V OCA T ION A L 
 
 SERIES 
 
 
 EDITED BY 
 
 
 
 E. 
 
 HERSHEY SNEATH, Ph.D., LL.D., 
 
 , Yale University 
 
 THE YOUNG MAN 
 AND TEACHING 
 
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 
 NEW YORK • BOSTON • CHICAGO • DALLAS 
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 TORONTO 
 
THE YOUNG MAN 
 AND TEACHING 
 
 BY 
 
 HENRY PARKS WRIGHT, Ph.D., LL.D. 
 
 u 
 Professor Emeritus, Yale University, and 
 
 Formerly Dean of the College 
 
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 THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 1930 
 
 AH rights reserved 
 

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 Copyright, 1920 
 By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 
 Set up and electrotyped. Published, January, 1920 
 
 
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TO 
 PROFESSOR HENRY BURT WRIGHT, Ph.D. 
 
 FRIEND AND COLLEAGUE, 
 
 THIS SERIES. THE FRUIT OF HIS SUGGESTION, 
 
 IS DEDICATED BY THE EDITOR 
 
 412525 
 
EDITOR'S PROSPECTUS 
 
 One of the most important decisions a young man is 
 called upon to make relates to the determination of his 
 life-work. It is fraught with serious consequence for 
 him. It involves the possibilities of success and fail- 
 ure. The social order is such that he can best realize 
 his ends by the pursuit of a vocation. It unifies his 
 purposes and endeavors — making them count for most 
 in the struggle for existence and for material welfare. 
 It furnishes steady employment at a definite task as 
 against changeable effort and an unstable task. This 
 makes for superior skill and greater efficiency which 
 result in a larger gain to himself and in a more genuine 
 contribution to the economic world. 
 
 But a man's vocation relates to. a much wider sphere 
 than the economic. It is intimately associated with 
 the totality of his interests. It is in a very real sense 
 the center of most of his relations in life. His intel- 
 lectual interests are seriously dependent upon his vo- 
 cational career. Not only does the attainment of skill 
 and efficiency call for the acquisition of knowledge and 
 development of judgment, but the leisure that is so 
 essential to the pursuit of those intellectual ends which 
 are a necessary part of his general culture is, in turn, 
 dependent, to a considerable extent, upon the skill and 
 efficiency that he acquires in his vocation. 
 
 vii 
 
viii EDITOR'S PROSPECTUS 
 
 Nor are his social interests less dependent upon his 
 life-work. Men pursuing the same calling constitute 
 in a peculiar sense a great fraternity or brotherhood 
 bound together by common interests and aims. These 
 condition much of his social development. His wider 
 social relationships also are dependent, in a large 
 measure, on the success that he attains in his chosen 
 field of labor. 
 
 Even his moral and spiritual interests are vitally 
 centered in his vocation. The development of will, the 
 steadying of purpose, the unfolding of ideals, the 
 cultivation of vocational virtues, such as industry, 
 fidelity, order, honesty, prudence, thrift, patience, per- 
 sistence, courage, self-reliance, etc. — all of this makes 
 tremendously for his moral and spiritual development. 
 The vocationless man, no matter to what class he be- 
 longs, suffers a great moral and spiritual disadvantage. 
 His life lacks idealization and is therefore wanting in 
 unity and high moralization. His changeable task, 
 with its changeable efforts, does not afford so good an 
 opportunity for the development of the economic and 
 social virtues as that afforded the man who pursues a 
 definite life-work. It lacks also that discipline — not 
 only mental, but moral — which the attainment of vo- 
 cational skill and efficiency involves. 
 
 But notwithstanding the important issues involved 
 in a man's vocational career, little has been done in 
 a practical or systematic way to help our college young 
 men to a wise decision in the determination of their 
 life-work. Commendable efforts are being put forth 
 
editor's prospectus ix 
 
 in our public schools in this direction, but very little, 
 indeed, has been done in this respect in the sphere of 
 higher education. To any one familiar with the strug- 
 gles of the average college student in his efforts to 
 settle this weighty question for himself, the perplex- 
 ities, embarrassment, and apparent helplessness are pa- 
 thetic. This is due largely to his ignorance of the 
 nature of the professions and other vocations which 
 appeal most strongly to the college man. Conse- 
 quently, he does not know how to estimate his fitness for 
 them. He cannot advise to any extent with his father, 
 because he represents only one vocation. Neither can 
 he advise advantageously with his instructor for he, 
 too, is familiar with the nature of only one profession. 
 
 For this reason, a series of books, dealing with the 
 leading vocations, and prepared by men of large ability 
 and experience, capable of giving wise counsel, is a 
 desideratum. Such men are competent to explain the 
 nature and divisions of the particular vocations which 
 they represent, the personal and educational qualifica- 
 tions necessary for a successful pursuit of the same, 
 the advantages and disadvantages, the difficulties and 
 temptations, the opportunities and ideals; thus, in an 
 adequate way, enabling the student to estimate his own 
 fitness for them. They are also able to make valuable 
 suggestions relating to the man's work after he enters 
 upon his vocation. 
 
 Fortunately, in the present Series, the Editor has 
 been able to secure the services of some of the most 
 eminent experts in the country to prepare the respec- 
 
x editor's prospectus 
 
 tive volumes — men of large knowledge and experi- 
 ence, who have attained wide recognition and genuine 
 success in their " callings." It is a pleasure to be 
 able to place at the command of hundreds of thousands 
 of students in our American colleges the wise counsel 
 of such experienced and distinguished men. 
 
 The " Vocational Series " will consist of twelve books 
 written by representatives of different vocations, as fol- 
 lows : 
 
 1. The Young Man and the Law 
 
 Hon. Simeon E. Baldwin, LL.D., Professor of Law, 
 Emeritus, Yale University, ex-Governor and ex-Chief 
 Justice of Connecticut 
 
 2. The Young Man and the Ministry 
 
 Rev. Charles R. Brown, D.D., LL.D., Dean of the 
 School of Religion, Yale University 
 
 3. The Young Man and Teaching 
 
 Professor Henry Parks Wright, Ph.D., LL.D., Pro- 
 fessor Emeritus and formerly Dean of Yale College 
 
 4. The Young Man and Medicine 
 
 Lewellys F. Barker, M.D., LL.D., Professor of Med- 
 icine and Chief Physician, Johns-Hopkins University 
 
 5. The Young Man and Journalism 
 
 Chester Sanders Lord, M.A., LL.D., formerly Man- 
 aging Editor New York Sun 
 
 6. The Young Man and Banking 
 
 Hon. Frank A. Vanderlip, M.A., LL.D., President of 
 the City National Bank, New York 
 
 7. The Young Man and Business 
 
 8. The Young Man and Mechanical Engineering 
 
 Lester P. Breckenridge, M.A., Eng.D., Professor of 
 Mechanical Engineering, Sheffield Scientific School, 
 Yale University 
 
editor's PROSPECTUS xi 
 
 9. The Young Man and Electrical Engineering 
 
 Charles F. Scott, Sc.D., Eng.D., Professor of Elec- 
 trical Engineering, Sheffield Scientific School, Yale 
 University 
 
 10. The Young Man and Civil Engineering 
 
 George F. Swain, LL.D., Professor of Civil Engi- 
 neering, Harvard University 
 
 11. The Young Man and Farming 
 
 L. H. Bailey, M.S., LL.D., formerly Director of Col- 
 lege of Agriculture, Cornell University, and Editor 
 of Cyclopedia of American Horticulture, Rural Sci- 
 ence Series, Garden-Craft Series, Rural Text-Book 
 Series, Cyclopedia of Agriculture, etc. 
 
 12. The Young Man and Government Service 
 
 Hon. William Howard Taft, D.C.L., LL.D., ex- 
 President of the United States, and Professor of 
 Law, Yale University 
 
 The Author of this volume — The Young Man and 
 Teaching — the late Professor Henry Parks Wright, 
 Ph.D., LL.D., of Yale University, had large experience 
 as an instructor, covering more than forty years, and 
 as Dean of Yale College from 1884 to 1909, was emi- 
 nently qualified to give wise counsel to young men con- 
 templating the work of teaching. In this book the 
 Author has rightly devoted much space to teaching in 
 high and preparatory schools. The majority of col- 
 lege men who enter upon the profession of teaching 
 begin their work in the field of secondary education. 
 The Author has, therefore, given special attention to 
 teaching in secondary schools. For those who are 
 to enter immediately upon the work of college teach- 
 ing, Chapter VIII will be found especially helpful. 
 
xii EDITOR'S PROSPECTUS 
 
 Professor Wright has also given large space to the 
 important matter of discipline. Many men, well in- 
 formed in the subjects they are to teach, and well 
 equipped in methods, fail as teachers because of their 
 inefficiency in matters of discipline. The Author's un- 
 usually successful career as Dean of Yale College ren- 
 ders his counsel on this important subject of excep- 
 tional value. 
 
 E. Hershey Sneath. 
 
PREFATORY NOTE 
 
 When a young man has in mind the choice of any 
 particular profession, he wishes to know (1) what the 
 profession has to offer him; (£) whether he possesses 
 such personal qualifications as will enable him to have 
 a good degree of success in it; and (3) how best to 
 prepare himself for the work. If he selects the pro- 
 fession, he wishes to get as early as possible what 
 guidance he can from the experience of other men who 
 have gone over the same road before him. To be 
 helpful to one who wishes to decide whether it will be 
 wise for him to adopt teaching as his profession, or to 
 one who has already adopted it and is just entering 
 upon his new work, is the aim of this book. 
 
 The material here presented has been drawn mainly 
 from personal experience and observation. I look 
 back upon my undergraduate college days with an in- 
 creasing appreciation of the faculty by which my class 
 was taught. Twenty men gave the instruction during 
 four years to a class numbering in all one hundred and 
 seventy-seven students, and these were men who left 
 the impress of their high character upon their pupils. 
 My experience as a teacher extended over more than 
 half a century, beginning with a few years in the com- ^ 
 mon schools of Massachusetts, continuing for three 
 
 xiii 
 
xiv PREFATORY NOTE 
 
 terms in one of the largest private schools of the West, 
 and ending with forty years in the College Department 
 of an eastern university. I have had as teachers and 
 as colleagues many who have ranked among the best 
 in their profession, and chiefly from these I have drawn 
 my ideal of what a teacher ought to be. I would not 
 have any one suppose that I assume to have lived up 
 to the standard which I have here set. I have profited 
 by my mistakes and by the discovery of my own de- 
 ficiencies. 
 
 In Chapter XI will be found brief sketches of a few 
 of the masters who have shown unusual talent for train- 
 ing boys and whose positions have given them great 
 influence in establishing and maintaining a high stand- 
 ard of teaching in American secondary schools. I 
 have thought that some acquaintance with the life and 
 character, aims and methods of these teachers would 
 be interesting and helpful to a young man who adopts 
 teaching as his profession. Much of the information 
 given in this chapter is taken from books and pamphlets 
 that are preserved in only a few libraries, and hence 
 are not generally accessible to teachers in the prepara- 
 tory schools. Ezekiel Cheever rightly stands at the 
 head of this list because of his position as the first great 
 American schoolmaster and also on account of his 
 very long period of service. 
 
 New Haven, November 30, 1916. 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 Editor's Prospectus vii 
 
 Prefatory Note xiii 
 
 I Teaching as a Profession 1 
 
 II Objections to the Vocation Considered . 19 
 
 III Personal Qualifications 32 
 
 IV Educational Preparation 48 
 
 V Instruction 62 
 
 VI Government 87 
 
 VII Rules and Penalties 106 
 
 VIII Teaching in College . . . . . . . 121 
 
 IX Suggestions 140 
 
 X For Better Schools 157 
 
 XI Great Teachers 173 
 
 Index 209 
 
THE YOUNG MAN AND 
 TEACHING 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 TEACHING AS A PROFESSION 
 
 Important considerations in the choice of a profession. Obli- 
 gations to society and to the state. Teaching offers opportunities 
 for the highest kind of service. Keeps one young and enthusi- 
 astic. The teacher has much time for private study and for 
 recreation and can lead an independent and systematic life. The 
 large demands of the vocation make it inviting. Great variety of 
 subjects in which one may prepare himself to teach. A chance 
 offered to secure an immediate income after graduation. Teach- 
 ing in college and in secondary school. Opportunities for admin- 
 istrative work. Opportunities for college men in public schools. 
 Urgent call for good teachers to train the young to become loyal 
 American citizens. Teaching a satisfactory vocation. 
 
 In making choice of a vocation, there are two con- 
 siderations that seem to me most important, — first, 
 one's natural qualifications, and, second, the opportuni- 
 ties which the vocation offers for a useful and satisfac- 
 tory life. We may not have ambition to be widely 
 known or to get high position. But the desire to suc- 
 ceed in what we undertake is common to us all. It is 
 evident that we shall make the most of our lives if we 
 toil in a field which nature has plainly marked out for 
 us and if we are urged on by the belief that the work 
 we are doing is a real service. 
 
2 THE YOUNG MAN AND TEACHING 
 
 Our obligations to the state and to society forbid 
 the choice of a calling from purely selfish motives. We 
 may take to ourselves credit for having made good use 
 as students of the opportunities open to us ; but whence 
 came these opportunities ? What have we that we have 
 not received? Everything that we possess that makes 
 life worth living has come down to us, directly or in- 
 directly, from others, — a few of them our immediate 
 predecessors, but the vast majority men unknown to 
 us, who lived before our time, many of them centuries 
 before. By their struggles and sacrifices and discov- 
 eries, the rights and privileges, the comforts and con- 
 veniences that we enjoy have been accumulating age 
 after age, and have been preserved to be an inheritance 
 of the people of this generation. The world will con- 
 tinue to grow better, whether you and I help or not; 
 but we can do a little to help, and it is a great privilege 
 for us to have a part in this forward movement, by 
 which something more than we have received is to be 
 handed down to those who come after us. 
 
 The institutions of education whose advantages we 
 have shared, from the public school to the university, 
 have been established and supported by the state or 
 the city, or by the gifts of private individuals. This 
 places us under obligations to use what we have ac- 
 quired in school and college for the public good. We 
 owe much to the nation of which we are a part. We 
 live under its protection and have the privileges of 
 citizenship in a land where the people rule. Every 
 able-bodied young man recognizes his obligation to serve 
 
TEACHING AS A PROFESSION 3 
 
 as a soldier in the nation's defense in time of war. He 
 is no less under obligation to be a loyal and helpful 
 citizen in time of peace, and as such his place is where 
 he is fitted to accomplish most for the common welfare. 
 
 We should have in mind not so much what we can get 
 out of a vocation, as what we can put into it. The life 
 of a teacher presents a strong appeal to a young man 
 because of the opportunities which it offers him for 
 the best kind of service. What more useful profession 
 than that which has for its life-long mission the train- 
 ing of those who are to be the citizens of this republic 
 in the next generation, who are to hold its offices and 
 direct its business interests, and who are to be its 
 guardians and defenders? A man ought not to become 
 a teacher if he is not naturally fitted to teach; but if 
 he has the gift, and earnestly desires to enter into a 
 calling where his influence will help the community, he 
 is not likely to make a mistake in choosing teaching as 
 his profession. 
 
 The business of the teacher is to instruct thoroughly 
 his pupils in the subjects which they come to him to 
 learn. But his great opportunity is so to live before 
 them that he will impress them with his sincerity and 
 the uprightness of his life, and, by the silent influence of 
 a good example, help them to lay the foundation of 
 trustworthy character. If, then, you choose teaching 
 as your vocation, you may be able to communicate to 
 your pupils something of your own love for your work, 
 to give them an idea of the true purpose of living, and to 
 lead them where they will feel the joy that comes from 
 
4 THE YOUNG MAN AND TEACHING 
 
 the discovery that they can be useful. It is not too 
 much to believe that you will have it in your power to 
 so guide the thoughts and conduct of many whom you 
 instruct as to bring to them a happiness and a success 
 that they would not have known without your influ- 
 ence. To make even one pupil better may be a greater 
 service to humanity than to amass a fortune ; and you 
 may make thousands better. 
 
 As the teacher advancing in years looks back upon 
 his work, he finds peculiar satisfaction in the thought of 
 having taught in their youth a few men who have be- 
 come renowned for their achievements in scholarship 
 or literature, or who have risen to eminence in the 
 professions or in public life. There is satisfaction, 
 too, in having helped in the training of great numbers 
 of those who, scattered over the land, have lived quiet 
 lives of usefulness in smaller communities, where they 
 have been respected and honored. 
 
 The teacher's life is attractive, not only because it 
 gives you the opportunity of influencing those who are 
 at an age when impressions are most lasting, but also 
 for its invigorating influence on yourself. To live 
 daily in the company of the young, who are full of 
 enthusiasm and hope, who know nothing as yet of the 
 serious responsibilities of later years, who are active 
 and happy, who have faith in you and an affection for 
 you, who make you their model in character and attain- 
 ments, — this will keep you also young and fill your 
 days with fresh enthusiasm. Their faith in you will 
 inspire you with a faith in humanity, which the man 
 
TEACHING AS A PROFESSION 5 
 
 is in danger of losing who is in daily contact with the 
 hard, unfeeling world, which mistrusts his motives, 
 questions his honesty, and is ever ready to take ad- 
 vantage of his mistakes and inefficiency. When your 
 work is done, there will be those who remember with 
 true affection happy schooldays spent under your 
 instruction, and there will be some to cherish the mem- 
 ory of the old teacher and be grateful for his influence 
 over them when he has passed to the world beyond. Is 
 there any earthly reward greater than this? 
 
 In considering teaching as a profession, it is proper 
 to remember the special opportunities offered for 
 private study and writing, as well as for the conserva- 
 tion of health, by the limited requirements of the class- 
 room. The number of hours per day with one's classes 
 is small, when compared with the number given to 
 business, and the teacher has time for daily exercise 
 and recreation which a man in business cannot afford. 
 In the schools the classroom work is limited to five 
 days in the week, and in nearly all schools and colleges, 
 as the year is at present divided, not less than one- 
 fourth of it is allowed for vacations. It is not to be 
 inferred from this that the teacher's life is an easy one, 
 for a considerable part of these vacation periods ought 
 to be spent in planning and preparing for the studies 
 of the coming term or year, or devoted to some kind 
 of intellectual work which will make one a more efficient 
 teacher; but they give opportunity for a pleasant 
 change of occupation and for a relief from the wearing 
 duties of the classroom. 
 
