GIFT OF OF HIMSELF AND OTHER THINGS JAMES H. BAKER Primely Pr.nted PrM of Br.df ord-Robin.on Printing Co. DENVER 1922 Gift PREFATORY NOTE. This volume contains the writer's history espe- cially as related to educational influences, his ex- periences with high school and university, and his connection with certain important movements for reform in school and college. It includes views in the field of education, politics, and philosophy, thoughts on current events, and opinions on world re- construction. The apology for the venture is found in the introduction. The "personal tributes", taken from "Appreciation of Services' 1 issued by the Re- gents of the University of Colorado in 1914, would be omitted, were the book offered to the public; but, since it is privately printed for a limited distribution, this matter is included as an Appendix. It simply "completes the record," as might properly be done were the biography written by another hand. In this personal review certain ideas are frankly repeated, and some characteristic things in previous writings are reproduced as classified extracts. Call them dried specimens together with an aftermath of the first crop. The University Club, Denver, Colorado, October 13, 1922. 515700 CONTENTS I INTRODUCTION Page Why? 9 Comment 10 An Answer 10 For Better or Worse? 11 II STEREOTYPE MATTER First Section 14 New England Homes ; Country Life 16 Education 17 A Vacation 21 Early Teaching 23 III GENERAL INFLUENCES Cultural 25 Political and Social 25 The Civil War 26 IV A SKETCH OF TWENTY YEARS At Yarmouth 29 Maine and Colorado 30 Denver 31 In the Denver High School 33 Matters Incidental 37 Informal Pedagogy 38 Investigations 40 Educational Progress 44 V VIEWS OF EDUCATION Aims 51 Theories 54 Influence of Bacon and Rousseau 58 Efficiency 59 Some Pedagogical Maxims 60 Time-Saving 62 Higher Pedagogy 65 Character . 67 Page Permanent Values 71 The Modern University 75 VI AT THE UNIVERSITY Note 82 Some Traits 82 Recreation Mountain Climbing 83 Plans and Policies 87 Faculty 94 Views of University Meanings and Methods 97 Public Questions 104 A Kind of Philosophy 106 Travel 114 VII VIEWS POLITICAL AND SOCIAL; PHILOSOPHY Political 124 Social 130 Philosophy 134 Religion Freely Viewed 142 VIII PRESENT STANDPOINTS Retirement 149 Current History; the War 151 Reconstruction 157 APPENDIX "Introduction" 166 Letter of Resignation 177 Resolutions of the Board of Regents 181 Address from the Faculty 184 Letters 188 From the Denver High School 190 Of Himself and Otkcr Tnings I INTRODUCTION. Why? "Bill Nye" used a favorite anecdote in his public entertainments. He had a dog that in his ramblings came across a pail of plaster of paris of the right consistency for immediate use. He thought it edible and inviting, and, since he had never seen any before, he ate a good deal. The result was "a plaster impression of himself, taken by himself, from an interior view". It may be that no biography is complete without the interior as well as the exterior view. If "a different universe walks under your hat and mine", universe A may wish to contribute to B's possible interpretation of A. It may be presumptuous to suppose that B considers the matter worth while or even thinks about it at all, and only a great man can proclaim, like Sam Johnson, that he would pre- vent the writing of his life by taking the life of the suspected biographer. If a man writes his life himself, he thereby, as it were, takes his life in his hands. Why write it, unless you have a history un- doubtedly worth recording? is a natural question. But minor values may be worthy of a degree and extent of interest. A memorandum of events and thoughts, made by some humble ancestor, is treasured in the family. A somewhat noteworthy career reaches a larger circle. The genius commands wide interest. 10 OF HlSfeLY AND OTHER THINGS. Comment If biography were limited to the "great men I have met" or personal touch with political move- ments, to discoveries in science or creative thinking in philosophy, to reflections of literary or poetic genius, the defendant could offer little evidence and the verdict would favor the possible reader. We would turn only to the Williams the Silent, the Hux- leys, and the Tennysons for the interest, insight, and influence which biography offers. If a life has led to nothing but disappointments and disillusionments and baffled hopes, to despair at the closed door of undiscovered truth, and to sweeping pessimism, how- ever great may have been the man's opportunities and extent of acquaintance, his distinction of birth and position, it should never be recorded. Surprise and regret followed Tennyson's "Sixty Years After", because the faith and hope of youth had not reappeared in the setting sun. A recent auto- biography disappoints, spite of its original quality, because of its monotonous minor key. Longfellow's "Morituri Salutamus" and "Aftermath", for their sweeter tone, are in grateful contrast. An