court will become conservative and safe 
 and the whole system sound and beneficent. There 
 should be an organization of Faculty and students 
 into one compact, harmonious body, living and acting 
 in a concert undisturbed by suspicious or rival interests, 
 and ambitious only for the common good. In other 
 words we want, in the best and completest sense, a 
 college commonwealth, a true republic of letters, 
 where, through community of interest and vocation, 
 teachers and students shall be wrought into one cor- 
 poration for the promotion of knowledge and virtue. 
 The other fault which I shall notice is this : The 
 assumption that college administration should illus- 
 trate the law of the survival of the fittest, that the 
 mediocre and the dull should be forced or crowded 
 out, and that only the bright and the brilliant are 
 worthy of the teacher's efforts. Stated in these plain 
 terms, no one will acknowledge that he justifies such 
 a policy ; but practically the colleges and universities 
 whose avowed or implied mission is a ' ' standard ' ' 
 conduct their teaching and examining on this hy- 
 pothesis. Just what I mean will become plainer if I 
 
THE POLICY OF BENEVOLENCE 71 
 
 state what I think should be an axiom in college 
 administration: The woeth of a school is deter- 
 mined, NOT BY THE FEW WHO SURVIVE THE RIGORS 
 OF ITS DISCIPLINE, BUT BY THE MANY WHO ARE MADE 
 
 TO THRIVE ON ITS NURTURE. The feeling is widely- 
 prevalent that a college is open only to the select, the 
 elect, that it is closed to minds of the common mould, 
 that it is an institution set apart, if not for the aris- 
 tocracy of wealth, at least for the aristocracy of intel- 
 lect. I incline to a wholly different view. A college 
 should be democratic in its aims and methods, it 
 should be open to the poor and the lowly, it should 
 afford an opportunity for the common mind to add to 
 its powers and its stores, and its usefulness should be 
 measured by the breadth of its helpfulness and not by 
 the height to which it can push exceptional talent. 
 Who may be admitted to a college? He who is likely 
 to profit by the advantages which it offers. Who 
 may be retained in a college? He who is making an 
 honest and profitable use of his time and talents. Who 
 may be removed from college? He who misuses his 
 time and opportunity, or who is unable to profit by 
 the advantages offered him. As there are diversities 
 of gifts, so there will be diversities of improvement. 
 In a class of twenty there may be twenty grades of 
 
72 THE EDUCATION OF TEACHERS 
 
 scholarship, and still each student may be in his right 
 place ; just as in a church there may be an audience 
 of a thousand, and while no two hearers are equally 
 edified by the sermon, all are profited according to 
 their several ability. A teacher's power is to be 
 estimated, not by what his best pupils do, but by what 
 the more poorly endowed are enabled to do by his 
 inspiration and aid. Dullness and ignorance are mis- 
 fortunes to be patiently relieved, not offences to be 
 summarily punished. Diligence and good intent, even 
 when associated with dullness, are cardinal virtues to 
 be respected and rewarded. The false ambition of 
 teachers to set up standards entails countless miseries 
 on the timid and the weak. Generally speaking, 
 colleges are conservative and careful ; but overdriving 
 is not unknown, and one of the last lessons for some 
 instructors to learn is to assign lessons of reasonable 
 length, and to recollect that other teachers are entitled 
 to a fair share of the student's time. Instances have 
 occurred in which the lessons assigned in one class, if 
 well learned, would require three-fourths of all the 
 student's available time. Under such an unmerciful 
 stress, students will either bolt or break, and the 
 student of finest fiber will break first. Some years 
 ago a high spirited, ambitious and most benevolent 
 
THE POLICY OF BENEVOLENCE 73 
 
 student began her work in college with high hopes. 
 She soon began to feel the pressure of inordinate tasks 
 and sharp reproof. She made heroic attempts to re- 
 cover lost ground and lost favor, but her burdens 
 became heavier and her powers of resistance feebler. 
 Near the close of the first semester, broken in health 
 and in mind, wounded in spirit, she returned to her 
 home to nourish resentments which were too well 
 founded to be argued away. This case of overpressure 
 was not the result of any intent, but was the conse- 
 quence of a policy whose faults I am now trying to 
 expose. Teachers without nerves do not readily sym- 
 pathize mth students who have nerves. Teachers 
 whose feehngs for any reason have become callous, 
 sometimes make cruel assaults on the sensitiveness of 
 diffident and deserving pupils. 
 
 By way of summary and conclusion : 
 
 The general fault in college administration which I 
 have here pointed out, and for which I am trying to 
 find a remedy, is not peculiar to any one school. It 
 is a fault so general that the hope of extirpating it 
 may be a chimera, but we may at least hope to reduce 
 it to its minimum degree of evil. This fault is the 
 secular antagonism between the student body and the 
 teaching body. I call it secular because it is as old 
 
74: THE EDUCATION OF TEACHERS 
 
 as universities themselves. I want to see these two 
 interests fused into one so that the school shall be an 
 organic whole, made such by perfect harmony of con- 
 duct and intent, instead of a house divided against 
 itself. The cause of this breach of harmony lies 
 mainly in the teaching body. If students are suspi- 
 cious and resentful it may be because they have been 
 treated with some measure of harshness and injustice. 
 A school should develop docility, responsiveness and 
 loyalty in its students. With the rarest of exceptions, 
 they deserve only kindness, courtesy and hearty re- 
 spect, and need no other stimulus than mild and 
 deserved commendation for perseverance under diffi- 
 culties. 
 
 In conclusion what better counsel can I give than 
 this from Sartor JHesarlms f 
 
 ' ' ' My teachers, ' says he, ' were hide-bound Ped- 
 ants, without knowledge of man's nature, or of 
 boy's ; or of ought save their lexicons and quarterly 
 account-books. Innumerable dead vocables (no dead 
 language, for they themselves knew no language), 
 they crammed into us, and called it fostering the 
 growth of mind. How can an inanimate, mechanical 
 Gerund-grinder, the like of whom will, in a subse- 
 quent century, be manufactured at Niirnberg out of 
 
THE POLICY OF BENEVOLENCE 75 
 
 wood and leather, foster the growth of anything; 
 much more mind, which grows, not like a vegetable 
 (by having its roots littered with etymological com- 
 post), but like a spirit, by mysterious contact of 
 Spirit; Thought kindling itself at the fire of living 
 thought? How shall he give kindling, in whose own 
 inward man there is no live coal, but all is burnt out 
 to a dead grammatical cinder? The Hinterschlag 
 Professors knew syntax enough; and of the human 
 soul thus much : that it had a faculty called memory, 
 and could be acted on through the muscular integu- 
 ment by appliance of birch-rods. 
 
 * 'Alas, so is it everywhere, so will it ever be ; till 
 the Hodman is discharged or reduced to hod-bearing ; 
 and an Architect is hired, and on all hands fitly en- 
 couraged; till communities and individuals discover, 
 not without surprise, that fashioning the souls of a 
 generation by knowledge can rank on a level with 
 blowing their bodies to pieces by gunpowder; that 
 with Generals and Fieldmarshals for killing, there 
 should be world-honored dignitaries, and were it pos- 
 sible, true God-ordained Priests, for teaching. But 
 as yet, though the soldier wears openly, and even 
 parades, his butchering-tool, nowhere, far as I have 
 travelled, did the Schoolmaster make show of his 
 
76 THE EDUCATION OF TEACHERS 
 
 instructing tool; nay, were he to walk abroad with 
 birch girt on thigh, as if he therefrom expected 
 honour, would there not, among the idler class, per- 
 haps a certain levity be excited? " ' 
 
TEACHING A SPIRITUAL, NOT A 
 MECHANICAL, ART 
 
IV 
 
 TEACHESTG A SPIEITUAL, NOT A MECHAN- 
 ICAL, AKT 
 
 OFTENnMKS the best instruction is that which is 
 merely suggestive. It commends some theme for re- 
 flection, and leaves each mind free to do its own 
 thinking and to come to its own conclusions. This 
 mode of procedure is particularly necessary when 
 mature minds are dealing with those complex and 
 many-sided questions which are connected with prac- 
 tical education. However long and patient our think- 
 ing may have been, it is not very probable that any of 
 us have looked through and entirely around even the 
 simplest question involved in the educating art. It is 
 by a division of labor that these problems are finally 
 compassed. Men severally look at the different phases 
 of a complex question, and thus by discussion, com- 
 parison and ultimate agreement, there results a com- 
 posite view of the truth more or less perfect as the 
 thought has been catholic, penetrating and judicial. 
 
 It is worth while to remind ourselves that the 
 problem of human education is one of the very earliest 
 
80 THE EDUCATION OF TEACHERS 
 
 that taxed the ingenuity and wisdom of thinking.men ; 
 and that this theme has been a favorite topic of dis- 
 cussion by the most learned and the most saintly men 
 in all ages of the world. The most interesting and 
 the most instructive chapter in the general history of 
 the world is that which relates to the rise, progress 
 and fate of those countless systems which have been 
 devised for the education and training of the young. 
 This is no less than the history of civilization itself, 
 and exhibits man's power, by deliberate thinking, over 
 the destiny of the race to which he belongs. 
 
 Family pride, based on noble living and virtuous 
 achievement, is one of the most wholesome and in- 
 spiring emotions of the soul. It puts a precious 
 heritage in the keeping of each new generation and 
 reinforces individual worth and power by the worth 
 and power accumulated and capitalized through gen- 
 erations of noble lives. Yirtue thus becomes a tradi- 
 tion and an inheritance, and their possessor is placed 
 on vantage ground that may insure victory in the race 
 of life. 'Pride in one's professional ancestry is a kin- 
 dred emotion, and any calling which inherits noble 
 traditions will have a following of superior spirits. 
 To be ashamed of one's calling is to confess defeat, 
 and in some measure to deserve it, for one of the first 
 
TEACHING A SPIRITUAL ART 81 
 
 rules of living is to shun any occupation into which one 
 cannot put one's whole soul. When oppressed with 
 the routine cares of my profession I find reinforcement 
 and relief in the thought that the masterpiece of the 
 world's master thinker, Plato, is a treatise on education, 
 and with the pages of the incomparable ' ' Republic ' ' 
 before him the teacher may feel a conscious pride of 
 calling which will make him step lightly over the vex- 
 ations that sometimes embarrass his steps. Can we 
 ever forget that the highest oflSice ever conferred by 
 heaven on mortals was to be the teacher of men? The 
 essence of real preaching is effective teaching, and we 
 miss the grandeur of the teaching office if we fail to see 
 that the ministry of the schoolroom is as sacred as the 
 ministry of the altar. 
 
 "With respect to their influence in raising the tone 
 and type of human thought and life, occupations 
 naturally fall into three categories or classes — those 
 which degrade and corrupt, those which are merely 
 neutral or conservative, and those which, by their 
 positive and aggressive character, lift the race to 
 higher and higher planes of thinking and living. In 
 other terms, some men employ their activities in 
 making the world worse, and if their numbers were 
 not restricted and their influence checked and counter- 
 
82 THE EDUCATION OF TEACHERS 
 
 acted the race would lapse into beastliness and infamy ; 
 other men receive from society the best it aan give, 
 return to it a fair equivalent for what they have 
 received, and leave the world in the same condition as 
 though they had never lived in it ; while others, and 
 this by far the smaller number, return to society much 
 more than they take from it, transform the common 
 things of life into things of noble nature and use, and 
 leave the world a better and a ha.ppier place because 
 they have lived and labored in it. By slothful and 
 wasteful tillage one farmer will impoverish and ruin a 
 field that nature had blessed with fatness; another 
 will hold an even balance between waste and repair, 
 and in the end will leave his fields neither better nor 
 worse for his occupancy ; while a third will develop 
 the hidden resources of the earth, will transform air, 
 rain and sunlight into orchards and herds and har- 
 vests, will fill his barns with the precious fruits of the 
 earth, and will leave his fields endowed with tenfold 
 fertility through his creative and transforming power. 
 By means of human industry, art and genius, the 
 material world is passing through a series of trans- 
 formations which in the end will amount to a re-crea- 
 tion. Fertile and populous Holland, reclaimed from 
 the sea, is the type of what civilized man is doing all 
 
TEACHING A SPIRITUAL ART 83 
 
 Dver the face of the earth. Literally the wilderness 
 is being made to blossom as the rose. Deserts are 
 being converted into arable and productive fields; 
 mountains are brought low; the deep places of the 
 earth filled up; pestilent marshes are drained and 
 cultivated; treasures hidden under the mountains 
 since the morning of creation are unearthed and con- 
 verted into beauty and power ; and over the earth and 
 the sea, and through the air, men are constructing 
 numberless highways for the transmission and diffu- 
 sion of wealth, comfort, intelligence and happiness.. 
 In an analogous way the moral world is passing 
 through a series of upward transformations towards 
 peace, charity, brotherly kindness and righteousness, 
 and in the end, we cannot doubt, there will be a new 
 people for the new earth; the world of matter and 
 the world of spirit will have been changed from one 
 glory to another till the thought of God for man and 
 his dwelling place shall have ended in its perfect reali- 
 zation. Taken in its broad but legitimate sense, this 
 work of re-creation or restoration is the final aim of 
 education; and the glory of the teacher's calling is 
 that it is the agency by which human society is to be 
 lifted to higher and higher planes of physical, mental 
 and moral perfection. Of the three categories of 
 
84 THE EDUCATION OF TEACHERS 
 
 occupations just noted, the educating art belongs pre- 
 eminently to the third and highest — its aims are bene- 
 ficent and beneficent only. 
 
 ' ' Teaching, ' ' says Mr. Fitch, ' ' is the noblest of 
 professions, but the sorriest of trades," and in speak- 
 ing of the dignity of the educating art, I have asso- 
 ciated it with all that is best in mind, heart and 
 character. ' 'A teacher, ' ' says Rousseau, * * what a 
 noble soul he ought to be ! " Education might be 
 defined as the art of moulding or transforming char- 
 acter, and the teaching which is tributary to this high 
 art must be an alliance of intellect with heart. There 
 is much teaching that does not take hold on character ; 
 it leaves the heart untouched and so leaves the springs 
 of conduct unaffected. Into teaching which effects 
 the ends that education has in view, there must be 
 infused generous measures of honest affection. Mag- 
 nanimity, benevolence and moral courage are three 
 requisites for attaining real success in the educating 
 art, and the whole process is spiritual to an extreme 
 degree. Plato, and Ruskin after him, make teaching 
 a process of eliciting ; Emerson calls it provocation ; 
 and some have represented it as induction, as wl\en 
 President Garfield speaks of a college as consisting 
 essentially of two things, an impressible boy on one 
 
TEACHING A SPIRITUAL ART 85 
 
 end of a bench and a Mark Hopkins on the other. It 
 suffices to place a bar of soft iron in the near presence 
 of a magnet in order to cause it to take on magnetic 
 qualities. We call this induction, and it is by an 
 analogous process that children become generous, 
 magnanimous, noble and scholarly, by absorbing the 
 qualities from those who are highly charged with 
 them. This amounts to saying that education is 
 character-building, and as character is affected chiefly 
 by character, all that is best in life and letters should 
 enter into the spirit of the teacher. It was once said 
 of a very beautiful and accomplished woman that to 
 be on terms of close friendship with her was a liberal 
 education ; and it is certain that the near presence of 
 a scholarly man or woman is more potent than text- 
 book or lecture can be in the production of manly or 
 womanly character. Perfunctory teaching that begins 
 and ends merely with a didactic lesson faUs sterile on 
 the sensitive soul and leaves nothing which makes for 
 righteousness and peace. Good teaching must have 
 much of the persuasive power of oratory. It must 
 kindle enthusiasm, establish motive, fortify the will 
 and inspire the soul to noble acting. When the boys 
 at Eugby saw the face of Dr. Arnold looking kindly 
 and approvingly on them from his study window as 
 
/>*'1 
 
 86 THE EDUCATION OF TEACHERS 
 
 I 
 
 they swayed and struggled in the quadrangle below, 
 they were affected by the same impulse to heroic 
 achievements which urged on Napoleon's soldiers at 
 the battle of the Pyramids. In this sense every great 
 teacher is a great captain; he prevails more by his 
 presence and example than by any set lesson in science 
 or letters. I think we must all lament the decay of 
 discipleship, that ardent affection which attaches pupil 
 to master, and that devotion which espouses his cause 
 and propagates his doctrines. Teaching that does not 
 end in some degree of discipleship is lacking in one 
 essential feature, for Aristotle has observed that we 
 do not readily learn from one we do not love. The 
 modern doctrine that the pupil must early become 
 independent of his master, must become a law to him- 
 self, and espouse only his own opinions, though true 
 to a certain extent, sacrifices the dearest element in 
 education, the guiding, moulding and transforming 
 power of a serene and cultured soul. 
 
 There is much in modern education which encour- 
 ages the purely mechanical aspect of teaching, which 
 regards the child as a piece of matter to be trimmed 
 and fitted into regulation shape, which deals with free 
 and versatile spirit as the artisan deals with senseless 
 wood and iron. This danger has always been abroad 
 
TEACHING A SPIRITUAL ART 87 
 
 in the world, but it has become imminent and actual 
 in this age when children are taught in masses under 
 machine pressure, and when products are to be turned 
 out that must fit into prescribed places. It seems to 
 be a very general law that the first stage in the evolu- 
 tion of human organizations is the mechanical ; that 
 before they emerge into the perfect law of liberty they 
 must suffer a bondage to harsh and unfeeling prescrip- 
 tions ; that routine and rule must for a time usurp the 
 place of spontaneity and reason. Christianity had 
 such an evolution, and it is not singular that educa- 
 tion, falling perchance under the fashioning of coarser 
 hands, should obey the same tendency. The coming 
 era in the history of public education in the South is 
 the era of the graded school, for it cannot be doubted 
 that in the lifetime of some of us every city and every 
 village- in this vast domain will have its '* people's 
 college," its graded school, free and open to all who 
 choose to enter it, and offering to rich and poor an 
 education which, a century ago, could have been 
 obtained only by the privileged few in a college or a 
 university ; for the first-class high school of to-day is 
 superior to the college of the last century. I know 
 the graded school too well to speak of it slightingly, 
 and I am too good a friend of it to ignore or deny a 
 
88 THE EDUCATION OF TEACHERS 
 
 danger which besets its administration. In dealing 
 with masses of children, as with masses of men, there 
 must be order, precision and prompt obedience to 
 authority, and in a school, as in an army, there must 
 be a certain amount of routine and a certain degree of 
 mechanism. The type of school organization is doubt- 
 less military ; there must be subordination as well as 
 coordination ; there must be one responsible head, and 
 there must be a downward distiibution of authority 
 through subordinates, whose jurisdiction becomes 
 smaller as their number becomes larger. But while 
 the mechanical is thus a necessity, it should not absorb 
 the working power of the organization. The machine 
 does not exist for itseK, as superintendents sometimes 
 seem to think, but for the inner life which it embodies 
 and manifests, and which alone gives value to its crude 
 tenement. More than one man whose dull sense sees 
 only the outward has become enamored of the smoothly 
 working machine which he calls his school. I once 
 visited a graded school which moved with the fatal 
 accuracy of clockwork. At recess the three hundred 
 or four hundred pupils marched down to the play- 
 ground with military precision, and an inflexible rule 
 would have carried out a line of children into a pelt- 
 ing rainstorm, for the synmietry of the parade must 
 
TEACHING A SPIRITUAL ART 89 
 
 not be marred for health's sake. While the sports of 
 the play-ground were at their height the bell struck, 
 and instantly every arm and foot and feature became 
 fixed in the very attitude in which it had been caught, 
 as though petrified or frozen by the sudden summons. 
 After a moment's suspense another signal was given, 
 the dispersed columns were reformed, and the pupils 
 returned to their places in military order. I soon 
 discovered that this man's power was very largely 
 absorbed in his darling machine, and that the life of 
 his school was lean and thin and sickly. Up to 
 a certain point organization promotes life, growth 
 and development, but beyond this point it absorbs and 
 neutralizes the vital forces and tends to impoverish- 
 ment and death. I have seen farmers whose revenues 
 were so absorbed in buildings, fences, gates and ma- 
 chinery, that the downward road to ruin was rapid 
 and inevitable. The soul will live on friendly terms 
 with a body that is normally developed, but the athlete 
 soon becomes an animal, and then the soul shrivels 
 and perishes. The ancient Greek teachers knew this, 
 and held that gymnastic exercise was not for the body, 
 but for the soul, and that it was necessary to maintain the 
 physical and spiritual in a state of delicate equipoise. 
 The school, like the soul, must have a body or 
 
90 THE EDUCATION OF TEACHERS 
 
 tenement in which to live and through which to mani- 
 fest its life and power; but the mere domicile may 
 absorb so much time, attention and money that the 
 school itself may be lean and languishing. I have 
 known ambitious towns having a population of a few 
 thousand, out of sheer rivalry with wealthier places, 
 to build magnificent temples of learning and bequeath 
 a heritage of taxation to succeeding generations. 
 Almost immediately this burden of debt would begin 
 to gall and vex, relief would be sought in a reduction 
 of salaries and necessary working expenses, till the 
 soul of the school was starved and shrunken. Where 
 heroic and devoted teachers have remained at the post 
 of duty under this adverse stress the burden of debt 
 has virtually been shifted to their shoulders ; for what 
 has been saved out of a just remuneration has gone to 
 liquidate a debt unwisely contracted by the public. 
 1^0 one will for a moment call in question the advan- 
 tages of commodious, well-arranged and well-equipped 
 school buildings; and in structures built at public 
 expense and for public use the public school should 
 outrank all others; but any expenditure in brick, 
 architecture or adornment that cripples the intellectual 
 and spiritual resources of the school is not only bad 
 economy but a great public wrong. 
 
TEACHING A SPIRITUAL ART 91 
 
 I have just noted the fact that a teacher may so 
 expend himself and his resources in mere discipline 
 that his real usefulness as an instructor may be de- 
 stroyed ; but the fact deserves notice how mere love 
 of precision and mechanical order may lead to down- 
 right cruelty. It is a good thing by the use of all 
 fair measures to reduce tardiness to a minimum, but 
 some teachers stake their whole reputation on the 
 absolute prohibition of this evil. They make tardi- 
 ness a simple impossibility by closing and locking the 
 doors the moment the hour for opening school has 
 come. This was the rule in a winter school in a dis- 
 tant State, At 9 o'clock the outer door was locked. 
 A few minutes later two little children, a brother and 
 sister, belated by a long walk over roads blocked with 
 snow, came to the door with hands and feet benumbed 
 with cold. Being unable to enter, they stood shiver- 
 ing on the steps till finally a lady who was passing in 
 a cutter took them in and carried them to her own 
 fireside. This, doubtless, is an extreme case, but it 
 illustrates the vice of that mechanical discipline which 
 would sacrifice health, comfort and reasonable freedom 
 to the vain show of mere routine. 
 
 I repeat the thought that there must be a certain 
 amount of mechanism, and even routine, in every 
 
92 THE EDUCATION OF TEACHERS 
 
 school organization. Viewed externally, a large public 
 school with its companies and regiments of children 
 supervised and governed by a chief and his subordi- 
 nates is a machine, and a very complex one; but 
 whether this mechanism shall promote and facilitate 
 the intellectual life within or shall obstruct and per- 
 vert it — all this depends on the manner in which the 
 school is administered. There is doubtless a disposi- 
 tion among schoolmen and teachers to trust too much 
 to the working power of mere machinery, just as men 
 may depend too much on the mere church for personal 
 salvation ; and in this formative period in the history 
 of public education in the South it cannot be amiss for 
 us to guard against a danger that has beset the older 
 systems of public instruction. "We are to recollect 
 that the public school is everywhere coming to the 
 front, and that with us, as with all the progressive 
 people of the world, it is coming to stay. The State 
 has become a public educator, and the public school 
 has the right of eminent domain. The typical school 
 of the future is not the private academy nor the school 
 that is half free and half public, but the public school, 
 free and open to all, graded and supervised by public 
 authority, and taught by men and women whose quali- 
 fications have been tested by official inspection. 
 
TEACHERS TO BE EDUCATED, NOT 
 TRAINED 
 
TEACHERS TO BE EDUCATED, KOT 
 TRAINED 
 
 If I were asked to define the mission of a normal 
 college, my definition would be this : To cdd in the 
 formation cmd recruitment of a teaching profession 
 which should demote itself to the coAise of public-school 
 education. 
 
 As between public education and private education, 
 the former has the right of eminent domain. The 
 modem State, as a measure of self-preservation, has 
 made itself a public educator. Education has become 
 a branch of the public service, maintained and super- 
 vised at public expense, and teachers are State officials, 
 acting under legal sanctions, and paid, at least in part, 
 out of the public revenues. There is no interference 
 with schools conducted by individuals, or by religious 
 denominations ; but the State has such a vital interest 
 in the quality of its citizenship that it has become the 
 dominant patron of education. The South is now in 
 a state of rapid transition from private education to an 
 education prescribed and supported by public au- 
 
96 THE EDUCATION OF TEACHERS 
 
 thority; and the great problem of the day is the 
 creation of a teaching class competent to administer 
 this branch of the public service with intelligence and 
 skill. 
 
 There never will be a teaching profession in the 
 exclusive, compact sense in which there is a legal or a 
 medical profession. Teaching is a profession of the 
 military type. As all who bear arms are not profes- 
 sional soldiers, so all who teach are not professional 
 teachers. In both cases there is the regular and the 
 volunteer, the former educated at some West Point, 
 the other trained for a brief service in some camp by 
 official experts. The regular has a vocation, and re- 
 mains permanently in the service of his country ; the 
 volunteer's service, however valuable and important 
 at the time, is merely an incident in his career. The 
 institute, the training class and the county normal 
 school are in scholastic life what the soldiers' camp is 
 in military life ; while West Point and Annapolis are 
 typical of the higher institutions devoted to the edu- 
 cation of professional teachers, the characteristic fea- 
 ture of whose course of study is the history and science 
 of education. 
 
 As I understand it, the prime function of the 
 normal college should be the education of professional 
 
TEACHERS TO BE EDUCATED NOT TRAINED 97 
 
 teachers, as distinguished from the training of volun- 
 teer teachers ; or, in more definite terms, the prepara- 
 tion of men and woman to become teachers and 
 guides, endowed with powers of initiative and com- 
 mand, rather than the preparation of men and women 
 to do the more mechanical work of the schoolroom. 
 
 Of course all the men educated at West Point do 
 not become actual military leaders, but the course of 
 education is such as to make of every man a possible 
 leader — the typical quality aimed at is leadership. 
 Similarly, the aim of normal schools of the higher 
 type is leadership ; and, while it is not possible for all 
 their graduates to reach this high vocation, it being 
 dependent on circumstance as well as on ability, those 
 who fall short of it are still qualified for efiicient ser- 
 vice as subordinates. 
 