6 THE YOUNG MAN AND TEACHING 
 
 The exercise of power is pleasing to many. The 
 teacher, though under the control of the authorities 
 that appoint him, is allowed great latitude in the man- 
 agement of his room, or of his school if he be the 
 headmaster, and is a real ruler, for the most part with 
 willing and obedient subjects. In case he is the owner 
 as well as headmaster of a private school, he is absolute 
 ruler of it. The responsibility of management is a 
 great factor in self-development. The exercise of 
 power not only begets self-confidence and self-respect, 
 but the man who exercises it wisely, wins the confidence 
 and respect of other men. 
 
 The systematic life of the teacher is conducive to 
 health and happiness. Most professional men do not 
 know in the morning what demands will be made upon 
 them during the day, nor when their day will end. But 
 for the teacher each day's duties are marked out in 
 advance. He goes to his various tasks at times ap- 
 pointed, and one task does not interfere with another. 
 He has a time for everything; a time to begin and a 
 time to end. Nothing need disturb his peace to-day, 
 and he need not dread the morrow. 
 
 To be a good teacher, one must devote to the service 
 his mind, his heart, his strength. The large demands 
 of the vocation make it inviting. The young man who 
 wishes to live a life that will count is not looking for 
 an easy position, but for one where he can accomplish 
 something that only a few can do well. There is great 
 satisfaction in working in a field in which there is so 
 much opportunity for new ideas. Since Ezekiel 
 
TEACHING AS A PROFESSION 7 
 
 Cheever began his remarkable career of seventy years 
 as the first great New England schoolmaster, there 
 have been many good American teachers and a few 
 that are rightly called great, but there has been no 
 teacher of long experience who would claim that he 
 knew all that ought to be known about the best way to 
 train children and youth. There have been those who 
 thought they knew it all before they began, but they 
 have learned better by practice. This generation is 
 showing greater interest than any before it in the 
 study of all kinds of educational problems, and the re- 
 sult is better teachers and better schools. The interest 
 is destined to continue, with increasing advantage to 
 teachers and schools, and this will be a good movement 
 in which to have a share. The day is past when schools 
 and colleges treated all boys as if they had the same 
 characteristics and ability, and must all be taught the 
 same things in the same way. Time, character, health, 
 life itself are involved in the process of education. 
 What we want to know is how boys unlike in tempera- 
 ment, in character, and in ability may be trained so 
 that, without risk of health, with the least waste of 
 time, and with the least danger of moral failure, they 
 may be best fitted to take up the responsibilities of 
 mature manhood. 
 
 To one who selects teaching as his vocation, there 
 are open a great number of special lines. He may pre- 
 pare himself to teach the subject which he likes best, 
 or the one which he thinks he can make most interesting, 
 or the one that seems to be most in demand, and may 
 
8 THE YOUNG MAN AND TEACHING 
 
 feel pretty sure of being able to limit his instruction 
 to his specialty. A half century or so ago a teacher 
 in an academy or a tutor in college might be required 
 to teach any subject or any combination of subjects 
 taken in the academy or by a college class. The same 
 instructor at Andover taught my division in Greek, 
 Latin, algebra, and geometry. In Freshman year in 
 college my class was taught algebra by a tutor who 
 became a professor of Latin, geometry by one who be- 
 came a professor of American history, and Latin by 
 one who became a professor of chemistry. While the 
 instruction in each of these courses was good, owing to 
 the personality of the man who gave it, the instructors 
 did not have the satisfaction of teaching the subjects in 
 which they were especially interested and which they 
 were, at that time, preparing themselves to teach in 
 later years. Now, in all the best schools, each teach- 
 er's work is limited to one subject or to allied subjects. 
 In a well-equipped school of forty pupils, the faculty 
 will probably include one instructor in the classics, one 
 in modern languages, one in science, one in mathe- 
 matics, one in English, one in history. If the school is 
 quite large, the subjects may be still further divided, 
 one teacher taking Greek and another Latin, one 
 French and another German, one physics and another 
 chemistry, while other teachers are appointed, each 
 of them giving all his time to a single subject, as, for 
 example, music or physical education. This limitation 
 of a teacher's energies to one somewhat narrow field 
 
TEACHING AS A PROFESSION 9 
 
 has resulted in the development of very expert teach- 
 ers in the modern fitting schools. 
 
 Many have been influenced to become teachers from 
 the desire for an immediate income. Teaching enables 
 one to become self-supporting much earlier than any 
 ordinary calling open to a college graduate, because 
 his studies in school and college and his experience as 
 a student seem to him to furnish the preparation which 
 he needs. Therefore one already mature, or one who 
 wishes to establish a home with little delay, has a 
 strong motive for becoming a teacher. I would not 
 advise a young man, however, to be influenced by either 
 of these considerations, unless he is sure that he has 
 the natural qualifications of a teacher. To make the 
 most of one's self, one must sacrifice the present to the 
 future and be willing to practice for a time much self- 
 denial, that he may better fill the place for which nature 
 designed him. 
 
 If one is in debt for his education, a position in a 
 good school will give him the opportunity to cancel the 
 obligation. A debt of this kind ought to be paid at 
 the earliest possible date after graduation. I assume, 
 of course, that the college man who owes his degree 
 to one who has befriended him in time of need is a man 
 of honor, and expects to pay the debt sometime. If 
 allowed to run on, it will be a depressing burden when 
 he is ready to establish himself in his profession, and 
 can hardly earn enough to keep soul and body to- 
 gether. 
 
 \S 
 
10 THE YOUNG MAN AND TEACHING 
 
 In general, it is not wise to teach for a few years on 
 account either of present necessity or of uncertainty 
 as to final choice, with the design of taking up some 
 other profession later. The years that can be given 
 to one's life work are few at best (you will not realize 
 how few until they are gone), and two or three years 
 spent by one just out of college in anything but a 
 preparation for his profession may make a decided 
 difference in the rank which he will ultimately have in 
 that profession. Besides, one will not do his best in 
 an occupation which is only a temporary makeshift; 
 his heart will not be in it. He will be looking forward 
 impatiently to the time when this temporary service 
 will give place to something which is to be permanent, 
 and very likely will be spending his best energies in 
 preparation for that. His students will suffer from 
 his poor instruction, and he will suffer from the habit 
 of doing inferior work. 
 
 A place on a college or a university faculty seems 
 to be the goal of most graduates who plan to teach. 
 For a person of unusual ability, who is eager for hard 
 work, who has a passion for truth, and skill in stating 
 things clearly, and who can count on some private 
 income or who will be satisfied with a modest income 
 and the rather narrow circumstances which accompany 
 it, such a place when permanent has attractions. It 
 assures one opportunity for self-improvement and for 
 productive scholarship, freedom from care and worry, 
 the daily intercourse with young life, and the com- 
 
TEACHING AS A PROFESSION 11 
 
 panionship of colleagues who are the choicest men on 
 earth. 
 
 The way to secure such a position is to earn it. It 
 cannot be guaranteed to any one in advance, and an 
 appointment as instructor by no means gives assurance 
 of promotion. Qualifications for a college professor- 
 ship are high, and candidates numerous. Many, after 
 years of study, fail to secure an appointment or to gain 
 the advancement to which they think they are entitled. 
 It is not in general wise for one to consume much time 
 and money in preparing himself for a college position 
 unless urgently advised to do so by the members of 
 the college faculty who know him thoroughly, both as 
 a student and as a man. 
 
 The preparatory schools present a field where there 
 is a clear call for strong men to teach, to plan, to in- 
 vestigate. The schools receive their students at an 
 age when it is possible to influence the course of a boy's 
 entire life. The relations between teacher and pupil 
 in the school are more intimate than in college, and 
 the earlier teacher will be more esteemed and longer 
 remembered. Many of those who have had remarkable 
 success in preparing boys for college would have ren- 
 dered a public service far less valuable if they had been 
 college professors. The kind of work done by teach- 
 ers in the fitting school ought not to be regarded by 
 any one as inferior to that done in college. What col- 
 lege professors of their day have left a more enviable 
 record of achievement than Ezekiel Cheever and Francis 
 
V 
 
 12 THE YOUNG MAN AND TEACHING 
 
 Gardner of the Boston Latin School, Samuel Moody of 
 Dummer Academy, Benjamin Abbott and Gideon L. 
 Soule of Phillips-Exeter Academy, and Samuel H. 
 Taylor of Andover? Would Cecil F. P. Bancroft and 
 John Meigs have been as well known, or would they 
 have had as wide an influence, if they had spent their 
 lives in teaching college students instead of academy 
 boys? Is not a mastership in a good school, with its 
 opportunities and possibilities, more likely to open a 
 desirable career to a young man than a subordinate 
 position on a university faculty which counts its mem- 
 bers by the hundred? 
 
 The responsibilities of administration are open to 
 one who becomes a teacher in a secondary school, if he 
 is qualified to assume them. From the ranks of the 
 teachers are selected the headmasters, the principals, 
 and the superintendents. Men of the right stamp are 
 constantly sought for these offices, and there is here 
 the assurance of promotion to higher positions for 
 those who prove themselves worthy and competent. 
 Good organizing and administrative ability are hard to 
 find, and the efficient principal or superintendent will 
 never be without a place. 
 
 The office of headmaster or principal of a good priv- 
 ate or high school is exalted enough to satisfy the 
 ambition of any young man. The natural qualifica- 
 tions are much the same as those for the highest suc- 
 cess in other callings. The opportunities for the 
 noblest kind of service to the state are equal to those 
 of any profession. Dr. Arnold thought the three great 
 
TEACHING AS A PROFESSION 13 
 
 objects of human ambition were " to be the prime min- 
 ister of a great kingdom, the governor of a great em- 
 pire, or the writer of works which should live in every 
 age and in every country." He confessed that he was 
 one of the most ambitious men alive, but he set aside 
 the attractions of a public career and devoted his years 
 to quiet work with his pupils at Laleham and Rugby. 
 Had he chosen to enter public life, he might have be- 
 come preeminent as a statesman ; but who will now say 
 that it was not better that he chose to be a teacher? 
 What a loss to England and to America if there had 
 been no Dr. Arnold of Rugby! 
 
 More college men ought to go into the public school 
 service. To those who take up educational work, there 
 are few positions which offer better opportunities than 
 that of principal or of superintendent in the public 
 schools. These officers are responsible not only for the 
 mental and moral training of the pupils under their 
 charge, but also in large degree for their health and 
 physical development, for their cleanliness both in mind 
 and body; in many cases they nominate the teachers 
 to whom the state must look for the proper education 
 of its citizens of the coming generations ; and they have 
 constant opportunity to help in the great Americaniza- 
 tion movement in which the nation is now interested. 
 A principal, because of his many points of contact, 
 can make his position one of much influence in the 
 community. He can work effectively for the general 
 welfare through the graduates of the school. He can 
 make the school building a community center, and can 
 
 \s 
 
14 THE YOUNG MAN AND TEACHING 
 
 reach the parents and others beyond school age, not 
 only through the cooperation of the pupils, but by 
 offering the advantages of school extension, through 
 public lectures and social gatherings for improvement 
 and recreation. It requires unusual ability to manage 
 a large public school, to keep such control over it that 
 everything moves on smoothly, and to secure obedience 
 and order in a building packed with active, restless, and 
 sometimes mischievous children, many of whom dislike 
 study and the confinement of the schoolroom and are 
 there not from their own choice but because their par- 
 ents and the state require it. 
 
 College graduates qualified to fill the best public 
 school positions have no difficulty in securing desirable 
 appointments. My opportunity for observation has 
 been limited mostly to one college. Those who became 
 principals or superintendents immediately after grad- 
 uation had been teachers, and some of them principals, 
 before coming to college. Others, without teaching ex- 
 perience, on leaving college began as teachers, gen- 
 erally in secondary schools, and were advanced when 
 they showed that they were qualified for positions of 
 greater responsibility. Their devotion to the work is 
 due to its great opportunities. One of them said to 
 me recently, when another occupation with a larger 
 salary was offered to him : " I have been principal and 
 superintendent now for eight years, and I know the 
 vast importance of the field. I am determined to spend 
 my life in the service of the public schools and could 
 
TEACHING AS A PROFESSION 15 
 
 not be tempted to leave it for any other by an offer 
 of a larger salary." 
 
 Some of the ablest and most earnest young men and 
 women in our schools and colleges are eager to be sent 
 to the opposite side of the globe, ready to forego the 
 delights of a home in their native land and to meet 
 unknown hardships and dangers, in order that they 
 may have an opportunity to assist in establishing 
 Christian education and civilization in the great na- 
 tions of the East. We need men and women of equal 
 devotion in our schools at home. The call for good 
 teachers here is urgent, especially for persons of force 
 and initiative, who will be leaders. A great work ought 
 to be done among the youth of America in the lifetime 
 of those now entering upon their professional careers. 
 The American people of the next generations will be 
 about what the educational institutions of the country 
 make them. The schools have not only to prepare 
 their pupils intellectually to meet the responsibilities 
 of life, but they must make up for deficient home train- 
 ing in manners and in morals, and must develop in the 
 children of foreign ancestry an appreciation of, and a 
 love for the free institutions of America. The prob- 
 lem in public education is made especially difficult by 
 the large foreign element in our population. These 
 people come to us having little understanding of our 
 language and unfamiliar with our customs and institu- 
 tions, and sometimes averse to adopting them. The 
 children whose parents or grandparents were born 
 
 \S 
 
16 THE YOUNG MAN AND TEACHING 
 
 abroad already form a very large proportion of all 
 those in the process of education in American schools. 
 They often show superior ability. They will soon not 
 only very greatly outnumber, but perhaps also out- 
 class, the children of the older American families, and 
 in this new stock lies the hope of the nation. These 
 children must become loyal American citizens. None 
 of the agencies that are working together in the move- 
 ment for good American citizenship have a more wide 
 and lasting influence than the schools. The churches 
 reach only a portion of the people, but the schools have 
 a chance to reach all and to influence them before char- 
 acter and habits have become fixed. 
 
 Professor Phelps has presented the call of the pres- 
 ent age to this vocation: 
 
 " There never has been in the world's history a period 
 when it was more worth while to be a teacher than in the 
 twentieth century; for there was never an age when such 
 vast multitudes were eager for an education, or when the 
 necessity of a liberal education was so generally recog- 
 nized. ... It would seem as though the whole world were 
 trying to lift itself to a higher plane of thought. . . . 
 It is a great thing to be a teacher in these present years of 
 grace ! " x 
 
 I have before me a letter, written by a friend, who 
 had in his youth been my pupil. His son had recently 
 graduated from college, and the father had been very 
 anxious that the son should make choice of that pro- 
 fession which would have opportunity for the greatest 
 
 i Phelps, Teaching in School and College, New York, 1919, 
 p. 10. 
 
TEACHING AS A PROFESSION 17 
 
 usefulness. How this father, who had been an un- 
 usually successful business man, regarded his son's 
 choice of teaching as a profession, is shown by this 
 extract from his letter: 
 
 " I have been spending the winter in Egypt and Sicily. 
 My son came with his mother to manage things and look 
 after me, and while at Taormina he decided to spend his 
 life in teaching. Whether the old Greek theater and all 
 the classic associations with iEtna, under whose summit 
 we lived for a month by the Ionian Sea, had anything to do 
 with it, I do not know; but he came out strong and clear 
 in his decision, and is very happy over it. His mother and 
 I are delighted in his choice of your high calling, than 
 which I believe there is no more promising field for use- 
 fulness and influence, unless it be the ministry, to which 
 I at first hoped he would devote his life. But teaching is, 
 after all, ' ministering ' of a very high order, and while he 
 has never been a great student, and probably may never 
 attain a college professorship, still he can do good work 
 in secondary schools, preparing boys for college at an age 
 when they are most impressionable and with greater op- 
 portunities for molding character." 
 
 After a long and varied experience in teaching, I can 
 commend the profession as one affording great satis- 
 faction. My choice of a vocation was made before I 
 entered college. I began to teach at the age of seven- 
 teen. A gentleman who was responsible for the ap- 
 pointment of a teacher in a small district two miles 
 from my home offered me the position. With many 
 doubts and fears I accepted it, and with great reluc- 
 tance entered upon the duties of that well-remembered 
 
18 THE YOUNG MAN AND TEACHING 
 
 first day. It proved a tedious day for me, and when 
 at length it came to an end I took my long walk home, 
 sorry enough for having undertaken a task so uncon- 
 genial. But before two weeks had passed I began to 
 find in teaching an unexpected pleasure. It was fasci- 
 nating to help the young people in their studies and to 
 watch their deepening interest. As the days went by, 
 my new work grew more and more absorbing, and 
 when the short term closed it was hard for me to give 
 it up. From that time I taught, when not in the pre- 
 paratory school or in the army, till I entered college. 
 My purpose in going to college was chiefly to prepare 
 myself to be a better teacher. My college studies were 
 pursued with that end in view, and at graduation there 
 was no question as to what my vocation was to be. I 
 continued to teach till I reached my seventieth year, 
 and there has never been a day when I would have been 
 willing to exchange my calling for any other. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 OBJECTIONS TO THE VOCATION CONSIDERED 
 
 Some think the life of a teacher monotonous. Some think 
 the calling is at a social disadvantage. The drudgery of reading 
 papers, and of supervision. Pupils are often dull and uninter- 
 esting. In private schools for boys provision is generally made for 
 unmarried masters only. Appointments of teachers are generally 
 for short periods. Salaries are inadequate. The teacher's reward. 
 
 In the preceding pages I have tried to present the 
 advantages of teaching as a profession. This, like 
 every other occupation, has also some disadvantages. 
 