Answer In advancing years, one may yield to pessimism, or fall into indifference, or write belated poetry, or be- come actively reminiscent. The first alternative is hope- less, the second deadly, the third futile. The last has the virtue of encouraging mental longevity, and of giving INTRODUCING i 1 play to whatever wisdom may have grown with the years. It may prolong the spirit of youth, and help maintain to the end interest and growth. Then there is the hope that the "footprints on the sands of time 1 *, made by following the vision of men of enduring fame, may perchance give heart to another. Even the bypaths, self-chosen, may have their own rustic attraction. Facts may be told which have a signifi- cance beyond their personal relation, thoughts on events at different stages of the way may be noted, and a look forward adventured. So here are some facts in personal history, sorrte experiences as re- viewed, some thoughts on what is and what may be in the world of change. Not an eventful life, perhaps little in it worth while, but one obeys that impulse. Whatever of optimism, will, and growth is set forth herein must be the basis of apology. If the reader "likes this sort of thing, then this is the sort of thing he will like". For Better or Wowe? Much in the book holds and defends the doc- trine of hope. The "Meliorist" reverences the great emancipators of thought, the creators of the "new spirit". He hails every new prophet, if his message has reason. He sees the ills of the time and looks for healthful change. But he has little sympathy with half insane semi-geniuses who, however correct in outline, paint all their pictures black. They base their philosophy of history on the meaner motives. They see no real progress in the past and but little I 2 OF HIMSELF AND OTHER THINGS. good in the present. They pose as the only lights in a gloomy civilization that may give hope to lost humanity, or dream of a better world to be reached through revolution. Change the standpoint : Through- out the ages the world has progressed in freedom of institutions and of thought. Reactions against con- ditions are part of the process, and the integration of the old and the new into something better the doctrine of Hegel. Whatever is spiritually best is preserved in active or latent form, and new visions appear. We may believe that from the present chaos of after-war problems the world will emerge in material strength and power of spirit. Akin to the painters of a dark present are the prophets of a darker future. With crazy logic they group in im- probable relations the elements of danger in world change. But not one in a hundred menaces to peace and progress is realized. The conserving instincts count in resultants. Then there are the satires on the "middle class" derisive of their virtues, culture, and interests. The middle class stand between low- class and high-class anarchy, and are the stable ele- ment of civilization. If not creative, they absorb much of the best culture. They represent in large degree common sense, moral standards, sane criti- cism, practical reform, and progressive aims toward real goals. They hold with neither Puritan nor Greek but rather to a "golden mean". The savage crit- ics of America figure in our list of "undesirables". They see only the harsh and grasping character of INTRODUCTION. 13 the Puritan, only the greed in enterprise and the slav- ery in labor, only the materialism in the spirit of the people. We would turn also to our forefathers' re- ligious faith and love of liberty and to the public standards they gave to their land of promise; to the good results of great business and the growing humaneness in its conduct; to the practical sympathy of the public with the just aims of labor. Then we discover everywhere the transmuting of material wealth into culture and reform and progress. Last on the index is the morbid psychology that only digs at the roots of the human plant and ignores the blos- som and fruit. The fact that man discovers duty and beauty and ideals, and struggles and aspires better teaches his nature and destiny. II STEREOTYPE MATTER. First Section* A farm sloping southward to a "pond"f with a richly varied shore line and romantic islands; ever- green hills beyond; "woods" of maple and beech and birch bordering on a dense cedar growth carpeted with thick moss, these were the surroundings. A grandfather who smoked by the fireside and talked religion and told of coming by "spotted lines" through the wilds to make a pioneer home; a grand- mother who sat by the opposite corner and knit and read her Bible; a father with a capacious brain which, trained, would have been better suited to a profes- sion than to farming; a mother compact of heart and good sense who has been a lasting influence, these were the immediate forbears. Of course we must include the usual traditions of English descent, an unclaimed estate in the Old Country, a revolutionary record, on the mother's side, and the "superior stock" of the four grandparents. There may be added the uncle who "went to college", and two great uncles who were preachers. One of them is remembered for his odd ingenuity. As the story goes, in winter he had a closed sleigh with a stove, and, as he jour- neyed from place to place, his boy drove while he read his Greek and Hebrew testaments, and enjoined silence on his wife. The irreverent youths called it the Gospel Ship. * See "Introduction" in Appendix. f Moose Pond, Harmony, Maine. STEREOTYPE MATTER. 