 It goes without saying that the prime, the funda- 
 mental qualification for teaching service of high value 
 is scholarship. It is true that there are some poor 
 teachers who are good scholars, certain moral or 
 mental defects operating to defeat success ; but it is 
 certain that no one need hope for permanent and 
 growing success in the teaching profession without the 
 instincts and habits, and some of the attainments, of 
 the real scholar. To secure and retain professional 
 
98 THE EDUCATION OF TEACHERS 
 
 standing, a teacher must earn the confidence and re- 
 spect of the better educated people in the community 
 in which lie lives. The vocation of teaching will not 
 become a recognized profession until in the popular 
 mind the terms ' ' teacher ' ' and ' ' scholar ' ' become 
 synonymous. It is a very significant fact that the 
 ' ' trained ' ' teacher adds little to the repute of the 
 teaching profession, it being understood that * ' train- 
 ing ' ' at best implies mere technique, or manual dex- 
 terity, and carries with it the suspicion of shallow 
 learning; just as elocution, the noble art of vocal 
 expression and interpretation, has fallen into disrepute 
 through the performances of young persons who mis- 
 take sound for sense and gesticulation for eloquence. 
 The spirit of the age has set in strongly towards the 
 mechanical, the empirical, the practical. This spirit 
 has become rampant in normal schools. Teachers are 
 no longer to be educated, but ' ' trained ; ' ' and this 
 ''training" is to be done in "laboratories," where 
 students are encouraged to operate on children. The 
 inevitable but deplorable consequence of this fad is 
 that normal schools have lost the respect of educated 
 men, and it is very commonly taken for granted that 
 a teacher ' ' trained ' ' in these schools is a man or 
 woman of slender scholarship, who expects to succeed 
 
TEACHERS TO BE EDUCATED NOT TRAINED 99 
 
 by '* devices" and ''methods." There seems to be 
 but one way to rescue the vocation of teaching from 
 this false position, and this is to return towards the 
 older conception that a teacher must be a gentleman 
 and a scholar. Over the entrance of every normal 
 school there should be this legend: "Teaching: 
 
 THB NOBLEST OF THE PROFESSIONS, BUT THE SORRIEST 
 OF TRADES." 
 
 For the reasons here set forth in outline it should 
 be the purpose of a normal college to make some 
 degree of liberal learning the professional endowment 
 of each graduate; to hold fast to the doctrine that 
 teachers are to be educated rather than trained, and 
 that scholarly habits and instincts are of more value 
 than empirical devices and methods. Seeing that the 
 teachers are the real guardians of the State, why 
 should we set for them a lower standard of attainment 
 than that which Plato prescribes for the guardians of 
 his ideal republic? "Lovers, not of a part of wis- 
 dom, but of the whole ; who have a taste for every 
 sort of knowledge and are curious to learn and are 
 never satisfied ; who have magnificence of mind, and 
 are the spectators of all time and all existence ; who 
 are harmoniously constituted ; of a well-proportioned 
 and gracious mind, whose own nature will move spon- 
 
100 THE EDUCATION OF TEACHERS 
 
 taneously towards the true being of everything ; who 
 have a good memory, and are quick to learn ; noble, 
 gracious, the friends of truth, justice, courage, tem- 
 perance. ' ' * 
 
 Surely this ideal is scarcely attainable in any school 
 of the present, but it may be approached ; and who 
 will say that it is not wise to lure our pupils forward 
 as far as possible on this pleasant way ? 
 
 But a school may be addicted to liberal learning of 
 this high type and still not be a school for the profes- 
 sional education of teachers. A teacher must first of 
 all be a scholar both in attainment and spirit, but in 
 addition to that knowledge which every well-educated 
 man should possess, he must also have that special and 
 specific knowledge which distinguishes the teacher 
 from the mere scholar. All the professions stand in 
 the same case. The lawyer, the physician, the clergy- 
 man, must be scholars, but each must also have that 
 special knowledge which fits him for the practice of 
 his profession — knowledge which educated men in 
 general need not have. There is knowledge of this 
 specific sort for the teacher's professional use, and it 
 is this which differentiates a normal college from a 
 college of the ordinary type. The history and the 
 * " Republic " (Jowett), 475-487. 
 
TEACHERS TO BE EDUCATED NOT TRAINED 101 
 
 science of education ; the principles of school organi- 
 zation and school management ; the science of educa- 
 tion values ; school hygiene and school legislation ; the 
 construction of rational courses of study for schools 
 of various grades; the principles of school supervi- 
 sion — these and kindred subjects comprise a vast field 
 of study and constitute a body of special or profes- 
 sional knowledge of larger volume than that which 
 enters into the education of the clergyman or the 
 lawyer. It should be a distinctive aim of this college 
 to communicate to its students as much of this knowl- 
 edge as its teaching force makes possible. 
 
 It is believed that the best way to teach a liberal art 
 is to teach the essential doctrines and principles that 
 underlie that art. Law, medicine and theology are 
 taught on this plan. It is legal science that the 
 student learns at the law school ; and it is out of this 
 science, on the occasion of actual experience, that he 
 must evolve his art. At the medical college it is the 
 science of medicine that the student learns. He may 
 visit patients mth his preceptor, and may witness 
 surgical operations at the clinic ; but while a student, 
 he is not allowed to administer medicine to the sick, 
 nor to practise surgery upon the wounded. It is out 
 of his science and his observation, when his profes- 
 
102 THE EDUCATION OF TEACHERS 
 
 sional course is terminated, tliat he must evolve his 
 art. In those vocations in which the hand is princi- 
 pally concerned, the handicrafts and trades, an art is 
 doubtless best learned empirically, by assiduous manual 
 practice ; but in those higher employments where the 
 major or exclusive effort is mental or spiritual, an art 
 is best learned by first compassing tlie science which 
 underlies it. ^N^ow teaching is an almost purely spirit- 
 ual act or art, scarcely involving the manual or mus- 
 cular dexterities at all, but in its real essence closely 
 akin to the supremest of human arts, the art of lofty 
 living ; but it is the procedure in all ethical systems 
 first to master a theory of life, and then to evolve out 
 of it, through daily experience, a corresponding art of 
 living. The Sermon on the Mount is pure precept or 
 doctrine, first promulgated and learned on authority 
 and then expanded into all the phases of righteous 
 living. ''First know and then do," was one of the 
 oldest and wisest precepts of Greek philosophy, and it 
 would be well if we could turn aside from such mis- 
 leading cant as "We learn to do by doing," and 
 recast our modes of teaching on the basis of a principle 
 that is catholic and statesmanlike. Whether in the 
 making of a horseshoe or in the construction of a 
 treaty, the point of departure is knowledge; and as 
 
TEACHERS TO BE EDUCATED NOT TRAINED 103 
 
 we rise in an ascending series through the grades of 
 activity lying between these two extremes, the em- 
 pirical element in instruction gradually diminishes 
 until in the last member it dwindles to the zero point. 
 In the category of human activities teaching is to be 
 classified with statesmanship rather than with black- 
 smithing. 
 
 A school of children is now universally regarded as 
 a necessary adjunct to a normal school. In most 
 cases this supplementary school is employed as an 
 experimental or practice school (known in^;^ de siecle 
 terms as a " laboratory "), in which students are sup- 
 posed to serve a sort of apprenticeship in teaching; 
 while in other cases it is simply a well-organized and 
 well-taught school, in which students observe models 
 of good school work as done by competent teachers, 
 and known as a model school, or school of observation. 
 Such a school should be employed, not as a practice 
 school, experimental school, or ''laboratory," in 
 which students experiment on children and thus 
 "learn to do by doing," but as a school that may 
 serve students as a model which, in whole or in part, 
 they may reproduce in their own practice, and which 
 represents to them, in the concrete, what the theory of 
 the school had before represented to them in the abstract. 
 
104 THE EDUCATION OF TEACHERS 
 
 My objections to the use of the supplementary 
 school as a ** laboratory " are as follows : 
 
 A school taught by a rapid succession of pupil 
 teachers cannot be a school worthy of imitation and 
 reproduction. 
 
 Insistence on technique tends to defeat the culture 
 aim of education. If study is to beget scholarly in- 
 stincts and habits, knowledge must be pursued for its 
 own sake, in an atmosphere of freedom and repose. 
 
 The formal prescriptions and arid criticisms of the 
 training school foster a dreary and lifeless routine that 
 defeats the main purpose of education — the love of 
 learning and the quickening of the intellectual powers. 
 Teachers and pupils attain freedom only through truth, 
 and the larger the truth the greater the freedom. 
 Rules have their place lq education, but they should 
 follow principles, not precede them, and much less 
 supersede them. When teachers are very ignorant, 
 rules are doubtless more serviceable than general prin- 
 ciples ; but in a school where professional teachers are 
 being educated such ignorance is not to be presumed. 
 
 Except under extraordinary conditions an experi- 
 mental school cannot give to students what may be 
 caUed an experience in the honest sense of this term, 
 much less an amount of practice equivalent to an 
 
TEACHERS TO BE EDUCATED NOT TRAINED 105 
 
 apprenticeship in teaching. After what term of ser- 
 vice may one be called an experienced teacher? The 
 very lowest minimum that would seem to me to justify 
 such a declaration would be ten weeks or fifty days of 
 five hours each, making two hundred and fifty hours 
 in the aggregate. Let us suppose that there are five 
 teachers employed in the model school, each devoting 
 three hours a day to practice work. This would yield 
 seventy-five hours a week, three hundred hours a 
 month, or two thousand four hundred hours a year. 
 Supposing again that one hundred students share this 
 opportunity, the maximum experience of each student 
 is only twenty-four hom-s, or less than five days. 
 This is probably not an unfair picture of the average 
 normal school. If this be true, it would, therefore, 
 require a school of ten times this teaching force to 
 afford the students the minimum of practice that would 
 constitute an experience in teaching. I know of no 
 normal school provided with a supplementary school 
 large enough to furnish its pupils with enough pracvice 
 work to constitute a real experience in teaching. It 
 is almost a pure illusion to regard a few days of such 
 practice work as a training in the art of teaching. 
 
 At best, the conditions under which this experience 
 is gained are so peculiar, so abnormal, that it may 
 
106 THE EDUCATION OF TEACHERS 
 
 fairly be questioned whether it is not a disadvantage 
 rather than a real help. There is no virtue in expe- 
 rience per se / it may be very helpful or it may be 
 very harmful, all depending on the conditions undej 
 which it takes place. In order that a young teacher 
 may turn his experience to profitable account, the fol- 
 lowing conditions should be supplied ; The school, or 
 the class, should be his own ; he should work in the 
 light of some clearly conceived principle ; there should 
 be present to his mind some ideal as a model for imi- 
 tation ; he should work with composure, with nothing 
 to stimulate his self -consciousness ; whatever criticism 
 is passed on his work should be sparing and judicious, 
 and administered in private. 
 
 In the practice school the class taught by the student 
 is not his own ; it very recently came to him from a 
 fellow-student, and will soon pass into the hands of 
 another student. He teaches in the presence of official 
 critics, pencil and note-book in hand, who are present 
 for the express purpose of criticising, and who, there- 
 fore, rrntst criticise. These critics being his fellow- 
 students, what probability is there that their criticism 
 will be just and wise ? Besides, what chance is there 
 that the work of this tyro will be done with serenity 
 and composure ? What veteran teacher would expect 
 
TEACHERS TO BE EDUCATED NOT TRAINED 107 
 
 to succeed in the presence of four or five official 
 critics? I have witnessed this practice teaching in 
 normal schools of the best class, and I have purposely 
 understated the adverse conditions under which stu- 
 dents attempt to learn the art of teaching in these 
 pedagogical ' ' laboratories. ' ' 
 
 An easy calculation has shown that a supplementary 
 school of children cannot furnish our large classes with 
 practice work enough to constitute even the semblance 
 of real experience, but it is large enough and complete 
 enough to serve as a concrete whole to be observed, 
 studied and imitated. This is the original notion and 
 intent of a normal school ; that is, a school organized 
 and taught hi such a way as to serve as a norma^ 
 measure or pattern, by wliich its students are to try 
 their own schools.* Naturally, students will teach as 
 they have been taught, and their first impulse will be 
 to make their schools like the one with which they are 
 most familiar ; and if the students of a normal school 
 were all destined to organize normal schools of their 
 own, no other rule or pattern would be necessary; 
 but as other and different schools will require their 
 skill, a supplementary school for observation and 
 
 *Normal ScTiool, a school whose methods of instruction are 
 to serve as a model for imitation (Webster). 
 
108 THE EDUCATION OF TEACHERS 
 
 study becomes a necessity. Without such a corrective 
 and guide, a college education might disqualify a stu- 
 dent for work in a primary or a secondary school. 
 The importance of having a wholesome school, well 
 graded, well governed and well taught, as an organi- 
 zation to be studied and comprehended, will readily 
 appear when it is recollected that probably three- 
 fourths of the students had never seen such a school 
 previous to their entering college. To all such a 
 model school is a concrete, living object-lesson. 
 
 In the school, as in the Church and in the State, 
 there is the conservative party, holding that the roots 
 of all true progress reach far back into the soil of the 
 past ; that there should be no break in the continuity 
 of life ; that a better future is to be a gradual and 
 equable evolution out of a good past; that the first 
 duty of the reformer is to interpret with becoming 
 reverence and modesty the. past achievements of the 
 good and the wise : and the radical party, holding that 
 revolution is the main instrument of progress; that 
 the first and main duty of the reformer is to destroy ; 
 that each new generation must discover for itself by 
 experiment and induction the principles of human 
 conduct; and that universal unrest is the sign and 
 condition of human progress. 
 
TEACHERS TO BE EDUCATED NOT TRAINED 109 
 
 Listening merely to the noise that is made in the 
 educational world by the loud-voiced and not over- 
 modest reformer, we might conclude that the school 
 is in a very bad way, that nothing has really been set- 
 tled in the way of principles and methods, but that 
 the whole scholastic regime is to be created de novo, 
 A striking phenomenon of the times is a rapid succes- 
 sion of educational fads, some philosophical, some 
 methodical, some enduring for a season, others disap- 
 pearing after a fitful effort to maintain an existence. 
 A favorite vocable to conjure with has been "Apper- 
 ception." It is sufficiently vague to be attractive, and 
 sufficiently indefinite to accommodate different shades 
 of interpretation. Competing, but less fortunate fads, 
 have been ' ' Concentration, " " Interest, ' ' and ' 'Con- 
 gruity." These form a sprightly troop of hobbies, 
 each for a season the favorite of an enthusiastic group, 
 but all the subjects of unforeseen and vexatious mis- 
 haps. No one can predict the events of the coming 
 season, but the course will certainly have its varied 
 attractions. This is the way we go ; but what a pity 
 that the noblest of the professions should be subject 
 to such ignoble conditions of growth ! 
 
 Just now the hobby of the normal school is the so- 
 called ' ' laboratory. ' ' This term, deliberately chosen, 
 
110 THE EDUCATION OF TEACHERS 
 
 marks the height or the depth of the experimental 
 method as applied to education. The name is patheti- 
 cally suggestive. Children are material^ and on this 
 material young men and women are to operate for the 
 double purpose of making discoveries in infant psy- 
 chology, and of learning the art of teaching by the 
 experimental method. As vivisection, so much in 
 vogue in biology, rediscovers from year to year, at the 
 cost of numberless lives, what is well known in physi- 
 ology; so the ''pedagogical laboratory" rediscovers 
 truths in the mental life that in one form or another 
 have been well known for centuries. It is barely con- 
 ceivable that, after countless experiments and disasters, 
 some essentially new truth may be added to what is 
 already known ; but it is infinitely more probable that 
 in each bushel of new chaff there will be found only 
 the one grain that in kind is as old as the Pharaohs 
 and their mummies. 
 
 It is so easy to assume that there are no ancient 
 landmarks which our forefathers have set ! So modem 
 and so scientific for each callow scholar to mark off the 
 highways of knowledge with milestones of his own de- 
 vising ! But the supreme pity is that this laboratory 
 method as applied to education may become sporadic, 
 and so, little by little, unsettle and corrupt public 
 
TEACHERS TO BE EDUCATED NOT TRAINED 111 
 
 opinion as it bears on human interests of such infinite 
 moment that no method should be tolerated which is 
 not conservative and cautious. Seeing that education 
 is the architectonic or master art, it should be the most 
 conservative of all the arts ; of all human institutions 
 the school should be the one the least addicted to 
 change, the least exposed to innovations. To be con- 
 servative is to be neither stationary nor retrogressive, 
 but to be wisely circumspect and cautious while adapt- 
 ing old methods to new needs. It is the school that is 
 piloting the race across the centuries, and its hands 
 should ever be held firmly on the helm, and its eyes 
 steadily fixed on the compass. In such a voyage ex- 
 periments in navigation are not only perilous, but 
 criminal. 
 
EDUCATION ACCORDING TO NATURE 
 
VI 
 
 EDUCATION ACCOKDING TO NATUEE 
 
 He would do the world no mean service who would 
 write an impartial history of fads, showing the rise, 
 progress, termination and results of each. Such a 
 history would doubtless discover to us the fact that 
 even the thinking world is addicted to hobby-riding, 
 and that successive fads are the rungs of a ladder on 
 which thought ascends from lower conceptions to 
 higher, and thus gains wider and wider horizons of 
 truth. What were nominalism and realism but phi- 
 losophical fads, engrossing men's thoughts for a sea- 
 son, kindling the controversial spirit up to the fight- 
 ing point, then waning in interest, and finally giving 
 place to other fads? Phlogiston, Malthusianism, Dar- 
 winianism, the nebular hypothesis, phrenology. Chris- 
 tian science and hypnotism are phenomena of the same 
 sort. These are all "guesses at truth." Their devo- 
 tees, indeed, regard them as truth itself, but successive 
 thinkers finally separate the grains of pure metal from 
 the larger volume of alloy, garner the precious residue 
 into the general storehouse of science and then make 
 a venture at new guesses. The line of Sherman's 
 
116 THE EDUCATION OF TEACHERS 
 
 march to the sea is now marked by abandoned forts, 
 exploded shells and half-filled trenches. So the 
 triumphal march of thought is marked by abandoned 
 hypotheses, exploded theories, and empty conjectures. 
 
 The same phenomenon is observable in the special 
 science to which we are addicted. Men of my years 
 have lived through a succession of educational fads, 
 and our predecessors, near and remote, were doomed 
 to traverse a similar route. Within our own time ob- 
 ject-teaching rose in the East, if not as the sun, at least 
 as a star of the first magnitude, but its distinctive light 
 has been lost in its passage across the horizon. Then 
 appeared other lights, from time to time, great and 
 small, to which we did homage, such as manual train- 
 ing and the inductive method; and now the suns or 
 meteors that are in full blaze on our pedagogic firma- 
 ment are "concentration," "apperception," "interest," 
 "congruity" and "a pot of green feathers." 
 
 "VVe are not to forget that the monitorial system 
 swept over the country eighty years ago like an epi- 
 demic, and that it took such a stalwart as De Witt 
 Clinton clear off his feet. The head that could project 
 the Erie canal could also utter such a wild prophecy 
 as this: "I recognize in Lancaster the benefactor of 
 the human race. I consider his system as creating a 
 
EDUCATION ACCORDING TO NATURE 117 
 
 new era in education — as a blessing sent down from 
 heaven to redeem the poor and distressed of this world 
 from the power and dominion of ignorance."* Re- 
 turning to the figure just employed, Lancastrianism 
 was a blazing comet, creating a profound sensation at 
 the time of its appearance; but it speedily burned out, 
 leaving hardly as much as a poor cinder by way of re- 
 membrance. 
 
 In place of fad I might have used the word craze, 
 or hobby, but fad is the newer term, and I use it to 
 denote a wide class of phenomena, social, political, 
 philosophical, educational and even religious. I use 
 the term in a more serious sense than the ordinary, to 
 indicate a phase of thought that, while serious, is at 
 the same time partial and shallow, and, in its appear- 
 ance and disappearance, epidemic. 
 
 It will be readily guessed that I include "Education 
 According to Xature," or "Follow !N"ature,'' among 
 educational fads. In the sense just stated, I do; only 
 "Xature" must be considered as the most respectable 
 of these fads, by reason of its antiquity and longevity; 
 though sometimes, as in the case of Joseph Payne and 
 
 ♦S. S. Randall, "History of the Common Schools of New 
 York," p. 28. 
 
118 THE EDUCATION OF TEACHERS 
 
 Other imitators of Mr. Spencer, the whole treatment is 
 little better than cant^ — ^shallow and offensive. 
 
 The precept, "Follow Nature," is prevalent in 
 ethics, in education, and in medicine, where Xature is 
 set up as a criterion of right and wrong, of true and 
 false. A practice that is supposed to be in conformity 
 with Nature is thereby proved to be right, or true; 
 while a practice that can be shown to be contrary to 
 Nature is assumed to be wrong, or false. Thus, Aris- 
 totle defends slavery because it is "natural," some men 
 being bom to rule, others to serve, some being strong, 
 others weak; while he condemns usury, or the taking 
 of interest, because it is "unnatural." Flocks and 
 crops springing from the soil are wealth proper, and 
 for convenience they may be converted into money; 
 but to produce money from money, a dead thing from 
 a dead thing, is unnatural, and therefore wrong. 
 "Down to the Norman conquest the Britons had ^living 
 money' and 'dead money,' the former being slaves and 
 cattle, the latter metal." Our modem temperance 
 reformers use the same argument. Alcohol is an evil, 
 because it is produced by the decay or rotting of a 
 natural product, as corn, rye, or wheat; though just 
 
EDUCATION ACCORDING TO NATURE 119 
 
 why vinegar should escape condemnation is not at all 
 clear. 
 
 Peter the Great suffered a similar delusion when he 
 ordered his naval cadets to use sea water for drinking 
 purposes. Is not the sea the natural domain of the 
 sailor, just as the land is the natural domain of the 
 soldier? The sailor must therefore adapt himself to 
 his environment; he must draw his sustenance from 
 the elements on which he lives. Had Peter taken wise 
 counsel before giving this order, he might have been 
 reminded that it was a scientific error to include sailors 
 and saltwater fish in the same category; but he was 
 following ^N^ature, as he supposed, and his cadets had 
 to perish. 
 
 The same false analogy betrayed John Locke into 
 his "hardening process.'' Men in a "state of nature" 
 
 wear no shoes, and though their clothing is very scant, 
 
 « 
 even in winter, they adapt themselves to rigors of tem- 
 perature without harm; my young gentleman should 
 therefore follow Xature rather than art in the matter 
 of clothing, and so should wear no shoes; but as he is 
 compelled to live in society, we will strike a compro- 
 mise, and he may wear shoes, provided they are plenti- 
 fully supplied with holes. 
 
 The phrase "Education According to J^ature" at 
 
120 THE EDUCATION OF TEACHERS 
 
 once suggests the name of Rousseau, for it was lie who, 
 in his "Emile," fairly set the fashion for subsequent 
 writers on education, great and small. Mr. Spencer 
 adopts the new fashion, and his pages are overshad- 
 owed with capital N's. He accepts the new mythol- 
 ogy, writes out a new creed, and virtually founds a 
 new school of theorists. 'No theologian was ever more 
 dogmatic. He postulates E'ature as an infallible guide, 
 and then deduces educational processes with almost 
 mathematical precision. Whatever will not fit into 
 his system, as history, he conveniently rejects. 
 
 Rousseau was essentially a pessimist, placing the 
 Golden' Age in the distant past rather than in a dis- 
 tant future. Civilization, so-called, was full of perver- 
 sions and defilements; the arts and sciences were in- 
 struments of corruption; and the only salvation for the 
 race was a return to primitive simplicity and purity. 
 As the nfain principle of political philosophy was the 
 assumption that society was retrograding because it 
 was receding from I^ature, he readily adopted the con- 
 ception that the salvation of society lay in a new sys- 
 tem of education, whose purpose should be to bring 
 men back to !N'ature, and thus to purity and to peace. 
 The myth Nature dominated Rousseau's thought, or 
 rather his feeling; for he felt rather than reasoned. 
 
EDUCATION ACCORDING TO NATURE 121 
 
 Everything must be "natural," even his children. Like 
 Mr. Spencer, though in another manner, Rousseau 
 was a rhetorician, enamored of the sound of his own 
 voice; such rhetoric is always fatal to logic. He car- 
 ries conviction, as the advocate or the orator does, by 
 enlisting the feelings on his side of the controversy. 
 Hence, his "Emile" is a romance, and the characters 
 that appear in it are as unreal as any that one may find 
 in modern fiction. And yet it is not a contradiction to 
 say of it what Rousseau himself said of the "Repub- 
 lic:" C^est le plus beau traite d^ education qu^on a 
 jamais fait.^^ 
 
 Though Rousseau nowhere defines Mature, it is not 
 difficult to understand the general sense in which he 
 uses this term. His whole creed is virtually contained 
 in the opening paragraph of the "Emile": "Every- 
 thing is good as it comes from the hands of the Author 
 of Xature; but everything degenerates in the hands 
 of man. He forces one country to nourish the produc- 
 tions of another; one tree to bear the fruits of another. 
 He mingles and confounds the climates, the elements, 
 the seasons; he mutilates his dog, his horse and his 
 slave; he overturns everything; he loves deformity, 
 monsters ; he will have nothing as Nature made it, not 
 even man; like a saddle horse, man must be trained 
 
122 THE EDUCATION OF TEACHERS 
 
 for man's service; lie must be made over according to 
 his fancy, like a tree in his garden." 
 
 In other terms, restore the world to the condition it 
 was in before it began to be modified by man's agency, 
 and we have it in its ideal state, "the state of Nature." 
 Relieve a modern garden from human interference, 
 and it will soon revert to a state of nature, l^atural 
 fruit is better than fruit that has been cultivated. The 
 ideal horse is the wild horse. The ideal man is the red 
 Indian. Education is not an ascent from wildness, 
 but a return towards wildness. Eousseau admits men 
 to his state of Nature provided they make no attempt 
 to refashion one another or to modify their environ- 
 ment. The moment they begin to do this, perversion 
 sets in and art usurps the place of Nature. This per- 
 version of Nature by art has gone to the greatest length 
 in cities. Hence, relatively, we return to Nature when 
 we go from the city into the country, as from Paris to 
 the woods of Montmorency. 
 
 How much of this is rhetoric, and how much sober 
 conviction, it is doubtless impossible to tell with any 
 exactness. In construing Rousseau's theory we must 
 make some allowance for temperament, and also for 
 the extravagances into which reformers invariably 
 fall. Over-statement is an element in a reformer's 
 
EDUCATION ACCORDING TO NATURE 123 
 
 outfit, whether it takes the form of a satire, as in 
 Rabelais and Dickens, or of fiction and fancy, as in 
 Rousseau. All an interpreter can do is to trace the 
 main lines of the argument and show the limitations 
 of the theory by typical examples. This I will attempt 
 to do in the sequel. 
 
 The practical application of Rousseau's theory is 
 well exhibited in his doctrine of discipline by natural 
 consequences. Through wilfulness, Emile breaks the 
 windows of his chamber. His father replaces them, 
 but the boy again breaks them. The transgressor is 
 thereupon turned over to the relentless laws of Nature. 
 The windows are not replaced, but the boy is confined 
 to his room, where the cold wind blows on him by day 
 and by night, thus exposing him, not only to discom- 
 fort, but to danger; he might take a severe cold and 
 die of pneumonia. The great danger of this exposure 
 occurs to Rousseau, but he promptly replies that it is 
 better to die of a cold than to be a fool ! In the case 
 of Emile, however, matters do not come to this sad 
 pass, but he is finally conquered by suffering the dis- 
 agreeable consequences of his own folly and reforms 
 in a manner befitting the author's theory. 
 