 Many years ago a well-educated schoolmaster, with 
 a satisfactory income, told me that he had become tired 
 of a teacher's life because of its monotony. For more 
 than two decades he had been going over year after 
 year the same ground with succeeding classes. It is 
 true that the secondary school does not allow that 
 variety of subject which is so pleasing to a college in- 
 structor. Certain courses are marked out to be taken 
 with specific ends in view, and they may not change 
 much from year to year. But this need not lessen your 
 enjoyment in teaching them. By repeated study of 
 your specialty you may be adding so much to your 
 knowledge of it that it will always have for you the 
 freshness of a new subject, and will not weary you 
 
 with its monotony, though you often repeat it. You 
 
 19 
 
20 THE YOUNG MAN AND TEACHING 
 
 will still find in it something new and interesting, and 
 every year you will be better able to teach it. New 
 thoughts will often come to you while conducting a 
 classroom exercise, which, noted down before you have 
 time to forget them, and later developed, will help you 
 in presenting the truth to subsequent classes. For 
 more than thirty years Dr. Taylor of Andover taught 
 the same books of the Iliad and of the iEneid to his 
 Senior classes, and he came before his students each 
 year with fresh interest and enthusiasm. He read the 
 new commentaries by English and German scholars on 
 these and similar portions of ancient literature, and 
 carefully prepared each lesson anew before he took it 
 up with his pupils. It is to the teacher who gives but 
 little attention to his subject outside the classroom, 
 that a course becomes irksome when repeated year 
 after year. 
 
 But when you repeat a course with succeeding 
 classes, you are not doing over and over the same work. 
 You teach a course solely for the benefit of the students 
 who take it. The course which you teach is the means 
 which you employ to accomplish the end which you 
 have in view. A farmer may use the same machine in 
 his fields for successive years, but his work each year 
 is new. He takes good care of his machine, but his 
 purpose is to get better results from his fields. Your 
 first thought should be not for your subject, but for 
 the young men in your classes. They are the material 
 on which your efforts are to be expended. Your real 
 work, therefore, is always new, because every year a 
 
OBJECTIONS CONSIDERED fl 
 
 new class comes under your instruction. The oppor- 
 tunity to study human nature by coming in contact 
 with many different classes, and with youths unlike in 
 character and temperament, is one of the interesting 
 features of a teacher's life. However familiar you may 
 be with your subject, it will be a new subject to each 
 new class. Their eagerness to learn will give you a 
 fresh interest in what you have taught many times 
 before, and the more you know about it, the more you 
 will enjoy teaching it. 
 
 It has been thought by some teachers that the calling 
 is under a greater or less social disadvantage; that a 
 teacher is not regarded, even by the parents of his 
 pupils, as on a level in rank with other young men of 
 less ability and attainments who belong to good fam- 
 ilies, because he supports himself by work, and that 
 in general those who get their living by teaching are 
 not welcomed in good society. I do not think there is 
 ground for this feeling. If this were true of a teacher, 
 it would be equally true of one in any other profession 
 where he had to work for his own support, and a self- 
 respecting young man would not resent the lack of 
 social recognition under such conditions. To earn 
 one's own living by service of any kind is many times 
 more honorable than to live in idleness and to subsist 
 on the earnings of another. In this country the man 
 who accomplishes something worth while is respected 
 and appreciated by all who are themselves worthy of 
 respect. Among any class of people for whose good 
 opinion we care, a person's social standing depends 
 
22 THE YOUNG MAN AND TEACHING 
 
 chiefly on his personal qualifications — as his fund of 
 knowledge, his conversational gifts, his manners — and 
 very little on his occupation, provided the occupation 
 be honorable. 
 
 Another objection which has been raised against 
 teaching is that much time is taken up with " drudg- 
 ery." It will not be denied that a part of the work 
 of many teachers may be rightly so designated. Most 
 instructors have no fondness for making out time 
 tables or schedules of recitations and examinations, or 
 for reading and marking written exercises or examina- 
 tion papers. If a teacher's time is to be mainly oc- 
 cupied by such tasks, the calling would not be inviting 
 to many. 
 
 A little experience in making schedules will not be 
 for any one a mere waste of time. You might accept 
 it as a part of your education. After a few trials, 
 you will understand how difficult it is to satisfy every 
 one and will be less ready to criticize the efforts of an- 
 other when the task no longer falls to you. Much 
 of what is generally considered the real drudgery of 
 the teacher, i. e., the reading of papers, may be avoided 
 by lessening the amount of written exercises and written 
 examinations. It is no doubt for the advantage of 
 teacher and pupils that a certain proportion of the 
 work be written. But in many schools there is too 
 much written work for the efficiency and for the health 
 of the teachers, and I believe there is also too much for 
 the good of the students, who get greater advantage 
 
OBJECTIONS CONSIDERED 23 
 
 from personal contact with the teacher in oral recita- 
 tions. It is but fair to remember, however, that if you 
 expect to succeed in any occupation, you must be ready 
 to give a considerable amount of time to small tasks 
 in themselves uncongenial, and that you will probably 
 find as little " drudgery " in teaching as in most other 
 vocations. 
 
 Where boys live in a school building, the supervision 
 of the room for study in the evening, and especially of 
 the dormitory by day and by night, is generally con- 
 sidered a disagreeable task. It does encroach on the 
 time one can take for private study, and if the super- 
 vision is not uniform, or if the supervisor is nervous and 
 easily irritated, or if he is wanting in tact, there is 
 danger of unpleasant relations between him and some 
 of those under his charge. But when a teacher and 
 a not too large number of boys live together in the 
 same building, an opportunity is offered for personal 
 influence which must not be undervalued and which 
 some teachers in schools where there are only day pupils 
 have told me they would be glad to have. If one's 
 thoughts are well under control, and if he has a definite 
 plan, it is possible for him to do good work when liable 
 to frequent interruption, and even when living in the 
 midst of restless and impulsive boys. We read that 
 Dr. Arnold sat at his study table, with no attempt at 
 seclusion, with conversation going on in the room, and 
 surrounded by his children or by his pupils; that he 
 was always ready to break off his occupation to re- 
 
£4 THE YOUNG MAN AND TEACHING 
 
 ceive visitors or to answer questions, and that after an 
 interruption he took up again his writing, as if it had 
 not been broken off. 
 
 There are men who ought never to undertake the 
 supervision of a dormitory, but for many teachers 
 some experience of this kind is valuable as a part of 
 their training. A man whose life work is to be the 
 instruction and management of boys, and who hopes 
 to become sometime the headmaster of a school, will 
 get an intimate acquaintance with boy nature, which 
 will fit him to deal more understandingly with all kinds 
 of students, if at the beginning of his career he lives 
 for a period in close daily contact with the young life 
 in a school dormitory. 
 
 If you devote your life to teaching, you will no 
 doubt have days of discouragement, when you will feel 
 that your efforts are wasted because you are making so 
 little impression on your pupils, and because there are 
 among them those who are disrespectful and those who 
 show no appreciation of what you are trying to do for 
 them. They will sometimes seem incomprehensibly 
 slow of understanding, and deficient in interest and am- 
 bition. You will have to repeat the same thing over 
 and over, and may then find some whose heads it has 
 not begun to penetrate. Your patience will be tried, 
 but you must not lose it. The trouble may lie partly 
 with you, perhaps mainly if you are of an ill temper, 
 and your students may not be as bad and as dull as 
 they sometimes seem to you. Professor Denison Olm- 
 sted tells us of an irritable teacher of his acquaintance 
 
OBJECTIONS CONSIDERED 25 
 
 who grew so impatient at the apparent dullness of one 
 of his pupils that he finally threw the book at him, 
 exclaiming : " Eat it ! Eat it ! That is the only way 
 you will ever get it into you." But he adds that this 
 man's career as a schoolmaster was abruptly ended. 
 He quotes also the words of a Frenchman whose quick- 
 tempered father had undertaken to teach algebra to 
 him when a boy and who had become enraged at him 
 because he would not accept his statements unques- 
 tioned. " I told him I could see how more into more 
 produced more, but how less into less produced more 
 was what I could not see. Says he, pointing his finger 
 at me, ' You one jackass,' and throwing down his book 
 in despair, never would hear me recite another lesson, 
 but abandoned me as an incorrigible dunce." * 
 
 You cannot expect to escape the dull and unin- 
 terested, and there will be some who will make them- 
 selves personally disagreeable to you. Every teacher 
 will probably have pupils in his classes that he will 
 be right glad to get rid of at the end of the year, and 
 he will also be pretty sure to find others of the same 
 sort in his new classes when another year opens. Your 
 entire class may at times appear to have lost all in- 
 terest in study. Outside attractions will disarrange 
 your plans, and social or other engagements will absorb 
 their attention at a time when for some special reason 
 you are making unusual effort to carry them along as 
 rapidly as possible in their studies. Such experiences 
 
 i Am. Journal of Education and College Review, April, 1856, 
 Vol. I, p. 335. 
 
26 THE YOUNG MAN AND TEACHING 
 
 are enough to dishearten almost any teacher. But 
 you must not be influenced by them to weaken your 
 efforts. The teacher, like the preacher, is a sower, 
 who goes forth to sow. Some seed will fall by the 
 wayside, some on stony ground, some among thorns; 
 but just as surely some also will fall on good ground 
 and bring forth fruit, thirty, sixty or a hundred fold. 
 
 Days of discouragement are not peculiar to the 
 teacher. The pastor of a country church, under whose 
 care I spent my boyhood, did a work which, as I look 
 back upon it, seems ideal. He had come to the church 
 when it was small, weak, and divided. He lived quietly 
 among his people for twenty-eight years, and at his 
 death left the church large, strong, and united. I was 
 greatly surprised to learn from his widow that there 
 was probably no year in his whole pastorate when he 
 did not have days of depression because he seemed to 
 himself to be accomplishing so little that he felt that 
 he was not doing for the people in his parish what 
 ought to be done, and was occupying a place which 
 he was not fitted to fill. I suppose that all men who 
 live to do good and have high ideals, appreciate how 
 much there is to be done and have such periods of dis- 
 couragement. 
 
 An objection sometimes raised against teaching in 
 private schools for boys is that in the most of them 
 provision is made only for masters who are unmarried. 
 This tends to make a permanent mastership in such 
 schools less attractive. It seems to have been taken 
 for granted that, if a teacher is free from the care of 
 
OBJECTIONS CONSIDERED 27 
 
 a family, he will devote more time to his students, and 
 that he will have more interest in them and more affec- 
 tion for them if he has no domestic ties. In some cases 
 this may be true, but not often. The influence of a 
 good home makes one a better man. One who has a 
 family has something to live for and to work for, and 
 he will be ambitious to do his best. The teacher who 
 has children of his own will have more sympathy for 
 other people's children, will better appreciate the in- 
 terest which their parents have in them, and will know 
 better how to deal with them. When the families of 
 the masters meet the schoolboys in the dining room, 
 are present at their entertainments, take an interest in 
 their sports, and welcome them to their homes, they 
 exert a refining influence on the school life. A few of 
 the best schools appreciate the advantage of having 
 teachers with families and have made special provision 
 for their accommodation. 
 
 One reason why single men have been preferred as 
 masters in boys' schools is that, since their living ex- 
 penses are less, they can be obtained for smaller salaries, 
 and few schools have been in a condition to afford more 
 than what is barely necessary; but with the great in- 
 crease in charges for tuition and residence, and with the 
 excessive number of applications for admission, this rea- 
 son will not long continue to hold good. 
 
 The teacher is an employee and is subject to the 
 uncertainties of a man in that position. He does not 
 have the independence of the lawyer or physician, who 
 
28 THE YOUNG MAN AND TEACHING 
 
 can choose his location and settle down to remain in 
 one place as long as he continues to practice. In many 
 schools the teachers are appointed for short periods, 
 sometimes for a single year only, and while it is true 
 almost everywhere that a good teacher is sure of re- 
 appointment, it is not pleasant to think of the pos- 
 sibility that the school authorities may discover some 
 one who in their judgment will do your work better, 
 or equally well for less pay, or that you may suffer 
 from the introduction of new methods with which you 
 are not familiar. On the other hand, as long as ap- 
 pointments have to be renewed at short intervals, there 
 is opportunity for the Board to give, with any renewal, 
 advancement in rank, or an increase in salary, and 
 the teacher has constantly before him an urgent motive 
 for the best possible service, so that his case may be 
 judged favorably. When he knows that his place is 
 permanent, the temptation to gradually relax his ef- 
 forts is sometimes very great. 
 
 In business the employer is expected to understand 
 thoroughly the work which he hires a man to do, and to 
 be able to tell whether it is well done, but this cannot 
 often be said of those who employ teachers and officers 
 of school administration. The principal of a public 
 school or a superintendent holds his position at the 
 pleasure of the appointing Board. Whenever they 
 become dissatisfied with him, they will not hesitate to 
 suggest that he seek another place. He is a public 
 servant and his work is not done in a corner. Like 
 other public servants, he may be subject to much crit- 
 
OBJECTIONS CONSIDERED 29 
 
 icism, some perhaps deserved, and some not. Criticism 
 may reach the Board from parents, from colleagues, 
 from professional faultfinders, or from persons who 
 would be glad to get his place for themselves or for 
 their friends. He will perhaps find it wise not to med- 
 dle much in politics, lest some members of the Board 
 have objections to him on other grounds than ineffi- 
 ciency. One cannot feel very sure of a position which 
 he holds by the authority of a Board which is itself 
 subject to change when one political party succeeds 
 another in power. 
 
 But it may be said that a person who is engaged in 
 teaching or in administrative work has hopes generally 
 of being called to a better position and would hardly 
 be willing to bind himself to remain permanently in one 
 place. He cannot, therefore, expect the school author- 
 ities to bind themselves to keep him permanently, or 
 until he is called elsewhere. Removal to a new locality 
 involves some physical inconvenience, but there may 
 come a time in the experience of almost any teacher or 
 administrative officer, whether in school or college, when 
 a change from one field of labor to another will be 
 good for his mental well-being, and is on the whole 
 to be desired. New duties in a new field will call forth 
 new vigor and enthusiasm. If you find it wise, on any 
 ground, to make a change, you may reasonably hope 
 to secure a better situation, and of course your expe- 
 rience in the school which you are leaving will make 
 you more efficient in the new one. If you have a posi- 
 tion with which you are so well satisfied that you wish 
 
30 THE YOUNG MAN AND TEACHING 
 
 to keep it permanently, the only way to be sure of it 
 is to fill it better than any one else can. 
 
 An objection to this vocation, which will have weight 
 with many young men, is the inadequate compensation 
 of those who teach. Good ability and unquestioned 
 character are demanded of the teacher. His prepara- 
 tion is costly, but his services seem to be valued at less 
 than good personal qualifications and efficient training 
 deserve. He does not have much to say about the 
 amount of his salary. He is employed to teach, and if 
 he accepts a position he takes the salary that goes with 
 it. Due regard for his own welfare and for the health 
 and comfort of those dependent on him will naturally 
 lead a young man to consider carefully whether the 
 work to which he wishes to devote his life will yield 
 a sufficient income. Perhaps we overestimate the in- 
 come of those who do not preach or teach. When we 
 think of the great fortunes sometimes amassed in busi- 
 ness, or of the large fees of a few eminent lawyers and 
 doctors, the pay of the schoolmaster seems small; but 
 the teachers who prove themselves worthy of advance- 
 ment to high positions iare not in general poorly paid. 
 If those in all vocations whose success is unusual were 
 left out of consideration, I believe the average income 
 of teachers, though far from ample, would not be found 
 so very much below the average in other callings. 
 Now when so much special preparation is required, and 
 when only the well qualified can find places, there is 
 ground for the hope that the compensation of good 
 teachers will soon be more nearly commensurate with 
 
OBJECTIONS CONSIDERED 31 
 
 the service rendered. But if the teacher's income is 
 not large, it is regular and secure. Hard times may 
 reach a man in almost any other occupation, but they 
 are not likely to affect the teacher. If the cost of liv- 
 ing increases, his salary will probably not rise in pro- 
 portion, as in justice it might ; but, on the other hand, 
 in times of economy and retrenchment he need not be 
 anxious, as he is not likely to lose his position or have 
 his salary reduced. The number of young men seeking 
 the advantages which secondary schools and colleges 
 offer is steadily increasing, and there is sure to be an 
 increasing demand for good teachers. 
 
 A young man whose chief purpose in life is wealth 
 ought not to enter any of the regular professions. 
 The men who have become great lawyers or physicians 
 or surgeons are not those who chose their lifework for 
 what they could make in it. If one's chief motive in 
 selecting a profession is to get a large income from 
 it, it will not be for him a profession but only a kind of 
 business. He will have no genuine love for it and will 
 not rank high in it. The teacher's chief compensation 
 is not his salary. He finds his reward in his love of 
 his vocation, in the opportunity which it offers for im- 
 parting knowledge, and for personal influence on human 
 lives, in the joy of working with the young, and in the 
 consciousness that he is helping to train them to be 
 good citizens of ia great nation. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 PERSONAL QUALIFICATIONS 
 
 Qualifications which those who employ teachers desire. An ex- 
 ample. Superior physical development. Good health. Courage. 
 Firmness. Love and sympathy. Self-control. Brevity of speech. 
 Enthusiasm. Self-effacement and consecration. Personality. 
 Religion. 
 
 What qualifications those who engage teachers desire 
 to find in candidates who are recommended to them for 
 appointment is shown very plainly by the questions 
 which they ask regarding them. I have received from 
 teachers' agencies or from school authorities requests 
 for information about applicants on all of the follow- 
 ing points: 
 
 Success in teaching; probable success if inexpe- 
 rienced. 
 
 Moral character. 
 
 Popularity with students. 
 
 Enthusiasm. 
 
 Health. 
 
 Influence on pupils, both in and out of school. 
 
 Scholarship and training (general or special). 
 
 Ability as an instructor. 
 
 Ability as a disciplinarian. 
 
 Best fitted for what line of work. 
 
 Personal appearance; neatness in dress. 
 
 32 ; 
 
PERSONAL QUALIFICATIONS 66 
 
 Loyalty to superiors. 
 Attitude toward colleagues. 
 Tactfulness. 
 Disposition. 
 
 Standing in the community. 
 Has he cultivated manners? 
 
 Habits or peculiarities liable to interfere with suc- 
 cess. 
 
 Has he any physical defects? 
 
 It will be seen that good personal qualifications and 
 successful experience are considered most essential by 
 those who understand the needs of schools. A head- 
 master writing to me for a teacher, some years ago, 
 expressed the desire of most men responsible for the 
 selection of teachers for secondary schools : " I want 
 first a man, second a teacher, third a scholar." Dr. 
 Arnold's views were much the same. In a letter of 
 inquiry for a master he wrote : 
 
 " What I want is a man who is a Christian and a gentle- 
 man, an active man and one who has common sense and un- 
 derstands boys. I do not so much care about scholarship, 
 as he will have immediately under him the lowest forms 
 of the school; but yet, on second thoughts, I do care about 
 it very much, because his pupils may be in the highest 
 forms ; and besides, I think that even the elements are best 
 taught by a man who has a thorough knowledge of the mat- 
 ter. However, if one must give way, I prefer activity of 
 mind and interest in his work to high scholarship." * 
 
 i Stanley, The Life and Correspondence of Thomas Arnold, New 
 York, 1887, Vol. I, p. 105, note. 
 