15 One of the early recollections is of a two weeks' trip my father made by "ox sled" to a distant market with country produce. He returned with a "new- fangled" cooking stove and the plays of Shakespeare. The stove of course proved convenient, but was no complete substitute for the old fashioned fireplace with its huge back logs and roaring blaze. No wonder the hearth has ever been held sacred! It was always the place of comfort, of companionship, of musings, of visions; always the center of domestic life where grew much of the sentiment that formed the family unity and hallowed the home; it gives meaning to Payne's cry of the homeless wanderer. With the extinction of the open wood fire, something has been lost to civilization which modern conven- iences do not fully offset. For the Shakespeare, my father made an ingenious book-rest with the right slant and lateral angle, and of evenings, with great delight to himself, would read aloud to a willing or an unwilling audience. A neighbor inquired if Shakespeare was still living, and another, evidently fearing the influence of the plays on me, said "them novels" were bad for boys. At that time I was test- ing my knowledge of the alphabet on the name and make of the new stove. At the beginning of the Civil War, when Gen- eral Scott was Commander-in-Chief, my father chanced to read to a visitor a reference to the "Dred Scott Decision". Not versed in political history, but feeling that the occasion called for comment, the 1 6 OF HIMSELF AND OTHER THINGS. visitor said, "I tell you they dread Scott, them rebels, don't they ?" New England Homes; Country Life The New England homes of seventy years ago, with their tempered Puritan traditions, middle-class virtues, and mental furniture acquired in the com- mon schools and the academies, were of a type that may not reappear. They are depleted by migration to western soil or to the cities, and old lines of de- scent are partly replaced by later comers from for- eign lands. One town in mind, first peopled by New England stock, is now governed by Canadian French. Here the factory employees were supplanted by the Irish; then followed the French, and later other im- migrants. This is given merely as a record of change. Naturally one harks back to the familiar New England home which at its best could be de- scribed only by the hand that wrote the "Cotter's Saturday Night", or 1 "Snowbound". The people had turned forests into farms; they gave "home" a sacred meaning, were educated, and led in the main sane and healthful lives, healthful for body and soul ; they had strong faith and moral courage; they gave the nation many of its public ideals. The child is first educated by his natural and social surroundings. To one familiar with "the orchard, the meadow, the deep tangled wildwood", in reality as well as in song, there is no doubt of the deep influence of the scenes amid which grow the first ideas and emotions. STEREOTYPE MATTER. 17 We endorse old Plato's doctrine of "types' 1 and the correspondence between subjective and objective the growth of the soul by reading in nature the rich and varied ideas of order and beauty. In childhood, as in the infancy of peoples, the groves are sacred and the leaves whisper mysterious things. The oak speaks of strength, the willow of sorrow, the sky of sublimity, the flower of beauty. There is a sense of a living spirit in the springing dawn, the flowing stream, or the moving clouds. In the dusky wood the owl proclaims tragedy. At times "nature as- sumes a voice, every sound becomes prophetic, in the moonlight of the imagination the curtains of mystery sway and shift, a realm of the mind is dis- closed beyond the limits of category." Aside from the effect of nature's forms and moods, there are practical meanings for the boy in country life. He has a varied course in manual training, can turn his hand to many things, and gains, under healthful conditions, the simple ideas that are the elements of civilization. Of these early memories a few things as now seen stand forth in importance : the influence of my mother, the New England life favorable to slow strong growth, the many forms of scenic beauty awakening poetic feeling, and the interest in work ever varied as it was with the needs and the seasons. Education Here is a "movie" of the memory: a little red school house on a corner a boy being driven to 1 8 OF HIMSELF AND OTHER