 The application of this doctrine is extended still 
 further. To cure Emile of his vanity and forwardness, 
 
124 THE EDUCATION OF TEACHERS 
 
 lie is allowed to compete with a professional juggler, 
 who readily makes him the laughing-stock of a jeering 
 crowd. To teach him worldly wisdom and caution, he 
 is allowed to fall into the hands of sharpers and cheats, 
 who fleece him in fine fashion; and, finally, to make 
 him virtuous, he is allowed to fall into vice — he is 
 drawn through the mire in order that he may after- 
 ward be washed and experience the sensation of being 
 clean. In outline, this is Emile's course in experi- 
 mental ethics. 
 
 Though Rousseau, as before noted, does not define 
 Nature, he makes it quite easy for us to infer what he 
 means by the term, and a proximate definition would 
 stand about as follows: The material world affected 
 by physical forces (gravity, heat, light, electricity, 
 etc.,) and inhabited by uncivilized men. 
 
 For purposes of right education, Emile is to be 
 pushed as far back as possible into this primitive and 
 uncorrupted world; and society itself, in order to be 
 rescued from growing corruption, must make a return 
 toward this primitive simplicity and perfection. This 
 was Rousseau's ideal education and his ideal state of 
 society; but he had the sense to know that these ideals 
 were impracticable, and so he accepts a compromise. 
 He uses consummate art to reproduce a quasi state of 
 
EDUCATION ACCORDING TO NATURE 125 
 
 mature, but this more than Herculean effort involves 
 him in countless contradictions, absurdities and follies. 
 Mr. Spencer personifies Mature, and thus carries the 
 myth to its most perfect development. With him 
 Nature is physical force personified, and education is 
 experience, or contact with environment. His general 
 theory may be summarized as follows: The individual 
 of to-day must be educated just as the race was edu- 
 cated historically; the race was self -instructed through 
 experience; the individual must therefore rely on his 
 personal experience for his knowledge and training. 
 As Nature was the tutor of the race, so Nature must 
 be the tutor of each individual of the race. Of course, 
 in accordance with this theory, the knowledge that is 
 of most worth is science, for science has grown out of 
 the experiences of the race — ^is, in the Aristotelian 
 sense, a natural product — and is knowledge that can 
 be reproduced and verified by each succeeding genera- 
 tion of learners. Past experiences constituting what 
 is commonly known as history cannot be thus repro- 
 duced and verified, and therefore history is not knowl- 
 edge proper. And as literature — a play of Shake- 
 speare, for example — cannot be rediscovered or repro- 
 duced according to the Spencerian dogma, there is no 
 natural place in this system for literature and kindred 
 
126 THE EDUCATION OF TEACHERS 
 
 subjects. Literature is too mucli tainted with art to fit 
 into a scheme of education according to Kature. 
 
 Like Kousseau, Mr. Spencer is clearest when he ap- 
 plies his hypothesis to moral education. Prior to ex- 
 perience, an infant, if permitted, will put its little 
 fingers in the flame of a candle. Let it do this, advises 
 Mr. Spencer, even though a painful blister is the conse- 
 quence. According to the same method the child may 
 lay hold of hot fire-bars and spill boiling water on its 
 tender skin. In this fashion the infant is being edu- 
 cated through experience by its godmother, Nature. 
 This is a reappearance of Rousseau's doctrine of conse- 
 quences. From this point of view education may be 
 defined as experience coming from contact with matter 
 and with physical force, or in shorter phrase, with one's 
 environment. 
 
 It may be urged against Rousseau and his disciples 
 that the Golden Age of society is not in the remote 
 past, but in the future — that humanity is making a 
 forward movement, slow, perhaps, but sure; that what 
 we call civilization will not be abandoned for savagery; 
 that cities, Rousseau's especial abomination, are both a 
 product and an agent of civilization; and that his as- 
 sumption of the nobility of primitive man is an unsup- 
 
EDUCATION ACCORDING TO NATURE 12T 
 
 ported fiction. The untutored savage, as seen and 
 described by travelers, is Nature's handiwork, a fair 
 specimen of what she can do in the way of educating 
 when unassisted by human art. It has not been ob- 
 served, however, that men are made either happier or 
 better by being allowed to revert to a state of nature. 
 
 Again, a proper conception of !N^ature will include 
 man, his endowments and his works. Is not man as 
 natural a product as a beaver or a horse ? If instinct 
 is a natural endowment of the beaver, why are not 
 reason, imagination and language also natural endow- 
 ments of man? Why make a radical distinction be- 
 tween the defenses built by beavers and the defenses 
 built by men? Why is it less natural and right for 
 men to live in communities than for bees and ants? 
 Why is not a poem as natural a product as a bird's 
 nest? 
 
 When Mr. Spencer asserts that "humanity has pro- 
 gressed solely by self-instruction,"* he either falls into 
 an obvious error or he uses terms in an extraordinary 
 sense. It would be as true to assert that humanity has 
 progressed solely by capitalization. Men capitalize 
 their experiences in labor-saving machines and in pro- 
 verbs. One generation invents a snare, a trap, or a 
 
128 THE EDUCATION OF TEACHERS 
 
 hook; the next generation is spared the effort oi 
 making these inventions, but simply accepts and uses 
 them, and devotes the time and effort thus saved to the 
 making of other inventions. Experience begets wis- 
 dom, this wisdom is embodied or capitalized in pro- 
 verbs, and then these proverbs serve other men for 
 warning and guidance in place of wasteful experience. 
 Humanity has never squandered its time in reinvent- 
 ing and rediscovering. The "genesis of knowledge 
 in the race" takes place through capitalization and dis- 
 covery, and thus understood, it is quite true that the 
 individual must follow the same course. Mr. Bain is 
 evidently right in declaring that the assumption that 
 the child's education is to be in the main a process of 
 discovery or of rediscovery is a "bold fiction." In 
 some subjects, as mathematics and physical science, 
 rediscovery is conceivable, but, in the main, impracti- 
 cable; while in others, as history and literature, it is 
 impossible, if not inconceivable. Mr. Spencer's hy- 
 pothesis of ^Nature as the true guide in human educa- 
 tion easily runs into the redudio ad ahsurdum. Let 
 us see where this specious hypothesis will land us. 
 
 This !N'ature is simply brute matter or brute force, 
 absolutely divested of feeling, without sympathy and 
 
EDUCATION ACCORDING TO NATURE 129 
 
 without pity; the teacher should therefore be the per- 
 sonification of brute, unfeeling force. 
 
 In her distribution of pains and penalties Nature 
 never distinguishes between innocence and deliberate 
 transgression — the same punishment falls on the in- 
 fant as on the hardened criminal; the teacher is there- 
 fore to take no account of motive, but must regard the 
 fact of transgression only. 
 
 Nature makes no distinction between a block of 
 wood that falls from the roof of a house and a child 
 that tumbles from a chamber window — for her use 
 they are merely two pieces of matter, which she treats 
 in the same manner, or, if she makes any distinction 
 at all, she favors the block of wood, life and feeling 
 here being at a discount; children should therefore be 
 manipulated, shaped and governed as though they were 
 inert, senseless matter. 
 
 There are no gradations in Nature's lessons; she 
 deigns no explanation, she is as silent as a sphinx. 
 The graded school is therefore unnatural, and the 
 teacher should be merely a stem and silent monitor. 
 
 I call attention to these absurdities, not because 
 
 they are sanctioned by Rousseau and Spencer, but 
 
 because they show the near limitations of this specious 
 
 doctrine of Nature. Both these writers set up Nature 
 9 
 
130 THE EDUCATION OF TEACHERS 
 
 as a criterion and guide, and they quote her in a free 
 and easy way as standard authority for certain educa- 
 tional processes. Their argument runs in this wise: 
 "Nature does so and so; therefore we should do so and 
 so." But, evidently, this Nature does some things 
 that no sane or moral man should ever think of doing. 
 Mr. Spencer allows a little child of three or four years 
 to lay hold of hot fire-bars with his little hands, but 
 objects to his playing with an open razor. It is plain, 
 therefore, that Nature is not to be followed at all 
 lengths. Who is to decide how far, or in what cases, 
 we are to follow Nature? Some who have had larger 
 experience in the management of children than Mr. 
 Spencer has probably had, would stop short of the fire- 
 bars and the boiling water. It is a reasonable pre- 
 sumption, therefore, that we are not here dealing with 
 science, but with opinion; and that it is an open ques- 
 tion, not only how far we should follow Nature, but 
 whether we should follow her at all; seeing how un- 
 natural she sometimes is and how questionable some of 
 her proceedings are. 
 
 Instead of accepting the poetical fiction that Nature 
 (still using the term in the Spencerian sense) is our 
 goddess and our guide, some of us who have not the 
 fear of the new mythology before our eyes would 
 
EDUCATION ACCORDING TO NATURE 131 
 
 respectfully maintain that this same Nature, in some 
 of her work, should be disinfected, deodorized, and 
 otherwise prevented from doing her worst. Only give 
 her a fair chance, and Xature, in the form of scarla- 
 tina, diphtheria, or cholera, will decimate whole vil- 
 lages and cities. In such and all similar cases Nature 
 is a remorseless, relentless fury, who is to be pursued, 
 captured and thrown headlong into the sea and mis- 
 erably drowned. In other terms, and dropping the 
 figure, the joint work of Christianity, science and 
 civilization is to subdue Nature, to make her man's 
 servant rather than man's master, to make her minister 
 to his joys rather than to his sorrows. There is to be 
 a new^ earth, rescued from Nature and transformed by 
 human art, and it is to be peopled by a race recreated 
 by education and the gospel; and throughout this 
 secular process the dominant force is to be the human 
 intelligence and the human will. The Nature that 
 we are to follow is "Nature humanized," or "Nature 
 informed with humanity," to adopt the happy phrase 
 of Kichard Grant White. 
 
 So far, the treatment of my theme has been nega- 
 tive, in the main; the purpose being to show that the 
 hypothesis of Nature as a faultless paragon is subject 
 to grave Kmitations; that this general doctrine is very 
 
132 THE EDUCATION OF TEACHERS 
 
 far from being safe and wholesome; and that, like all 
 other fads, it seizes upon a fraction of a truth, fancies 
 that it is the whole truth, and then proclaims the new 
 marvel to the world with a cackling of delight. 
 
 I will now venture on a more positive treatment of 
 this theme, and, putting entirely aside whatever is 
 mystical or mythical, will try to state in plain prose 
 some of the things that seem to be implied in education 
 according to Nature. I hope my readers will do me 
 the favor to remember that my purpose in this dis- 
 cussion is not controversy, but the discovery of truth. 
 I aim at nothing more than interpretation. The 
 writers who invoke Nature so persistently and so freely 
 make no attempt whatever to define the term; they 
 leave their readers to interpret the word for them- 
 selves. 
 
 In dealing with the precept "Follow Nature," the 
 task of the interpreter is twofold: (1) To determine 
 what Nature is and what she does; and (2) to deter- 
 mine whether it is wise to follow her in the cases 
 stated. At this stage of educational science it is high 
 time to disregard fiction, myth and personification, 
 and to give to this vague term an articulate meaning. 
 My interpretation of the term Nature may not be the 
 correct one, but it is an honest effort to reach the truth. 
 
EDUCATION ACCORDING TO NATURE 133 
 
 Those who reject any given interpretation owe it to 
 the cause they are attempting to serve to state in plain 
 terms their own interpretation. 
 
 The one word that most nearly interprets Nature, 
 as it seems to me, is experience, and to follow Nature 
 is to make experience the sole or the main source of 
 our knowledge and discipline. It is usually said that 
 there are two sources of knowledge — experience and 
 language; but the precept "Follow Nature" forbids 
 the intervention of language as a source of knowledge, 
 and makes the process of learning a course in personal 
 experience. Experimental knowledge, it is claimed, 
 is the only real knowledge; all we truly know is in- 
 cluded within the circle of our personal experiences, 
 of our sensations, and of the inferences we draw from 
 them. Rousseau sequesters Emile, so far as possible, 
 from the society of men, in order that he may be 
 tutored by Nature; that is, by experience. Instead of 
 the mother, Mr. Spencer makes the candle flame, the 
 fire-bars, and boiling water the teachers of the child.* 
 Primitive man, we are told, had no teacher but expe- 
 rience; the successive generations of men have gained 
 their knowledge in the same way; experience is there- 
 
134 THE EDUCATION OF TEACHERS 
 
 fore the typical process of human education, the only 
 royal road to learning. 
 
 A few tests applied to this theory would seem to 
 show its general unsoundness. Is history knowledge? 
 On the hypothesis that the real test of knowledge is 
 experience, there can be no such thing as historical 
 knowledge, for we cannot be brought into personal 
 relations with the events which have given rise to his- 
 tory. 
 
 Is our knowledge of geography limited to what we 
 have learned by travel ? May we be said to know any- 
 thing of the countries we have never visited? I once 
 had a pupil who was a thorough convert to the Spen- 
 cerian doctrine that there could be no knowledge 
 where there was no personal experience. ^'Have you 
 ever been abroad?" I asked. "No." "Then do you 
 know that there is such a city as London?" "No." 
 "How would you gain this knowledge?" "I would go 
 there." "How would you know when you reached 
 there?" So authority confronts us on every hand — 
 the new theory broke down at this point. 
 
 Again, on this hypothesis, what is the function of 
 
EDUCATION ACCORDING TO MATURE 135 
 
 books? Possibly Mr. Spencer may have learned all 
 his philosophy from his own observations and reflec- 
 tions; but, on his own hypothesis, why does he write 
 so many books for other men to read? Scholarship 
 and culture have always meant and will ever mean a 
 loving devotion to good books. 
 
 I venture to say that the following statements are 
 substantially true: 
 
 The process we call civilization is the triumph of art 
 over Xature, and is a mark of human progress. Men 
 will not renounce the essential concomitants of civili- 
 zation and revert to a state of Xature in pursuit of 
 happiness or moral good. The men of each new gen- 
 eration will start forward from the vantage ground 
 secured for them by their predecessors on the earth. 
 They will accept and use the labor-saving machines 
 which they inherit from the past, and, without wasting 
 time and strength in the effort to reinvent, they will 
 capitalize their own experience and wisdom in some 
 other or better labor-saving devices. 
 
 The knowledge gained by experience and experi- 
 ment is capitalized and transmitted in books, and the 
 great mass of men in each new generation will gain 
 their knowledge by the interpretation of the books 
 left by the wise and the good. The pretense lately set 
 
136 THE EDUCATION OF TEACHERS 
 
 upy that students in science are to gain their knowledge 
 inductively, by personal research in the way of redis- 
 covery, is a shallow fad. It would be just as reputable 
 to counsel men to construct their own almanacs. Try 
 to imagine a class of even university students attempt- 
 ing to rediscover the atomic weight of chlorine, or even 
 the specific gravity of iron! If we commit ourselves 
 to such folly at all, why not be radically and consist- 
 ently foolish, and set about reinventing the apparatus 
 of the modern laboratory? Students should certainly 
 have some training in physical manipulation and ex- 
 periment, not on the pretense of rediscovery, but 
 rather as a means of initiation into the processes of 
 modern scientific research. The culminating absurdity 
 of this doctrine of rediscovery is vivisection, which, 
 as practiced in all ordinary cases, is nothing less than 
 a crime. 
 
 Can virtue, in an intelligible sense, be capitalized, 
 transmitted and taught, so that in the moral life each 
 generation may start from a higher vantage ground; 
 or must we be remanded to an experimental ethics, as 
 our reformers would remand us to experimental 
 science? This question cannot be argued at this time, 
 but a little reflection will show that the world can 
 grow better only on the hypothesis that the attainment 
 
EDUCATION ACCORDING TO NATURE 137 
 
 of virtue is made somewhat easier for each succeed- 
 ing generation. In other words, virtue can be taught; 
 each child is not to construct a code of ethics out of 
 his own experiences, but is to accept the highest code 
 of ethics that humanity has bequeathed to him. 
 
 Interpreting Xature in the sense of experience, or 
 contact with environment, which is the prevailing 
 sense in which Rousseau and Spencer use this term, 
 and speaking only for myself, I find but little that is 
 really helpful in the stock precept "Follow Mature," 
 save this: It sen'es to keep alive the fact that learn- 
 ers are ever in danger of mistaking words for things, 
 and so guards us against an education that is purely 
 ^Hivresque/^ as it has been styled. Thomas Hobbes 
 uttered the same caution when he declared that "words 
 are wise men's counters, but the money of fools." 
 
 I find much more help in a side conception which 
 appears in the "Emile" as a sort of undertone — that 
 there is an imminent tendency of civilization toward -a 
 distracting and unwholesome complexity, and that the 
 need of the age is a return to simplicity. Rousseau's 
 illustration of his meaning is very happy. Speaking 
 of teaching children to read, he says: "We no longer 
 know how to be simple in anything. Look at the ma- 
 chines we invent for teaching children to read — cabi- 
 
138 THE EDUCATION OF TEACHERS 
 
 nets, charts, and what not — all useless lumber. "We 
 do everything save the one thing essential, creating in 
 the child a desire to read; do this, and all methods are 
 good/' As I interpret this phase of Rousseau's edu- 
 cational philosophy, it is this: Follow main routes; 
 abandon bypaths; strike at creative motives; occupy 
 strategic or dominant positions. Educate as artists 
 paints — begin with broad stroke, leaving details for 
 after consideration. Imitate the unity of Nature, and, 
 instead of reducing a child to fractions, treat him as 
 an integer, making his education wholesome and hu- 
 mane. 
 
 The stress we put on training is the symptom of a 
 general unsoundness. A trained horse or a trained pig 
 is not a normal and wholesome horse or pig, but an 
 animal artificially shaped and' fashioned into a frac- 
 tion or fragment. A thin glaze of bookkeeping con- 
 verts an ignorant boy into a writing or adding ma- 
 chine, and unfits him for the functions of a man pro- 
 per. Teachers are now being trained rather than edu- 
 cated, and these fractions tend to perpetuate frag- 
 ments. The one great merit of the kindergarten is 
 that it keeps children whole and allows them to grow 
 by an organic process into symmetrical units. The 
 danger of the graded school, and even of the college, 
 
EDUCATION ACCORDING TO NATURE 139 
 
 is stratification — the deposition of knowledge in layers 
 by specialists; and the remedy for this and kindred 
 evils is a return to a wholesome simplicity of Nature — 
 to an education according to Xature. 
 
 In a more specific sense, we follow Nature when we 
 adapt our instruction to the organic mode of the mind's 
 activities. The mind is an organism having its own 
 predetermined mode of activity. This constitutes its 
 nature; and when we respect this order of procedure 
 in the presentation of knowledge, we may with scien- 
 tific accuracy be said to follow Nature. When the 
 mind works naturally — that is, in accordance with the 
 laws of its organization — it proceeds from aggregates 
 to parts, from the vague to the definite, and, in child- 
 hood, from the concrete to the abstract; and the teacher 
 follows Nature when he allows the mind to elaborate 
 its knowledge in this order. 
 
 In conclusion, I venture to offer this bit of advice 
 to those who are trying to make of their teaching a 
 rational art: In your thinking and writing never al- 
 low yourself to personify the term Nature, but leave 
 the mythologist, the poet, and the novelist in sole pos- 
 session of this deity. 
 
A THEORY 
 OF EDUCATION VALUES 
 
VII 
 
 A THEORY OF EDUCATION VALUES 
 
 The thesis that I aim to present is as follows: 
 Studies serve three main purposes and therefore have 
 three main values. They serve for discipline, as a 
 mental gymnastic; they endow the mind with instru- 
 mental knowledge, or knowledge for guidance; and 
 they serve for delight. Studies will thus fall into 
 three classes, corresponding to three mental needs — 
 disciplinary studies, instrumental studies, and culture 
 studies. 
 
 In the prosecution of this inquiry, we shall be well 
 started on our way by recollecting that studies have 
 their distinctive qualities or properties, just as mine- 
 rals, vegetables and other natural substances have. In 
 its characteristic qualities history is as distinct from 
 algebra as bread is from quinine, and it would be as 
 gross an error to prescribe history at random as to pre- 
 scribe quinine at random. 
 
 And another thing, about as obvious, is also true. 
 It is just as easy to discover the characteristic qualities 
 of studies as of minerals and vegetables. In both cases 
 we may proceed in one or both of two ways. We may 
 
14:4 THE EDUCATION OF TEACHERS 
 
 examine tlie thing itself and thus discover its nature 
 or properties, or we may examine its effects wlien ap- 
 plied to use, and in this way discover its nature or 
 properties. Whenever the results of these two pro- 
 cesses agree, we have absolute proof that our conclu- 
 sions are valid. The mechanic, wishing to construct a 
 plow beam, has before him two pieces of wood, oak 
 and whitewood. He need never have made plow 
 beams out of these two kinds of wood to know that oak 
 is fit, and whitewood unfit, for his special purpose. 
 Just so experience in results is not needed in order to 
 distinguish a training subject from a culture subject; 
 a critical examination of the subjects themselves is 
 quite sufficient to determine that point. Still, the con- 
 sensus of enlightened opinion as to the observed re- 
 sults of studies is a valuable aid in determining edu- 
 cation values, for it cannot fail to be true that the 
 long-continued observation of educated men as to the 
 actual outcome of various studies, mathematical, lin- 
 guistic and scientific, should be substantially accurate, 
 just as the collective opinion of medical men as to the 
 effects of drugs must be accepted as trustworthy by 
 the students of medical science. This inquiry does not 
 lie in the region of hypothesis and conjecture, but in 
 the clear field of science, where certitude is possible. 
 
A THEORY OF EDUCATION VALUES 145 
 
 The science of education values is both qualitative 
 and quantitative — qualitative in an exact scientific 
 sense, and quantitative in the same sense that the tem- 
 perature of water is quantitative: high or low, as 
 determined by a thermometer. 
 
 It is only this science of values that can furnish ra- 
 tional answers to such questions as these: On what 
 ground has the study of algebra been made universal 
 in our high schools? What rational defense is there 
 for the study of the classics? Such inquiries arise with 
 reference to every subject that is taught in our schools, 
 and if education is ever to become a rational art, there 
 must be established a science of education values, just 
 as there must be a science of food values before there 
 can be a science of dietetics. 
 
 The question of method is also involved in this in- 
 quiry. If two teachers of chemistry, or of literature, 
 hold different views as to the major purpose of these 
 studies, they will follow different routes and therefore 
 adopt different methods. It is to be assumed that each 
 instructor knows the major effect of his subject, and 
 therefore its major value, for on no other assumption 
 can he be presumed to concentrate his skill in such a 
 way as to make his art effective. N'ay, how can a 
 
 teacher be said to have an art unless he keeps clearly 
 10 
 
146 THE EDUCATION OF TEACHERS 
 
 in view a definite end to be reached? The first element 
 in school economy is therefore a knowledge of the 
 value of studies. 
 
 In this discussion two facts will be assumed, as 
 follows: 
 
 Every subject has some major or characteristic 
 value, and also one or more subordinate or minor 
 values. This major value is its normal or natural 
 value, a value inherent in the subject itself, resulting 
 from its very constitution and not created by human 
 device. By express effort, or through ignorance, a 
 subject may be perverted from its natural use, and 
 what is essentially a minor value may be made a major 
 value, and thus its wholesome effect lost. Thus, what 
 is naturally a culture subject may by perversion be 
 made a disciplinary subject, and so lose its major value. 
 Perversions in use usually follow this line; they are 
 all lapses into training. 
 
 The second fact to be assumed is that the future 
 vocation of students is unknown, that their education 
 is general or liberal, and not special or technical. The 
 whole scheme of values is disturbed the moment we 
 come to deal with students who are studying for spe- 
 cial vocations. We must assume that we are serving 
 the intellectual and moral needs that are common to 
 
A THEORY OF EDUCATION VALUES 147 
 
 all men, quite regardless of their special vocations. 
 All men, regardless of their special occupations, must 
 be taught to read and write, for these instrumental 
 arts are necessary to the conduct of life; but, for prac- 
 tical ends, chemistry need not be taught to all men, 
 since the world may be served by a few chemists, as it 
 is served by a few doctors and lawyers. 
 
 This is one of the oldest of speculative questions. 
 Plato discusses the education value of arithmetic, 
 geometry and dialectic, and Aristotle, of music and 
 painting; and in modem times the subject has been 
 taken up anew by Lord Bacon, Dr. Whewell, Sir Wil- 
 liam Hamilton, Alexander Bain and Herbert Spencer. 
 Only two of these writers attempt any classification 
 of studies. Lord Bacon and Dr. Whewell, and of these 
 classifications Lord Bacon's alone is sufficiently analyti- 
 cal to be scientific and valuable. His well-known state- 
 ment is as follows: "Studies serve for delight, for 
 ornament and for ability. Their chief use for delight 
 is in privateness and retiring; for ornament, is in dis- 
 course; and for ability, is in the judgment and dispo- 
 sition of business." In substance, and with a little 
 modification, this is the classification that I shall pro- 
 pose. 
 
 I suppose no one nowadays would recommend a 
 
148 THE EDUCATION OF TEACHERS 
 
 Study merely because it is "ornamental;" that is, be- 
 cause it will enable one to shine in conversation. But 
 if we construe the term "ornamental" in a wider sense, 
 so as to include the art of pleasing, the studies that 
 serve this high purpose have a legitimate place in a 
 scheme of values, and will be considered in another 
 place. It is equally obvious, from the phraseology 
 and from the context, that Bacon includes two things 
 under the term "ability" — a habit or disposition of 
 mind expressed by the term "judgment," and the 
 turning of a study to practical account in the "dis- 
 position of business." When he says that "studies 
 serve for delight," he evidently refers to the contem- 
 plative pleasures that come from a well-furnished 
 mind. With one retrenchment, and with this legiti- 
 mate amplification, and expressed in modem terms. 
 Lord Bacon's classification stands as follows: Studies 
 eerye three main purposes, and therefore have three 
 characteristic values. They serve for mental disci- 
 pline, for guidance in affairs, and for contemplative 
 delight, and therefore have three normal or natural 
 values: (1) Disciplinary, (2) Practical, and (3) Cul- 
 tural. 
 
 I. If the Iron he Blunt, and he do Not Whet the 
 Edge, then Must he Put to More Strength. — That 
 
A THEORY OF EDUCATION VALUES 149 
 
 Bacon fully realized tlie disciplinary value of studies 
 is abundantly shown by tbe following statement: "His- 
 tories make men wise, poets witty; the mathematics 
 subtle; natural philosophy deep; moral; grave; logic 
 and rhetoric able to contend. Aheunt studia in mores 
 (studies terminate in manners). Xay, there is no 
 stond or impediment in the wit but may be wrought 
 out by fit studies, like as diseases of the body may have 
 appropriate exercises. Bowling is good for the 
 and reins, shooting for the lungs and breast, genu© 
 walking for the stomach, riding for the head, and the 
 like. So, if a man's wit be wandering, let him study 
 the mathematics, for, in demonstrations, if his wit be 
 called away never so little^ he must begin again. If 
 his wit be not apt to distinguish or find differences, let 
 him study the schoolmen, for they are cymini sedores. 
 If he be not apt to beat over matters, and to caU up one 
 thing to prove and illustrate another, let him study 
 the lawyers' cases. So, every defect of the mind may 
 have a special receipt." 
 