 L 
 
34* THE YOUNG MAN AND TEACHING 
 
 Professor Denison Olmsted, in his article on The 
 Gift of Teaching, speaks of the elder President Dwight 
 as combining in one all the elements of a great teacher : 
 " The benevolence, which earnestly longs for the good 
 of the pupils, and never tires ; the kindness which wins 
 affection; the authority which secures obedience; the 
 dignity which insures respect; the accuracy which in- 
 spires confidence; the zeal which awakens enthusiasm; 
 and the learning which compels admiration." x 
 
 Among my early schoolmasters, James Allen seemed 
 to me to be especially well endowed by nature to be a 
 teacher of youth. 2 He lived in the little village in 
 which I was reared, and was by general occupation a 
 surveyor of land and a sort of country squire, settling 
 estates and holding town and county offices. During 
 a period of forty-two years he taught in the public 
 schools of his native town in the autumn and winter, 
 when not in the state legislature. He had a peculiar 
 power over his pupils. He quickly aroused in them an 
 ambition to learn, and governed without effort even 
 boys who were generally unruly. I was about twelve 
 years of age when I came under his influence. He had 
 been called in to take the place of a teacher who had op- 
 ened the term by announcing that he was " firmer than 
 the hills of New England," but who had been forced to 
 withdraw by a gang of mischievous boys whom he could 
 not manage. From the day when Mr. Allen began his 
 reign in that schoolhouse, there was no attempt at dis- 
 
 i The American Journal of Education and College Review, 
 April, 1856, Vol. I, p. 342. 
 2 Knight, Biography of Deacon James Allen, Worcester, 1889. 
 
PERSONAL QUALIFICATIONS 35 
 
 order, and yet he did not govern by force. I never 
 saw him inflict bodily punishment on any pupil. He 
 could give ian admonition that a boy would never forget, 
 but he would not say anything to make the boy angry 
 and revengeful. Some of his power was, of course, 
 acquired by long experience in the schoolroom and 
 elsewhere, but he was fashioned by nature to be a 
 schoolmaster. 
 
 He was tall and well-proportioned, having inherited 
 a powerful physical frame, which had been hardened 
 and developed by years of training in the state militia 
 and by actual service in the Wiar of 1812. He had 
 great physical and moral courage. No fear of per- 
 sonal violence or of injury to his property ever kept 
 him from doing his duty as a citizen and town officer, 
 and of course he had no fear of any boy or combination 
 of boys in school. He was firm even to a fault, and 
 his pupils knew without being told that it would be 
 folly to oppose him or to petition him to make any 
 changes in his carefully arranged plan. He had a 
 tender and loving heart, and while he could not endure 
 a lazy pupil, he had unbounded sympathy and encour- 
 agement for the boy, however dull, who tried to do 
 well. In school he was calm and unruffled, and his 
 pupils might have inferred that he was never tempted 
 to be angry or impatient. Quite the reverse was true. 
 By nature he had a rash temper, but his strong will 
 gave him the power to hold it in check. As a dis- 
 ciplinarian, he was a man of few words, and when he 
 gave a command he did it with military precision. On 
 
 \S 
 
36 THE YOUNG MAN AND TEACHING 
 
 the first morning he announced one rule, saying that 
 this included all that would be required of any pupil. 
 The rule was : " Do right." I received one brief but 
 emphatic reprimand from him early in this part of 
 the term. With the conceit of a boy of twelve, it 
 seemed good to me one evening to go down town and 
 sit on the counter of the village store, as I had seen 
 young men do. He came in, on an errand, and found 
 me there. I knew that he liked me, for my work in 
 school pleased him, and I looked into his face ready to 
 hear him greet me with a pleasant " Good evening," 
 but, instead of that, much to my surprise, he said in a 
 tone of authority : " Go home ! " I lost no time in get- 
 ting down from that counter and moving in the direc- 
 tion which he had indicated, and I wasted no more 
 evenings at the village store. 
 
 Physical excellence, health, courage, firmness, love, 
 sympathy, self-control, brevity of speech, were among 
 the characteristics of this early teacher, and while one 
 may be a good instructor who lacks the most of them, 
 they go a long way toward making up the natural 
 qualifications of a good schoolmaster. 
 
 The headmaster appreciates the value of good phys- 
 ical development in a teacher, and for most schools 
 an applicant with this qualification has special ad- 
 vantages, which are much increased if the possessor is 
 also skillful in any form of field sports. The youthful 
 mind makes a hero of a teacher who comes to the school 
 with an athletic record, who can talk understandingly 
 about the games, and perhaps take part in them. A 
 
PERSONAL QUALIFICATIONS 37 
 
 body sound from birth is something for which to be 
 everlastingly thankful. But by no means all are thus 
 bounteously endowed by inheritance. Not every one is 
 tall and well-formed, nor are all born with strong con- 
 stitutions and free from inherited tendencies to disease. 
 One is not responsible for the body which he has re- 
 ceived from his ancestors, but he should remember that 
 the body which he now has is the only one which he 
 ever will have, and that the one thing to do is to make 
 the most of what has been given him. While a man 
 cannot by taking thought add one cubit to his stature, 
 he can by taking proper care in most cases develop 
 the body which he has inherited so as to make it his 
 servant, to stand by him in hard places till he reaches 
 the retiring age. 
 
 One of the first requisites for a good teacher is health. 
 This is essential for his own success. His daily task 
 is a hard one, hard enough to test the endurance of 
 the strongest* to wear the average teacher out before 
 his time. He owes it to his pupils also to keep in such 
 vigorous health that he may be always at his best 
 when he comes before them in the classroom. If he is 
 strong and enthusiastic, they will catch his enthusiasm. 
 If he seems weak and dispirited, they will become list- 
 less. If he is nervous, his manner will make them 
 nervous also. He cannot expect their spirits to rise 
 above his own. To secure and retain a condition of 
 health on which one can depend requires a great deal 
 of attention to nature's laws, generally more than many 
 teachers are ready to give. We all understand the 
 
38 THE YOUNG MAN AND TEACHING 
 
 importance of regular habits, sufficient sleep, sensible 
 diet, a reasonable amount of exercise in the open air, 
 and wholesome relaxation, but such is the weakness of 
 human nature that we are easily influenced to leave 
 undone the things which we know we ought to do. If 
 one is not willing to take the necessary precautions to 
 preserve his health, is it not fair to assume that he is 
 not really ambitious to be a first-class teacher? 
 
 Unless one is a school principal, there is not now the 
 same need of the kind of courage that was essential in 
 the old days, when perhaps the most highly esteemed 
 qualification for a schoolmaster was the ability to inflict 
 adequate punishment on the unruly and ill-behaved sons 
 of Belial. But one must uniformly maintain in the 
 schoolroom an air of authority, which the whole room 
 will respect, and must have sufficient reserve to sustain 
 that authority. He must insist that his pupils do 
 what they are told ito do, without opposition or ques- 
 tion. He must be the absolute ruler of them all, and 
 not be ruled by them or by any one or two of them. 
 The weak-kneed teacher often has pupils whom he dares 
 not discipline or reprimand. It will not do to let a 
 boy discover that his teacher stands in fear of him or 
 is afraid to tell him the truth about himself when 
 occasion requires it. 
 
 There is no danger now of a personal encounter be- 
 tween the teacher and any pupil or gang of pupils, 
 either in school or outside of it. The courage which 
 the world needs at the present day is not that of the 
 bully standing up for his rights, but that of the manly 
 
PERSONAL QUALIFICATIONS 39 
 
 man who is brave enough to resist public sentiment and 
 to meet opposition when the good of others requires it. 
 It takes the right sort of courage in a teacher to treat 
 all pupils alike, without regard to their social stand- 
 ing; to show no favors to those who expect them, or 
 whose parents expect them; to acknowledge a mistake 
 and correct it, instead of covering it up or trying to 
 justify it; to tell a pupil unpleasant truths about his 
 rank in scholarship or his conduct or character, which 
 it will do him good to know and which he dislikes to 
 hear; to check promptly, but without resentment, any 
 approach to unbefitting familiarity; to stand openly 
 by the minority among either pupils or teachers, when 
 the minority is right. 
 
 A reasonable degree of firmness is essential in one 
 who has to manage the young, and while it is easily 
 possible for firmness to grow into unreasonable ob- 
 stinacy, yet it is a quality of which it is better to have 
 too much than too little. It is better to be inflexible 
 than to be always undecided. It is good for a young 
 man to have to deal with a teacher whom he finds stead- 
 fast and immovable. It may teach him not to trifle 
 with the laws of man or the unchangeable laws of 
 nature. How much it would be worth to him if he 
 could learn thus early that he cannot continue to dis- 
 regard the laws of health without sooner or later hav- 
 ing the penalty fall heavily upon him! The govern- 
 ment of the wavering and irresolute teacher is harm- 
 ful. If it is his habit to make rules which he fails to 
 execute when they are put to the test, how can his 
 
40 THE YOUNG MAN AND TEACHING 
 
 boys have any reverence for law and authority ? How 
 can he expect them to submit unhesitatingly to his re- 
 quirements when he demands one thing to-day and per- 
 haps the opposite to-morrow? Will they have any 
 confidence in him as a master when he punishes the 
 same offense now with suspension and now with an 
 admonition? It will be recognized by the pupils as a 
 sign of weakness to hastily decree a penalty upon an 
 offender and then promptly take it back when he or his 
 friends make an appeal and petition for clemency. 
 
 When physical superiority, courage and steadfast- 
 ness are joined with love, they form a delightful com- 
 bination of good qualities. A strong, brave and reso- 
 lute man with a big heart will win the confidence and 
 support of any boy, either good or bad. Firmness 
 and tenderness ought always to go together in the 
 government of the young. The two are not inconsis- 
 tent if you know when to be immovable and when to 
 show clemency. When Tom Brown and his compan- 
 ions, getting back late and stealing in through the 
 garden, were sent limping and shivering by old Thomas 
 up to the Doctor's study, after their unfortunate ex- 
 perience in Tom's first run at Hare and Hounds, Dr. 
 Arnold's tender sympathy was better than " twenty 
 lines to learn." The indolent and mischievous boy 
 needs a firm hand ; the one who does as well as he can, 
 and still has many faults, needs sympathy and en- 
 couragement. A teacher with a loving heart will have 
 long patience with the mistakes of those who mean well, 
 and will see something good in every one, even the most 
 
PERSONAL QUALIFICATIONS 41 
 
 awkward and uninteresting. He will be considerate of 
 the shy and sensitive boy, and will not neglect those 
 who, because personally unattractive, lack friendship 
 and companionship. 
 
 It is not often that an educated man so far loses his 
 dignity as to give way to anger in the presence of other 
 people, but I remember a teacher who, when conducting 
 an exercise before a school of some three hundred 
 students, became suddenly enraged and made a violent 
 speech, in which he said such crazy and ludicrous things 
 that the inevitable result was a disorder which, in his 
 state of mind, he had not the power to suppress. He 
 was a man with no mean reputation as a writer, but 
 that afternoon he shriveled down to small proportions. 
 He must have remembered with sorrow that unlucky 
 event till the day of his death. The offense was 
 trifling; what it was I have long since forgotten, but 
 the memory of that wild outburst is fresh after the 
 lapse of sixty years. A man who cannot control his 
 anger ought to keep in mind the words of George Fitch : 
 " When a man gets mad, he stops thinking with his 
 brain and turns the job over to his fists and his lungs. 
 Then he produces a mess of ideas as a child produces 
 art with a pail of red paint." 
 
 I have known teachers in the classroom who by dis- 
 position were quick to get angry, yet were not easily 
 provoked. They had will power enough to keep their 
 angry feelings under control. A teacher with a hasty 
 temper, who can be sure to hold it in check, is ; to be 
 preferred to one who will stand any kind of ill-treat- 
 
42 THE YOUNG MAN AND TEACHING 
 
 ment iand have no feeling of resentment. Such a meekly 
 submissive nature will no more command the respect of 
 schoolboys than it will that of mature men. Righteous 
 indignation is to be commended whenever there is occa- 
 sion for it, but one can show the strongest opposition 
 against evil without making a foolish display of ill- 
 temper. While a man who cannot bridle his temper is 
 not fit to deal with the young, one who has a quick 
 temper and keeps it under restraint makes an excellent 
 master, because, having learned by patient discipline 
 how to control himself, he knows how to manage those 
 under him. 
 
 There are some gifted teachers who can talk fluently 
 on any subject and command attention, because they 
 make themselves understood, are entertaining, and 
 have something to say to which it pays to listen; but 
 in general the great talker beclouds his subject, is 
 wearisome, and does not give you much which you 
 can carry laway. Some of the pupils of such a teacher 
 may make a vain effort to follow him, but the most 
 will give up the chase and trust to luck. If he intro- 
 duces a story, they will probably remember that; but 
 when they come to sift down what they are able to 
 get from his lecture, it will seem to them mostly chaff. 
 No man need hesitate to become a teacher because he 
 has only an ordinary command of language and is not 
 known as a gifted talker. That deficiency, if it be a 
 deficiency, may prove a distinct advantage. Brief and 
 exact statements and explanations, clearly expressed 
 and arranged in proper order, though harder for the 
 
PERSONAL QUALIFICATIONS 43 
 
 teacher to make, are better for the pupils than long- 
 drawn-out disquisitions that only confuse them. 
 There is a fault into which a teacher who likes to hear 
 himself talk easily falls; he leaves the subject of the 
 lesson and goes wandering off on a side-track which 
 seems to have no end, on some sudden impulse or per- 
 haps in response to a question raised by a cunning 
 pupil who wishes to avoid being called upon to recite. 
 The man who talks too much makes a poor teacher. 
 The best teachers are those who know before they meet 
 their classes what they intend to say, and say it in 
 clear and concise language that can be understood 
 and remembered. 
 
 When advice or admonition needs to be given, a very 
 few words spoken deliberately and with authority, have 
 a more lasting effect than a long and exasperating talk. 
 You have seen a quiet little teacher sit at his desk and 
 keep strict control of his room with no effort, giving 
 directions when needed in a calm and moderate tone 
 or by a glance or a motion of the hand. The best man- 
 aged and most orderly rooms are not those in which 
 the teachers are of the blustering sort, who consume 
 much time in useless shouting and in unheeded demands 
 for better order. 
 
 Our schools have been criticized because there is not 
 found among the pupils more genuine interest in study. 
 Cannot boys be influenced to do their tasks in school 
 from better motives than to get a passing mark or to 
 escape a letter home? With so many excellent text- 
 books and books of reference, with such an abundance 
 
44 THE YOUNG MAN AND TEACHING 
 
 of apparatus and illustrative material, why is it not 
 possible to interest them to such a degree that they 
 will enjoy the intellectual exercises of the classroom 
 as thoroughly as they enjoy the sports of the athletic 
 field? Does not the student's lack of interest often 
 reflect the indifference of the teacher? Enthusiasm on 
 the part of the instructor, enthusiasm for his subject 
 and for teaching the subject to others, is what is neces- 
 sary in order to create enthusiasm among those who 
 are taught. The teacher who is in love with his subject 
 and is fond of the young cannot help enjoying his 
 work and becoming enthusiastic in the pursuit of it. 
 He looks into the future and sees the grand results 
 that may come from his efforts, in the mental and 
 moral growth of his pupils, and in their better prepara- 
 tion for future usefulness. His courage and hope and 
 earnestness are contagious and arouse an interest in 
 many who have never been interested before. The 
 pupils of the indifferent teacher, whose manner is cold 
 and distant, will not study for the love of it amid the 
 most favorable surroundings. 
 
 One instructor gets on well with boys, while another, 
 with many fine qualities and the best intentions, finds 
 himself incompetent. People notice with what appar- 
 ent ease some men control and interest their classes, 
 and they say these men are " born teachers " ; but the 
 qualities which they have inherited would have given 
 them a good measure of success in other callings. 
 They know enough about human nature to understand 
 how to approach their students in order to gain their 
 
PERSONAL QUALIFICATIONS 45 
 
 good-will and support. They are not lacking in com- 
 mon sense, are not annoyed by trifles, know what to 
 notice and what to overlook, what to do and what to 
 avoid. In a sudden emergency they have enough pres- 
 ence of mind to say the right thing or to keep silent, 
 and enough self-control to avoid rashness. They pos- 
 sess a kind of tact, partly native and partly acquired 
 by experience, by which they are able to deal with pupils 
 without apparent effort and without friction, and to 
 make them do hard tasks with some degree of eager- 
 ness and pleasure. The best teacher of the young is 
 one who, having many innate qualifications for teach- 
 ing, has consecrated his life to this service. One rea- 
 son for his success is his self-forgetfulness, his whole- 
 hearted devotion to the interests of his students. He 
 puts himself in their place. They are his chief con- 
 cern ; he is never too busy to help them. Both his time 
 and his strength are theirs when they need it. His in- 
 struction is not meager, nor poorly prepared; he gives 
 them the best he has. He may not be a great scholar, 
 but because his chief purpose is to help his pupils to 
 become wise and good men, he is positive and precise 
 in what he teaches them and demands accuracy and 
 promptness on their part. He not only understands 
 boys, but he loves them and believes in them, and in re- 
 turn they will believe in him. His presence among 
 them brings order and attention. For him they will 
 work. To please him and have his approval becomes 
 with them an ambition. In his classroom things seem 
 to go of their own accord, and self-control and interest 
 
46 THE YOUNG MAN AND TEACHING 
 
 in study become with them almost a matter of course. 
 
 Beside the manifest influences which, in a great de- 
 gree, are understood and can be explained, there is a 
 silent influence which goes out unconsciously from the 
 teacher's personality and life : an influence which takes 
 its quality from what the man is: from what he has 
 inherited, from the knowledge which he has acquired 
 by his own efforts, from what he has become in char- 
 acter by years of self-discipline, from his beliefs and 
 from his ideals. This involuntary influence reaches the 
 pupils and may be good or bad. If the teacher has 
 the right kind of personality it puts the pupils in a 
 right attitude towards their work and makes the teach- 
 er's instruction and discipline effective. The silent in- 
 fluence of a devoted teacher of true nobility of char- 
 acter, who has a real interest in his pupils, makes a 
 more lasting impression upon them and molds their 
 lives for future usefulness far more than the influence 
 of one who is selfish or indifferent however scrupulously 
 he fulfills the requirements of his calling. It may be 
 hard to understand it, but the unconscious influences 
 which go out from our lives are just as real as those 
 which are the result of carefully made plans and are 
 more powerful because they go beyond the mind and 
 reach the heart. Influences that reach the mind only 
 are easily forgotten ; those that touch the heart endure. 
 