THINGS. school the first day his wild retreat when his too sympathetic mother had turned homeward his final capture and induction hours of idly waiting for at- tention and the school pabulum final recourse to the doughnuts, cheese, and bottle of milk in his calico dinner bag. Thus began my formal education, evi- dence, of course, of an early desire for knowledge and an awakening ambition, signs of a precocious mind. We who look back on the common school of those days see these advantages : home manual and industrial training, self-reliance, free choice, indi- vidual method, a kind of selective absorption in place of uniform drill and examination, unrestricted ad- vancement. For the ambitious pupil twenty weeks in the year meant as much as forty to the average pupil in the graded school today. At fourteen he was ready for the academy and studies of high-school grade. It may be that school progress today is in part a return to the earlier methods of freedom. This is the place to mention a phase of my edu- cation. Self-instruction was the method; these were the material: the Bible and Shakespeare and Foxe's Book of Martyrs, the "Essay on Man", a Greek grammar and a classical dictionary discovered in an uncle's old trunk, a brief history of the world, and later Pope's translation of the Iliad and Macaulay's History of England. This informal course was worth more than the literature and history of the schools, and the spontaneous interest was a happy substitute for some of the formal methods that make STEREOTYPE MATTER. 19 pupils forever forswear those subjects. History and literature should be read and discussed and thought about, not "learned". The private country academy was the school of college preparation and of liberal education for the many. Here was the same freedom as in the com- mon school, and one man certainly looks back with gratitude for its opportunities. He finds it pleasant to recall the hardships, even the "self-boarding" with fare occasionally reduced to porridge with salt. The Latin School attached to a college gave the writer his first experience in drill and accurate scholarship, and it was a needed element in his education. If the methods of classical study then in vogue took only passing notice of the beauty of style, the records of heroic deeds, and the expression of universal truths, contained in ancient literature, they cultivated atten- tion and judgment, the weighing of all the elements that might affect the place and meaning of a word, and hence gave a training in the scientific method and in business habits. We come to the college (1869), a small de- nominational institution.* It had an able but small faculty whose teaching energy was scattered over too many subjects they occupied "settees instead of chairs". The curriculum was fixed and its founda- tion was Greek, Latin, mathematics, and philosophy, to which was added considerable in modern subjects. The philosophy was orthodox, and as in most col- * Bates College, Lewiston, Maine. 20 OF HIMSELF AND OTHER THINGS. leges limited enough to forever dwarf one's im- mortal soul a fault of the time and not of the pro- fessor whom I remember with reverence. But from the course came a survey of science, literature, and economics, some ability to think and a great ambition to do, a sense of power and many clear ideals. Look- ing back, do I have regret for the kind of general education I thus obtained? The answer must be, u No, rather appreciation and gratitude for the mental and spiritual foundation which it laid". These four years inspired the views, which later were set forth in public utterances, of the value of "gen- eral education", the glory of Greece, the vision and the beauty of Plato's philosophy, the importance of a harmonious development of the powers, the qual- ity of the impulses that reach out toward the truth and beauty and goodness of the world. I believed the great men and the great events of ancient history set the goal for human endeavor, the literature and the mythology were cultural, the universal truths were guides toward wisdom. I saw that mathematics was a training in perfect reasoning, that grammar and translation gave an accuracy and an ingenuity ap- plicable in practical business, that logic was a safe- guard against common fallacies. It must here be noted, as will appear elsewhere, that I later fully recog- nized the meaning and place of science, and accept and strongly advocate the present aim to readapt educa- tion to individual and social needs. But the vision once seen can never be wholly forgotten ; we can only STEREOTYPE MATTER. 