 In this notable quotation we have the clearly cut 
 conception of study as a mental gymnastic. The gen- 
 eral philosophy that underlies this fact is easy to dis- 
 cover. Milo, the athlete, as Quintilian affirms, by 
 lifting the calf day after day, was, in the end, able to 
 
150 THE EDUCATION OF TEACHERS 
 
 lift the ox. Mind and muscle agree in this fact that, 
 by being taxed, they acquire new power and skill, and 
 thia is what we mean by discipline. When the mind 
 is engaged in study, its powers are necessarily taxed, 
 and the reflex effect is discipline, so that all studies 
 must have some kind and degree of disciplinary value, 
 the kind and degree depending on the nature of the 
 study and the intensity of the effort. Mathematics and 
 history call into exercise different modes of mental 
 activity, and therefore produce different kinds of dis- 
 cipline. Again, in some cases, the mind works at high 
 tension, at a white heat, under the whip and spur, 
 while in other cases it is in a quiescent, almost passive 
 state, very like the state of a sensitive plate in a 
 camera, receiving impressions rather than creating 
 them. In respect of mental tax or tension, the dif- 
 ference between reading Kant's Critique and Dickens' 
 Oliver Twist is immeasurable, very like the difference 
 in respect of muscular effort between climbing the 
 Alps and gliding through the country in a palace car. 
 The reflex effect of this tax is what we call discipline, 
 and is subject to the following law : If the reflex effect 
 is to he cumulative, the tax must he cumulative also, 
 the utmost that a uniform^ tax can do heing to preserve 
 ihe status quo. To resolve the quantity x* — y'^ into 
 
A THEORY OF EDUCATION VALUES 151 
 
 its factors for the first time requires considerable effort, 
 and this effort yields considerable discipline; but the 
 repetition of this analysis for the thousandth time en- 
 dows the mind with no new power. C^est le premier 
 pas qui coute. This principle shows us the wisdom 
 of allowing students to struggle with difficulties, as- 
 sisted, at most, by suggestion, and the folly of making 
 his tasks easy — of converting work into play. 
 
 The conception of power and skill, as aims of dis- 
 cipline, admits of some analysis, as follows : 
 
 Insight or penetration: the power to make a mental 
 analysis of a phenomenon and to discover its secret 
 cause; as, e. g.j the motive which underlies human 
 conduct. 
 
 Comprehension: the power to classify phenomena 
 or facts according to their essential marks, and to deal 
 with wide classes rather than with single instances. 
 
 Versatility: the power to apply general principles 
 to the solution of new cases, or to meet vicissitudes 
 with composure and success; fertility in resources. 
 
 Good judgment: the ability to see things in their 
 true relations, and from these relations to draw correct 
 conclusions. 
 
 Discrimination: the power to note minute but 
 essential differences, to look below surface resem- 
 
152 THE EDUCATION OF TEACHERS 
 
 blances, and to distinguisli from one another objects 
 seemingly alike. 
 
 Mental, like physical gymnastics, aims at whole- 
 ness, soundness, perfection, at what is hale, hearty and 
 robust. To this end it must curb an exuberant faculty 
 and stimulate to activity a faculty that is either weak 
 or dormant. It is true alike of mind and of body that 
 "unto every one that hath shall be given; but from 
 him that hath not shall be taken away even that which 
 he hath." When, by nature or use, a mode of activity 
 has become easy and therefore pleasurable, it makes 
 its way with an ever swelling tide, and drains other 
 modes of activity of their just opportunities. That a 
 student has a marked predilection for a certain study 
 is pioof that his mind is a facile instrument in one 
 main line of activity, and may be a valid reason why 
 he should be excused from this intellectual pursuit; 
 while marked unsuccess in another study indicates a 
 dormant or undeveloped faculty, and may be a valid 
 reason why the study should be maintained, even un- 
 der painful pressure. That a student dislikes a study 
 is no good reason in itself why he should be excused 
 from it. There is some truth in the ascetic doctrine 
 that one's appetencies should be suppressed and his 
 repugnancies disregarded. All that is said in this para- 
 
A THEORY OF EDUCATION VALUES 153 
 
 graph proceeds on the hypothesis that symmetry and 
 wholeness are postulates in the art of education. 
 
 Much of the skill that is ascribed to the hand is 
 really located in the head. Thus, one may never have 
 employed the left hand in writing, but in case the 
 right hand is disabled, its fellow, without any training 
 whatever, will come to the rescue and write, not only 
 legibly, but in the usual style of letters. Evidently, 
 the origin of this potential skill is in the mind. 
 
 While the immediate condition of discipline is exer- 
 cise, its fundamental condition is nurture. Perhaps it 
 is nearer the truth to say that discipline is the joint 
 effect of nurture and exercise. I^urture produces or 
 maintains growth, that is, addition to structure, but 
 volume is not discipline, that is, power and skill; while 
 exercise, without nurture, is wasting and weakening. 
 
 From the standpoint of mere discipline, the mind is 
 an intellectual machine with all its parts in perfect 
 working order and ready on the instant to obey the 
 voice of motive and to execute the manifold behests 
 of the will. It is a mighty engine, ready to move at 
 the voice of command on any one of a thousand routes, 
 or to turn out any one of a thousand products; but 
 without this voice of command, without the mental 
 and the moral fiber that gives coherence and strength 
 
164: THE EDUCATION OF TEACHERS 
 
 to its working parts, without the propelling force of 
 will and emotion, and without instrumental knowl- 
 edge, it is a beautiful but useless piece of spiritual 
 mechanism. Discipline is an essential element in edu- 
 cation, but it is only one of three coordinate elements. 
 
 What has now been said under the head of discip- 
 line may be summarized as follows: 
 
 Discipline is the reflex effect left on the mind by 
 the studies and pursuits that call into play its energies, 
 or tax its powers. 
 
 As every study requires either a maximum, a me- 
 dium, or a minimum of mental effort, it will have one 
 of these three degrees of disciplinary value. 
 
 For purposes of discipline, the mind must work at 
 high tension, or under continuous strain, and the tax 
 on its powers must be cumulative. 
 
 Discipline as a process creates power ^nd converts 
 this power into skill. 
 
 Some of the special intellectual qualities included 
 under the term are insight or penetratioriy comprehen- 
 sion, versatility, good judgment^ discrimination. 
 
 Discipline should aim at wholeness, soundness, sym- 
 metry ; and to this end it must follow a system of curb- 
 ing and stimulation. 
 
 Distaste for a study, when not the result of poor 
 
A THEORY OF EDUCATION VALUES 155 
 
 instruction, results from a dormant or imperfectly de- 
 veloped state of the activities which this study requires, 
 and indicates wise stimulation by the very study 
 which the mind seems to reject. 
 
 In its origin manual skill is a mental endowment; 
 it is the creative and directive mind that communicates 
 delicacy and deftness of touch to the fingers. 
 
 Discipline creates an instrument that is useless with- 
 out will, motive, moral power and instrumental knowl- 
 edge. 
 
 II. Wisdom is Profitable to Direct. — From studies 
 disciplinary we now pass to studies instrumental — ^that 
 is, to studies that furnish the mind with its working 
 tools. We must distinguish the hand, with its strong 
 muscles trained to deftness, from the tools which it 
 employs in the execution of its work; the bent bow 
 with its cord stretched to high tension, from the tipped 
 arrow waiting to be sent to the target. However well 
 trained or disciplined the mind may be, it is a useless 
 instrument unless furnished with its appropriate tools, 
 these tools being the studies or knowledges which the 
 mind may employ in the performance of its manifold 
 functions. It should be almost as easy to distinguish 
 the mind from these instrumental possessions as to dis- 
 tinguish the artisan from his assortment of tools. But 
 
156 THE EDUCATION OF TEACHERS 
 
 these tools, these saws, chisels, and planes, are but 
 secondary; the box of primary tools is the artisan's 
 head with its ideas or working plans, its knowledge of 
 matter and its laws, and its knowledge of tools and 
 their uses; for without this knowledge how could he 
 know what to saw, when to saw, and how to saw? At 
 this stage of our inquiry the important thing is to dis- 
 tinguish the items of instrumental knowledge as pos- 
 sessions of the mind quite distinct from the mind itself. 
 This is what we mean by practical knowledge, knowl- 
 edge that the mind can employ in the solution of prob- 
 lems, in the doing of work, in the calculation of results, 
 in the execution of plans, or, more concretely, in build- 
 ing houses, in curing diseases, in pleading suits, in 
 writing sermons, in educating children, in piloting ves- 
 sels, in making treaties, in conducting a campaign, in 
 cooking a dinner, in buying and selling, and so on 
 without end. If one limitation to beneficent doing is 
 lack of skill, another and greater limitation is lack of 
 knowledge. It is not said that people perish for lack 
 of skill, but for lack of knowledge. When language 
 was young and speech picturesque, knowledge was 
 light, light-giving, enlightening; it was a lamp to the 
 feet and a light to the path. Just as in the dark we 
 throw a light ahead of us to guide us on our way, so 
 
A THEORY OF EDUCATION VALUES 157 
 
 in the conduct of life we throw the light of knowledge 
 upon the problems we have to solve, and so trace our 
 course with certainty and success. Light is an instru- 
 ment, and the most beneficent of all instruments. 
 
 To show how old these truths are that we are dis- 
 cussing, and how clear was the distinction between the 
 mind as an instrument, and the knowledge held for its 
 guidance, observe this quotation from Ecclesiastes x., 
 10: "If the iron be blunt and he do not whet the edge, 
 then must he put to more strength; but wisdom is pro- 
 fitable to direct.'' Here we see the blunt, untrained 
 mind, doing its work only by dint of painful effort, 
 contrasted with the sharp, incisive mind, doing its 
 work easily and deftly; and in the final clause we have 
 the conception of knowledge as light — "profitable to 
 direct." It is with this last conception that we are now 
 dealing. • 
 
 Easy illustrations of instrumental knowledge are 
 found in every profession, art and trade where special 
 knowledge is employed in the application of means to 
 ends, or in the production of effects by the use of 
 known causes; as, when an alkali is applied to flesh that 
 is burning with an acid, or when sulphur is thrown into 
 the grate to quench a fire in the chimney, or when a 
 decision is quoted to throw a case out of court, or when 
 
158 THE EDUCATION OF TEACHERS 
 
 the forge fire is sprinkled with water to increase the 
 heat, or when an impending examination is used to 
 spur a class to diligence, or when a fact in history is 
 used to impress a lesson in political economy. Politics 
 as an art consists in the deft manipulation of motive. 
 As man is a gregarious animal, his most pressing need 
 as a social creature is communication with his fellows; 
 and to this end he turns to hourly and momentary ac- 
 count his knowledge of symbols, and so resorts to 
 speech, to writing, to the telegraph, to the telephone; 
 at sea, to the language of flags and whistles, and on 
 railroads to colored lights and signals. The hourly 
 use of computation in the transaction of business is a 
 familiar illustration of the instrumental value of 
 knowledge. Man might be defined as the animal de- 
 voted to the conversion of knowledge into the uses and 
 utilities of hourly life. 
 
 For the purposes contemplated in this discussion it is 
 necessary to mark the distinction between knowledge 
 that is directly instrumental and knowledge that is in- 
 strumental indirectly or at second hand. The instru- 
 mental value of telegraphy is incalculable, but one 
 may enjoy all the practical benefits of this art without 
 having any personal knowledge of it whatever; that is, 
 telegraphy confers its benefits on the great mass of 
 
A THEORY OF EDUCATION VALUES 159 
 
 mankind through, a few specialists; its instrumental 
 value is of the secondary or indirect order. The same 
 is true of every variety of professional and technical 
 knowledge. One does not need to be a hatter to enjoy 
 thfe use of hats, or a physician to participate in the 
 benefits of the healing art, or a chemist to profit by the 
 utilities of this science. This truth may become clearer 
 by contrast. Thus the instrumental value of reading, 
 writing and simple computation is of the direct order; 
 that is, we must all know and practice these arts in 
 order to participate in their benefits; they do not com- 
 monly serve us by proxy. It follows from the distinc- 
 tion just made that there are certain kinds of knowl- 
 edge that all men should have for self -guidance, while 
 there are many other kinds of knowledge which serve 
 them by proxy; they do not need to know them in 
 order to enjoy all their practical benefits. Our courses 
 of study contain many subjects that the average stu- 
 dent will never turn to practical account; they are tc 
 be defended on other and higher grounds. 
 
 This narrowing down of knowledge whose instru- 
 mental value is of the direct or primary order has been 
 brought about by the division and specialization of 
 labor and it will happen as this process is extended that 
 the volume of directly "practical" knowledge will 
 
160 THE EDUCATION OF TEACHERS 
 
 grow smaller and smaller; that is, men will more and 
 more employ the knowledge of specialists, will more 
 and more specialize their own activities, and will re- 
 duce to a narrower and narrower compass the knowl- 
 edge which is required for self -direction and self-help ; 
 individual effort will become less extensive but more 
 intensive, it will cover a smaller field but will go down 
 deeper, men will do fewer things but will do them bet- 
 ter, and the vast field of knowledge will be cultivated 
 less and less for its practical utilities, but more and 
 more for the edification and perfection of the human 
 personality. 
 
 "Studies that serve for ornament," to repeat Ba- 
 con's phrase, have their place under the head of in- 
 strumental studies. On occasion it may be our direct 
 purpose to please, to entertain, as in telling a story> 
 reciting a poem, singing a song, playing a piece of 
 music, or acting a drama, and the studies that serve 
 this high purpose have an instrumental value in ex- 
 actly the same sense in which trigonometry has an 
 instrumental value to the surveyor. There is an art 
 of pleasing, just as there is an art of making shoes, and 
 those who practice this art must master certain studies 
 and then turn them to practical account as the tools 
 of their trade. 
 
A THEORY OF EDUCATION VALUES 161 
 
 m. Studies Serve for Delight. — We have now 
 come to the consideration of certain studies whose 
 value lies, not in their use as instrumental knowledge, 
 nor in the discipline which they impart, but in mere 
 possession, and in the contribution which they make 
 to the moral life of the soul. We must distinguish 
 between the instruments of the kitchen and the adorn- 
 ments of the parlor, and ask ourselves such questions 
 as these: In what does the education value of a vase, 
 or of a painting, consist? What educative purpose 
 does ornament serve? Is there a value in mere pos- 
 session quite independent of any utility into which it 
 may be converted? What is the major educative value 
 of travel? What is the highest purpose served by a 
 piece of literary art? For purposes of education, is it 
 desirable to cultivate happiness, serenity of spirit, and 
 composure of mind? These questions will exhibit the 
 scope and direction of this branch of our inquiry. 
 
 When Bacon says that it is "in privateness and re- 
 tiring" that studies serve most for delight, he evi- 
 dently turns aside from the world of utilities, from all 
 consideration of what we shall eat or of what we shall 
 drink or of what we shall put on, and directs our 
 thoughts to that higher region of the contemplative 
 
 life where the soul is maturing its powers, acquiring 
 11 
 
162 THE EDUCATION OF TEACHERS 
 
 new graces, fortifying its purposes, purifying its mo- 
 tives, and in this state of isolation and retirement pre- 
 paring itself for new conquests in the lower regions 
 of active life where the law of service compels men to 
 he instruments. In discussing the value of arithmetic, 
 Plato expressly distinguishes the lower world of com- 
 mercial life from that higher world of the contempla- 
 tive life where the soul dwells in serenity and peace 
 while maturing' its heaven-aspiring powers. 
 
 This higher region of the spiritual life cannot b« 
 defined in such a way as to cut it off from the lower 
 regions of the purely intellectual life, but some of its 
 marks or characteristics may be noted, as follows: 
 
 It is the region of feeling^ affection, emotion, as dis- 
 tinguished from the region of mere thinking. The 
 intellectual discernment of an object, and the loving 
 or hating of that object, are irreducible phenomena; 
 neither can be expressed in terms of the other. All 
 that we can say is that the intellectual discernment 
 must come first, and that the clothing of the object 
 with the halo of feeling is a subsequent phenomenon; 
 that the two phenomena originate in different regions 
 of the spiritual life, and that what is most truly hu- 
 man in man is his purified and exalted emotion. The 
 problem of moral education would be solved if there 
 
A THEORY OF EDUCATION VALUES 163 
 
 were an art of investing the objects of thought and 
 perception with the best emotional attachments. This 
 would not only make the will operative, but it would 
 always ^vork in right lines. It is not mere feeling that 
 is wanted (animals and savages have enough of that), 
 but feeling that has been chastened, purified, and dis- 
 ciplined by the regal understanding. A pure heart, 
 the home of saintly emotions and holy aspirations, is a 
 higher attainment than a wise head garnished with the 
 most brilliant intellectual endowments. 
 
 The spiritual life is also the region of ideals. An 
 ideal may be defined as a perfected idea with an at- 
 tached feeling of admiration which often constitutes 
 a motive or stimulus for realizing higher effects. 
 Plato held that the work of creation was accomplished 
 by means of ideas, patterns, or types, held in the 
 divine mind and embodied in the objects of his crea- 
 tion. Thus, every tree is a copy, more or less imper- 
 fect, of a divine pattern laid up in heaven. The divine 
 idea is thus the divine ideal; the pattern is perfect, is 
 seen to be good, and is employed by the creative en- 
 ergy in constructing the "^dsible world. In human 
 experience, however, the case is different. The men- 
 tal picture left in the mind when we have observed a 
 tree is an idea of a tree, but it is imperfect because the 
 
164: THE EDUCATION OF TEACHERS 
 
 tree itself is imperfect; but out of all our ideas or 
 mental pictures of trees we construct a new pattern or 
 type, embodying the excellencies of all, and invested 
 with added perfections by the creative power of the 
 human soul, and this last pattern or type is an ideal. 
 The works of creation are therefore the interpreters 
 of the divine mind; so our ideals help us to come a 
 little nearer into the divine presence, and to under- 
 stand more fully the divine purpose and thought. 
 Work of high quality, whether by the artist or the 
 artisan, is dependent on the formation and possession 
 of wholesome ideals. In one of its highest aspects the 
 art of education is the art of creating ideals. 
 
 It is the region of reverence and of worship. Man's 
 emotional and affectionate nature reaches its culmina- 
 tion in reverence and worship — that homage which 
 the heart pays to what is supreme in goodness and 
 power. Affection purifies and ennobles by bringing 
 us into likeness with the object of our affection. We 
 idealize what we love, and thus are insensibly trans- 
 formed by our aspiration after the perfection that we 
 ascribe to the object of our affections. The supreme 
 transforming power is reverence, adoration, worship; 
 and the measure of human greatness is the degree to 
 which the nature has been transformed and renewed 
 
A THEORY OF EDUCATION VALUES 166 
 
 bj a pure spiritual worship. If the region of the in- 
 tellect is holy, this region of the higher emotions is the 
 holy of holies; and the education that has failed to 
 affect the soul in these higher movements has fallen 
 short of its truest mission. 
 
 It is the region of emotional and judicial calm. 
 One of the last and highest attainments made by the 
 human soul in its upward progress is a settled state of 
 emotional repose, of judicial calm, of genial serenity, 
 of inward peace. In order to put forth all its powers 
 and to attain to its predetermined and possible perfec- 
 tion, the soul must finally establish this inner court 
 or sanctuary where emotional storms never penetrate 
 and where the fruits of righteousness may mature in 
 peace, and into which the spirit, weary and worn, may 
 retire for comfort and strength. That education is 
 vain, and that religion is vain, which does not culmi- 
 nate in this repose of the passions and the emotions, 
 and in a dominant state of serenity and peace. The 
 route to this supreme attainment is not through insen- 
 sibility and fatalism, but through wide intelligence 
 and sharp conflict, through a lifting of the intellectual 
 horizon and a chastening and purification of the emo- 
 tions. 
 
 It is the region of faith and hope. It is through 
 
166 THE EDUCATION OF TEACHERS 
 
 faitili and Lope that we escape the hard limitations of 
 matter and sense, gain some grasp on the unseen and 
 tthe eternal, and thus manifest our essential divinity 
 and immortality. It is through faith that man main- 
 tains fellowship with his kind, and it is through faith 
 that he maintains fellowship with his creator. Faith 
 is the sure and steadfast anchor to the soul. The life 
 that has lost its buoyancy and spring has degenerated 
 into the lower regions of the animal and the vegeta- 
 tive. It is hope that gives to life its buoyancy and 
 spring, and therefore the man who has lost hope has 
 ceased to be a man. For the maintenance of hope, 
 life must have an outlook, a vista through which dis- 
 tant glories may be discerned. The opening of such 
 vistas is a prime function of education and study. 
 
 It is the region of the contemplative life. "When 
 Plato declares that the educated man should be ^^the 
 spectator of all time and all existence," he evidently 
 refers to the inner contemplative life, as distinguished 
 from the outer, active life, where the energies ex- 
 pended are physical rather than spiritual. Men with 
 the weight of the world's betterment and redemption 
 upon them have found it necessary to withdraw from 
 society for a period, in order to give themselves up 
 to contemplation, and to mature their purposes and to 
 
A THEORY OF EDUCATION VALUES 167 
 
 renew their spiritual strength in solitude. What is 
 so essential to great men is, in a measure, essential to 
 all men. All men need intellectual and spiritual per- 
 spective, and to this end they must resort to the con- 
 templative life, where the soul, in peace and repose, 
 can enter into communion with itself. All men must 
 do something, but the condition and support of the 
 outer, instrumental life is the contemplative, reflec- 
 tive life, which fits men to be something. 
 
 It is the region of character. Two steel cables may 
 be identical in weight and appearance, but under 
 equal stress one may break while the other holds. 
 "We ascribe the difference to internal constitution or 
 fiber, to some in\dsible but real quality inherent in 
 the matter or metal of the cable. And so when men 
 break under the stress of circumstances we ascribe the 
 fault to some weakness or flaw in that moral fiber of 
 the soul which we call character. "We are again in a 
 region where exact definition is impossible, but we 
 may say that the fundamental element in character is 
 will, or the focusing of energy on effort. This deter- 
 mining power of the soul is largely constitutional and 
 is innate, but as the antecedent to will is motive, or 
 emotion, we gain some control over the will by the 
 creation or manipulation of motive, so that a strategic 
 
168 THE EDUCATION OF TEACHERS 
 
 point in moral education is the culture of the feel- 
 ings. But the current of feeling may set in strongly 
 towards a given course of action which the will may 
 suddenly reverse or inhibit, stemming or overcoming 
 the flood tide of emotion. This veto power comes 
 down from the intellect as the prerogative of the 
 dominant reason. Another strategic point is there- 
 fore a broad and prophetic intelligence that can dis- 
 cern the remote consequences of proposed lines of 
 conduct. The operations of the intellect affect char- 
 acter in still another way. High states of feeling 
 prevent clear and effective thinking, and, conversely, 
 vigorous thinking allays or checks the vehemence of 
 feeling. Now character, in order to be judicial, must 
 be protected from emotional storms, and so it happens 
 that a mind addicted to thinking produces that "quies- 
 cence of the emotions" which is favorable to the 
 prevalence of right conduct. It is also to be noted 
 that when the higher emotions are dominant, the 
 lower or dangerous emotions are either suppressed or 
 checked. A man who finds pleasure in literary, scien- 
 tific or artistic pursuits is in little danger of the 
 pleasures that pervert and degrade. 
 
 All educational effort should terminate in charac- 
 ter, for character is the highest aim of the teacher's 
 
A THEORY OF EDUCATION VALUES 169 
 
 art. Studies that are directly tributary to this end 
 transcend in importance studies whose major value 
 is of the disciplinary or of the instrumental type. 
 Comenius rightly defined the school as an officina 
 humanitatiSy a manufactory of men, and were this 
 conception generally prevalent, studies of the hu- 
 mane or culture type would regain the standing which 
 they held in a less "practical'* age. 
 
 With this outline well in view, we may now con- 
 sider some of the questions raised in another place in 
 this essay. 
 
 It must be apparent, even on a slight examination, 
 that only a few of the studies embraced in the ordi- 
 nary curriculum can be converted into instrumental 
 uses by the general student. For example, what is a 
 valid defense for the study of astronomy in school or 
 college? It is evident that this science as a whole 
 cannot be converted into a correlative art. For the 
 most part, astronomical laws are entirely beyond 
 human control; the knowledge of them cannot be 
 made instrumental by man in the satisfaction of his 
 needs or in the execution of his purposes. itTeither 
 can it be said that the study of astronomy, as it is 
 pursued by the general student, has such a marked 
 disciplinary value as to give it a permanent place in 
 
170 THE EDUCATION OF TEACHERS 
 
 our courses of study. The very best, and indeed the 
 only, answer that can be returned to this question is 
 the declaration of the Psalmist: "The heavens de- 
 clare the glory of God and the firmament showeth his 
 handiwork." The one culminating effect left on the 
 soul by this study is admiration, awe, reverence, wor- 
 ship. It is a spiritual tonic, refreshing, inspiring, and 
 lending a subtle potency to the very substratum of 
 character. 
 
 You stand under the glorious dome of St. PauFs, 
 you traverse the aisles and chapels of Westminster 
 Abbey, you sit in rapture before Rubens' "Descent 
 from the Cross," you linger and dream in the earthly 
 paradise of the Lake District, or you listen to the 
 peals of the great organ as they reverberate through 
 "the long-drawn aisles and fretted vaults" of Durham 
 Cathedral. What is the grand outcome of it all? 
 Have you gained anything that you can sell for 
 money or convert into food, dress or shelter? Or, if 
 you could, would you sell it? Would you not rather 
 keep it as a priceless possession than to convert it into 
 any mere utility? 
 
 In matiters educational we are so accustomed to 
 raise the question of utility at every step, to inquire 
 anxiously the money value of this or that study, and 
 
A THEORY OF EDUCATION VALUES 171 
 
 to ask how each branch of knowledge will contribute 
 to our "getting on in the world/' that we have prac- 
 tically lost sight of the fact that there is often a 
 supreme value in mere possession, without any 
 thought of conversion into instrumental uses, that 
 an acquirement often serves its highest purpose sim- 
 ply as a source of contemplative delight. What ac- 
 count are we to render of the paintings that hang on 
 our walls, or of the ornaments that stand on our man- 
 tels ? Are we to be picture venders or dealers in bric- 
 a-brac, in order to realize the value of our art pos- 
 sessions? This would be to ruin their natural and 
 proper value; such a perversion would be but little 
 short of sacrilege. The ndblest value of such art 
 treasures lies in their possession and enjoyment; the 
 fact that they "serve for delight" is their sufficient 
 vindication. 
 
 Money lying untouched in a bank often has a 
 higher value than money that is expended in food and 
 raiment. In the way of an abiding and bracing sense 
 of security, a deposit has a moral value that far 
 transcends the value of money that is employed in 
 mere utilities. The moral value of life insurance is 
 incalculable. The person insured does not hope to 
 realize any return or profit from his investment, but 
 
172 THE EDUCATION OF TEACHERS 
 
 his rich reward is found in the feeling that his provi- 
 dence will protect the objects of his affection. This 
 feeling of security is a moral tonic that is a stimulus 
 in health and a medicine in illness. 
 