 The teacher needs all the help that he can get from 
 personal religion. The great masters have been men 
 of faith in God and have been upheld by an unfaltering 
 trust in his living presence. It has been this that 
 
PERSONAL QUALIFICATIONS 47 
 
 has given them their greatest power over the young 
 men who have looked up to them for guidance and in- 
 spiration. Their influence, for the most part, has not 
 come so much from public moral teaching or from 
 religious addresses as from the silent example of con- 
 secrated lives, from their transparent unselfishness, and 
 from their devotion to high ideals. The greatest of all 
 teachers was the Son of Man, who taught men as in- 
 dividuals, who showed them how to live by living among 
 them as a model for them to follow, who made them ap- 
 preciate the purpose of human existence and the dig- 
 nity of service, who taught them what they needed most 
 to know in language which they could understand, and 
 took his illustrations from common, everyday life, who 
 cared more for principles than for rules, who believed 
 in the possibilities of the men whom he taught, who 
 developed them by giving them responsibility, and 
 aimed to make them self-controlled, strong to resist 
 temptation, and bold to face danger; whose quiet in- 
 fluence has reached around the globe and has revolu- 
 tionized human thought. We all can learn how to 
 teach by a study of his life and his methods of reaching 
 men, and the nearer we are to him, the nearer we shall 
 get to those whom it is our privilege to teach and 
 guide. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 EDUCATIONAL, PREPARATION 
 
 Good home training. The habit of observation. Appreciation 
 of the spirit of the age. Broad and thorough general education. 
 Specialization in one subject. Extensive preparation necessary 
 for a college position. Some graduate studies desirable for sec- 
 ondary school teaching. Opportunity for observation lessons in 
 teaching. College men in the public school service. Training 
 schools for teachers. Special training and experience needed for 
 administrative work. Advantages of study in a teachers' college. 
 Advice to one planning to prepare himself in a special field. To 
 continue to be a good teacher, one must continue to grow. 
 
 The best foundation for the education of a teacher 
 is laid in childhood, in the home of a Christian family 
 of culture, where the children are brought up by a 
 sensible father and mother and taught to be neat and 
 regular in their habits, to speak the English language 
 correctly, to respect and obey their parents, and to 
 have a reverence for sacred things. It is not discredi- 
 table, and it is generally no disadvantage, that the 
 family is not wealthy. To be helpful at home pre- 
 pares one for larger usefulness when the home is left 
 for a wider field. A family with a large income is less 
 likely to produce teachers than one in moderate cir- 
 cumstances, where the offspring are reared under im- 
 mediate parental influences and not left to the care of 
 nurses and governesses. Courteous intercourse with 
 
 48 
 
EDUCATIONAL PREPARATION 49 
 
 brothers and sisters in a well-mannered family, and with 
 family friends both young and old, gives one the self- 
 confidence in the presence of others that enables him 
 to appear at ease in any society. The lack of good 
 breeding in early life may at any time betray itself by 
 awkwardness of manner, and rudeness and looseness of 
 speech. Many candidates otherwise unobjectionable 
 have failed to secure the positions which they sought 
 from an obvious want of that social refinement which 
 results from good home training. 
 
 The teacher who has not enjoyed in childhood the 
 refining influences of a cultured family must not forget 
 the great importance of good manners and of correct 
 habits of speech. He may make up in a great degree 
 for his loss by observation and study and constant 
 watchfulness, but the early rusticity may crop out 
 when least desired or expected. Wrong habits, espe- 
 cially those of speech and manners formed in childhood, 
 are not easy to subdue, and when one is in circumstances 
 where he is anxious to appear at his best there will be 
 danger lest, as in the case of the ass parading in the 
 lion's skin, the ears stick out. 
 
 It is especially important that one planning to be a 
 teacher should cultivate his powers of observation. 
 The facts that have been learned by experience will be 
 very real to you, and these are the ones that will have 
 most interest for your class. They will listen eagerly 
 if you tell them something which you yourself have 
 observed or have worked out, when material gained 
 from books would not hold their attention. Careful 
 
50 THE YOUNG MAN AND TEACHING 
 
 observation of the relation between cause and effect in 
 different people, and a study of the same in one's 
 self, will improve one's knowledge of human nature, of 
 which a teacher cannot have too much. The man who 
 best understands human nature is the one who knows 
 best how to get on well with other people so as to do 
 them good, whether they be old or young. 
 
 The teacher should be acquainted with the spirit 
 and movements of the age in which he lives. He may 
 teach the history, the thought, or the language of the 
 distant past, but he must live in the present, and know 
 what men in our own land and time are thinking about 
 and what they are doing; and he must appreciate the 
 needs and understand the habits and the peculiar temp- 
 tations of boys of the present day, if he would reach 
 and influence them. 
 
 Whatever branch of study may finally become a 
 teacher's specialty, his general education ought to be 
 broad and thorough. He will get safely over many 
 hard places if he has the intellectual training which 
 fits him to take up a new and difficult problem so as 
 readily to understand and master it. Good mental 
 training will give him self-confidence and self-control 
 and the capacity for planning his work wisely. Work 
 well planned is half accomplished. Information also, 
 gained in various fields, will add greatly to the value 
 of his instruction in the classroom. A knowledge of 
 philosophy, of many branches of science, and of differ- 
 ent languages, and a familiar acquaintance with the 
 Bible, will be helpful in teaching the language and liter- 
 
EDUCATIONAL PREPARATION 51 
 
 ; ature or history of any people. A teacher of science 
 should be a good mathematician, and a teacher of math- 
 ematics is naturally interested in science. Much read- 
 ing of good books should furnish material for illustra- 
 tions. A story told briefly and to the point will very 
 often help out a recitation that drags on a dull day, 
 and, if it fits in well, is not out of place on any day. 
 When actually enlisted in the service, most teachers 
 will find justification for making use of any proper 
 help that will render their teaching more effective. But 
 it is better for you to gather your own illustrations 
 and anecdotes than to get them at wholesale from col- 
 lections made by others, though these, like any helps 
 or keys, may be in a way useful to those who have 
 neither the time nor the disposition nor the energy to 
 do such work for themselves. 
 
 If you wish to secure a good place in a school of high 
 rank, you must specialize in one subject or in a group 
 of closely related subjects. You may be called upon 
 to teach other branches also; but your reputation as 
 a teacher will depend chiefly on your success in your 
 special line. It is desirable that this subject should 
 be the one which you love best and think most impor- 
 tant; first, for your own pleasure in living in it, and 
 second, because you cannot make your pupils believe 
 that your subject is important unless you thoroughly 
 believe so yourself; and it is perfectly proper for you 
 to show so great an enthusiasm for it that they will 
 come to feel that it is the most valuable study of all. 
 In case you are dependent on your income, it will be 
 
52 THE YOUNG MAN AND TEACHING 
 
 wise to consider whether the subject which you prefer 
 is one in which there is likely to be a demand for teach- 
 ers. The greater the demand, the greater the chance 
 of securing a remunerative position. There is hardly 
 room for the very best teachers in a subject which only 
 a few students care to take. It is perhaps well to 
 keep in mind also that there may be important changes 
 in the subjects accepted for admission to college dur- 
 ing the next few years, as well as in the studies of those 
 students who finish their education in the secondary 
 schools, and that when new subjects are introduced 
 there will be a call for good teachers in them, and 
 perhaps a less demand for teachers in some of the 
 older studies. 
 
 Your preparation in your special subject should be 
 thorough. A boy will lose confidence in a teacher when 
 he discovers that he is telling all that he knows about 
 a subject and has no knowledge in reserve. I remem- 
 ber a college tutor who was unable to allow a student, 
 who had received leave of absence for a day, to recite 
 that day's lesson in advance, giving as a reason, " Why, 
 I have not yet got that lesson out myself ! " The same 
 tutor taught college Latin for a year before he knew 
 that there was such a book as a classical dictionary. 
 I have often thought of a remark made by a member of 
 my first Freshman class, who had taught many years 
 before coming to college : " It will not do for a teacher 
 to let his pupils find out that he has to tip his own 
 measure clean up in order to fill theirs." 
 
 One may foolishly block his own way to advancement 
 
EDUCATIONAL PREPARATION 53 
 
 by settling down permanently in school work before he 
 is adequately prepared in his special subject. Under- 
 graduate college studies by no means cover all that one 
 ought to know if he is ambitious to attain the highest 
 success possible for him. These should be supple- 
 mented by further courses in some graduate school. 
 
 If your ambition is to secure a college position, a 
 long period of study is necessary, and a Doctor's de- 
 gree is now generally considered indispensable. This 
 degree is everywhere accepted as evidence that you 
 have completed a considerable amount of advanced 
 work, and that the faculty of the university which con- 
 ferred the degree has confidence in your scholarship, 
 ability and character. It will not, of course, be taken 
 as evidence that you have special qualifications for 
 teaching or research. Your standing and influence as 
 a college or university professor, should you be ap- 
 pointed to such a position, will depend much on the in- 
 spiration which you receive from the scholars under 
 whom you pursue your graduate studies. It is desir- 
 able, therefore, that you get the most valuable courses 
 of leading professors in your department in more than 
 one university. In planning for a college career, there 
 is little danger of continuing your preparation too long 
 or of making it too thorough. If circumstances allow, 
 you should aim to have the benefit of what you have 
 reason to believe is, for you, the best instruction any- 
 where offered, whether in this country or any other. 
 
 For the secondary schools, principals are generally 
 satisfied with teachers who have done less advanced 
 
54 THE YOUNG MAN AND TEACHING 
 
 work ; but if your purpose is to teach in a school which 
 prepares for college, you ought to carry on graduate 
 studies in your specialty, together with some courses 
 in education, far enough, at least, to secure the Mas- 
 ter's degree. Some principals feel that too much grad- 
 uate study unfits teachers for sympathetic work with 
 boys. It is quite possible that a teacher may know 
 so much about his subject that he will find it difficult at 
 first to adapt his instruction to those who are but be- 
 ginners, but I do not believe there is danger of knowing 
 too much. Any one naturally fitted to be an instructor 
 of youth can make himself understood by any class if 
 he really wishes to do so. If he is working for his 
 pupils, and not for himself, he will be willing to take 
 time enough to arrange his material in logical order, 
 and to use language which they can understand and 
 readily follow. 
 
 A college student expecting to teach has a good op- 
 portunity to study the art of teaching by observing the 
 methods of his different instructors. Every recitation 
 or lecture is not only an exercise in instruction, but 
 also for him an observation lesson in teaching. He 
 can get ideas that will be very valuable to him in his 
 vocation by observing how a skilled instructor conducts 
 his classroom exercises, how he gets the attention of the 
 class and holds it to the end of the hour, how he ar- 
 ranges and presents his material so as to be readily 
 understood and followed, how he secures accuracy in 
 note taking, and how he manages to make his students 
 work. Being himself a pupil, and understanding what 
 
EDUCATIONAL PREPARATION 55 
 
 effect the different methods of his instructors have on 
 him, he can judge how each method will be received 
 by a class, and he will profit by the effort to discover 
 what it is that gives an instructor power over his 
 students, and what it is that impairs his influence with 
 them. 
 
 When a college man decides to devote his life to the 
 public school service, he has in mind, of course, a posi- 
 tion of leadership. A few years ago a young man who ^/' 
 desired to become a teacher could begin in a country 
 town during the winter term, or in a grammar school 
 in a city. Many of the successful educational leaders 
 began in that way ; some of them taught before going 
 to college, and after graduation returned to public 
 school work. Others, with no training outside that 
 gained by experience, earned promotion to high posi- 
 tions. Many college students then paid their expenses 
 in part by teaching country schools, generally in the 
 winter, the winter vacation being made long to give 
 students this opportunity. Now the public schools, 
 both in city and in country, are taught mostly by 
 women, many of whom have been specially trained in 
 normal schools or in city or country training schools, 
 and very few men are employed as regular teachers in 
 the common schools. 
 
 Much that formerly had to be gained by years of 
 experience can now be learned from schools established 
 for the special training of teachers. In them prospec- 
 tive teachers are instructed in principles and methods, 
 as well as in the subjects which they are to teach. One 
 
56 THE YOUNG MAN AND TEACHING 
 
 great advantage of normal school training lies in the 
 opportunity to put in practice what is taught. The 
 pupils are required to give lessons in the school itself, 
 under the supervision of expert teachers, and often 
 have as part of their regular training the opportunity 
 for observation of schoolroom practice, and for prac- 
 tice teaching in certain nearby elementary schools. 
 Hence, when normal school graduates receive appoint- 
 ments, the work is not new or strange to them. They 
 are in a condition to avoid mistakes that wholly inex- 
 perienced teachers are liable to make, and probably 
 know more about the best methods of teaching than the 
 most of them would ever have learned by experience. 
 The matter of discipline would seem to be the only 
 one which need cause them trouble. When giving les- 
 sons in the normal school, they have no responsibility 
 for discipline, and in the elementary school the room 
 is under the control of the regular teacher. When 
 normal schools were established, the design was to train 
 promising candidates of both sexes for service in the 
 public schools, but now the students in the normal 
 schools are mostly young women, many of whom be- 
 come excellent teachers, and some become efficient prin- 
 cipals and superintendents. 
 
 In general, there is now very little chance for a young 
 man who goes to college to take up public school work 
 till he has completed his college studies, and then, if he 
 is without special training and is without experience 
 as a teacher, a board of education would hardly venture 
 to elect him as principal or superintendent. He needs 
 
EDUCATIONAL PREPARATION 57 
 
 therefore to prepare himself for administrative work 
 in the public schools, as he would prepare himself for 
 any other vocation, by special study. While an under- 
 graduate student he should seek the advice of the 
 professors who offer instruction in education, and plan 
 to take such courses as they recommend, which will 
 without doubt include educational psychology, history 
 and principles of education, and school organization. 
 Some of the courses which they advise will probably 
 be graduate courses. If they are not open to him as 
 an undergraduate, he will perhaps wish to remain for 
 an extra year and take them in the graduate school. 
 
 It need hardly be said that a young man on leaving 
 college can have little hope of receiving an appointment 
 as school principal unless he has already had success- 
 ful experience as a teacher. If he is without such ex- 
 perience, he may find in a high school a chance to 
 test himself, and he will have here an opportunity to 
 study in a more practical way the application of prin- 
 ciples of education and school management which he 
 has learned from books and lectures. There is a dis- 
 position on the part of most boards of education to 
 prefer men rather than women as principals of the 
 large grammar schools, and in some cities principals 
 are almost without exception college or university men. 
 Principals in the cities are often selected from high 
 school teachers of ability, especially those who have 
 done graduate work in education at a good university. 
 
 One who is to be a principal of a school in which the 
 instruction is given by teachers trained in normal 
 
58 THE YOUNG MAN AND TEACHING 
 
 schools, himself needs a course of professional training 
 to enable him to exercise intelligent supervision of the 
 instruction in the several grades, and to have a sympa- 
 thetic appreciation of what his teachers are trying to 
 accomplish. The courses taken at the college may 
 with very great advantage be supplemented by further 
 study at a school of education or teachers' college, or 
 the educational department of any good university 
 which makes a specialty of educational administra- 
 tion. To such a school a college graduate can go to 
 prepare himself for an administrative position in the 
 public schools, as he would go to a professional school 
 to prepare himself for law or medicine or the ministry. 
 If he comes from an approved college with a satis- 
 factory record for scholarship and character, he may 
 perhaps get in one year as much preparation as he 
 thinks he needs, but if the members of the Faculty who 
 know him well advise further study, it will probably pay 
 him better in the end to continue long enough to get a 
 Master's or a Doctor's degree. 
 
 I unhesitatingly advise one without experience, who 
 is thinking of devoting his life to teaching, to take a 
 position in a school for a few terms before spending 
 much time in graduate study to prepare himself in some 
 special field, and for these reasons: 
 
 (1) He may discover that he is not fitted by nature 
 to be a teacher. The only sure test of fitness is to be 
 found in actual service in the classroom. A man may 
 come with the best recommendations honestly written 
 by former instructors, in whose judgment he gives 
 
EDUCATIONAL PREPARATION 59 
 
 promise of success, and yet not be able to interest his 
 pupils or control a room. 
 
 (ft) He may find that he does not like teaching and 
 could not be happy if he should spend his life in it. 
 He is fortunate if he discovers this in season. This 
 advice would apply to any other profession, but in 
 teaching it is easier to make the experiment without 
 great loss of time. In every profession there are many 
 who find out when it is too late that they have made 
 a wrong choice. 
 
 (3) After an experience of a year or more in teach- 
 ing, you will know better what you need to get from 
 further study in the graduate school, and especially 
 how to profit by the methods of the professors under 
 whom your studies are to be carried on. Until you 
 have had some experience yourself in teaching, you are 
 not in a condition to get the best results by observing 
 the methods of other teachers. 
 
 (4*) When you have finished your preparation and 
 desire to secure a more permanent appointment, noth- 
 ing will help you so much as a certificate that you have 
 already had successful experience as a teacher. A 
 principal knows the risk that he runs in giving a place 
 in his school to an inexperienced candidate, but when 
 this risk is entirely removed, he is generally quite ready 
 to accept a man on a favorable recommendation for 
 scholarship and character. 
 
 Teaching cannot continue to be a satisfactory oc- 
 cupation to one who has ceased to grow and who no 
 longer has the ambition and energy to keep up his 
 
60 THE YOUNG MAN AND TEACHING 
 
 studies. In general, service under such circumstances 
 would become drudgery to him, and it would be un- 
 profitable for the school. It is not possible to stand 
 still intellectually, and merely going over the daily les- 
 sons with a class will not prevent mental stagnation. 
 The teacher who has reached his limit, who has de- 
 veloped as far as it seems probable that he ever will, 
 cannot long be retained in a good position. One's 
 interest in his subject, his desire to become a superior 
 instructor, and his ambition to stand well in his pro- 
 fession, should stimulate him to as much private study 
 as he can find time for. If he has only a Bachelor's 
 degree, it will be well for him, under the momentum 
 with which he comes to his first years of teaching, to go 
 on with his studies with the hope of receiving a higher 
 degree. But whether he has in mind a degree or not, 
 he will accomplish much more if these studies are carried 
 on under the direction of the faculty of a graduate 
 school, to whom he has to make report of progress. 
 