2 1 ope that the education of the future, even the most ractical, may be everywhere permeated by a sense of ic "higher values". A Vacation A summer vacation in the middle of the college ourse found two of us, classmates, on a walking ex- ursion to Quebec. We were "the long one and the hort one 1 ', and the contrast constantly excited the Canadian sense of humor. It was not a tour de ixe, since the expense, all included, was a dollar a ay for each. The weary miles with crippled feet, tie optimism, following the dark moods of ex- austion, found in a plate of ham and eggs, the ilarious Jehu who gave us a "lift" and at every pro- jst against the breakneck speed shouted more loud- V "a Kebek, Sharlee", the quaint sights of the city, he many "parasangs" of the first day's return, the nlimited exchange of personalities when utterly rearied, seeking rest and sleep in a haymow to be riven forth by savage dogs and more savage "Yenchmen, these are some of the trivial things tat persist in memory. At Moose River, we built a box, misnamed u a oat", and started on a journey by lake and river to be sea and up the Androscoggin to Lewiston a ourney never completed because natural impossibil- ries were more conclusive than our logic. That we ?ere not drowned can be explained only by the view hat providence intervened for some inscrutable 22 OF HIMSELF AND OTHER THINGS. reason, or that we were miraculously reserved for worse fate. "Portages" through thickets and ove fallen trees, wrecks in rapids whirling white betwee rocks, "shooting" a succession of waterfalls, plun^ ing through a dam, literally (at the outlet of Moos Head Lake timbers had been removed from th middle of one section of the dam leaving a fall c about six feet) , failure to pass at once on both side of a rock on the head waters of the Kennebec, wer incidents of the way. On one of a chain of lakes w had put up a mast with our only blanket for a sai The lake was in a setting of primeval forest, pin and hemlock and spruce. We were feeling the sol tude and solemn grandeur, and were somewhat homi sick. Suddenly we heard weird music, rising, falling dying, approaching, receding, and we were becomin superstitious, when we discovered that the fishlim used as a stay rope, in the varying breeze had becom an Aeolian harp! The crude sailing device, in gale later, nearly turned the trip into an unending v; cation. The next stage, after the incident of wrecking c a rock, saw us aboard two bateaux going down t Indian Pond. u The short one", assigned to th leading boat, in sheer ignorance and vanity, too command, and at a portage ordered the crew , t shoot the waterfall. They struck on a ledge an were saved from a wet death by the timely arriv; of our boat. A night in camp, a day through th forest, a luncheon of partridge, trout, bread, an STEREOTYPE MATTER. 23 bacon, and we reached a "settlement", whence we proceeded to friends, food, money, and safety. The experience was equalled only by that of a classmate who, on a trip into the northern wilderness, lost all his clothes by abandoning in midlake an unman- ageable raft and swimming ashore in a panic fear. He faced a trip of one hundred and fifty miles through the woods, and then faced civilization. Early Teaching My first teaching experience was gained in five country and village schools, one family school, and as the head of two academies. This extended from about 1866 to college graduation, 1873. As with many students, the teaching was merely incidental to the main purpose of "getting an education", and was periodic and vagrant, a term each winter here and there. Too often in those days in Maine the school- master learned to teach by teaching. Few had "Normal" preparation, and many had never seen an "Institute". Teacher-training was held to be some- thing of a fad. The traditions of the birch and the ruler still held partial sway, and, if the beginner tried new methods, he was sometimes driven to severity by the criticisms of the "Committee". Thirty-five so- called classes a day in an ungraded school made ef- fective teaching impossible. Like the teacher who was "successful" because the schoolhouse remained intact at the close of the term, the writer was suc- cessful at least thus far he was never "carried out" 24 OF HIMSELF AND OTHER THINGS. by the outraged pupils, and always "kept the term through". The two academies with older pupils and fewer classes gave opportunity for work that may be remembered with a larger degree of satisfaction. In one of these academies traditions still remained of the abilities and eccentricities of my "college'* uncle who had taught there a generation before. Ill GENERAL INFLUENCES. Cultural The "lyceum lectures", now unhappily decadent or extinct, were educational in the larger sense. Holmes, Hale, Phillips, Greeley, Sumner gave me glimpses into the literary and political world. Long- fellow's poems, "The Biglow Papers" were cultural representing values not readily appreciated today. The "Gary concerts", Booth's Hamlet, perhaps also the "Black Crook", were an introduction to fine art. These "studies", mostly in the college period, were as meaningful to the growing imagination as was the glory of the Renaissance to an awakening world. They appealed not merely as something new to green youth; they were revealing. Call