 What is here set down as true of material posses- 
 sions is equally true of those spiritual treasures which 
 the soul acquires through studies — those possessions 
 which are chiefly valuable because they yield us con- 
 templative delight. We cannot barter them for 
 bread or raiment, nor can we make them the instru- 
 ments of personal guidance, but their higher service 
 is the "sweetness and light" which they diffuse over 
 the soul, and the tone and spring which they give to 
 character. A poem is neither a commodity nor an 
 instrument, but its subtle spirit enters into the very 
 structure and fiber of the soul, endowing it with 
 serenity and poise, while, as a work of literary art, it 
 is a perennial source of contemplative enjoyment. It 
 affects conduct througli character, just as food affects 
 conduct through structure. The value of religious 
 literature does not lie in rules and maxims that are 
 directly convertible into conduct, but in its power to 
 transform and renew the human soul. 
 
 The office of the aesthetic in human education and 
 in ordinary life has not been sufficiently considered. 
 
A THEORY OF EDUCATION VALUES 173 
 
 I have two pencils costing, respectively, one cent and 
 five cents. Their instrumental value is the same; 
 they both serve me equally well in writing. Why 
 should one cost four cents more than the other? Evi- 
 dently because in form and finish there is an element 
 of attractiveness or beauty in the one which has a 
 money value. Even in such a little thing as a lead 
 pencil we pay heavy tribute to the aesthetic. But this 
 dual quality of utility and beauty is universal; it 
 inheres in everything we buy or possess, in every in- 
 strument we use, in furniture, in dress, in every form 
 which matter is made to assume for human use. And 
 thus, in the cosmos as a whole, what exuberance, what 
 prodigality, we might almost say, what waste of 
 beauty! In field and forest, in mountain and plain, 
 in the heavens above, in the earth beneath, which L'i 
 the dominant note, utility or beauty? I think the 
 astonishing but real fact is that the visible world is 
 primarily and chiefly a cosmos, a thing beautiful, and 
 that utility is a secondary and subordinate purpose in 
 its creation. This human cradle is sometimes hard, 
 but it is adorned with tree and flower and canopied 
 with blue and gold. While man is embodying more 
 and more of the beautiful in everything that is fash- 
 ioned by his hand, nature still outdoes him by creating 
 
174 THE EDUCATION OF TEACHERS 
 
 tilings that are wholly beautiful, things m which 
 there is no vestige of the useful. Beauty is their 
 sole and sufficient excuse for being. As studies at 
 best are but a transcript of nature, why should not 
 education be a reflection of the cosmos? In other 
 words, why should not the dominant note in educa- 
 tion be the aesthetic, as distinguished from the utili- 
 tarian? Food and drink and clothing are all neces- 
 sary, but they are subordinate to the kingdom of God, 
 which is not meat and drink, but righteousness, and 
 peace, and joy. This having been attained, all the 
 other things will be added. 
 
 Studies whose major value lies in their humane and 
 culture effect have some or all of the following char- 
 acteristics: 
 
 They have a large human interest; they touch man 
 in what is most intensely human, his hopes, his fears, 
 his aspirations, his affections, his destiny; they pul- 
 sate with life and feeling, and endow the individual 
 with the accumulated moral power of the race. 
 
 They refer to some imposing unit that impresses 
 the mind by its vastness or magnitude, or to some 
 living, organic whole that excites human interest 
 through the phenomena of life. 
 
 They give breadth and perspective, create a sense 
 
A THEORY OF EDUCATION VALUES 175 
 
 of mastery and power, and endow the mind with mag- 
 nanimity and tolerance. 
 
 They give contemplative delight, disposing the 
 soul to serenity and peace, and fortifying it against 
 the vicissitudes and calamities of life. 
 
 As the question of method is necessarily involved 
 in this subject, it is entitled to a brief consideration. 
 
 In his "Education," Mr. Spencer utters a dictum 
 to the following effect: The genesis of knowledge in 
 the individual must be the same as the genesis of 
 knowledge in the race. In other words, the individual 
 must gain his knowledge just as the race gained its 
 knowledge. Then follows this deduction: as the race 
 gained its knowledge inductively by experience, the 
 individual must gain his knowledge by experience, 
 experiment or observation. He makes his dictum 
 still stronger by declaring that the individual can 
 gain his knowledge in no other way. 
 
 Following this eminent authority, some modern 
 teachers insist that whenever the subject permits it, 
 it should be learned, not as literature, as Matthew 
 Arnold advises, but by personal experience and ex- 
 periment; that in science, especially, the student 
 must actually discover or rediscover by his own per- 
 sonal effort what the race has learned during its cen- 
 
176 THE EDUCATION OF TEACHERS 
 
 turies of history. This theory virtually throws books 
 out of court and reduces the role of the teacher to 
 little more than suggestion or guidance; he must not 
 communicate anything on his own accountj he must 
 not interfere with the natural and necessary law 
 which Mr. Spencer has so clearly and so authorita- 
 tively announced. Without discussing this subject at 
 length, I submit these observations which I think will 
 commend themselves to the common sense of all. 
 
 In that large and very important domain of knowl- 
 edge known as the historical, the inductive or experi- 
 mental method absolutely fails. Historical events 
 cannot be reproduced, and therefore cannot be 
 brought within the range of the student's experience. 
 The facts of history must be learned out of books, 
 learned as literature. And, then, in literature and in 
 art, how is it possible to put the student in the place 
 of the original writer or artist, and evolve his knowl- 
 edge by any kind of experience such as this theory 
 requires? 
 
 In science proper, where this theory is practicable 
 if anywhere, it is applicable only in a modified form 
 and to a limited extent. In any one science — as 
 chemistry — ^to throw the pupil on his own resources 
 
A THEORY OF EDUCATION VALUES ITT 
 
 and to require him to discover or even rediscover the 
 atomic weights, would be a farce; but when a half 
 dozen sciences are to be treated in Mr. Spencer's 
 fashion within the student's ordinary term of study, 
 the business becomes a piece of mere stupidity. 
 
 The whole question reduces itself to this: Shall 
 we ride or shall we walk? If the route is short and 
 pleasant, and we have an abundance of leisure, we will 
 walk, but if the journey is a long one, and tedious in 
 whole or in part, and we are pressed for time, we will 
 ride. In fact, riding has become the normal mode of 
 travel, and the little walking that is done is merely 
 incidental. A trip to the Matterhorn by railway 
 would please all save a few reckless enthusiasts. The 
 whole world might then indulge in Alpine travel. 
 Books are to scholars what railways are to travelers, 
 and to condemn books, as some prolific bookmakers 
 are accustomed to do — Plato, for example — is as 
 senseless as to condemn bicycles, railway carriages 
 and steam vessels. The millions who need to learn 
 geography must learn it out of books rather than by 
 personal travel, and the same thing is true of all the 
 sciences. 
 
 If there is any department of knowledge where 
 Mr. Spencer's theory ean be applied, it is that of phi- 
 
178 THE EDUCATION OF TEACHERS 
 
 losophy, where all tlie material is within the reach of 
 every man who has a head. But even here Mr. Spen- 
 cer thinks it wise to lighten the student's burden by 
 doing the most of his thinking for him, and so invites 
 him to read the volume of his "Synthetic Philoso- 
 phy." If this justly distinguished philosopher were 
 loyal to his own announced creed, his vocation would 
 be gone. 
 
 In the third place, Mr. Spencer's assumption that 
 the race has gained its knowledge solely by personal 
 experience in the way of discovery is conspicuously 
 and profoundly untrue. The race as such has made 
 no discoveries in science, has created no literature, 
 has made no original advances in ethics or religion, 
 has not in any real sense been even studious; but in 
 every age it has crucified, stoned and persecuted its 
 prophets and seers, and has stoutly resisted every 
 attempt to lead it up to higher planes of in'tellectual 
 and moral attainment. In every age the race has 
 been saved by a mere remnant, and the utmost it has 
 done for its own progress is to accept under protest, 
 in a spirit of defiance and hatred, some of the lessons 
 which its teachers have set for it. The picture of the 
 race engrossed in study, and with knitted brow at- 
 tempting to read the book of nature and to solve the 
 
A THEORY OF EDUCATION VALUES 179 
 
 riddle of existence, is truly bucolic, but wholly imagi- 
 nary — it lacks every trait of fact and reality. What- 
 ever advance the race has made towards the higher 
 intellectual and moral life, it has made reluctantly 
 and haltingly, always under stress, and with many 
 backslidings. Kather than sit on hard benches and 
 learn the daily lessons of wisdom, it has learned to 
 play truant and to vex and harass its teachers. In 
 every age a half dozen men have done the thinking 
 for the race, in science, in philosophy and in religion, 
 and to-day the race is a centrry behind its thinkers 
 and teachers. The race has made progress, not by 
 making original discoveries through personal re- 
 search, but by accepting the discoveries made by its 
 exceptional geniuses and scholars, and it is in this 
 way, in the main, that the individual is to gain his 
 knowledge. The volume of capit.alized knowledge is 
 ever becoming greater and greater, and the mastery 
 of this knowledge through the interpretation of books 
 is to be the main occupation of the student. The real 
 additions to existing knowledge will be made by a 
 half dozen men in the course of a century, so that the 
 main function of schools and teachers is diffusion 
 rather than discovery. 
 
 The question will be asked whether there is not a 
 
180 THE EDUCATION OF TEACHERS 
 
 place for actual o^servaition and experiment m the 
 study of science. Most assuredly, but not under the 
 delusion that the purpose is discovery or rediscovery. 
 In physics, the actual manipulation of apparatus is 
 invaluable, because it gives a comfortable sense of 
 reality to the study, as well as an introduction to the 
 modes and processes of scientific investigation. The 
 pretense sometimes set up that students under ordi- 
 nary conditions are to reach independent conclusions 
 by a course of inductive study is a sort of pious fraud, 
 useful mainly to bookmakers and to pedants. When 
 this theory of critical and independent study is ap- 
 plied to literature and art, the results are most deplo- 
 rable. In these departments the critical spirit is un- 
 seemly and mischievous, even in the higher courses 
 of instruction; but when in grammar schools, or even 
 in colleges, students who barely have the gift of ap- 
 preciation presume to sit in judgment on the works of 
 poets and painters, and to express ex cathedra opin- 
 ions on their merits and demerits, the sight is sicken- 
 ing. What a school of modesty, respect and rever- 
 ence! 
 
 Mr. Spencer pleads the "beautiful economy of na- 
 ture" to support his declaration that the studies that 
 are best for guidance are also the best for discipline. 
 
A THEORY OF EDUCATION VALUES 181 
 
 This case illustrates the vice of the high a priori 
 metihod in philosophy. The assumption of "nature" 
 as a faultless guide is a pure fiction, and any argument 
 based upon it is unworthy of serious attention. 
 Whether a good disciplinary study is also a study 
 that is equally good for guidance is a mere question 
 of fact, and all the faots in the case point to an oppo- 
 site conclusion. For example, algebra is a better dis- 
 ciplinary subject than arithmetic, but for the general 
 student is nearly valueless for guidance; and in arith- 
 metic itself the parts that are the most remote from 
 the student's daily needs, such as the roots, pro- 
 gressions, etc., are the parts that yield the highest 
 discipline. An interest table, a mere machine, is far 
 more "practical" than the doctrine of percentage, but 
 no one will say that the daily use of such a table has 
 any appreciable disciplinary value. It would be far 
 nearer the truth to say that the s-tudies that yield 
 themselves the most readily to guidance are the least 
 valuable for disciplinary purposes. 
 
 The main positions taken in this chapter will now 
 be recapitulated in the form of a general summary , 
 
 Studies are the agents which the teacher employs 
 in the practice of his art, and if his practice is to be 
 
182 THE EDUCATION OF TEACHERS 
 
 rational lie must needs know the education value of 
 these several agents. 
 
 Skill in teaching consists in ministering wisely to 
 the wants of the mind and soul, and so the first ele- 
 ment in the teacher's professional knowledge is psy- 
 chological. 
 
 The first need of the uneducated mind is discipline, 
 or the endowing of its activities with power and skill; 
 and corresponding to this need there are studies whose 
 preeminent value lies in the fact that they are a men- 
 tal gymnastic. 
 
 Another need of the mind is instrumental knowl- 
 edge, or knowledge that can be converted into per- 
 sonal guidance, or into the utilities of life; and cor- 
 responding to this need there are studies whose major 
 value consists in their ready convertibility into guid- 
 ance and utility. This instrumental value of knowl- 
 edge is either direct or indirect; that is, it accrues to 
 the individual through his own abilities, or it reaches 
 him indirectly through specialists. 
 
 An organic need of the soul is serenity, poise, con- 
 templative enjoyment and a chastening and purifying 
 of the emotional nature as the basis of character; and 
 responding to this need there are studies of the cul- 
 ture type, whose supreme value lies in the fact that 
 
A THEORY OF EDUCATION VALUES 183 
 
 they "serve for deligM;" that they are breadth- 
 giving, pleasure-giving; that they generate moral 
 power and reenforce character; and that they endow 
 the soul with judicial poise and oalm. 
 
 Studies, therefore, serve three distinct purposes, or 
 supply three distinct organic needs, and hence have 
 three distinct values: disciplinary, instrumental, and 
 culture. These values may be tabulated as follows: 
 
 j-DiBCiplinary ^^^^^ 
 
 Education Values < Instrumental < 
 
 j i Indirect 
 
 Culture 
 
 Every study has a characteristic or major value, 
 and one or both of two minor values. Every study 
 has a disciplinary value, high or low, and it often hap- 
 pens that the studies most valuable for discipline have 
 a low value for guidance. 
 
 Disciplinary studies require the mind to work at 
 high tension, under stimulus and stress; but the mind 
 may deal with culture studies while in a state of com- 
 parative repose, simply receptive rather than active. 
 
 The conception that learning is to be a process of 
 rediscovery, in which the pupil is to repeat the expe- 
 riences of the race, is "a bold fiction." The attitude 
 of the learner must often be that of simple acceptance 
 on faith, and much that has been originally acquired 
 
184 THE EDUCATION OF TEACHERS 
 
 by slow and painful inductive effort must now be 
 learned as literature, by the reading and study of 
 books. We may now ride where the pioneers in 
 learning were obliged to walk; we may draw water 
 without the labor and cost of digging a well ; we miss 
 the discipline of pioneer toil, but we have immeasu- 
 rable gains in "sweetness and light." 
 
EQUITY IN EXAMINATIONS 
 
VIII 
 
 EQUITY IN EXAMINATIONS. 
 
 It is my belief that the almost universal antago- 
 nism between students and their instructors, and the 
 existence of a code of school morality quite distinct 
 from that code of morals that obtains outside the 
 school, are due in large measure to an injustice, not 
 to say immorality, originally introduced into exami- 
 nations by instructors themselves. By means of his 
 examination paper a teacher may make himself the 
 arbiter of his pupiFs fate; he can condemn him to any 
 desired degree of humiliation, can block his progress 
 in the school, and can send him home in disgrace. 
 By constructing his paper on unjust principles, or by 
 looseness or injustice in the management of results, 
 a teacher may decimate his class and spread a con- 
 sternation throughout the school that is demoralizing 
 to the last degree. In the hands of an unwise or un- 
 just teacher, the examination paper becomes a sort 
 of Gatling gun mowing down its score of hapless vic- 
 tims. "Woe to the school where this instrument of 
 tremendous power is used unwisely or maliciously! 
 It creates secret hostility between teacher and pupil; 
 
188 THE EDUCATION OF TEACHERS 
 
 arbitrary power, unjustly exercised, is offset by tricks 
 and frauds on the part of the victims; and the school 
 becomes the scene of sorry encounters between those 
 who should be united by the ties of a common in- 
 terest and a common respect. I have purposely 
 thrown this dark side of examinations into sharp out- 
 line, for it is my purpose to find a cure, if possible, 
 for the evils that have sprung from the misuse of an 
 instrument that is in itself not only valuable, but in- 
 valuable. 
 
 Leaving out of present consdderation the purposes 
 served by an examination as a motive and a discipline, 
 I will discuss its use as a test. 
 
 An examination properly conceived and conducted 
 puts to the proof both the wisdom and the skill of the 
 teacher and the degree to which the pupil has profited 
 by his opportunities. During a term of weeks a 
 teacher has been expending his wisdom and skill in 
 the production of a desired result — some proficiency 
 of his pupil in knowledge, some gain in mental dis- 
 cipline, some additiion to culture and moral power. 
 Simply as an artist, on his own personal account, he 
 needs to know with some exactness the degree of his 
 success. For this purpose he can do no less than 
 resort to an examination of his work, to an inquest 
 
EQUITY IN EXAMINATIONS 189 
 
 for results. The mason must try Ms wall by the 
 plumb line, the seaman his course by compass and 
 chronometer, the political economist his theories by 
 statistics, every successful workman his work by 
 methods in keeping with the nature of his craft. 
 
 Teacher and pupil are coordinate factors in the 
 work of education. The teacher has duties to himself 
 and to his pupil; the pupil, duties to himself and to 
 his teacher. The pupil must be responsive to his op- 
 portunities, and from time to time should give proof 
 that he has been loyal to duty. In subjects where 
 there is logical sequence he must make it clear that 
 he has a knowledge of the lower topic sufficient to 
 justify his admission to the higher. For these pur- 
 poses some test must be applied, not the same in all 
 cases, but varying with the nature of the theme and 
 with the nature of the product to be tested. As it is 
 at this point that examinations so often break down, 
 attention must be called to some distinctions in su'b- 
 jects as seen from an examiner's point of view. 
 
 The subjects included in a course of study serve 
 different purposes, produce different results, and have 
 different values. In some cases the desired end is 
 knowing, in others doing, and in still others being. 
 In some cases the mind must work at high tension, 
 
190 THE EDUCATION OF TEACHERS 
 
 every power alert and in a state of intense activity; 
 in others the mind is chiefly in a receptive attitude, in 
 a state of repose, simply absorbing the impressions 
 made upon it, without putting forth any conscious 
 volitional effort; and in still others there is a middle 
 state of activity, the grasping and holding of material 
 by the power of the memory. In other words, there 
 is a maximum, a minimum and a medium of mental 
 exertion and effort. So far as subject matter is con- 
 cerned knowledge is either employed to generate 
 power, somewhat as dumb-bells are used to strengthen 
 the muscles, or it quietly passes into structure by a 
 process of absorption and assimilation, or it is simply 
 held in the mind as useful furniture ready on occa- 
 sion to be turned to practical account. The mind 
 must often be made to work at high tension, under 
 the lash and goad, and the justification of this pro- 
 cedure is discipline; study and recitation are a mental 
 gymnastic, and the teacher a trainer or gymnasiarch. 
 But at the other extreme, the mind must often be al- 
 lowed to work at low tension, in a state almost passive, 
 in an attitude of repose favorable to nourishment and 
 growth. I am coming to think that this is the normal 
 mental state, the only state favorable to that organic 
 growth which constitutes character. In all of its 
 
EQUITY IN EXAMINATIONS 191 
 
 highest aspects education is growth, and all true 
 growth, as we know, is insensible, unconscious; of the 
 fact or result of growth we may become conscious, 
 but not of the process. Give the mind food in proper 
 quantity and of proper quality, and growth, in the 
 main, will take care of itself; if any stimulus is needed 
 let it be gentle. 
 
 "We should divest ourselves of the conceit that the 
 main purpose of the school is drill. If all the teach- 
 ers in a school were drillmasters, the school would 
 soon become converted into an asylum of lunatics, of 
 imbeciles or of cranks. The situation is saved by the 
 so-called "easy subjects," for which we sometimes feel 
 the need of making an apology. If periods of com- 
 parative repose did not alternate with periods of high 
 pressure and mitigate their severity, education in its 
 real sense would become impossible, and the mind 
 would lose its just balance. An ideal in education is 
 yet to be realized : to make a fair adjustment between 
 disciplinary studies and culture or growth studies, 
 and by way of relief introduce into subjects which 
 lend themselves most readily to drill, something that 
 will regale, nourish and refresh. Let us temper gym- 
 nastic with music, using this term in Plato's sense. 
 Let us gain firm hold of the notion that the mind 
 
192 THE EDUCATION OF TEACHERS 
 
 must be fed as well as trained; that nurture should 
 not only accompany training, but that wholesome and 
 liberal nurture is the essential condition of training. 
 Let us also acknowledge another coordinate truth: 
 that with the mind as with the body, when training 
 passes a certain point it not only prevents growth, 
 but leads to perversion and distortion of structure. 
 The law, both of physical and of mental gymnastic, 
 is this: make training subsidiary to development and 
 growth; do not insist on it for its own sake; use it 
 simply as a means to a higher end. 
 
 From an examiner's point of view, the subjects con- 
 stituting a course of study may be distinguished as 
 follows: 1. Knowledge or information subjects; 2. 
 disciplinary subjects; 3. culture, growth, or humane 
 subjects. Owing to the circumstance that a given 
 subject, in addition to its major or characteristic 
 value, has one or two minor values, these classifica- 
 tions overlap, but the main lines of demarkation may 
 be determined without serious trouble. It is also to 
 be observed that by a special method of instruction 
 the natural use of a subject may be sacrificed to a 
 perverted use, and its proper classification destroyed. 
 Again, the elementary parts of a subject may fall 
 
EQUITY IN EXAMINATIONS 193 
 
 under the first description, while the advanced parts 
 pertain to the second or to the third classification. 
 
 The following may be taken aa examples of knowl- 
 edge or information subjects; tables of weights and 
 measures, names and dates in history, local and de- 
 scriptive geography, mere facts of physical science, 
 the precepts of hygiene, and, in general, th© "litera- 
 ture of knowledge." 
 
 All subjects necessarily have some degree of dis- 
 ciplinary value, for they can be learned only by some 
 degree of mental effort, high of low;* but certain 
 subjects produce the disciplinary effect in a preemi- 
 nent degree, while their practical and culture effects 
 are either nil or very small. The disciplinary studies 
 of the common school course are grammar, the ad- 
 vanced parts of arithmetic, algebra, geometry, and 
 trigonometry. 
 
 The subjects whose preeminent value is their con- 
 tribution to culture and growth, which give breadth, 
 moral power and contemplative delight, are geogra- 
 phy, history, literature, science, art, music. 
 
 This whole discussion assumes that the instrumen- 
 
 *Mutation€ viget, viretgue acquvrit eundo, Virgil. Milo, having 
 been accustomed to carry the same calf every day, ended \iF 
 carrying an ox. Quintilian. 
 13 
 
194 THE EDUCATION OF TEACHERS 
 
 tai arts of speaking, reading, writing and spelling 
 have been adequately learned; they condition study, 
 recitation and examination. If this were a study of 
 values, instead of examinations, these arts would be 
 considered under the head of practical studies. 
 
 In conducting an examination in knowledge sub- 
 jects, it must be assumed that nothing can be revealed 
 but matters of faot. It is not a question of opinion, 
 of taste nor even of judgment, but simply of fact; 
 and the questions proposed by the examiner should 
 require of the pupil nothing but statement of fact. 
 When the examiner's questions have been correctly 
 answered, what inferences are to be drawn? At least 
 within the region of the inquest, there must have been 
 diligence, attention, memory and recollection. This 
 is all that can safely be inferred from correct answers. 
 The important thing to note is that by means of such 
 examinations nothing definite can be inferred as to 
 the higher qualities of the mind and spirit, such as 
 judgment, taste, reflection, versatility, insight, 
 breadth, skill, etc. Doubtless all examinations must 
 deal more or less in matters of fact, and for this rea- 
 son it is important to understand how very limited is 
 the range of inference which such matter allows. 
 
 When we advance to subjects of the second class 
 
EQUITY IN EXAMINATIONS 195 
 
 we enter a wider and more fruitful field of inquest. 
 The searchlight of the examination penetrates farther 
 and illuminates wider regions of the mind and spirit. 
 The question is not merely, what is the fact? but, 
 what use can you make of this fact? In this region 
 the mind can be made to exercise its power of doing, 
 as distinguished from its power of knowing. Having 
 learned the rule of Square Eoot, the pupil may be 
 required to extract the square root of an assigned 
 number; or, having learned the principle of Cube 
 Root, he may be required to demonstrate the princi- 
 ple of Fourth Root. And so in grammar, knowing 
 may be easily converted into doing. 'Not only do the 
 principles and rules of grammar lead directly to the 
 constructive effort, but the art of parsing is the art 
 of classification, an art that requires the nicest insight 
 and the best powers of judgment. The mere art of 
 reasoning is best learned from mathematical drill, 
 but the application of this art to contingent or proble- 
 matic matter is best learned from the classification 
 of words. Parsing is strictly a logical process, but 
 before this process can begin, the sentence as a whole 
 must be interpreted, and as the interpretation varies, 
 the marks of words also vary, so that this exercise 
 calls into play the balancing of probabilities. The 
 
196 THE EDUCATION OF TEACHERS 
 
 real import of grammatical discipline will become 
 more apparent as we reflect that its problems are the 
 very type of the problems that are of hourly occur- 
 rence in human life. Another point in favor of gram- 
 matical discipline is the fact that it is concerned, not 
 with abstract quantities, as in mathematics, but with 
 what is intensely vital and human — thoug'ht expressed 
 in significant words. I call attention to these facts 
 to show what significant inferences may be drawn 
 from an examination in the disciplinary subjects. 
 The mind is not exhibited in its passive state, holding 
 in its possession certain furniture, but as an active 
 power devoted to its characteristic function, thinking. 
 I would say, then, that a prime purpose of an exami- 
 nation in. what may be termed art subjects should be 
 to discover the pupil's ability to think. In this, as in 
 the former case, it should be noted that the region of 
 the emotions, feelings, taste, of all that is most truly 
 human, is left for the most part untouched; there is 
 little or no revelation of the real inner life. 
 
 Exception will no doubt be made to the composi- 
 tion of the third group of subjects. For example, the 
 study of the sciences will be recommended by some 
 on the ground of their practical value, and by others 
 they will be placed in the second group, because, when 
 
EQUITY IN EXAMINATIONS 197 
 
 taugtt inductively, they form sucli an admirable dis- 
 cipline. In the first place, the day has forever passed 
 when every man is to be his own doctor, lawyer, hat- 
 ter and chemist. By reason of the minute division of 
 labor most of the eo-called useful subjects have be- 
 come useful only in a secondary or indirect way. Men 
 may participate in the practical benefits of chemistry 
 without having any personal knowledge of this 
 science, just as they wear hats and coats without being 
 hatters and tailors. In the second place, considering 
 the fact that a student must learn a half dozen 
 sciences within three or four years, the attempt to 
 teach these subjects in a manner that is in any ade- 
 quate sense inductive, is a pretence and a sham. I 
 hold that the sciences have a higher and a nobler pur- 
 pose, that of explaining and interpreting to us the 
 universe in which we live. The sciences have but 
 little direct practical value to people in general; as 
 they must necessarily be taught, they have a dis- 
 ciplinary value only in a secondary degree; but their 
 major value is of the culture or human type. They 
 contribute breadth, enjoyment, reverence, poise, se- 
 renity. 
 