 The objection may be raised that teaching leaves no 
 time for study and investigation beyond what is neces- 
 sary for the daily routine; but by carefully planning 
 your work, and learning to do it rapidly, and by turn- 
 ing to a good purpose some of the minutes and hours 
 generally spent in idleness or in some kinds of diversion 
 that are more than half idleness, you will find that you 
 have time to accomplish almost anything you wish, 
 if you are in earnest. Besides, there is the long vaca- 
 tion, a part of which may profitably be devoted to 
 study. As Benson puts it : " It is clear that as a rule 
 
EDUCATIONAL PREPARATION 61 
 
 the principal reason which keeps a man from reading, 
 writing, private work of any kind, in a busy life, is not 
 that he is too busy, but that he does not really want to 
 do it." l 
 
 A live teacher's preparation is not finished as long 
 as he remains in active service. He is learning every 
 year something new about his subject, and understands 
 better how to present it so as to impress it upon his 
 pupils ; and when in later years he looks back upon 
 his work, one deep regret is that he could not have 
 begun when in his strength, with the knowledge of 
 things and the knowledge of young men which he now 
 has. 
 
 i Benson, The Schoolmaster, New York, 1908, pp. 108 and 109. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 INSTRUCTION 
 
 The main purpose, intellectual growth. Teaching pupils how 
 to study. The teacher should forget himself and think only of 
 his pupils. Honest and independent work. Enthusiasm and in- 
 terest in gaining knowledge and power. The old required courses 
 and modern elective courses. The need of small divisions in sec- 
 ondary schools. The few students of unusual talent. Tempta- 
 tion to substitute " lectures " for drill exercises. Pupils not to be 
 allowed to shirk disagreeable tasks. The recitation. Drill mas- 
 ters. How to secure and hold the attention. The recitation an 
 important event. Method of conducting a recitation. Dr. Taylor's 
 Method of Classical Study. Laziness and dullness. Special priv- 
 ileges. Prizes and awards. Attempting to conceal ignorance. 
 Acknowledge mistakes. 
 
 When you meet a class in the recitation room at the 
 beginning of the year, this question will naturally pre- 
 sent itself : " What is to be the purpose of my work 
 with these boys in this course? " The task before you 
 seems plain. They will come to you day by day during 
 the school year; you will assign the lessons, hear the 
 recitations, explaining as far as is necessary what is 
 not already clear, and will take care that they do 
 their work thoroughly and honestly. At the end of the 
 year they should have a good knowledge of your sub- 
 ject and be able to pass a creditable examination on 
 it for advancement to a higher grade, or for gradua- 
 
INSTRUCTION 63 
 
 tion, or for admission to some other institution. If 
 they do this, you will feel that your work with them 
 has been satisfactory, and it will be so regarded by the 
 authorities to whom you are responsible. 
 
 But however important and useful the knowledge 
 gained from your course may be, the acquisition of 
 this knowledge is not the only result, nor the cliief 
 result, that ought to come from their year of study 
 with you. The question for you to consider is not 
 merely what your pupils can do at the end of this 
 year, but also what they will be able to do ten or 
 twenty years hence. A private tutor could in a few 
 weeks cram them on a year's work for an examination 
 in which they would pass, without the development of 
 any of their mental powers. What they acquire this 
 year is of far less consequence than the method by 
 which they acquire it. 
 
 We expect the boy to do his classroom exercises as 
 well as he would if each were an end in itself, but these 
 exercises are valuable chiefly because they are the 
 means by which his intellectual growth is to be gained. 
 When he has finished his course of study covering many 
 years, he should have much information that will be 
 useful to him, but he will need something besides infor- 
 mation and something more than the ability to pass an 
 examination on what he has been taught by an instruc- 
 tor. He will then be called upon to make investigations 
 of his own, to take up entirely new problems and new 
 subjects and master them readily. It is of the ut- 
 most importance, therefore, that in his daily tasks he 
 
64 THE YOUNG MAN AND TEACHING 
 
 be so taught and drilled that he may be steadily gain- 
 ing the power upon which his success in life will to a 
 great extent depend. The man who is satisfied to 
 remain always a subordinate is well enough educated 
 for his position when he has acquired the knowledge and 
 skill necessary for his work; but the men who, under 
 teachers, or by their own unaided effort, have gained 
 by constant training such control of all their powers 
 that they can use them up to their limit when they 
 will, these will be the leaders. 
 
 Most boys need to be taught how to study. Some 
 learn this lesson very late, and many never learn it 
 at all. They dawdle over their lessons and make need- 
 less mistakes. They should be taught how to save time 
 by planning their work in advance, how to begin the 
 solution of a new problem at the right end, and should 
 be required to have a clear knowledge of the meaning 
 of the words they use. They should be made to ap- 
 preciate the necessity of frequent reviews for things 
 that are to be learned by heart, and the importance 
 of laying a good foundation for a piece of work by 
 first mastering the things that are fundamental. They 
 should be drilled to think quickly, and at the same 
 time accurately, to concentrate their attention on one 
 subject, and to develop a memory on which they can 
 depend. They will need these acquisitions when they 
 start in for themselves, and after years spent in study 
 they ought not to have to gain them by additional 
 years of experience in the actual business of life. 
 
 The aim of the teacher should be to show his pupils 
 
INSTRUCTION 65 
 
 how to study the subject rather than the book; how, 
 in their reading of text books, to study the thought 
 and not the words ; how to get the main ideas of a pas- 
 sage and then give them in their own language instead 
 of trying to commit the words. This seemed to me 
 to be one of the best results of the college training of 
 fifty years ago. The most satisfactory discovery of 
 my Senior year was to find that thirty pages of difficult 
 reading were more easily mastered then than six at the 
 beginning of Freshman year. 
 
 In the classroom the teacher should forget himself 
 and think only of his students. He will accomplish 
 little with them if his chief aim is to make a display 
 of his own knowledge. He is in the school to help in 
 their development, and must work in the way that is 
 best for them, and not in the way that is most agree- 
 able to him. Lengthy explanations by the teacher are 
 easier for him than classroom drill, but drill is better 
 for the students. The method of instruction should 
 be such as to make the pupil think for himself. That 
 he may learn to think rapidly and accurately, he needs 
 those exercises that require him to fix his attention 
 closely on one question and find the correct answer 
 in the shortest possible time. Competition is a great 
 help in such exercises. On the ability to keep one's 
 mind fixed on a given subject, all good work depends. 
 The pupil should be taught to give a reason for his 
 statements. " Why do you think so ? " " How do 
 you prove it? " are helpful questions. I remember 
 well how much more valuable the exercises became when 
 
66 THE YOUNG MAN AND TEACHING 
 
 we were far enough advanced to have a teacher in 
 ancient languages who often asked why we preferred 
 one construction or one meaning of a word to some 
 other. Do not expect your students to agree with 
 you in all your views and explanations, but rather 
 hope that they will not. If your teaching is having 
 the right effect upon them, they ought to begin to 
 think for themselves and to pass judgment on what you 
 tell them and on what they read in books and papers. 
 The teacher must insist that lessons set to be com- 
 mitted to memory be so thoroughly learned that they 
 can be given without error and without hesitation. 
 Looseness in these exercises will leave the boy with 
 dull and uncertain memory, and he will soon be in doubt 
 himself whether what he thinks he remembers is so or 
 not. Dr. Soule of Exeter used to tell his students : 
 " You must not only know a thing, but you must know 
 that you know it." 
 
 The present method of deciding on a candidate's fit- 
 ness for admission to college presents to the student an 
 effective motive for honest and independent work. 
 Some of us can remember when the chief part of the 
 examination for admission was based on set portions 
 of certain books in mathematics and ancient languages. 
 It was possible then for a candidate who had used 
 helps in his preparatory school to hand in a paper 
 which would be accepted, when he was not prepared to 
 enter college. If he had a good memory, he could 
 give a fairly correct rendering of a passage in a Latin 
 or Greek author, the construction of which he did not 
 
INSTRUCTION 67 
 
 understand. He could learn by heart the demonstra- 
 tions in geometry. Now in mathematics he is tested 
 in original problems, and in the languages a consid- 
 erable part of his examination is at sight. Under 
 these conditions he cannot make a creditable showing 
 unless he has done his own thinking and has learned 
 to depend on himself. 
 
 The demand of the present day is that studies be 
 made interesting. If the teacher is allowed to limit 
 himself to his chosen field, is thoroughly equipped in 
 it, loves it, and loves his work, and knows how to teach, 
 and if his pupils have studies suited to their capacity, 
 they will catch his spirit, and under him even a dry 
 subject will be made interesting. A subject may be 
 so presented that it will be attractive and popular with- 
 out having much value in education and without 
 awakening any real interest in the class which takes it. 
 There can be no genuine interest in the pursuit of a 
 subject which is made so easy that it can be followed 
 without effort, and which presents no difficulties to be 
 overcome. The kind of interest which the teacher 
 should aim to arouse among his pupils is that which 
 makes them eager to master the subject, which grows 
 as their knowledge of it increases, and which is sus- 
 tained up to the end of the course. 
 
 In the early schools and colleges of America it was not 
 thought necessary to adapt the instruction to the needs 
 and capacities of individual students. All the members 
 of a class were taught the same subjects and in the 
 same way. In their preparation for college all read 
 
68 THE YOUNG MAN AND TEACHING 
 
 the same authors in Greek and Latin and the same 
 amount in each; all had the same training in mathe- 
 matics and in any other branch taught in the regular 
 course. After the boy entered college his work was 
 the same as that of every other member of his class. 
 If a new subject was introduced, every one had to take 
 it. Allowance was not made for a difference in capac- 
 ity or taste, and persons who, on account of peculiar 
 mental characteristics, could get no real advantage 
 from certain studies were forced to pursue them. The 
 progress of the class was determined by what the aver- 
 age student could do. The bright and capable and 
 interested were held back by the dull and poorly fitted 
 and indifferent, and the only way open to him who 
 could not or would not keep up was to fall back and 
 go a second time over the same studies in the same 
 way. 
 
 The modern arrangement of college studies in differ- 
 ent groups, to be chosen according to taste or capacity 
 or plans for future work, with the wide range of sub- 
 jects now accepted from candidates for admission, 
 gives the student the opportunity to get more out of 
 his education, and to the teacher, especially the teacher 
 of languages, the chance to introduce greater variety 
 in reading, if he finds it monotonous to go over the same 
 ground year after year. While the boy should be made 
 to do well the portions of his work that are hard and 
 disagreeable, it is not wise to force him to take for the 
 main part of his education courses of study for which 
 he has no natural capacity and in which he can take no 
 
INSTRUCTION 69 
 
 interest. Mental discipline is acquired by the effort 
 to gain knowledge ; but is there any reason why, under 
 efficient teachers, mental discipline cannot be acquired 
 by the effort to gain knowledge that is useful? The 
 opportunity is now offered to the one who is wisely 
 guided in selecting his college and his special depart- 
 ment of study, to get the subjects which he is qualified 
 to pursue with profit, and the young man of the present 
 day, when he leaves college or the professional school, 
 ought to be far better fitted for the duties before him 
 than his grandfather or father was at the same age. 
 For the greatest efficiency, the courses of study in 
 the secondary schools should be so planned as to meet 
 the condition and need of each individual student. To 
 this end adequate provision should be made for in- 
 struction in small divisions and for special instruction 
 under carefully selected teachers of the few more tal- 
 ented and earnest boys. There are subjects that can- 
 not be satisfactorily taught to large divisions. This 
 is true of most studies taken up in a preparatory 
 school, where so much time is necessarily devoted to 
 drill exercises and where a student's progress depends 
 to so great an extent on the opportunity given him to 
 recite. As Professor Hans Oertel says : " A boy can 
 no more learn a new language by hearing some one else 
 recite, than he can learn to play the piano by hearing 
 some one else play." In a small division the pupils 
 have a great advantage in the personal influence of the 
 teacher, not only over their habits of study, but also 
 over their conduct and character. When a teacher has 
 
70 THE YOUNG MAN AND TEACHING 
 
 only a few pupils at a time, unwelcome questions of 
 discipline mostly disappear, and the pleasant relations 
 between teacher and pupils have a permanent and up- 
 lifting influence. There are college instructors, mas- 
 ters of their subjects and of the art of teaching, who 
 can hold the attention of every student in a large 
 class ; but it is too much to expect a teacher in a pre- 
 paratory school, where he is responsible for the 
 progress of each individual student, to do his best 
 work in a division of thirty to forty boys. When there 
 is ample provision for small divisions, the very best 
 students can be put together and need not be held 
 back by the slow progress of the dull and indifferent, 
 who can get instruction better adapted to their wants 
 when placed in a division by themselves. 
 
 It gives a teacher great inspiration to discover now 
 and then that he has in his class a student of un- 
 usual talent. He will naturally be anxious to give him 
 every reasonable opportunity to develop his powers, 
 and will feel that such a pupil ought not to be held 
 back in his progress by a class which, when spurred on 
 to its utmost, cannot do half as much as his talented 
 pupil can do easily. If such a boy is taken out of 
 school and put under a private tutor, he will make 
 greater progress in his studies, but will lose the valu- 
 able experience of associating with other students and 
 of forming acquaintances with agreeable companions, 
 some of which may ripen into delightful friendships. 
 Because he is a boy of unusual mental ability and fond 
 of study, he may become eccentric and unsocial, and 
 
INSTRUCTION 71 
 
 especially needs the opportunity for companionship 
 and friendship which a large class offers. 
 
 But a boy of unusual promise ought to be given 
 unusual opportunities. He probably will wish to do 
 more than the class does. In that case, what he needs 
 from his teacher is not so much additional instruction 
 as wise guidance, advice as to studies and books, and 
 occasional talks about the extra work which he is at- 
 tempting to carry on outside. It is not improbable 
 that his special talent may be in a subject not taught 
 in the school and in which his teacher cannot guide 
 him. If it proves so, it may be wise to encourage him 
 to give to it, under the direction of some competent 
 authority, whatever time he can spare from his regular 
 studies ; and it is not likely that these will suffer in 
 consequence. If a bright and capable boy has a special 
 talent for any particular line of work, there is strong 
 probability that he will find therein the field of activity 
 for which nature has destined him. I have in mind a 
 student who came to college with a great fondness for 
 botany. He had become interested in this subject be- 
 fore he entered the preparatory school, and had been 
 encouraged by the principal to continue the study, 
 mostly outside the regular curriculum, during his pre- 
 paratory course. In college he had almost no oppor- 
 tunity to pursue botany as a regular study, as it was 
 given only as an elective in one term. But during his 
 four academic years, under the general direction of 
 the professor of botany in the Sheffield Scientific School, 
 he spent as many hours in the private study of his 
 
72 THE YOUNG MAN AND TEACHING 
 
 favorite subject as he gave to all his regular courses 
 taken together. That he did not neglect his college 
 studies is shown by his rank in them, which placed him 
 among the best ten in a class of about one hundred and 
 fifty. He is now head of the Department of Botany in 
 the University of California. 
 
 The master who is eager to interest his pupils or to 
 hasten their progress is in danger of yielding to the 
 temptation to do their work for them, and to be satisfied 
 with requiring them to reproduce at a following recita- 
 tion what he has given them. It makes the exercise 
 pleasant, and if he insists on their learning thoroughly 
 what he dictates, he can prepare them to pass a good 
 examination. But this method of teaching does not 
 educate. It amounts to little more than an exercise 
 of memory. The boy does not develop mental strength 
 and independence because he does no thinking for him- 
 self. The really valuable part of his education will 
 come from what he himself does and not from what he 
 sees his teacher do or other members of his class. One 
 gets help so easily from teachers who make a practice 
 of giving all their instruction by " lectures " that he 
 soon shrinks from hard intellectual work. " It does 
 not help a student to do his problems for him, any more 
 than it does an athlete to do his exercise for him." 
 It is worth many times as much to a boy to discover a 
 truth by his own investigation as it is to receive it 
 from his teacher without study. Even if the only ob- 
 ject of education were to acquire knowledge, this would 
 be a sure way, for what one learns by hard study is long 
 
INSTRUCTION 73 
 
 remembered, while the information which he has ac- 
 quired from others without effort on his part easily 
 passes out of mind. College students are good judges 
 of the value of what they get from their instructors, 
 and while they have a reputation (greater than the 
 facts warrant) for selecting easy courses, they know 
 what is good for them and what not, and when talking 
 seriously about their studies, for the most part agree 
 that the student is more helped by instructors who are 
 very exacting in the daily requirements of the class- 
 room, and that the most valuable courses are not those 
 which are attractive simply because they are easy and 
 pleasant and require little sustained effort, but those in 
 which the students are conscious of thorough mastery 
 of the subject. 
 
 In general, those schools will draw the best class of 
 boys, and will have the longest waiting lists, which are 
 most strict in their requirements for admission and 
 for graduation, provided that they pay due attention 
 to the physical and moral sides of education and are 
 not characterized by narrow and petty rules. 
 
 There are but few people, young or old, who find all 
 their allotted work equally agreeable. The boy, then, 
 is not unlike his father if he finds among the tasks set 
 for him some which he would be glad to avoid. All 
 will agree that he should be taught to do every part of 
 his work well and not to neglect what seems to him 
 unimportant. In his training for self-control he should 
 try to concentrate his thought on those parts that have 
 at first no interest for him. If he has the courage and 
 
74 THE YOUNG MAN AND TEACHING 
 
 persistence to stick to a disagreeable task, he will 
 become interested in it and will have especial pride and 
 satisfaction in its accomplishment. For one in train- 
 ing for hard service, the disagreeable tasks are per- 
 haps the most important of all. It is not possible to 
 tell in advance what will prove important, and what 
 not, and the only way to be ready to meet any test, 
 either in school or in life, is to be thoroughly prepared 
 on all points. The habit of doing all parts of his 
 work equally well will be of inestimable value to any 
 man. If in his business or profession he does only 
 what he most enjoys, and neglects that part which is 
 disagreeable, he cannot expect to avoid disappoint- 
 ment. One is sometimes surprised to discover how 
 much success in a task which he has undertaken has 
 depended on careful attention to the small and un- 
 pleasant details. 
 