 There will be no dispute as to the rank and ofllce 
 of literature in a scheme of education. "The true 
 
198 THE EDUCATION OF TEACHERS 
 
 reason why literature should have precedence over 
 all other suibjects of instruction is that it is a sort of 
 free and living philosophy. It is a general outlook 
 upon the world, first upon the world of sense and 
 imagination, the first with which the child comes in 
 contact, and then upon the intellectual, social and 
 moral world; it is a series of dissertations on art, 
 morals and science. Literature is something even 
 more than this. It is, we might say, the very beat- 
 ing of the heart of humanity, a beating which must 
 be communicated to all if we do not wish to have it 
 cease."* Ancient classics have been very properly 
 called the humane studies, or the humanities, because 
 of their effect on character and life, and modern 
 classics have a right to the same distinction and desig- 
 nation. By a perversion of use, an English classic is 
 sometimes made a vehicle for teaching etymology, 
 linguistics and history, and by a sort of ultimate 
 analysis is spoiled as a work of literary art, sacrificed 
 to the demon of thoroughness and drill. There is a 
 sort of proximate analysis that enhances the sense of 
 organic unity in a work of art, and up to this point 
 it is helpful and to be commended; but any analysis 
 that breaks the spell of artistic unity is fatal to the 
 *Pouill6. 
 
EQUITY IN EXAMINATIONS 199 
 
 noble uses of any work of art, be it a statue, a paint- 
 ing, or a poem. 
 
 It is only by some perversion of use that geogra- 
 phy, history and literature lend themselves to drill. 
 They constitute a trio of humane or culture studies 
 whose purposes may be thus defined: 
 
 The purpose of geographical study is to make the 
 pupil acquainted with the dwelling place of the race; 
 of historical study, to make him acquainted with the 
 notable deeds of the race; and of literary study, to 
 acquaint him with the best that the race has done in 
 the way of creating ideals of human excellence in 
 thought, conduct and aspization. 
 
 I believe that any one who meditates long and se- 
 riously on the educational problem and on the nature 
 of the various subjects constituting a course of study, 
 will feel more and more disposed to enlarge the third 
 group of subjects and to assign less and less value to 
 the so-called practical studies in a scheme of general 
 education. If the objective point in education is 
 manhood, character and a high type of life, then the 
 fir&t place must be given to those studies which are 
 breadth-giving, inspiring and humane. 
 
 From the outline thus far given I now deduce the 
 following rule of practice for individual teachers: 
 
200 THE EDUCATION OF TEACHERS 
 
 Form a clear conception of the nature and purpose 
 of your subject; teach it in a manner to accomplish 
 this purpose in the most direct and efficient way; and 
 then resort to an examination that will discover the 
 extent to which this purpose has been accomplished. 
 
 I now turn to the question of the examination 
 paper and the principles on which it should be con- 
 structed. The first principle seems to me to be this: 
 in its scope, the examination paper should be restricted 
 to the field of study actually traversed by the pupil 
 under the guidance and direction of the teacher. 
 
 It is manifestly unfair and unjust to spring sur- 
 prises on the pupil by demanding what he has not had 
 an opportunity to learn. As a preparation for setting 
 an examination paper, the teacher should ask himself 
 these questions: "What ground have I traversed with 
 this class ? What knowledge have I given these pupils 
 a perfectly fair opportunity to gain? What degree 
 of constructive power over new_ com'binations have 
 they had an opportunity to acquire?" What I want 
 to insist on is absolute fairness in these dealings with 
 students. I have known at least one instance wherein 
 one-half of an examination paper bore upon matter 
 which the class had never had the opportunity to 
 learn. The first effect of this paper was dismay, and 
 
EQUITY IN EXAMINATIONS 201 
 
 then a determination to offset wrong by wrong, so 
 that pupils who never cheated before now resorted to 
 cheating with a will. 
 
 Another principle, or rather the first principle 
 stated in a different form, is this; An examination 
 paper should represent the state of the pupil's mind 
 rather than the state of the teacher's mind. 
 
 This is very far from being a needless caution. 
 We are all in danger of putting too high value on 
 our acquisitions, especially when they are in any 
 sense unique or exceptional. With this feeling it is 
 natural to give such acquirements an airing, and the 
 examination paper furnishes an attractive opportu- 
 nity. Instead of putting ourselves as much as possi- 
 ble in our pupil's place, we put him in ours, and then 
 exact of him what our larger opportunities have given 
 us. A young tutor whom I once knew signalized his 
 passage from the bench to the chair by setting an 
 examination paper which floored nearly the whole 
 class. The professor in that department confessed 
 that he could not have satisfied the demands of his 
 tutor's paper. 
 
 Another principle to be observed is this : An exam- 
 ination paper should open up the highways and not 
 the byways of knowledge — important dates and 
 
202 THE EDUCATION OF TEACHERS 
 
 places, major facts, cardinal principles, typical ex- 
 amples; not the trivial, but the respectable. 
 
 Examinations have suffered not a little in reputa- 
 tion from the circumstance that they have often been 
 employed to puzzle and disconcert hapless students. 
 There is no objection to a question which startles the 
 pupil into thinking, but there is no excuse for dwell- 
 ing by preference on matters purely trivial and un- 
 important. Some things are so trifling and valueless 
 that it is almost a disgrace to know them. An exami- 
 nation paper should have an air of dignity and respec- 
 tability and the moral quality of fairness. 
 
 The three groups of subjects previously designated 
 indicate in an ascending series three degrees of diffi- 
 culty in the construction of examination papers that 
 propose to discover the effects produced on the pupil 
 by his several studies. It is easy to test the mere 
 holding and recollecting power of the mind, by re- 
 quiring the pupil to reproduce or restore what has 
 been given him to memorize. In other words, it is 
 easy to take an inventory of this kind of mental fur- 
 niture. It is not so easy, however, to frame a paper 
 that will test the pupiFs power to think and his aMity 
 to construct on lines somewhat different from those 
 to which he has been accustomed by his class-room 
 
EQUITY IN EXAMINATIONS 
 
 experiencea. Good instruction in the disciplinary 
 subjects should create a certain facile independence, 
 and should generate the power to overcome difficul- 
 ties of larger and larger proportions. Such an exami- 
 nation will bear on principles rather than on rules, 
 on types rather than on single instances. A pupil 
 who can give a clear analysis of the divisions of one 
 fraction by another may be presumed to understand 
 all that has preceded this part of the subject. If he 
 can demonstrate the principle that underlies Propor- 
 tion, it is certain that his understanding, and not 
 merely his memory, has received a training. When a 
 pupil can turn an English sentence into idiomatic 
 French, German, or Latin, there is proof positive 
 that he has gained the power to think in a second lan- 
 guage, and that he has mastered its etymology and 
 syntax. There is no finer discipline than translation, 
 for it involves three difficult intellectual feats: the 
 separation of the thought from its original symbols; 
 the grasping of it as a distinct mental possession ; and 
 the embodying of it in a new set of symbols. The 
 very same thing takes place in English when the pupil 
 expresses the author^s thought in his own language, 
 by an exchange of symbols. Such exercises are an 
 effectual test, not only of knowledge, but of power. 
 
204 THE EDUCATION OF TEACHERS 
 
 But what test can we employ to discover the high- 
 est uses that can be made of knowledge, when it has 
 lost its identity through a process of elaboration and 
 assimilation, and has been transformed into character, 
 ha'bit, opinion, emotion, power? It is easy enough to 
 discover whether the pupil really has the knowledge 
 that is capable of being transformed into these spirit- 
 ual products, but is it possible to frame an examina- 
 tion that will discover these products themselves? 
 We must remember that knowledge often falls short 
 of its highest uses; that there is much reading that 
 does not affect the heart and the life; that there is 
 much seeing and but little discernment; that of the 
 throngs that each day crowd the galleries of the 
 Louvre perhaps not one in a hundred suffers any per- 
 manent change of heart towards the fine arts; and 
 that men may listen with respectful attention to the 
 preaching of the Gospel without the least spiritual 
 edification. To use Bacon's figure, we may be as- 
 sured by an examination that the right kind of food 
 has been swallowed, 'but we cannot infer from this 
 circumstance that it has really been digested. Seeing 
 this difficulty in the matter of literary study, Dr. 
 Corson proposes a solution in this wise: 
 
 ^^ow is the best response to the essential life of a 
 
EQUITY IN EXAMINATIONS 
 
 205 
 
 poem to be secured by the teacher from the student? 
 I answer, by the fullest interpretive vocal rendering 
 of it. * * * A literary examination may 
 then be made to mean something. The student, in- 
 stead of being catechised about the merely intellectual 
 articulation of a poem, the occasion of its composition, 
 the influences which the poet was under when he 
 composed it, the vocabulary, and a thousand other 
 things, will be required to render it in order that he 
 may show, through his voice, to what extent he has 
 experienced it within himself, responded to and as- 
 similated what the intellect cannot define or formu- 
 late.''* 
 
 This is no doubt an approach to the solution of a 
 grave difficulty, but as it is easy to simulate emotion, 
 we cannot be sure that this vocal rendering of a poem 
 may not be mere acting; and, on the other hand, a 
 lack of vocal training may prevent the expression of 
 thought and emotion that really affect the life. At 
 best, however, this solution affects but one member 
 of the wide group I am now considering, and speak- 
 ing of this group as a whole, I see no sure way of 
 overcoming this great difficulty, no way of determin- 
 ing conditions of spirit by means of an examination. 
 
 • •' The Aims of Literary Study," pp. 99, 103. 
 
206 THE EDUCATION OF TEACHERS 
 
 But examinations should not be abandoned on this 
 account, any more than teaching itself should be 
 abandoned. Teaching should be reinforced by exami- 
 nation, and the best we can do is to assume that when 
 the instruction has been of the thorough and inspir- 
 ing kind, and when the pupil has done his intellectual 
 work with thoroughness, the transformation into 
 character and power will follow as a consequence. 
 
 In the region where this inquiry lies the mere 
 presence of knowledge is no proof that the character 
 and the life have been affected, nor is its absence any 
 proof that there has been no spiritual growth. With 
 the mind as with the body, nutriment must lose its 
 identity before it can be transformed into structure 
 and power. A poem may have performed its highest 
 office, its effect may have been deeply imbedded in the 
 soul, and yet the poem as such may have absolutely 
 disappeared from the memory. As we read a new 
 book we mark the paragraphs that please us most, or 
 that arrest our thought. After an interval of years 
 we scan these marked paragraphs, but without any 
 internal proof that we have ever read them; but a 
 closer scrutiny shows us the genesis of certain opin- 
 ions or emotions which these forgotten paragraphs 
 had produced. In consideration of such facts, what 
 
EQUITY IN EXAMINATIONS 207 
 
 possible inquest after knowledge can reveal these 
 mysteries of spiritual adornment and growth? We 
 cannot safely infer culture from knowledge, nor can 
 we infer its absence from the absence of knowledge. 
 Into these deep waters we throw the lead in vain, so 
 far as the discovery of bottom facts is concerned. 
 
 In this connection I commend the spirit of the fol- 
 lowing quotation: 
 
 "In accordance with the same principles, all knowl- 
 edge, however imposing in appearance, is but superfi- 
 cial knowledge, if it be merely the mind's furniture^ 
 not the mind's nutriment. It must be transmuted 
 into mind, as food is into blood, to become wisdom 
 and power. There is many a human parrot and mem- 
 ory monger who has read and who recollects more 
 history than Webster, but in Webster history has 
 become judgment, foresight, executive force, mind. 
 That seemingly instinc1:ive sagacity, by which an able 
 man does exactly the right thing at the right moment, 
 is nothing but a collection of facts thus assimilated 
 into thought. This power of instantaneous action 
 without reflection is the only thing which saves men 
 in great emergencies ; but far from being independent 
 of knowledge and experience, it is their noblest re- 
 8ult."* 
 
 ♦Whipple, "Literature and Life," pp. 193-'4. 
 
208 THE EDUCATION OF TEACHERS 
 
 "At the University of Cambridge he (Wordsworth) 
 appears to have read the classics with the divining eye 
 and assimilating mind of a poet, and if he did not 
 attain the first position as a classical scholar, he cer- 
 tainly drank in beyond all his fellows the spirit of the 
 great writers of Greece and Rome."* 
 
 " Whether men sow or reap the fields. 
 Divine monition Nature yields, 
 That not by bread alone we live. 
 As what a hand of flesh can give — 
 That every day should leave some part 
 Free for a Sabbath of the heart."t 
 
 Throughout this whole group of studies I would 
 place supreme stress on the other condition mentioned 
 by Dr. Corson, " sympathetic assimilation on the part 
 of the teacher." The vital act of teaching is best 
 described as induction, the taking on of spiritual and 
 scholarly qualities from near presence to a man richly 
 endowed with spiritual and scholarly qualities. 
 
 But another aspect of the examination question 
 now presents itself. What disposition is to be made 
 of the papers which students have written under such 
 stress, and on which their fate is supposed to hang? 
 Students look upon an examination as a very serious 
 
 *lUd., p. 258. 
 t Wordsworth. 
 
EQUITY IN EXAMINATIONS 209 
 
 thing; they have a feeling that it marks a crisis ia 
 their history; and they put into it the best that is in 
 them of heart, mind and soul. I think it is a pity 
 ■that all examiners do not enter into full sympathy 
 with their students in a matter which is so full of 
 seriousness. The paper of each student should be 
 read as patiently and as carefully as though he were 
 the only member of the class; and in marking the 
 value of an answer the examiner should be guided by 
 the very spirit of judicial fairness. Another thing is 
 so important that it should be regarded as a first prin- 
 ciple in estimating the value of a paper: nothing 
 which is outside the paper should influence the ex- 
 aminer in forming his estimate of it. I have lately 
 seen the following rule given for criticising a book: 
 "Do not go behind the book. Your business is with 
 the book, the whole book, and nothing but the book." 
 And so I would say: Do not go behind the paper. 
 Your business is with the paper, the whole paper, and 
 nothing but the paper. This means that you are not 
 to mark a paper from any thought of what the pupil 
 has done or has not done in the past, nor of what he 
 should do or should not do in the future, but solely 
 from the standpoint of intrinsic merit. 
 
 Adhering strictly to this principle, it ought not to 
 14 
 
210 THE EDUCATION OF TEACHERS 
 
 he very difficult to reacli a correct judgment as to the 
 deserts of the paper. If it gives evidence that the 
 pupil has made a good use of his opportunities and 
 has gained a reasonable mastery of his subject he 
 should be marked "passed." If the paper makes it 
 clear that the pupiFs knowledge of the subject is 
 merely defective in some special parts, lie should be 
 "conditioned/' and the defective parts should be 
 clearly indicated by the instructor. If the paper is 
 radically poor, indicating an ignorance or a very poor 
 knowledge of the subject, the pupil should be marked 
 "not passed," and should be required to pursue the 
 study a second time. 
 
 "A condition" should not be imposed on a student 
 either as a punishment for some past irregularity or 
 as a stimulus to future diligence. The paper must be 
 marked simply on its merits, and a "condition" must 
 not be used as a weapon of discipline. I wonder if all 
 have reflected on the demoralizing effects of these 
 "conditions." They not only hang over the student 
 as an impending calamity, but they rob every instruc- 
 tor of a part of the student's time that is his just due. 
 "Conditions" must be removed, and in order to re- 
 move them they must have time that would other- 
 wise be given to other subjects. By an unwise resort 
 
EQUITY IN EXAMINATIONS 211 
 
 to '^conditions" an instructor may ^^hold up" an entire 
 school bj making every other instructor pay tribute 
 to his exactions. In respect of its effect on a school, 
 a ^'condition" is much more mischievous than a "not 
 passed." Anything in school administration is mis- 
 chievous that allo\\^s one instructor to invade the 
 rights of other instructors. I once knew a teacher 
 who played havoc throughout his school by his merci- 
 less impositions and exactions on the time of students. 
 He was the prince of task-masters, his subject yielded 
 readily to drill, and his pupils were in such terror of 
 his rebukes that they virtually gave him the monopoly 
 of their time at the expense of other coordinate de- 
 partments of the university. 
 
 It happened in an important western school, a few 
 years ago, that some sixty per cent of the students in 
 a certain class failed to pass their term's examination, 
 and this fact was advertised as a proof of the remark- 
 able thoroughness of the instruction. What a reflec- 
 tion on this man's skill as an instructor, or upon his 
 wisdom as an examiner, that only four pupils in ten 
 could pass his own test on his own work! Under or- 
 dinary circumstances it is proof of unskillful instruc- 
 tion or of unwise examination to impose a large num- 
 ber of "conditions" and "not passed." In very large 
 
212 THE EDUCATION OF TEACHERS 
 
 classes, it may "be said, individual instruction becomes 
 impossible, and many failures are the consequence; 
 but evidently these pupils lack opportunity through 
 no fault of their own; either their progress should be 
 slower in order that it may be surer, or the severity 
 of the examination should be duly moderated. A 
 large per cent of failures in examination is proof posi- 
 tive of poor work at some point on the part of the 
 instructor. An evident exception to this rule is the 
 case where an instructor restricts pupils, say in Latin, 
 who have been taught their grammar with different 
 degrees of thoroughness. 
 
 I have spoken of the extreme sensitiveness of stu- 
 dents to the good opinion of their instructors and 
 classmates, and I would have this feeling most sa- 
 credly guarded. Any unnecessary publicity given to 
 a student's misfortunes is almost a crime. If we could 
 only put ourselves in the place of our students and 
 guai'd their interests as discreetly as we would have 
 our own guarded, we would be doing no more than 
 simple charity requires of us. 
 
APPENDIX 
 
 BACCALAUREATE ADDRESSES 
 
 THE UNIVERSAL YOCATIOK 
 
THE UNIYEESAL VOCATION 
 
 In the way of concrete Christianity, and as defining 
 in few words the whole duty of man to his fellows, 
 nothing seems to me more admirable than these words 
 of Paul : ' ' And let us not be weary in well doing : 
 for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not. As 
 we have therefore opportunity^ let us do good to all 
 men^ especially unto them who are of the household 
 of faith." 
 
 I think the world has grown tired of theology, that 
 is, of the abstract science of righteousness; but it 
 never tires of religion, that is, of ' * that which binds 
 and holds us to the practice of righteousness."* Men 
 will return with perennial joy to the Sermon on the 
 Mount, while they will not listen with patience to dry 
 statements of theologies and creeds. Is the church 
 losing power over intelligent men? Yes, whenever 
 the preacher makes the theory of religion the warp 
 and woof of his sermon, but never when the Bible is 
 used to enforce the practice of righteousness and to 
 
 * Matthew Arnold 
 
216 APPENDIX 
 
 inspire men with the nobility of right conduct. All 
 the great preachers of to-day are great because they 
 offer meat and drink to the hungry and thirsty souls 
 of men. In too many instances, sincere men and 
 women go to their preacher for bread, and they are 
 given a stone ; they are offered the dry husks of the- 
 ology when the thing they want is practical help to- 
 wards the conduct of life. How shall we live in 
 order that we may die with composure? How shall 
 we bear up under the crushing burdens of misfortune 
 and sorrow? What shall be our attitude towards 
 those who despitefully use us? How shall we add to 
 human happiness and mitigate human sorrow? Such 
 questions disturb every human soul, and men have an 
 instinctive feeling that they are to be answered out 
 of the Bible through its authorized interpreters. 
 
 Beneficence, or the doing of good, is the universal 
 vocation to which all men are called. As the years 
 multiply I have the ever growing conviction that the 
 real interpretation of life is to be found only in a 
 steadfast devotion to the doing of good ; that in the 
 intent of our Creator our one mission on this earth is 
 to renew its face physically and morally ; to reconvert 
 it into a paradise for human habitation and delight ; 
 and to restore to man the lost image in which he was 
 
THE UNIVERSAL VOCATION 217 
 
 created. All other vocations — all trades, employ- 
 ments, professions — should be held strictly subordi- 
 nate to this supreme vocation of beneficence. "Why 
 am I a scholar, a preacher, a lawyer, a poet, a farmer, 
 a teacher, a tailor, a cooper, or a merchant? There 
 is but one reply to each and all of these queries. 
 ' ' Because I see in these several vocations a fair oppor- 
 tunity to do good, to serve my generation, and to ben- 
 efit the world." Contrariwise, why am I to shun 
 certain other vocations to which I see many of my 
 fellow beings devoting themselves? Because the di- 
 rect and the indirect tendencies of such vocations are 
 to produce or to perpetuate evil, to make men worse 
 and to carry the world farther and farther from its 
 ideal state. None of these questions can be answered 
 from a consideration of wealth, reputation, or even 
 personal happiness. We are to ' * seek peace and 
 ensue it," even though we are sure to incur stripes, 
 reproaches, poverty and shame ; and we are to avoid 
 evil pursuits, even though they insure wealth, honor 
 and reputation. 
 
 This principle places us on high vantage ground 
 from which to survey human occupations and to select 
 the one which shall be our life vocation. Two things 
 are required in order to make a wise selection of a 
 
218 APPENDIX 
 
 vocation : (1) To set aside at once those whose nature 
 and aims are evil; and (2) then out of those which 
 are beneficent to select the one most in keeping with 
 our tastes and abilities. 
 
 It is not a difficult thing to distinguish and set aside 
 the vocations that are evil. On this point the consen- 
 sus of human opinion is unanimous. This classifica- 
 tion is as old as history itself, and has come down to 
 us as an inheritance. For example, no one, not even 
 a dramseller himself, will assert that dramselling is a 
 beneficent business. That question is not worth debat- 
 ing. It has been settled for all time to come. Whether 
 farming is a beneficent occupation is not a debatable 
 question. That too has been settled. There are not 
 two sides to the questions. 
 
 However, this circumstance is to be noted : a bene- 
 ficent vocation may be maleficently administered, as 
 when a farmer vends unwholesome food, or a states- 
 man oppresses his people, or a preacher teaches error, 
 or a writer composes a bad book. The evil is not in 
 the vocation, but in the administration of it. On the 
 other hand, no gift in administration can purge a mal- 
 eficent vocation of its evil. Theft cannot be converted 
 into a virtue ; a thief is a public enemy, and thieving 
 is an evil ; there is no good in it, and no good can 
 
THE UNIVERSAL VOCATION 219 
 
 come out of it. And still another thing is to be 
 noted: the more respectability we throw about an 
 evil vocation the more dangerous it becomes ; the more 
 attractive we make it the larger becomes the number 
 of its victims. 
 
 When we come to select one out of the many bene- 
 ficent vocations we fall upon grave difficulties. Yery 
 often the selection is made on false principles, especi- 
 ally in the case of the professions. Long before the 
 boy's capabilities and tastes have been brought to the 
 light by training and maturity, the fond mother has 
 predestined him for the pulpit or the bar ; and so we 
 witness the sad fact of misfits and maladjustments — 
 the heaven-born preacher at the plow and the mis- 
 placed plowman in the pulpit. In respect of the pro- 
 fessions, I suppose the good rule is this : Defer the 
 selection of a profession until the period of general 
 training is over in order that the choice may be based 
 on known fitness and well developed tastes. Good 
 preparation being assumed, one does best who works 
 in the line of his predilections, while to work against 
 the grain is to compromise one's success from the very 
 start. A good high school education seems to me the 
 minimum requisite for making a wise choice of a vo- 
 cation. So far as possible, duty and inclination should 
 
APPENDIX 
 
 lie in the same direction. One's power for doing good 
 is thus doubled. It is a sad check to one's usefulness 
 to do work which is a constant cross to one's inclina- 
 tions. It is only by this concert of will and pleasure 
 that we can do with our might what our hands find to 
 do. * ' If we read without inclination, half the mind 
 is employed in fixing the attention, so there is but one- 
 half to be employed on what we read."* I allow 
 that sometimes, at the very beginning, we must con- 
 strain ourselves to reconcile duty with inclination, but 
 habit soon comes to the rescue, and what we learn 
 to do easily and successfully we come to do with 
 pleasure. The important thing is to put heart and 
 soul into whatever we do, whether it be making a 
 horseshoe, plowing a furrow, preaching a sermon 
 teaching a lesson, or writing a book. We should im- 
 part a moral quality to everything that we fashion 
 with hand or brain. Whatever we build we should 
 build to last ; and if it be our privilege to make or 
 mould ' ' a thing of beauty, ' ' it should be of such 
 temper and virtue as to be "a joy forever. ' ' Every 
 sham is immorality, and the persistent maker of shams 
 should be regarded and treated as a criminal. It is 
 morality that gives coherence to human society ; and 
 
 * Samuel .Tohir^r^n. 
 
THE UNIVERSAL VOCATION 221 
 
 in the last analysis it is morality that keeps a vessel 
 from foundering and a house from falling. James 
 Carlyle was a stone mason who put his religion into 
 every wall that he built, and the great endowment 
 that he left to his illustrious son was an instinctive 
 and uncompromising hatred of shams in all their 
 myriad forms. Bums, another Scotchman, was the 
 very scourge of pretense, fraud and sham, particularly 
 in their most odious form, hypocrisy, and so he wrote : 
 
 ** God knows I*m no the thing I should be, 
 Nor am I even the thing I could be, 
 But twenty times I rather would be 
 
 An atheist clean, 
 Than under gospel colors hid be, 
 Just for a screen." 
 
 When we seriously reflect on the prevalence of in- 
 sincerity and fraud, and think how thoroughly society 
 is honeycombed with deception and cheat, we for a 
 moment grow pessimistic and sick at heart ; but when 
 we take a broader view and study the course of human 
 events as they reflect the morality of the times, we dis- 
 cover that through all this misery and corruption there 
 is a power working for righteousness, that the tone of 
 public morals is steadily rising, that there is a higher and 
 higher standard of conduct, and that frauds and shams 
 
222 APPENDIX 
 
 are growing more and more odious as the race advances 
 in experience. I pity the man who is not an optimist, 
 who believes that the world is predestined to a growing 
 corruption, that society is controlled by knaves and 
 scoundrels, and that some day the powers of darkness 
 are to hold high carnival over the final discomfiture of 
 the true and the good. How can a soldier fight when 
 he knows that defeat is already inevitable? How can 
 a man raise his finger to do good when he knows that 
 all the good that all men can do will be swallowed up 
 of evil? I pray that you may be delivered from this 
 dreary and joyless creed of despair. Bad as it is, look 
 hopefully on the world and let its evident wickedness 
 be but a stimulus to your devotion to well doing. 
 Have faith in the ultimate triumph of righteousness, 
 and consecrate all your powers to the betterment of 
 human society. A cheerful optimism will multiply 
 all your powers for doing good by ten. Listen to no 
 man who presumes to preach the gospel of despair. 
 Every benevolent and beneficent man may feel assured 
 that he is an alliance with the everlasting powers of 
 righteousness, that in his work, however humble, he 
 is supported by the invincible agents of Truth. 
 
 Now, in further illustration of my theme, I will 
 
THE UNIVERSAL VOCATION 
 
 mention some modes in which one may exercise the 
 vocation of beneficence : 
 
 There is untold and resistless power in a good life, 
 in a life exemplifying day by day one's fidelity to 
 duty, one's loyalty to truth, one's devotion to right- 
 eous conduct and to the unostentatious doing of good. 
 To be a loyal citizen, a helpful neighbor, a true friend, 
 an affectionate son or daughter — to be thus dutiful in 
 a quiet and beautiful way, is to lead a life pleasing to 
 God and helpful to men. Such a life is an epistle 
 known and read of all men, and all the more persua- 
 sive because it issues no commands and excites no 
 comparisons and oppositions. Men generally rebel 
 against formal attempts to make them better. A pro- 
 fessional reformer virtually assumes that he is superior 
 to other men, and this assumption is usually irritating 
 and offensive ; but a man who in a simple and unas- 
 suming way leads an industrious, frugal and temperate 
 life, who fears God and keeps His commandments, is 
 an irresistible power for good and an incomparable 
 preacher of righteousness. There is a perennial charm 
 in a life of such simplicity and uprightness, and I am 
 convinced that the real salt and savor of society is to 
 be found in lives of this unassuming type, in lives 
 such as the poet pictures : 
 
224 APPENDIX 
 
 " Far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife, 
 Their sober wishes never learned to stray; 
 Along the cool sequestered vale of life 
 They kept the noiseless tenor of their way." 
 