 Every teacher will have his own method of conduct- 
 ing a classroom exercise. One will be little more than 
 an educational machine if he is satisfied to be only 
 an imitator of others, though a beginner may have to 
 be guided by what he has seen other teachers do till 
 he has perfected a method of his own. Francis Gard- 
 ner said to a newly appointed assistant in the Boston 
 Latin School : " I shall demand of you results, but you 
 may take your own methods of producing them. I 
 shall not complain of your methods if the right results 
 come. I shall always be glad to give you advice, but — 
 one thing more. If you adopt your own course and 
 methods, you may fail; if you try to copy mine, you 
 
INSTRUCTION 75 
 
 certainly will. In teaching, no one can copy another; 
 he must be himself." * Most good teachers in the sec- 
 ondary schools make the greater part of the exercise a 
 sort of daily examination, to find out what progress 
 the pupil has made in the tasks assigned him, requiring 
 him to tell as concisely as possible what he knows about 
 the subject, and then leading him on by judicious 
 questions. It is a great gift to be able to put definite 
 questions in such a way that the boy himself discovers 
 what you wish him to know, and to be able to lead a 
 class on by a line of questions and answers till the 
 subject under treatment has been clearly presented and 
 understood. 
 
 Some of the best teachers in the secondary schools 
 have been very expert drill masters. I have always 
 been thankful for the kind of drill received in my 
 first term at Andover. We were required to learn the 
 paradigms in Weld's Latin Lessons and to be ready 
 to give them at each exercise in their exact order, 
 without question or suggestion on the part of the 
 teacher, and without hesitation, from the beginning of 
 the book up to the end of the lesson for that day. If, 
 when called up, a boy did not know where to begin, or 
 if when reciting he forgot the order, he went down im- 
 mediately as another was called up in his place. This 
 was a study of the book perhaps more than a study of 
 the subject, but it required thorough mastery of the 
 subject, and the closest attention on the part of every 
 
 i Dimmick, Memorial of Francis Gardner, LL.D., pp. 39 and 4-0. 
 (Printed for the Boston School Association, 1876.) 
 
76 THE YOUNG MAN AND TEACHING 
 
 one in the division. I have never taught a class of 
 beginners in that way, and no teacher would do so 
 now, but in my preparation for college I never spent a 
 more profitable term. The exercise aroused interest 
 because of its difficulty and because the young students 
 were eager to do well. The drill increased my power 
 of concentration, taught me to be systematic, strength- 
 ened my memory, gave me confidence in my ability to 
 learn anything required of me, and fixed the forms 
 in my mind so that I never afterwards needed to refer 
 to the grammar for them. There are things that are 
 fundamental, which must be learned by heart, and the 
 most economical way is to get them at the outset so 
 thoroughly that they will never need to be learned 
 again. 
 
 To put the student into the right attitude toward 
 his recitation, the exercise should begin exactly at the 
 appointed time, should move on quietly but rapidly, 
 and should close promptly at the end of the recitation 
 period. If the teacher is anxious to shorten the exer- 
 cise, the boys will hurriedly slight their work. If he 
 holds them beyond the hour, they will be wearied by 
 the delay. If possible, every boy should be given a 
 chance to recite at every exercise. If a student is 
 called up every other day, he will be strongly tempted 
 to make careful preparation only on every other lesson, 
 and may soon lose his interest. Whatever may be the 
 case with students much further along in their educa- 
 tion, the boy at the age when he enters the preparatory 
 school, if he has something to do, likes to have a chance 
 
INSTRUCTION 77 
 
 to show that he has done it, and done it well. He also 
 takes readily to hard work; to a certain degree, the 
 harder the task, the more interesting it is to him. He 
 will spend a long time on a difficult puzzle, but has little 
 real pleasure in a thing so easy that any one can do 
 it. It is when he gets older and has been unfavorably 
 impressed by bad companions, and knows too much 
 about the ways of the world, that he is inclined to grow 
 lazy and shiftless. 
 
 That man ought not to be a teacher who looks upon 
 a recitation as a trifling affair which he can get 
 through some way, whether he has made any prepara- 
 tion for it or not. A recitation is an important event. 
 Before it begins, the instructor should have a definite 
 plan of what he expects to do during the hour and of 
 the way in which it is to be done. The best teachers 
 make careful preparation for each lesson, and come 
 to the classroom with a clear idea of the explanations 
 to be given and the questions to be asked. 
 
 To avoid too much formality in the classroom and 
 relieve the student from unnecessary embarrassment, 
 many teachers now prefer to allow their pupils to recite 
 without rising. But every boy ought to be able to ex- 
 press himself on his feet in the presence of others, with 
 nothing to lean upon, and nothing before him to con- 
 ceal an awkward position. Cyrus Northrop, when a 
 professor at Yale, treated a recitation as an exercise 
 in public speaking. Many of his former students will 
 recall such expressions as : " Take your hands out of 
 your pockets. Is that the proper position in which to 
 
78 THE YOUNG MAN AND TEACHING 
 
 stand when addressing an audience? " Dr. Arnold 
 showed his appreciation of a good recitation by saying 
 to the boy who had done well, " Thank you." He had 
 no compliments for the boy who failed, but told him 
 in stern tones, " Sit down." Dr. Taylor was sharp 
 and abrupt ; his questions followed one another in quick 
 succession. He never waited for a careless student to 
 find the place, and gave the unprepared student no 
 time to guess at an answer. If the student made a 
 good recitation, the Doctor indicated his satisfaction 
 by a pleased look and a simple nod of the head, but 
 he abruptly stopped the boy who was making a poor 
 recitation, with a deep and severe-toned " Sufficient." 
 Professor Loomis wasted no words and allowed his stu- 
 dents to waste none ; with him it was a quick " No " 
 to the man who was wrong, or " That will do " or 
 " Very well " if he was right. If he wished to be help- 
 ful to one who was doing fairly well, but not well 
 enough to satisfy him, it was " More exact " or " Why 
 so?" 
 
 Dr. Taylor was a teacher of Greek and Latin and 
 limited his instruction to the senior class. In his book, 
 Method of Classical Study, he gives his view of 
 the work that ought to be done in the early years in 
 the study of Greek and Latin : 
 
 M No point that pertains to the fullest acquaintance with 
 a word, or sentence, or the subject in general, should be 
 neglected, so far as the advancement of the student has 
 qualified him to investigate and understand it. The laws 
 by which words have this or that form, why they drop a 
 
INSTRUCTION 79 
 
 letter here and assume one there, or change one elsewhere; 
 what part is radical and what accessory ; is the word regular 
 or irregular in its formation ; has it its primary or secondary 
 sense, and the connection between the one and the other; 
 is it simple or compound, primitive or derivative; its rela- 
 tion to other words, — what it modifies and what modifies 
 it ; and the sentence, — is it independent or dependent, sub- 
 stantive, adjective, or adverbial; is its position, natural or 
 inverted; the difference between the several declensions 
 and conjugations; why this mode and tense rather than 
 another; all the laws of construction; the circumstances 
 under which the treatise was written; the comparison of 
 Latin with Greek idioms, and these with the English; the 
 synonyms, history, biography, geography, mythology; the 
 logic, rhetoric, poetry, oratory, — all these, with many other 
 subjects, are to be made, at the proper stage, matters of 
 careful study." * 
 
 He illustrated his method by a series of questions on 
 the first few lines of each of the Greek and Latin au- 
 thors usually read in the preparatory school. The 
 questions were designed to include almost every point 
 that could be suggested by anything in these lines. 
 In introducing a class to the Mneid of Vergil, after 
 about fifty questions on the author and his subject, 
 he gives between thirty and forty on the first line of 
 the first Book, and on the first thirty-three lines of 
 the poem the questions extend over about thirty pages. 
 Dr. Taylor says : " Such a method is slow at first ; but 
 it gives habits of close observation and analysis, power 
 to reason, and a definite knowledge of fundamental 
 
 i Taylor, Method of Classical Study, Boston, 1861, pp. iv and v. 
 
BO THE YOUNG MAN AND TEACHING 
 
 principles, which in the end will make the progress 
 more rapid, and give a better preparation for other 
 courses of study." This proved to be true of his 
 students. For many years they had the reputation 
 of entering different colleges with a remarkable prepa- 
 ration in Greek and Latin. In his time a large part of 
 the work done in college was in these two languages. 
 Probably no teacher did more than Dr. Taylor to 
 improve the method of teaching the classics in Ameri- 
 can secondary schools, but it would not be wise for a 
 modern teacher to try to imitate him. No teacher in 
 a preparatory school would now feel justified in spend- 
 ing so much time on the first few lines of a new author, 
 or in asking so many questions not really necessary to a 
 good understanding of the meaning of the passage 
 under consideration. If Dr. Taylor had lived a few 
 years longer, it is quite possible that he would have 
 been influenced by the spirit of the age to modify his 
 method of teaching. But he taught his students how 
 to do one kind of work thoroughly, convinced that 
 they would do any subsequent work thoroughly as a 
 result of this training, and the majority of them felt 
 profoundly grateful to him in later years for the ex- 
 treme thoroughness of his instruction. 
 
 The treatment which a boy should receive in recita- 
 tion depends largely on his attitude toward study. 
 The backward lad who studies faithfully should receive 
 encouragement, though the result of his work be small. 
 All teachers are familiar with the type of boy whose 
 aim is to do the least which will be accepted, and who 
 
INSTRUCTION 81 
 
 thinks it a waste of time to get a standing of 51 when 
 50 is enough to pass him. We need to distinguish 
 clearly between laziness and dullness. No expression 
 of disapproval can be too strong for the boy who is 
 lazy and will not study, and no condemnation is justi- 
 fiable in the case of the dull boy who accomplishes little 
 but does as well as he can. Judicious praise for earn- 
 est effort, given privately to a backward boy, is a better 
 remedy for dullness than the harsh public criticism and 
 sarcasm which it often receives. Many teachers have 
 the feeling that their chief business is to find mistakes 
 in a student's exercise, and that it will make him con- 
 ceited to commend him for doing well. They therefore 
 receive his well-written papers with an air of coldness 
 and reserve and with no sign of appreciation. Words 
 of commendation for an exercise well done would make 
 him wish to do all his work well. 
 
 The granting of special privileges as a reward for 
 good scholarship or conduct is generally much appreci- 
 ated by the pupils. But when such privilege is a re- 
 lease from intellectual requirements, sometimes those 
 to whom it is allowed are relieved from exercises which 
 it would have been good for them to take. When 
 students who reach a certain rank in their daily ex- 
 ercises are excused from the regular term examinations, 
 they are satisfied to get the required standing in each 
 exercise, and as a rule never look at the lesson again. 
 They lose the advantage of the review, and also valu- 
 able practice in expressing their thoughts in writing 
 in circumstances where they have to think quickly and 
 
«2 THE YOUNG MAN AND TEACHING 
 
 write rapidly and accurately. Later, when they are in 
 college or in the professional school, where such tests 
 are required, or when in their profession they have to 
 prepare a paper, or a report, or an address that must 
 be completed within a brief time, they may find them- 
 selves at a disadvantage in consequence of the lack of 
 practice in an exercise from which they were regularly 
 excused by their early teachers as a reward for good 
 scholarship. 
 
 It is natural for boys to wish to measure themselves 
 with one another in any exercise, physical or mental, 
 and the teacher who knows how to encourage a spirit 
 of competition without unfriendly rivalry will get more 
 work out of his classes. Competition between divisions 
 in a class reaches all its members, and is much better 
 than that between individuals, because the lowest in 
 scholarship as well as the highest are spurred on to do 
 their best, in order to gain a creditable average stand- 
 ing for the division. There is objection to competition 
 for large prizes where the success of one boy means the 
 failure and disappointment of others. To be sure, the 
 prizes of later life are of that kind. Only a few win 
 them, while the large majority fail, and there is a great 
 deal to be said about the advantages to be derived from 
 the lesson of disappointment. Defeat, if it does not 
 bring discouragement, is a strong stimulus to hard 
 work, is a valuable experience for the development of 
 character, and is a necessary preparation for what a 
 man must be willing to accept in life. It is a real 
 misfortune when a young man is to such a degree sue- 
 
INSTRUCTION 83 
 
 cessful that he becomes entirely satisfied with what he 
 has done. That is one reason why so many who have 
 done excellent work in college do not have a correspond- 
 ing success in after-life. But when two or more class- 
 mates strive for the same prize, which only one of them 
 can win, there is a personal element about it which 
 it is better to avoid. It is not easy to keep down the 
 hope that one's rival may do poorly. What begins as 
 friendly rivalry may easily grow into jealousy and 
 hatred, destroying the pleasant relations between class- 
 mates and lasting long after school-days are over. 
 
 Many of the ordinary prize contests are open to 
 criticism also on account of the uncertainty of reaching 
 a fair decision. In an athletic contest it is easy to 
 decide when one contestant or one team is superior. 
 There are fixed rules for the game and the spectators 
 can tell as well as the judge which side has won. But 
 when it comes to a prize in English composition, the 
 excellencies and deficiencies of the work of the different 
 competitors are so very unlike that it is difficult to make 
 a satisfactory comparison, and in some cases the judges 
 themselves do not feel sure that they are rendering a 
 perfectly just decision. In a contest in public speak- 
 ing, the decision often does not commend itself to the 
 judgment of the majority of the audience. With an- 
 other set of judges, whose views regarding the subject 
 under discussion were different, the decision would prob- 
 ably not have been the same. In some oratorical con- 
 tests the judges have been so evenly divided that a de- 
 cision between the two best competitors has been made 
 
84 THE YOUNG MAN AND TEACHING 
 
 by lot. When one has done his best to prepare for a 
 competition on the decision of which much may depend, 
 it seems hard that he should be defeated by a game of 
 chance. 
 
 The best kind of award is one where the number of 
 prizes is not limited, where all can share who have come 
 up to a certain standard, and where the main purpose 
 is not to defeat somebody, but to do well. Then every 
 one whose work deserves it can win, and there is no 
 injustice. The man who loses knows that his work 
 was inferior. It is no great consolation to a defeated 
 man to tell him that his effort would have won the prize 
 in any of the preceding five years ; somehow, that makes 
 the injustice seem so much the greater. 
 
 Neither pupils nor teacher can safely practice the 
 art of bluffing. If the pupil pretends to understand a 
 subject when he does not, he loses the opportunity of 
 getting from his teacher the instruction in it which he 
 needs. It is in every way better for both parties to be 
 always frank, never trying to conceal ignorance. One 
 of my college friends who took a school for a term or 
 two after graduation was called upon to teach some 
 subjects which he had never studied, and some with 
 which he had long been unfamiliar. When, as occa- 
 sionally happened, his pupils came to him with a ques- 
 tion which he could not answer, his uniform reply was : 
 " It will be far better for you to get that out yourselves 
 than to have me tell you. Keep on working at it, and 
 if none of you can get the answer, ask me to-morrow 
 and I will help you." Then, after an evening spent in 
 
INSTRUCTION 85 
 
 desperate search for help, or, failing in that, in hard 
 study, he was primed for the question the next day. 
 There could be no sounder doctrine than this, as far 
 as it applied to the efforts of the pupils, but it was 
 bad policy for the teacher because he was practicing 
 deception on them, which they were sure, sooner or 
 later, to find out and so lose confidence in his ability 
 and honesty. I remember with great respect and ad- 
 miration a young college instructor who, on several oc- 
 casions, when hard questions were presented to him, 
 told us frankly that he did not know, but would make 
 further study of the subject; and every student in the 
 class thought more highly of him for his frankness and 
 sincerity. 
 
 A careful teacher may secretly hope that if he ever 
 carelessly makes a mistake in the presence of his class, 
 it will escape notice. But the probability is that, when- 
 ever such ill-luck befalls him, some bright lad will de- 
 tect his errors and bring them to his attention before he 
 himself suspects them. It is sometimes hard for the 
 man, who is supposed to know everything about his sub- 
 ject, to admit that he has been wrong, and he may 
 defend himself by trying to show that, looked at in a 
 certain way, his statement was correct. Most students 
 can recall teachers who usually took this stand. One 
 need not hesitate to own up to his mistakes and cor- 
 rect them. Your aim is accuracy in scholarship, but 
 if on any point there is question whether you were ac- 
 curate, it weakens your influence to try to prove that 
 you were, while by publicly acknowledging a mistake 
 
86 THE YOUNG MAN AND TEACHING 
 
 and calling special attention to it you show that your 
 purpose is to have the class learn only what is true. 
 The wisest teachers do not pretend to be infallible. 
 Error and forgetfulness are human. Rev. John Barn- 
 ard, in his autobiography, gives a charming illustration 
 of the manner of Ezekiel Cheever, showing both the 
 severity and the gentleness of that great teacher: 
 
 " I remember once in making a piece of Latin my master 
 found fault with the syntax of one word, which was not so 
 used by me heedlessly, but designedly, and therefore I told 
 him there was a plain grammar rule for it. He angrily 
 replied, * There is no such rule.' I took the grammar 
 and showed the rule to him. Then he smilingly said: 
 ' Thou art a brave boy. I had forgot it/ And no wonder, 
 for he was then above eighty years old." * 
 
 i Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society, Third 
 Series, Vol. V, p. 180. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 GOVERNMENT 
 
 Every unsatisfactory boy a problem to be solved. Learning 
 how to govern by practice. Five points to keep in mind. The 
 young teacher sixty years ago and the young teacher to-day. 
 Experience of Dr. DeForest. Getting the support of the leading 
 boys. Notice not to be taken of every misdemeanor. Methods 
 of a detective not to be employed, and one student not to be 
 asked to testify to the faculty against another. A teacher's in- 
 fluence on the manners of his pupils. Personal influence of the 
 supervisor of a school dormitory. The teacher a friend and coun- 
 selor. Must keep his dignity, and must not engage with his 
 students in contests in which he is inferior. Must believe in his 
 boys and must know all he can about them. Best kind of treat- 
 ment often that of which the boy has felt the want in his early 
 life. Help in dealing with a new class obtained from previous 
 teachers. A few examples. Advantages of a teacher's reputation 
 for good order. 
 