 The center and source of a people's moral strength 
 is the home. It is in the serene quiet of the home life 
 that are organized the forces that lift society upwards 
 in the way of righteousness and peace. If the home 
 is the scene of peace and joy and holy living, the 
 young have the best possible endowment for serving 
 their generation effectively. It is in private, not 
 public, life that the saving virtues are nurtured. It 
 is under the shelter of the rooftree and around the 
 family fireside that are formed the patriot and the 
 Christian soldier. It is sometimes necessary to fight, 
 as Aristotle declares, but all to the end that we may 
 have peace. The ideal state to which Christianity is 
 striving is that of peace and good will to men. * ' The 
 fruits of righteousness are sown in peace of them that 
 make peace. " 
 
 What I have just said amounts in substance to this : 
 the prime condition of doing good in the world is to 
 have a nature surcharged with good impulses, noble 
 aspirations and benevolent purposes. If you are to 
 do good you must be good; if you are to promote 
 
THE UNIVERSAL VOCATION 226 
 
 peace and good will among men you must yourself 
 have a peaceable spirit and a will to do good to others. 
 Mean men may do a good deed from some constraint, 
 as an unjust judge may finally listen to a widow's plea 
 out of sheer importunity ; but such service is a hollow 
 mockery, offensive to God and man. It is out of the 
 abundance of the heart that the mouth should speak. 
 Good men will seek occasion to do good ; they will 
 not wait for some form of compulsion. A benevolent 
 nature will express itself in good deeds, just as a 
 merry heart makes a glad countenance. * ' What a 
 delicious fortune is it to him whose strongest appetite 
 is doing good, to have every day the opportunity and 
 the power of satisfying it."* Education, as I am 
 coming more and more to understand it, consists 
 mainly in assisting young people to be or become 
 something as the condition of doing something. The 
 education that does not strike deep enough to affect 
 the personality beneficently and permanently is of 
 little worth. 
 
 Another mode in which you may do good to men 
 as you have opportunity is to extend their intellectual 
 horizon and give them clearer conceptions of truth. 
 Narrowness makes us selfish, intolerant and unchar- 
 
 ♦ Fielding. 
 15 
 
226 APPENDIX 
 
 itable. We should all pray for breadth, for some one 
 to take us to the mountains whence we may see the 
 world's greatness and our own littleness, to the end 
 that we may be modest and at the same time cosmo- 
 politan. All men should be travelers, travelers in 
 fact, or, through books, travelers by proxy; so that 
 while denizens of the little spot we call our home, we 
 may become citizens of the world. How many mean 
 prejudices slink away from us as we come into wider 
 fellowship with our own kind ! As we mingle with 
 people of other nationalities we discover that be- 
 tween them and us there are many more resemblances 
 than differences. Doubtless it was Paul's experience 
 as a traveler that had taught him that * * God hath 
 made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on 
 all the face of the earth." Not until he had parted 
 with his Jewish exclusiveness could he have become 
 the apostle to the Gentiles. His sojourn in Arabia 
 and his experience at Antioch were for Paul a liberal 
 education, and with this endowment he became the 
 world's preacher. 
 
 Socrates held that knowledge and virtue are syn- 
 onymous, or, rather, that clear intellectual vision is an 
 unfailing guide to good conduct. On this hypothesis 
 he devoted himself to dialectic, that is^ to an unloos- 
 
THE UNIVERSAL VOCATION 227 
 
 ening or analysis of the current ethical maxims and 
 theories of his day in order to divest them of their 
 sophistries and thence to discover the one kernel of 
 grain hidden in the bushel of chaff. This theory is 
 imperfect because it does not take into account habit 
 and emotion ; but there is so large an element of help- 
 fulness in it that the clear discernment of truth must 
 be counted as a fundamental condition of good con- 
 duct. Knowing that arsenic is a poison, we do not 
 tamper with it ; knowing that electricity kills, we do 
 not lay hold of live wires ; but knowing that intem- 
 perance leads to poverty and shame, all men are not 
 temperate; knowing that untruthfulness saps honor 
 and integrity, all men are not truthful. In the first 
 cases there is no element of uncertainty and no seduc- 
 tion of habit, and so obedience is easy; but in the 
 second cases there are exceptions to a general rule, 
 and some men are willing to take their chances on 
 these exceptions. Still, if men have been the subjects 
 of moral discipline, they will shun the paths of danger 
 when they have been clearly discerned by the intellect. 
 Socrates no doubt assumed the fact of moral discipline, 
 and with this postulate we may certainly build on the 
 divine principle enunciated by John, that ' * the truth 
 shall make us free." It is the business of the schools 
 
228 APPENDIX 
 
 not only to bring pupils face to face with truth, but to 
 make the pursuit of truth one of the sweetest joys of 
 life. By direct teaching, and perhaps even more by 
 the silent and potent influences of example, you may 
 fulfill one of your highest duties to man by clear ex- 
 positions of truth, and by making the pursuit of truth 
 a lovable vocation. "It is a pleasure to stand upon 
 the shore and to see ships tossed by the sea ; a pleasure 
 to stand in the window of a castle, and to see a battle, 
 and the adventures thereof below ; but no pleasure is 
 comparable to the standing on the vantage ground of 
 truth (a hill not to be commanded, and where the air 
 is always clear and serene) and to see the errors, and 
 wanderings, and mists, and tempests, in the vale 
 below : so always, that this prospect be with pity, and 
 not with swelling or pride. Certainly it is heaven 
 upon earth to have a man's mind move in charity, rest 
 in providence, and turn upon the poles of truth."* 
 
 I think it is not possible to overestimate the influ- 
 ence of good books and the reading habit on the hap- 
 piness and well-being of mankind. In this age of 
 universal reading, men make books their companions, 
 guides and teachers. The time once was when opin- 
 ion, public and individual, was moulded and controlled 
 
 ♦Bacon, Of Truth. 
 
THE UNIVERSAL VOCATION 229 
 
 by the orator and the preacher ; but in these later days 
 the pulpit and the rostrum have been largely super- 
 seded by the book, aud the occupation of our leisure 
 is reading, rather than listening. The old and true 
 saying that "a man is known by the company he 
 keeps," should now read, *'aman is known by the 
 books he reads." It is as certain as anything can 
 be in the moral world that a young man who is an 
 ardent lover of good books is in very little danger of 
 moral corruption. This is so for two reasons : a good 
 book is not only wholesome and stimulating moral 
 aliment, but the reading habit is a precious preoccupa- 
 tion, and in moral training wise preoccupation is more 
 than half the battle. These simple propositions are 
 unmistakably true : The pursuit of happiness is a 
 need of our nature ; men will seek happiness in some 
 form; if they cannot find it in the exercise of the 
 higher emotions, they will seek it in the exercise of 
 the lower ; and if the mind is preoccupied with the 
 higher pleasures it will be closed to the lower. 
 * ' Students do not do enough for themselves, in these 
 days of vast educational machinery. They for the 
 most part confine themselves to the prescribed work 
 of the schools. They are, in fact, obliged to do this, 
 in order to keep up with the heterogeneous class work 
 
230 APPENDIX 
 
 imposed on them, and to prepare for examinations. 
 They have so much to gobble up that, to turn aside to 
 read, in a genial, sympathetic way, a great inspiring 
 author, as they should be encouraged and allowed an 
 opportunity to do, is quite impossible. The school 
 bill of fare, with moral dyspepsia in its wake, must 
 be gone through with, mat coelura.'^''^ 
 
 Next in potency to the Scriptures as an agent for 
 awakening and nourishing the higher life of the soul, 
 is genuine poetry ; and to be wisely addicted to good 
 poetry is to live in a tonic moral atmosphere and to 
 put on the form of a higher spiritual personality. 
 The true poet is a creator, the creator of a purer 
 world, peopled by purified spirits, and purifying all 
 who take up their abode in it. ''The immoral and 
 universal paths of our race are to be read and reread 
 till their music and their spirit are a part of our 
 nature ; they are to be thought over and digested till 
 we live in the world they created for us ; they are to 
 be read devoutly, as devout men read their Bible 
 and fortify their hearts with psalms. For as the old 
 Hebrew singer heard the heavens declare the glory of 
 their Maker, and the firmament showing his handi- 
 work, so in the long roll of poetry we see transfigured 
 
 ♦Hiram Corson. 
 
THE UNIVERSAL VOCATION 231 
 
 the strength and beauty of humanity, the joys and 
 sorrows, the dignity and struggle, the long life-history 
 of our common kind."* 
 
 "Next to good poetry as a transforming power is 
 good fiction. While poetry constructs for man an 
 ideal world and peoples it with ideal characters, fic- 
 tion has for its field the analysis and reconstruction of 
 the real world inhabited by real men and women, and 
 leaves the reader to construct an ideal world for him- 
 seK, to become his own poet and prophet. 
 
 Whether you can make this beneficent use of books 
 or not will depend upon your own intellectual tastes 
 and habits. It is not enough that you love to read ; 
 you should also love books as personal treasures, 
 should love them as you love your friends, and with 
 the same ardor as some men love pictures. But to 
 love books you must own them. If you can associate 
 some personal sacrifice with each one of them, so 
 much the better. To be loved in the best fashion, a 
 book should not only have intrinsic merit, which is, 
 of course, the principal thing, but it should have some 
 special charms of typography, paper, and binding. 
 There are books beautiful and books ugly, books that 
 appeal to the aesthetic sense as works of art, and books 
 
 * Frederick Harrison. 
 
232 APPENDIX 
 
 that are offensive to sight and touch. I would have 
 you affected with a mild bibliomania, to the end that 
 you may accumulate a certain number of book treasures 
 which you treat lovingly and guard jealously. Books 
 are the tools of your art, and to know how to use 
 them wisely and effectively is one of the prime ele- 
 ments of your professional outfit. By degrees you 
 should accumulate a library, not alone of professional 
 books, but mainly of books that bespeak the tastes of 
 a general scholar, books of history, philosophy and 
 belles-lettres ; for in a high and true sense these too 
 are professional books, since the teacher is or should 
 be first of all a scholar, a man enamored of the schol- 
 arly vocation. In fact any pursuit is professional that 
 gives extension to a teacher's intellectual vision, gives 
 him higher and truer views of life, or gives tone and 
 poise to the sum total of his character. A good poem 
 may do him a higher professional service than a book 
 on method. 
 
 Without saying with Pope that happiness is ' ' our 
 being's end and aim," it is certain that happiness is a 
 substantial good, a moral tonic needed by all men as a 
 condition for doing a high quality of work. Noble 
 work has been done under the stress of poverty and 
 sorrow, but no one will say that these are conditions 
 
THE UNIVERSAL VOCATION 233 
 
 that are to be desired. At best they are a painful 
 stimulus to action, but in the end pain is weakening 
 and demoralizing. Happiness, on the other hand, 
 acting as a gentle stimulus, produces a constitutional 
 condition that is most favorable to human exertion. 
 We should pray for happiness, not for the sake of 
 personal enjoyment, but because it is the state most 
 favorable for doing work of the highest quality ; just 
 as we pray to be delivered from unhappiness, because 
 this is a state unfavorable to the doing of good service. 
 Doubtless sorrow is a discipline necessary to lead us on 
 toward the perfecting of our nature, but sorrows come 
 unbidden, and we have no warrant for bringing them 
 forward by express intent. Happiuess, however, or 
 that state of mind which results from the free and 
 unimpeded exercise of our activities, is even more es- 
 sential to the normal life of the soul. As it is a state 
 dependent more or less on conditions within our con- 
 trol, we may make it an object of deliberate pursuit, 
 as a good which we may do to all men. 
 
 The case is still stronger when we take children 
 into account. Men may react against unhappiness and 
 even draw strength from it, but happiness is the vital 
 breath of children, the very best, if not the only, 
 moral stimulus on which they can thrive. In all its 
 
234 APPENDIX 
 
 appointments, a schoolroom for children should inspire 
 a wholesome sense of rest and comfort, and should 
 predispose its pupils to happiness. The teacher her- 
 self should radiate an atmosphere that is kindly, joyous 
 and sympathetic — voice, manner and dress all conspir- 
 ing to create a very paradise for childhood. One 
 incomparable blessing bestowed on education by the 
 kindergarten is the spirit of spontaneity and joyous- 
 ness which it has introduced into the primary school. 
 This I believe to be one of its supreme merits. 
 
 "Wherever you work, whether in the narrow circle 
 of your school, or in the wider field of the world, I 
 would have you, by your good humor, serenity of 
 spirit and kindliness of heart, make it one of your 
 distinct aims to diffuse about you the wholesome and 
 inspiring tonic of human happiness. As far as you 
 may be able, take sunshine into darkened homes, lift 
 the clouds from heavy hearts and give support to 
 drooping spirits. Be sympathetic, speak hopefully, 
 treat gently, reserving frowns, censure and hardness 
 for the rarest occasions. As the condition for doing 
 this, fill yourself with hopefulness, cheerfulness, good 
 will and benevolence, and count these as cardinal vir- 
 tues in a life that is to be devoted to the dissemination 
 of righteousness. 
 
THE UNIVERSAL VOCATION 235 
 
 I venture to call attention to another principle which 
 I think of vital importance. Whoever feels obliged to 
 look for his happiness outside of himself, outside of 
 his own resources, is in a state of great moral danger. 
 If education is to be truly a beneficence, it should 
 make a man self-contained, self -centered, resourceful, 
 a law unto himself, so that when in peril he may 
 rescue himself, and when alone he may not be lonely. 
 One should learn to be on good terms with one's self, 
 to be one's own companion, and out of one's own 
 resources to draw comfort, happiness and strength. 
 What a pitiable condition to be dependent on others 
 for our daily supplies of happiness and moral strength ! 
 
 For the end I have in view the one great essential 
 is a well furnished mind, a memory that holds in safe 
 keeping and subject to prompt recall some of the 
 masterpieces of literature, religious, ethical and poeti- 
 cal. As specimens from sacred literature I mention 
 the following: The Beatitudes; the Twenty-third, 
 the Ninetieth and the One Hundred and third Psalms ; 
 the Twelfth of Komans, the Thirteenth of First Cor- 
 inthians, the Third of James. Then there should 
 come such complete poems as Gray's Elegy, Thana- 
 topsis, II Penseroso^ and so on almost without limit. 
 One of the shames of modem education is the syste- 
 
236 APPENDIX 
 
 matic and almost universal discrediting of the memory. 
 It is denied that the memory is a storehouse, but every 
 sane man knows that it is. ' ' We must most of all 
 exercise and keep in constant employment the memory 
 of children ; for that is, as it were, the storehouse of 
 all learning."* It is asserted that ''nothing should 
 be committed to memory which has not been imder- 
 fitood"; which is as wise as to say that ''no food 
 should be committed to the stomach which has not 
 been digested." Not only is education without mem- 
 ory impossible, but the quality of education is depend- 
 ent on the larger or smaller use that is made of the 
 memory. At any rate, from our present point of 
 view a man, to be well furnished for the highest re- 
 quirements of life, has need of a mind that holds in 
 store large and select portions of the world's wisdom. 
 I do not know how I could do you a higher service 
 than by inducing you to make of your minds a royal 
 storehouse of the best things uttered or written by the 
 world's great teachers, its saints, prophets, poets and 
 philosophers. 
 
 In the next place I would have you do good to men 
 by teaching them by precept and example the essential 
 nobility and beauty of simplicity in character, in 
 
 • Plutarch. 
 
THE UNIVERSAL VOCATI 
 
 habits, in pleasures, in desires, in wants, in dress — in 
 all things that pertain to the conduct of life. In 
 religion, in government, in society, in education — in 
 every sphere of human activity there is an almost 
 irresistible movement towards the artificial, the com- 
 plex, the unnecessary. Rousseau was not far wrong 
 in saying that men no longer know how to be simple 
 in anything, and in believing that the cure for human 
 ills is to be found in a return to simplicity, or to 
 Nature, as distinguished from art. To know what 
 Rousseau means by Nature, and so to comprehend his 
 theory of life, one needs to go from Paris to Mont- 
 morency, from shops, palaces and prisons to trees, 
 lawns and brooks ; from din and bustle to solitude and 
 silence. There is a strong confirmation of this theory 
 in the history of religion, where reforms have always 
 been in the line of simplicity, away from forms and 
 ceremonies, back to a simple spiritual worship. In 
 process of time the reformed religions must themselves 
 reform, so irresistible is the tendency to find comfort 
 in mere mechanism, and to work out one's salvation, 
 not with fear and trembling, but by proxy, in a gen- 
 tlemanly way, without much disturbance to one's feel- 
 ings or sense of comfort. 
 
 Many of our wants are purely artificial, the mere 
 
238 APPENDIX 
 
 creations of fashions or fancy, responding to no real 
 demands of our nature, but wasting our money, dissi- 
 pating our time, and destroying our health as well as 
 our happiness. Simplicity in food, in dress and m 
 pleasure would add to our health, our wealth and our 
 happiness ; and if the young could be impressed with 
 the beauty and the utility of simplicity in all the things 
 that pertain to the conduct of life, they would be 
 placed on higher vantage ground and insured against 
 many of the so-called ills of existence. 
 
 I think most people in a normal state of mind and 
 heart have periodical longings to retreat to the woods 
 and the mountains, and there to renew their spiritual 
 and physical strength in solitude and simplicity of life. 
 No life can be great that is not nurtured and matured 
 in solitude, and any life will be dwarfed and puny 
 that does not sometimes retire from the heat and glare 
 of society, to gain refreshment from the repose and 
 silence of nature. Happy they to whom such retreats 
 are open! The solitude of Craigenputtock was in 
 perfect keeping with the genius and the spiritual 
 needs of Carlyle during the years that witnessed the 
 maturing of his powers and the crystalizing of his 
 theories of life. At this supreme juncture, life in 
 London, or even in Edinburgh, would have been folly, 
 
THE UNIVERSAL VOCATION 239 
 
 if not ruin. Mr. Carlyle's latest biographer, Macpher- 
 son, speaks of "Carlyle's retirement to the howling 
 wilds of Craigenputtock ' ' ; and Mr. Fronde charac- 
 terizes the place as ''the dreariest spot in all the 
 British dominions. ' ' As Craigenputtock appeared to 
 me, it is a pleasant, even a charming spot for a man 
 of contemplative habits and simple tastes, the only 
 spot in Britain that I coveted as a dwelling place. 
 
 One phase of education as a process is growth, spir- 
 itual and mental. For such growth reflection or rum- 
 ination is necessary, and for this purpose retirement 
 or seclusion is an absolute necessity. Student life can 
 not be wholesome if it does not have stated periods 
 consecrated to reflection and contemplation. Possibly 
 the lack of this opportunity explains why it is that 
 college life contributes so little to a student's real edu- 
 cation. For the most part, the mind is made to work 
 at high tension, such is the pressure of class work and 
 examinations, but it is only when the mind is working 
 under a mild and gentle stimulus, in a state of com- 
 parative repose, that education proper can take place ; 
 so that it is the wisest student economy to arrange for 
 stated periods of retirement where the sole occupation 
 is rumination. I do not think it a paradox to say that 
 
240 APPENDIX 
 
 normal sleep is more favorable to true educational 
 growth than the customary drill of the class room. 
 
 I now turn to another mode of doing good which is 
 more strictly professional : the dissemination through- 
 out your little circle of influence of correct notions as 
 to the nature and purposes of education. How you 
 could do more good in your day and generation than 
 by preaching this evangel I do not know, for educa- 
 tion is the architectonic or master art, the art that 
 makes all others possible, that determines the value of 
 individuals to the state, and that also determines the 
 rank of states in the august procession of nations. I 
 do not know which is the more potent factor for good 
 in a community, a wise teacher dispensing to his little 
 flock mental and spiritual food in due quantity and of 
 due quality, or a wise patron predisposing the commu- 
 nity to support a school of high quality. It is certain 
 that both agencies are needed, and it should be true 
 that every good teacher is also a good preacher of a 
 sound educational gospel. In the order of logic the 
 schoolhouse should antedate the church, which is the 
 actual historical order. The evangelization of the 
 world would proceed more surely and more rapidly if 
 a sound educational gospel were to prepare the way 
 for the Gospel of peace and good will to man. 
 
THE UNIVERSAL VOCATION 241 
 
 It will help us to understand the essential secret of 
 education if we reflect on the fact that many students 
 who have been graduated from college are essentially 
 uneducated, while there are many men who are edu- 
 cated in the noble sense of that term who never fre- 
 quented an academy or a college. Many a boy has 
 abandoned all hope of an education because he is shut 
 out from the privileges of the schools, believing that 
 education is dependent on the means which they offer. 
 All young people should know that in this country of 
 churches, newspapers and books, every one may be- 
 come educated in some true sense of this term, and 
 that one condition and prerequisite is an unfaltering 
 will, a will that says inveniam vicmi aut facicmi. 
 Five minutes' conversation with a boy, under fair 
 conditions, and pitched to the right key, might pro- 
 duce intellectual conversion and wholly change the 
 current of his life. In every school there are natures 
 quickly responsive to appeals addressed to what is best 
 in them ; and the beautiful way when once pointed 
 out will be lovingly followed to the more beautiful 
 end. 
 
 You should disabuse the minds of others, as I hope 
 you have long since disabused your own minds, of the 
 
 notion that education is synonymous with the posses- 
 10 
 
242 APPENDIX 
 
 eion of much knowledge. Knowledge to be really 
 educative must, through a process of assimilation, be 
 built up into that spiritual fabric which constitutes the 
 human personality. Now, mere knowledge may re- 
 main in the mind as unassimilated material, almost as 
 foreign matter in the spiritual substance, and it is as 
 illogical to infer education from the mere possession of 
 knowledge, as to infer warmth from unused fuel, or 
 bodily comfort and strength from food still in store. 
 
 We come a little nearer the secret of education 
 when we call it discipline or power. In a sense, but 
 in an incomplete sense, a man is educated whose mind 
 has been disciplined; but mere discipline, without 
 that substantive being which we call character, that 
 chemical compound of intellect, heart and will, all 
 fused into one, and constituting the unit of the human 
 personality — such discipline is impotent for good, a 
 sword without a patriot's hand to wield it. Horses, 
 pigs and even fleas can be trained but not educated. 
 That is, they can be so disciplined as to execute tricks 
 and feats not in keeping with their original nature, but 
 there is no upward modification of character through 
 anytliing that affects intellect and emotion ; and it is 
 because they have neither intellect nor emotion that 
 they cannot be educated. 
 
THE UNIVERSAL VOCATION 243 
 
 Though wise men from Plato to Colonel Parker, 
 inclusive, have attempted to define education, no sat- 
 isfactory definition of it has been framed; and we 
 may be sure that when the definition is concise, it is 
 practically worthless. To say that education is devel- 
 opment, or life, or perfection, if not nonsense, is an 
 affirmation so utterly vague and rhetorical as to be 
 practically meaningless. Even the very best defini- 
 tions, like those of Plato, Spencer and Huxley, are 
 hardly more significant than a wave of the hand show- 
 ing us in what direction to look for light. The best 
 that can be done is to abandon definition and resort to 
 description, such description bearing on one or all of 
 the following points : (1) the end or purpose of edu- 
 cation ; (2) its matter or content ; (3) its form ; and 
 (4) its processes. Proceeding on this line I offer the 
 following statements, no one of which, nor all com- 
 bined, amounts to a full description, much less to a 
 definition : 
 
 Education is the process of hringing a human being 
 into likeness with the highest type of his hind. 
 
 Supposing that the Apollo Belvidere typifies the 
 physical perfection attainable by man, or the perfec- 
 tion towards which he is to strive ; that the type of 
 pure intellect is to be found in Aristotle, and the type 
 
244 APPENDIX 
 
 of moral perfection in Jesus ; then this statement be- 
 comes useful in making known the purpose or end of 
 education, but it throws no light on other essential 
 elements of the problem, save by implic«ition, on the 
 principle that to know the end is almost to know the 
 way, and that to have a strong desire to reach this end 
 is to find a way. 
 
 The pv/rpose of education is to endow the mdt/vid- 
 ucbl^ through jprop&r i/nst/ruct/ion^ with the highest 
 achievements of the race in thi/nki/ng, feeling and 
 doing. 
 
 Here we have the end somewhat vaguely stated as 
 a certain endowment ; the process as instruction ; and 
 the content, by fair implication, as knowledge. 
 
 Education consists in the equable development a/nd 
 troMivng of the humam powers through proper in- 
 struction. 
 
 This statement points out that the end and content 
 is development and training; the process is instruc- 
 tion ; and the form is symmetry, harmony, proportion. 
 This is the ancient Greek and the modem German 
 conception. 
 
 The purpose of education is to generate within the 
 imImiduaZ right feelings towards the trucy the beau- 
 tifvly amd the good. 
 
THE UNIVERSAL VOCATION 246 
 
 This is a statement that the purpose is certain feel- 
 ings or emotions ; the process is generation, develop- 
 ment; the form is rightness, harmony; and, by im- 
 plication, the content is certain knowledge. 
 
 ' * To prepare us for complete living, ' ' says Herbert 
 Spencer, ' * is the function which education has to dis- 
 charge." All that is accomplished by this much 
 vaunted definition is to declare its end or aims, "com- 
 plete living ' ' ; but this concept is so vague, so gen- 
 eral, so indefinable, that its use for guidance is very 
 small. Before this definition can be made available, 
 we must know what is included in '* complete living," 
 and it is not at all probable that any two wise men out 
 of a hundred would agree as to the content of this 
 concept. 
 
 Plato declares that * * the end of education is to give 
 to the body and to the soul all the beauty and all the 
 perfection of which they are susceptible." Beauty 
 and perfection of body and soul is here the avowed 
 end of education. These are wide concepts, we must 
 allow, and in consequence, a congenial halo of vague- 
 ness hangs over this classical definition ; but by reason 
 of its analytical character it affords attachments to the 
 teacher's efforts which are wanting in Mr. Spencer's 
 statement. 
 
246. APPENDIX 
 
 In these illustrations the thought I wish to impress 
 is that in your attempts to make known the secret of 
 education you must proceed by description rather than 
 by strict definition, and that you must resort to as 
 many statements as there are phases to this many 
 sided question, the most comprehensiv^e that can oc- 
 cupy the mind of man. 
 
 In all that has preceded I have assumed that as the 
 fundamental condition for doing good you must be 
 possessed in full measure of the spirit of Christianity 
 as set forth in the Gospel. The complement and 
 crown of your education must be that spiritual trans- 
 formation and culture which it is the mission of 
 Christianity to bestow on mankind. In the fullest 
 and best sense, you must be inspired and possessed by 
 the missionary spirit, that spirit which includes in one 
 noble group of philanthropists the preacher and the 
 teacher. 
 
A THEORY OF LIFE 
 
II 
 
 A THEOKY OF LIFE 
 
 The prophetic eye of John, looking down the long 
 vista of the coming centuries, foresaw that the king- 
 doms of this world were to become the kingdoms of 
 the Lord and of his Christ. In other words, the moral 
 world was to be reconstructed or re-created through the 
 gospel of peace and good will to men, just as the physi- 
 cal world is now in process of reconstruction or re-crea- 
 tion through the transformations and ameliorations of 
 science and art. In both cases the agents of this 
 transformation are human hearts, human wills and 
 human hands. "Whoever diverts natural forces into 
 the service of man ; whoever drains a marsh or clears 
 a jungle, builds a bridge, tunnels a mountain or in- 
 vents a labor-saving machine; whoever cheapens a 
 product necessary for the sustenance of man, stays the 
 progress of infection, pestilence or famine, or lightens 
 the burdens of the weary and the heavy laden, is an 
 agent, under Providence, for the physical regenera- 
 tion of the world, and is acting an acceptable part in 
 the grand drama of life. And so in the moral world, 
 whoever increases the sum of human happiness or di- 
 minishes the sum of human misery ; whoever extends 
 
250 APPENDIX 
 
 the horizon of the human intelligence, lends inspira- 
 tion to noble living and makes it easier to walk in the 
 paths of righteousness ; whoever dries up a source of 
 vice, substitutes an innocent pleasure for a corrupting 
 passion, makes virtue lovable and sin loathsome, is 
 fulfilling his destiny as a man and is one of God's 
 instruments for converting the kingdoms of this world 
 into the kingdoms of the Lord and of his Christ. 
 
 The work of reformation is therefore the highest 
 type of human activity; and taking the term in its 
 comprehensive and legitimate sense, it should be the 
 aspiration of every human being to become a reformer. 
 No human being has the right to live without making 
 the world better, and as much better as he has been 
 blessed with talent and opportunity. No one has a 
 right to lead a life of passive enjoyment, always re- 
 ceiving but never giving ; and much less has any one 
 the right to make the world worse for his having lived 
 in it. This, in outline, is what I mean by a theory 
 of life, and is also in outline the theory of life which 
 I wish to commend to you. I wish to urge you to 
 devote your lives to the work of human reform, and 
 to set before yourselves the ambition to add somewhat 
 to the grand total of human happiness and virtue. 
 In the best sense of the term, every human life must 
 
A THEORY OF LIFE 251 
 
 be aggressive in welldoing, and in this divinely or- 
 dained mission we must all be members of the Church 
 militant ; we must do our part toward the redemption 
 of the world from wretchedness, ignorance and sin. 
 
 In the moral world, as in the physical, there is 
 going on an upward transformation tending to life, 
 beauty and righteousness ; and also a downward trans- 
 formation as surely tending to death, deformity and 
 unrighteousness. In all ages of the world there have 
 been heroic men and women, saintly in aspiration and 
 life, who have drawn humanity upwards towards holi- 
 ness and truth ; and during all these ages the world 
 has been filled with men and women of coarser mould, 
 many of whom have been the pronounced champions 
 of disorder and vice. Sometimes, and especially when 
 our field of view is contracted, we conclude that the 
 dominant forces are evil, and then we fall into 
 the slough of pessimism ; but when we take a broader 
 survey of the world, and read the history of morals 
 more attentively, we find room to believe that the pre- 
 vailing transformation is the upward one toward light 
 and life. Surely if each generation of men had been 
 tending downward by never so little, the whole world 
 by this time had been one Sodom ; but it is doubtless 
 true that at no other ijeriod in the world's history have 
 
252 APPENDIX 
 
 there lived so many men and women of heroic and saintly 
 mould as now. The type of family life has never been 
 80 high. Public reprobation of sin has never been so 
 prompt and so just. It has never been so easy to lead 
 a life of moral serenity and sweetness. There has 
 never been so much beauty and hopefulness in the 
 world. There has never been such abundant reason 
 tc thank God for the blessedness of living and work- 
 ing. Into your theory of life I wish you would put 
 this radiant and inspiring optimism. Be trustful in 
 God and in the omnipotence of goodness. Be hopeful 
 of mankind and ever look on the brighter side of 
 human life. 
 
 The age of martyrs has not passed, but martyrdom 
 has taken so many forms and has become so common 
 that it has ceased, save in extreme cases, to strike the 
 public eye. To-day, in all quarters of the globe, there 
 are Christian missionaries with all the fervor and in- 
 trepidity of Saint Paul, men and women who, with 
 their lives in their hands, turn their backs on civiliza- 
 tion and kindred, and joyfully condemn themselves to 
 privations and exile to the end that they may aid in 
 establishing the promised kingdom of peace and good 
 will among men. Was there ever martyrdom more 
 conspicuous or more saintly than that of Father 
 
A THEORY OF LIFE 
 
 Damien? Such a life gives new dignity and grandeur 
 to human nature and sensibly exalts the standard of 
 human virtue and duty. I see no reason why we may 
 not say Saint Damien as reverently and as truly as 
 Saint Stephen. We may be sure that whether in 
 ancient times or in modern such lives and such sacri- 
 fices are well pleasing to God. 
 
 Every true life must embody the spirit of sacrifice 
 and self-denial. If we receive and enjoy, it must be 
 to the end that we may add to the stock of others' 
 enjoyment. We must see them raised at least to our 
 own plane of privilege ; and while we thus abandon 
 the old satisfaction of passive enjoyment, we shall find 
 even a keener and purer pleasure in those activities 
 which result in others' good. The sensible pleasure 
 we take in adding to our own stock of knowledge is 
 very great ; but the pleasure we feel while informing 
 another human soul is much greater. It is more 
 blessed to give than to receive, and the most beatific 
 life is one which is inspired and purified by the spirit 
 of self-sacrifice. 
 
 As the instance is modem, let George Peabody 
 serve as one term of contrast ; let his history typify 
 the kind of life that comports with human dignity and 
 human destiny. For the other term of the contraat 
 
254 APPENDIX 
 
 select one case of the thousands that force themselves 
 on public notice, say that of the man whose occupa- 
 tion is to put the bottle to his neighbor's lips, whose 
 income means profligacy, wretchedness, degradation, 
 disgrace and hideous death. Has the doctrine of two 
 mighty and opposing forces, known as good and evil, 
 ever seemed to you no more than an ethical theory? 
 In any city or village which you chance to know count 
 up all its benevolent and beneficent institutions, such 
 as schools, churches, hospitals, etc., and then count 
 up the saloons, gambling rooms and other haunts of 
 vice. Is there not here an awful hand-to-hand con- 
 flict between real men of flesh and blood? What is 
 assailed and what defended? Innocence, virtue, hap- 
 piness, honor, everything that is noblest and best in 
 human life. "When the powers of evil so greatly out- 
 number the powers of good, what prevents human 
 society from falling into absolute and hopeless ruin? 
 It must be that the innate tendency of human nature 
 is upward, and that good is mightier than evil. It is 
 into this conflict that you must enter as active com- 
 batants if your life is to have a meaning and a 
 purpose. 
 
 For purposes of right living there is no neutral 
 ground that an honest man can occupy. It is not 
 
A THEORY OF LIFE 265 
 
 enough merely to subsist or vegetate, to float lazily 
 down the stream of time; but real living must be 
 aggressive ; we must often make our way against the 
 current, and must sometimes even turn the current in 
 a new direction. The blessedness of living consists in 
 an activity directed to benevolent and beneficent ends ; 
 and for this reason the best condition into which one 
 can be bom is that of honest poverty. Young man, 
 if you have health, thank Heaven that you have no 
 visible inheritance save a sound body and brain, a 
 tender conscience and an affectionate heart. You have 
 everything to live for, and every moment of your con- 
 scious life may bring you its peculiar joy. Hope is 
 more blessed than consummation. Pioneer life in a 
 cabin is happier than a life of ease in a ceiled house. 
 Activity brightens and sharpens, while indolence cor- 
 rodes and dulls. If you would control your destiny 
 and your happiness, place before yourselves some 
 worthy and beautiful object for which to hope, pray 
 and labor. 
 
 Count it a blessing to be called to do pioneer work. 
 There is nothing more inspiring than the work of 
 organization. To coordinate and set in motion forces 
 which shall open some new and prolific source of 
 human weal is akin to creation ; and at such a pros- 
 
256 APPENDIX 
 
 pect every noble heart will beat faster, and the active 
 brain will find a happy employment for all its inven- 
 tive and directive resources. Is it a little thing thus 
 to project one's thought and purpose into the future, 
 and to make one's self an active agent in blessing the 
 race long after one's name has faded from the minds of 
 men? We may all aspire after this happy immortality, 
 and may make it the deliberate purpose of our lives 
 to re-create in some degree, not only the world of 
 matter, but the higher world of man's moral life. 
 The soul of every good man has, in an intelligible 
 sense, been incorporated into the world of spiritual 
 forces, just as the mind of wise men has been incor- 
 porated into the world of material forces. The steam 
 engine is the genius of Watt informing inert iron. 
 St. Paul's Cathedral is the soul of Sir Christopher 
 Wren incarnate. This republic is the patriotism of 
 Washington. There may not be a real transmigration 
 of souls, but there is certainly a transfusion of genius, 
 intellect and emotion. All this is simple and more 
 common than it seems. As I speak I am merely 
 translating the mind and heart of my teachers ; and 
 if I have taught you to any purpose, I shall teach 
 most truly when, multiplied by hundreds, I come to 
 teach your pupils. If you work in accordance with 
 
A THEORY OF LIFE 267 
 
 the theory of life which I am attempting to mifold, 
 all that is best in you will become incorporated into 
 your schools, and your net personahty will be repeated 
 in every one of your pupils. 
 
 With each generation the work of the teacher 
 begins anew, and if he will, he may taste the peren- 
 nial charm of pioneer life. The child of to-day must 
 be taught to read just as though no child had ever 
 learned to read. Our tools, indeed, come to us by 
 inheritance, but our toil is the toil of Sisyphus. The 
 burden which our predecessors raised to the top of the 
 hill has fallen to the bottom, and we must raise it in 
 our turn just as though it had never been lifted. 
 Knowledge, indeed, remains and accumulates, but 
 skill perishes with the life that uses it. 
 
 In a comparative or modified sense, the work of the 
 poet, the painter, the architect and the man of letters 
 has been done, and done forever. Those who toil in 
 these fields must compete with the whole world and 
 with all time. The best that can be done remains, 
 and almost as fresh as when it came from the hand of 
 the Master. In these fields the achievements of gen- 
 ius confront us to inspire, but also to discourage and 
 dismay. As distinguished from these well trodden 
 
 and conquered fields, each new teacher finds a new 
 17 
 
258 APPENDIX 
 
 world as the sphere of his activities, and he may exi- 
 dress himself to the task of a new creation. 
 
 Debt, used in the sense of obligation, is the normal 
 and necessary condition of man. On entering life, 
 our whole environment, material, intellectual, moral, 
 religious, social and political, is ready-made for us. 
 The hands that have wrought for us, if clasped in 
 line, would reach back to the dawn of human history. 
 The axe that has cleared the wilderness for our fields 
 has been echoing through the ages. The civil liberty 
 we enjoy has cost rivers of human blood. That it is 
 possible for us to worship God with no one to molest 
 or make afraid is because toleration has been pur- 
 chased for us by innumerable martyrs. The largest 
 factor in civilization is sacrifice. The men of one 
 generation have sown in tears in order that those of 
 coming generations might reap in joy. Every advance 
 step that humanity has taken has been made at the cost 
 of tears, groans, agonies and blood. Since this indebt- 
 edness of inheritance is involuntary, we are only half 
 conscious of it ; and many of its forms are so occult that 
 they escape all but the keenest vision. We are debtors, 
 I repeat, to the entire past of humanity, to all the gen- 
 erations of men that have preceded us on the earth ; 
 and this debt is as real as any debt that we can volun- 
 
A THEORY OF LIFE 259 
 
 tarily contract, and the obligation to pay it is as sacred 
 as any obligation that can bind a man of honor. But 
 as there can be no repayment to the past, to whom 
 can we discharge our debt unless to the generation 
 that is to follow us? Humanity is one. From hu- 
 manity we have borrowed this capital on which the 
 business of life has been conducted, and to humanity 
 we must return these inherited possessions with some 
 rental in the way of improvements. 
 
 It is important to note the fact that if the world is 
 to grow better we must transmit more than we have 
 received. Our two talents must not be buried in the 
 earth, but when returned there must go with them 
 other talents which they have gained by use. Into 
 what we have inherited we must incorporate some 
 precious element which has proceeded from our own 
 creative power. For in a secondary sense we are all 
 creators, coworkers with God. Whatever material 
 passes through our hands, however formless and inert 
 it may be, should issue from them bearing the seal of 
 our creative skill. The thoughts that we appropriate 
 as a part of our intellectual inheritance should be sub- 
 jected to the subtile chemistry of our heart and brain 
 and transformed into winged messengers of life and 
 hope. Freely we have received and freely we must 
 
260 APPENDIX 
 
 give. "We are the heirs of all the ages, and we must 
 transmit our inheritance in such a way that it may 
 give to our successors on the earth visible advantages 
 over ourselves. Their lives must be richer and fuller 
 than ours, and we must impose a heavier debt on thsm 
 than we ourselves have borne. 
 
 If I have made myself clear in what has preceded, 
 you can now understand that a college is a sort of 
 clearing house for the adjustment and settlement of 
 debts which have accumulated against the last genera- 
 tion. We who are teachers are the agents through 
 whom these debts are to be paid ; while the students 
 are not only receiving their own, but are, in turn, 
 contracting a debt which they must pay to their suc- 
 cessors on the earth. When the men who are now 
 active on the stage of life provide schools for the edu- 
 cation of the young, they are not engaged in alms- 
 giving as some of them seem to think ; but they are 
 simply doing what honorable men take most pride in 
 doing, paying an honest debt. As there is no possible 
 escape from this inheritance in its thousand forms, so 
 there is no honorable escape from this implied obliga- 
 tion to spend our lives in the service of humanity. I 
 sometimes hear it said that the obligation to pay for 
 the education of others' children is an injustice, and 
 
A THEORY OF LIFE 261 
 
 that to receive such an education is a humiUation. In 
 a distant State I am taxed to build bridges which I 
 shall never cross, to support asylums and prisons in 
 which I have no personal interest, and to pay the sala- 
 ries of officials whose services I shall never require. 
 Is this tax, therefore, an injustice? All my life I 
 have been crossing bridges which I did not build; 
 should I not therefore help to build bridges for others 
 to cross? The property of others has been taxed in 
 order to provide means for the protection of my pro- 
 perty and person. Should I not therefore take my 
 turn in furnishing such protection to others? The 
 inmate of that asylum for whom the public purse 
 provides a home is my brother man ; shall I not there- 
 fore succor him? And possibly his misfortune may 
 one day be mine ; may I not risk a shilling on such a 
 possibility without thinking it robbery? And need it 
 cost us any sense of humility to cross bridges we did 
 not build, to traverse streets we did not pave, or to 
 worship in churches to whose support we have not 
 contributed ? These are public, and not private goods, 
 provided by all for the benefit of all, and we may 
 enjoy them with no other solicitude than a desire to 
 do our part towards assuring to posterity the enjoy- 
 ment of even greater blessings. 
 
262 APPENDIX 
 
 There are certain universal goods to the free enjoy- 
 ment of which every human being is entitled by 
 virtue of his birth, such as air, light, water and free- 
 dom, and such also is education which is but another 
 name for freedom. When we speak of education as 
 being free, we do not mean that it is a charity, as a 
 coat given to a beggar is a charity ; for the utmost we 
 can do is to bring it within the easy reach of every 
 human soul. After this has been done it must be 
 earned by the sweat of the brain if it is ever acquired 
 at all. The man who would provide education for no 
 children but his own, has yet to learn the art of manly 
 living. 
 
 In a former paragraph, when urging the mission of 
 human reform, I had in mind the adaptation of crude 
 material to higher uses, or, in more general terms, the 
 re-creation of the natural world through human art. 
 I will now return to this phase of my theme in order 
 to discuss the subject of reform in its secondary and 
 usual signification, as when we speak of educational, 
 moral or political reform. Here we have in mind the 
 giving of a new and better form, not to nature's 
 handiwork, but to man's ; and there is implied in this 
 purpose the assumption, on our own part, that the 
 existing form is wrong. How does it happen, then, 
 
A THEORY OF LIFE 263 
 
 that human institutions stand in need of reformation? 
 Reformation implies a return towards simplicity, and 
 consists in restoring fimction to office, spirit to form, 
 and content to word; or, in general, it consists in 
 reuniting soul with body. Formality is always easier 
 than spirituality ; and the danger of mistaking form 
 for spirit is always imminent. The comments of the 
 rabbins on the law of Moses became so numerous and 
 so authoritative that the law disappeared from sight 
 and the Mishna remained ; and following the natural 
 course of things, there arose commentators on the 
 Mishna whose comments became in turn so numerous 
 and so authoritative that the Mishna was lost from 
 sight and the Gemara remained, a commentary on a 
 commentary on the law of Moses ! In the fifth cen- 
 tury B. C, the Sophists made a merchandise of 
 knowledge and reduced human learning to a verbal 
 formulary. The progress of human thought was 
 arrested, for men were no longer dealing with ideas, 
 but with terms. Then Socrates, ' ' the cross-question- 
 ing god," appeared, and restored to empty forms their 
 spiritual content, and so produced the first great 
 intellectual reform. 
 
 The ancient Jews had become spiritually dead be- 
 cause they had lapsed completely into hollow formalism ; 
 
264 APPENDIX 
 
 spirit had been completely divorced from letter ; and 
 they worshipped the letter. Then the Great Teacher 
 appeared whose mission, in his own words, was to 
 fulfill; that is, to restore to the words of the law 
 their spiritual and living content. I need not point 
 out how Protestantism, Puritanism, Quakerism and 
 Methodism all had their origin and vindication in this 
 tendency to exalt form over spirit. 
 
 In the time of Charles the First the progress of 
 civil freedom had been obstructed because the king 
 had substituted prerogative for function. Then Crom- 
 well took the case in hand, with one blow of his axe 
 cut away the offending thing and restored to English 
 liberty her rightful way. In France, in 1789, the 
 monster that had crushed out human liberty under the 
 name of kingly prerogative was hydra-headed; but 
 the deliverer came, the guillotine was set up in Paris, 
 her streets ran blood for a season, function was re- 
 stored to office, and French liberty went on her way 
 triumphant. 
 
 In general, educational reform has consisted in the 
 substitution of things for signs, or, rather, in bringing 
 together word and content. This was particularly the 
 mission of Comenius and Pestalozzi, whose constant 
 exhortation was to study things rather than words. 
 
A THEORY OF LIFE 265 
 
 Rousseau took a wider survey of the field of reform 
 and aimed to relieve education of its conventionalities 
 by bringing it back to nature, or, so far as possible, 
 to the reactions of the child's primitive environment. 
 In education there is always danger of substituting the 
 book for the teacher, the word for the idea which it 
 represents. Reform should consist, not in displacing 
 the book and the word, but in endowing teachers with 
 the power of interpretation, and in learning things 
 through words, or in making an indissoluble union 
 between things and words. 
 
 In all these cases, religious, political, intellectual 
 and educational, the important question is whether it 
 is not possible to keep the stream of thought and 
 action clear of those conventional and artificial ob- 
 structions, whether the periodical blocking of the 
 stream may not be avoided, or at least, whether relief 
 may not be applied at almost insensible intervals so 
 that no violent and destructive measures may be re- 
 quired. In other words, may not a peaceful and 
 normal evolution be substituted for a destructive and 
 reckless revolution? If I interpret history aright, 
 this is the tendency of progressive civilization ; and at 
 least in education I feel sure that an every day refor- 
 mation is possible under conditions that are not hard 
 
266 APPENDIX 
 
 to realize, and that this evolution might avert those 
 disasters known as educational reforms. I will speak 
 briefly of one or two of these conditions. 
 
 For the wise direction of educational affairs there is 
 need of cultivating what might be called educational 
 statesmanship : the ability to take an accurate, almost 
 prophetic forecast of the current and consensus of 
 human opinion as it bears on this subject, and skill in 
 organizing forces which will act over wide areas and 
 inspire and direct all subordinate agencies as they are 
 included in the practical management of schools. 
 What is the source of this forecast and this breadth 
 of view? As general history is the statesman's chart 
 and logbook, so the history of educational thought 
 and practice must be one source of what I have ven- 
 tured to call educational statesmanship. From an 
 observation of the course of educational thought in 
 past time, we may infer its probable direction in the 
 future ; and warned by the debris of ' ' systems ' ' 
 which mark the path of educational history, we may 
 economize time, effort and money, and thus eliminate 
 chances of error and failure. I am firm in the belief 
 that the serious study of educational history is the 
 constitutional remedy for those ^'inconsiderate re- 
 forms ' ' or spasms which have become almost periodical 
 
A THEORY OF LIFE 267 
 
 and may be predicted with almost as much certainty 
 as tornadoes, as well as for those real crises or revolu- 
 tions which result from the secular accumulation of 
 abuses. 
 
 I have said that the study of educational history 
 will give us a clew to the probable direction of edu- 
 cational thought ; but as the course of events has been 
 for the most part instinctive or impulsive, rather than 
 rational, its projection into the future needs to be 
 corrected by some fixed point in advance, and this 
 point of direction is revealed by educational science. 
 Patrick Henry was a great statesman and an incom- 
 parable orator ; but he was manifestly wrong when he 
 said '*I know of no way of judging of the future 
 but by the past," if he meant this for a general truth. 
 The past is not necessarily to be projected into the 
 future, and the future itself is subject in no small 
 degree to human control. We may shape the future 
 into correspondence with our ideals ; we may project 
 into it, not merely the past, but our own conception 
 of truth and beauty ; and in educational effort these 
 conceptions are in part the products of scientific study. 
 There is a science of the soul, there is a science of 
 human duty, there is a theory of the State ; and their 
 point of convergence is the polestar towards which 
 
APPENDIX 
 
 humanity is verging, and by which the course of 
 education is to be directed. 
 
 In urging upon the teacher the duty of leading an 
 aggressive life, and of impressing himself on the 
 world for its good, I have been almost unconsciously 
 drawn to the work of teaching, because I think that 
 the most active and powerful agent in the upward 
 transformation of society is the teacher. But it is 
 not enough to have a vague sense of being useful to 
 the world ; effective work of whatever kind requires 
 definite conceptions and aims. In what particular 
 ways, then, may the teacher be a benefactor? 
 
 One essential condition of right living is correct and 
 effective thinking— the ability to divest a complex 
 question for the moment of the halo of feeling, to 
 analyze it by a process of cold logic, to discover its 
 bearings on known principles of right and wrong, and 
 to draw a conclusion which shall determine one's 
 course of action with reference to it. This is what 
 is comprehended in a training of the judgment, and 
 the result of such training is the habit of giving in- 
 stant domination to the reason over feeling and 
 passion when they interfere to prevent the course of 
 action. The logical engine may be trained to work 
 automatically, and when this is done it makes its 
 
A THEORY OF LIFE 
 
 possessor self-contained and self-poised, a law unto 
 himself. These logical processes are best learned by 
 dealing at first with problems which are naturally 
 divested of all feeling, such as those of mathematics 
 and the physical sciences ; and when the faculty has 
 received its training it may be applied to problems 
 which are invested with feeling, such as those of his- 
 tory, literature and geography. Only the eye that 
 is completely achromatic is fit to perceive the truth in 
 the domain of philosophy, politics and morals.*'^ 
 
 Heal living brings a human being into close relations 
 with the material world, the industrial world, the 
 social world, the moral world, and the civil world; 
 and the possibility of right Kving makes necessary a 
 knowledge of these various relations. If man is to 
 lead an active, positive life, there is every probability 
 that he will go wrong unless he can see with some 
 clearness his sphere of duty with respect to these 
 various orders of activity. This, in the art of educa- 
 tion, is the sphere of useful or instrumental knowl- 
 edge, and constitutes what is called practical educa- 
 tion. If well conducted, it assures to the learner a 
 life of prosperity, usefulness, happiness and honor. 
 
 These three things I take to be certain : every man 
 
 *BenaD, Souvenirs, p. 285. 
 
270 APPENDIX 
 
 has a right to happiness ; he will seek this happiness 
 in some quarter ; if he does not find it in the region 
 of the higher emotions he will find it in the region of 
 the baser feelings and the passions. I would therefore 
 make happiness one of the distinct aims of education ; 
 and to this end the mind must be supplied with knowl- 
 edge which will yield mental satisfaction or intellectual 
 delight. No one is in a state of moral safety while 
 his happiness is dependent on conditions which lie 
 outside of himself ; the sources from which he habit- 
 ually draws his happiness should be within. This, in 
 the art of education, is the sphere of culture knowl- 
 edge, and embraces history, geography, literature, art 
 and music. The pupil should not only be made happy 
 for the present, but large provisions should be made 
 for his happiness in the future. The sorrows of life 
 come only too soon and they will make shipwreck of 
 the human soul unless there are resources within from 
 which consolation and hope may be derived. Perhaps 
 there is no spiritual gift more to be coveted than 
 serenity, a calmness and composure of soul which 
 gives steadiness to purpose and preserves us from the 
 fury of emotional storms. Make liberal provision 
 for the happiness of your pupils and you will make 
 pleasures unnecessary. 
 
A THEORY OF LIFE 271 
 
 Closely connected with the culture element in edu- 
 cation there is another to which I can give no name, 
 and which I may be unable to describe ; but in im- 
 portance it takes precedence of all others. I have 
 seen men and women whose whole Kves have been 
 inspired, beautified and ennobled by high ideals that 
 they have caught from some inspiring teacher. With 
 bent form and hair whitening for the grave, the face 
 still beams with high resolve and radiant hope. A 
 peaceful serenity sweetens a life that has experienced 
 many sorrows, and a sense of personal dignity lends 
 an air of grace to the commonest duties. A bow of 
 promise is always in tlie heavens ; and there is always 
 some beautiful thing to hope for and to work for. The 
 brow has been furrowed by the cares and sorrows of 
 a long life, but it seems to reflect some of the radiance 
 that falls on it from the brighter world beyond. 
 
 Sometimes measure your teaching power by this 
 standard and you may discern the best gift that I 
 covet for you. Of all the good you can do in this 
 world, this is doubtless the chief ; and if you can do 
 it you are the very ministers of God, good angels sent 
 into the world to aid in its redemption. 
 
 I can dwell only a moment on some of the endow- 
 ments you will need for such a mission as I have tried 
 to describe. 
 
272 APPENDIX 
 
 You miiBt be benevolent in the truest and fullest 
 sense of the term ; your whole nature must be swayed 
 and governed by a desire to do good in the world. 
 The sorrows of life must melt your heart to tender- 
 ness and must impel your feet to be ever running on 
 errands of mercy. From moment to moment you 
 must live in the consciousness that this is the prime 
 service which God requires of every creature; and 
 you must make every other purpose subservient to 
 this. Without any austerity of manner, speech, or 
 dress as a visible sign of your resolves, you must lead 
 a life of devotion and even consecration. Such was 
 the life of Pestalozzi, Arnold, and of the beloved 
 Page, real apostles and teachers with a commission as 
 sacred as though conferred by the laying on of hands. 
 
 There is a group of moral qualities including mag- 
 nanimity, charity, toleration and judicial fairness, 
 which should be counted among the very best gifts 
 that you can covet ; and a life that is inspired and 
 guided by these virtues will be mighty in good works. 
 
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