 The more thoroughly you understand boys, the more 
 interesting they are likely to become to you and the 
 greater your delight in teaching them. You will find 
 the larger part responsive and ready to do cheerfully 
 what you advise and require. For these your principal 
 thought will be to give the kind of instruction which 
 they need. But in almost every class of respectable 
 size, boys will be found that call for something more 
 than instruction in their studies. There will be per- 
 haps those who are coarse and disagreeable, without 
 
 87 
 
88 THE YOUNG MAN AND TEACHING 
 
 being morally bad; some not vicious, who take delight 
 in little tricks too small to notice, but annoying; and 
 some whose conduct is characterized by downright 
 meanness and vulgarity. Every boy of an unsatisfac- 
 tory sort presents a separate problem for his teacher 
 to solve, and it is one from which the teacher must not 
 shrink ; here is something worth striving for. You may 
 confidently hope to see many of the unpromising boys 
 become obedient, manly and brave, even if you cannot 
 arouse in them such high ideals of character and at- 
 tainment as you desire. A wayward and self-willed 
 boy saved from his evil tendencies often makes a strong 
 and earnest man, and there is greater satisfaction in 
 helping a weak boy to conquer himself and set out on the 
 upward path than there is in giving instruction to those 
 who have no need of correction. In the latter case you 
 will have a share in the development of young men 
 already good; in the former you may have the joy of 
 saving a youth who without your help would have been 
 lost to himself and perhaps a curse to the state. The 
 business of the schools is to take boys as they are and 
 so educate them that they will turn out good men. If 
 a boy's propensities are bad, influences must be brought 
 to bear on him which will help to give him a right 
 view of life, its opportunities and responsibilities. In 
 some cases there is need of more love and sympathy 
 and appreciation; in others, of a firmer and stronger 
 hand. 
 
 A teacher cannot expect to know all that is neces- 
 sary about the government of a room till he has had 
 
GOVERNMENT 89 
 
 some practice. This thought will encourage him when 
 he fears that he is making a failure. Much help can 
 be gained from good books and from other teachers, 
 but successful experience is needed to give him con- 
 fidence in himself. Until he has had experience in 
 government, it is advisable to avoid extremes. Laxity 
 will never succeed, and extreme severity will generally 
 prove a dangerous venture. In my judgment, it is 
 better to begin with a reasonable degree of mildness, 
 and then if necessary gradually tighten up. Some ad- 
 vise the opposite. It depends, of course, somewhat on 
 the characteristics of the teacher and on the condition 
 of the school. But a class will not have a good opinion 
 of a teacher who starts in with a great display of 
 rigorous discipline and then backs down. It will be 
 helpful in the beginning to keep constantly in mind five 
 points : 
 
 (1) The chief object of school government is not to 
 succeed in punishing every offender, but to train the 
 pupils to a right view of life, so that they will give up 
 mean and foolish offenses because they are unmanly 
 and wrong, and not from fear of punishment. 
 
 (£) Certain things must be insisted on: prompt 
 obedience, respect for authority, honesty, truthfulness, 
 accuracy, punctuality, good manners, neatness; and 
 there must be no compromise with evil in any form. 
 
 (3) Students will respect and cheerfully obey the 
 teacher whose fairness and justice are never ques- 
 tioned. 
 
 (4*) It is better to keep a boy from doing wrong 
 
90 THE YOUNG MAN AND TEACHING 
 
 than to punish him for having done wrong; better to 
 gain obedience by considerate treatment than by force. 
 
 (5) To govern a schoolroom or building requires 
 great patience and self-control. Many of the difficul- 
 ties of administration would disappear if the teacher 
 or principal always allowed himself time for reflection 
 before giving expression to his feelings in words or ac- 
 tions. The man who can always be depended upon to 
 control himself is not in danger of losing the control of 
 his class or school. 
 
 When I began to teach, no directions were given me 
 regarding the subjects to be taught, and no advice 
 about the organization and management of the school. 
 In teaching I followed tradition, and in discipline I 
 relied on my own judgment. A schoolmaster in those 
 days could manage his classes much as he pleased, as 
 long as the order was satisfactory. 
 
 The young teacher at the present day usually begins 
 in a school which is already well organized. He is 
 told what he is expected to teach. He can go freely 
 for advice to his principal, or to the head of his 
 department. In matters of order and discipline he fol- 
 lows the established regulations of the school, and be- 
 hind him is the whole authority of the institution, with 
 all its ideals and traditions and its power to enforce 
 its rules. With so much support on every side he can 
 hardly realize what it was to begin when the school- 
 master had to stand alone, unadvised and unsupported, 
 doing as well as he knew how, but still doubtful as to 
 the wisdom or justice of some of his acts, and some- 
 
GOVERNMENT 91 
 
 times anxiously expecting to meet on his way home at 
 night the father of some boy whom he had disciplined 
 during the day. With his duties marked out for him, 
 and the school administration to support him, it seems 
 easy now for a teacher to keep control of his room. 
 But many teachers prove incompetent, and the most of 
 these prove so because they fail in government. It is 
 still as important as it ever was that the teacher have 
 the power to keep his students under strict control. 
 Though he is in a strong position when he has the 
 authority of the school at his back, he must not de- 
 pend on that alone, but should have resources of his 
 own. 
 
 Dr. DeForest, the well-known missionary to Japan, 
 when a lad of sixteen, taught a term of school in a 
 Connecticut town. When he reached the place on the 
 evening before his first schoolday, he was not greatly 
 encouraged at the prospect. He learned that the big 
 boys had made a practice of carrying his predecessors 
 out of the schoolhouse and ducking them in the snow, 
 and that they were planning to open the school the 
 next morning by putting him out. He went early to 
 his task, much perplexed, for he knew that any one 
 of the young giants would be more than a match for 
 him. As he sat alone at his desk wondering what would 
 be the outcome, a boy that he thought must be the 
 biggest one of the gang came in, noisily threw down a 
 few books upon a desk, and began to brush away the 
 snow from his coat. DeForest saw his chance. Here 
 was probably the youth who had planned the whole 
 
92 THE YOUNG MAN AND TEACHING 
 
 campaign. He addressed the boy in a polite way, 
 talked with him familiarly on matters of common in- 
 terest as he would with any companion, and showed 
 him by his courteous treatment that he thought him 
 a good fellow and a gentleman. He won the boy's 
 respect and support. The teacher had taken him for 
 a gentleman, and he would be one. When DeForest, 
 in his pleasant manner, said to him, " Jim, do you 
 know, they say the fellows are going to put me out ? " 
 Jim straightened up with much pride and made answer, 
 " Well, if they do, they will have to walk over my dead 
 body." The young teacher settled the whole question 
 of order for the term by getting that boy on his side. 
 In a general way, that is what every teacher would 
 like to do. He needs the support of those who are 
 leaders ; by leaders, I have in mind not merely the good 
 students and the older and more influential boys. He 
 must have their support, and cannot succeed without it. 
 But he needs also to get on his side those who, full of 
 life and fun, are capable of being leaders in mischief. 
 It is not difficult to get the good-will of these if the 
 teacher tactfully shows confidence in them and assumes 
 that they are in favor of order and ready to aid him 
 in maintaining it. If you suspect that a boy of in- 
 fluence is likely to become a leader in any particular 
 disorder, it is not a bad plan to talk matters over with 
 him in a judicious way and give him the responsibility 
 of preventing it. He will be pleased to discover that 
 you have confidence in his good intentions, and also con- 
 fidence in his ability to accomplish what you desire him 
 
GOVERNMENT 93 
 
 to do. You can sometimes save a boy whose propen- 
 sities seem wholly evil by getting him interested in doing 
 something for the welfare of the school. Every head- 
 master, following in the footsteps of Dr. Arnold, ap- 
 preciates the influence of the senior class over the boys 
 in the lower classes, and uses all proper means to secure 
 their cooperation. The seniors set the standard of 
 conduct in the recitation room and on the athletic field. 
 What they say is accepted as sound and right by the 
 school. They can reach and influence the younger 
 boys where the faculty cannot. The senior class pre- 
 serves old customs and starts new ones and gathers 
 them into traditions. The spirit of the institution is 
 what they make it. When the faculty secure the 
 hearty cooperation of the senior class, the little com- 
 munity becomes in a large degree self-governing, and 
 not only are the relations between faculty and students 
 more cordial, but the general order is far better. The 
 responsibility thus given to the highest class greatly 
 increases their attachment to the school. They go 
 away at the end of senior year proud to be numbered 
 among its graduates and determined to do what they 
 can to show their loyalty. 
 
 The author of Tom Brown's School Days says of 
 Dr. Arnold : " He knows better than any one else when 
 to look and when to see nothing." A teacher with 
 good eyes may hope to see about everything that goes 
 on in his room. It is well for the pupils to believe that 
 he can do this, but it is not wise for him to take notice 
 of every act to which it is possible to object. Many 
 
94 THE YOUNG MAN AND TEACHING 
 
 things will occur that you dislike. The most of them 
 will be in themselves too small to notice. Some of them 
 will be done on the sly, from bad motives. When you 
 catch a culprit in the act, you will have a good oppor- 
 tunity to settle up with him in a private interview. 
 Perhaps you can get his assistance in suppressing the 
 disorder, as suggested in the preceding section. But 
 as long as he remains undiscovered, do not let him think 
 he is causing you any uneasiness. There are many 
 ways in which a mischievous boy can create disturbance 
 in school without getting found out. He plays his 
 tricks mostly for the purpose of disturbing the teacher, 
 and his delight is in the successful result; when he 
 discovers that his petty meannesses do not annoy any- 
 body, the chief motive for them is gone and he decides 
 that he does not get pay for his trouble. One way to 
 make a room disorderly is to show your pupils that you 
 are suspicious of their motives and are constantly on 
 the watch for a disturbance. They will probably see 
 to it that you are not disappointed. The teacher who 
 is always looking for disorder will have little time for 
 instruction, and cannot be in a state of mind to arouse 
 interest in his subject. The best way is to assume 
 right intentions on the part of your pupils and treat 
 them accordingly. With very few exceptions, their 
 conduct will be good if they understand that this is 
 what you expect of them. 
 
 In the government of a room or of a school, I would 
 not employ secret methods. The state has to deal with 
 counterfeiters, robbers, incendiaries, murderers, and 
 
GOVERNMENT 95 
 
 criminals of all kinds, and feels justified in resorting to 
 spies and private detectives, and in inducing partners 
 in crime to turn state's evidence and betray their ac- 
 complices, with the hope of escaping punishment them- 
 selves. But boys in the process of education are sel- 
 dom guilty of acts that are criminal, and when they are 
 not, it is unwise to treat them as criminals. I would 
 not, therefore, make any use of the methods of a detec- 
 tive, except perhaps to discover the perpetrators of an 
 offense which is punishable by the laws of the state, like 
 theft. The boy who habitually steals or commits any 
 other crime puts himself into the criminal class and 
 forfeits his right to the treatment accorded to his 
 companions who are honest, and it will do him good to 
 know this. When a student breaks the laws of the city 
 or state, he should be dealt with in exactly the same 
 way as any citizen would be who is guilty of a like 
 offense. 
 
 Under no circumstances would I encourage one 
 student to testify secretly against another. He would 
 feel mean if he did it, and I should feel meaner if I 
 allowed him to do it. Respect and honor are given the 
 youth who has the courage to stand up in a manly way 
 and say, " Do not blame any one else ; I did it," but 
 only pity and contempt to him who points out the 
 guilty boy behind his back and says, " He did it." 
 But when the members of a class or a school assume 
 the responsibility of self-government, as, for example, 
 in what is known as the Honor System, each one is 
 under obligation, when called upon, to give openly, not 
 
96 THE YOUNG MAN AND TEACHING 
 
 to the faculty who have no further responsibility in the 
 matter, but to the officers elected by the school or class 
 for that purpose, any evidence which he may have 
 against a fellow student who has broken the laws which 
 the students themselves have made, or have agreed to ob- 
 serve. Otherwise there could be no student self-gov- 
 ernment. By his own courteous demeanor the teacher 
 will exert a refining influence on the manners of his 
 pupils. Many a young man owes his good fortune in 
 securing a desirable place in business to the teacher 
 who taught him to be polite. In the daily school rou- 
 tine there is enough to provoke a teacher to say things 
 that are harsh and unkind, that hurt the feelings of 
 those to whom they are addressed, and bring regret 
 to the one who has said them. A sarcastic speech, un- 
 der the sudden impulse of some affront real or imagined, 
 will undo what many days of patient effort have ac- 
 complished. Pupils wounded by sarcasm and ridicule 
 lose respect for the teacher who has insulted them, 
 and are often instigated to acts of resentment and hos- 
 tility. True politeness is not external polish, but is 
 the outward expression of a kind heart. Its proper 
 aim is to contribute to the happiness of others, not to 
 make a display of one's own accomplishments. Bad 
 manners, like coarse jests, throw open the door to a 
 man's inner life and let people see just what kind of a 
 man he really is. Politeness is not inconsistent with 
 severity in discipline. On the contrary, it is what is 
 needed to make strict discipline effective. The value 
 of a warning or reproof is more than doubled when it 
 
GOVERNMENT 97 
 
 is administered by a parent or teacher who has a kind 
 consideration for the feelings of the one who has done 
 wrong. 
 
 I have already spoken of the unusual opportunity for 
 personal influence open to the master who has the su- 
 pervision of a school dormitory. If his only purpose is 
 to have the reputation of an orderly building without 
 much effort on his part, he can secure this end most 
 easily by becoming personally acquainted with all his 
 boys and showing an interest in them. But there are 
 masters to whom this will not be the chief purpose, who 
 will be willing to live among the boys more like older 
 brothers, associating with them as companions a little 
 further along in years, and letting their own lives exert 
 a silent influence for good among them. The best re- 
 sults will be obtained by quiet and unobtrusive efforts, 
 without giving too much unsought advice. Constant 
 nagging is always offensive, and defeats its own end. 
 If the master is a man of authority, much responsibility 
 may be left to the occupants of the building; but here 
 as elsewhere it is to be remembered that the boys are 
 under his care, and that he is master. 
 
 How often a master should make it his practice to 
 call on the boys in their rooms, or have them call on 
 him, he must decide, unless the question is already de- 
 cided for him by the rules of the school. He cannot 
 afford to lose his hold on any boy by seeming to neglect 
 him. On the other hand, if his calls are too frequent 
 or too long, a boy's chief thought may be, " When 
 will he go ? " Much, we might say all, depends on the 
 
98 THE YOUNG MAN AND TEACHING 
 
 master. If he is agreeable and winning and always 
 has something worth while to tell them, his boys are 
 not likely to see too much of him, and a brief call at 
 any suitable time will not be an unwelcome interruption. 
 All social events are expected to interrupt work more 
 or less; that is in part their purpose. If he has set 
 times when he is accessible to all, as he no doubt will, 
 those who need his help most will probably not come. 
 One or two of the most forward may consume his time, 
 without profit to themselves and with loss to the others. 
 If he asks some timid one to come alone, the boy may 
 look upon this as he would upon a request to remain 
 after recitation and come expecting some reproof. In 
 these closer relations each boy must be dealt with as an 
 individual, and not as part of a machine, and the master 
 must to a great extent follow his judgment, corrected 
 from time to time by his own experience. 
 
 The student now looks upon his teacher as a friend 
 whose purpose is to advise and help him, and not to 
 find some ground for suspending him or dropping him 
 from his class. In the attitude of faculty and students 
 toward each other in many schools and colleges fifty 
 years ago there were some things to suggest two hostile 
 bodies, each trying tq get the better of the other. At 
 one of the early class faculty meetings which I attended 
 as a tutor, the senior officer of the Freshman class, in 
 order to impress upon us young officials the importance 
 of strictness in discipline, said : " No man is fit to be a 
 tutor in this college who does not have his windows 
 broken." This same senior officer impressed upon us 
 
GOVERNMENT 99 
 
 also that it was important for a tutor's reputation 
 that he have a large number of men " below average." 
 I remember with what apparent disgust he said to one 
 tutor when we were making up the class standing for 
 the first half-term : " What ! Have you no man below 
 average? " To have a large number of men below the 
 passing mark was then thought to be evidence of a high 
 standard on the part of the instructor. Now it is gen- 
 erally taken as evidence that the instructor is a poor 
 teacher. 
 
 The relation between teacher and pupils is to-day 
 quite different from what it was when, as Professor 
 Denison Olmsted expressed it, " the dignity of the col- 
 lege officer was measured by the yard," referring to one 
 of the old laws of Yale College, by which undergradu- 
 ates were forbidden to wear their hats within ten rods 
 of the President, eight rods of a Professor, and five rods 
 of a Tutor. The young teacher now is expected to 
 treat his students more as the eldest son would treat 
 his younger brothers, but it is as important as it ever 
 was that he keep his dignity. He has been appointed 
 their master, and as such holds a position of great re- 
 sponsibility. While his manner toward them should 
 not be distant or repelling, too much familiarity is not 
 good for him or for them. The teacher who is kind- 
 hearted, appreciative and affectionate cannot help be- 
 coming fond of his pupils, especially of those who are 
 lovable, as most boys are, but they are not to be treated 
 as equals. They are not his equals in school, for he 
 has been given authority over them, and if he makes 
 
100 THE YOUNG MAN AND TEACHING 
 
 them companions out of school, companionship must 
 not approach to that familiarity which breeds con- 
 tempt. It is proper for him to know as much as pos- 
 sible about those under his charge, but it is quite pos- 
 sible for them to know too much about him. Due re- 
 serve will insure their respect. He may engage with 
 his pupils in any contest or sport without loss of dig- 
 nity, as long as he does a little better than the best 
 of them. But it is not wise to make a show before 
 them of inferiority or lack of skill. In whatever ca- 
 pacity he takes part with them, he ought to be the 
 acknowledged superior. It will weaken his influence if 
 they laugh at his awkward performances or pity him 
 because he cannot do better. If he is a poor player, 
 it will be wise for him not to join the boys in their 
 sports on the athletic field; he will appear to better 
 advantage as a spectator. If he is an indifferent 
 performer in the gymnasium, he will do well to take his 
 exercise there when his boys are occupied elsewhere. 
 
 To have the right kind of influence over boys, you 
 must believe in them. You must see and appreciate 
 what is good and lovable in their nature, and must not 
 forget your own shortcomings when you were at their 
 period of life. You must give them credit for good 
 motives, and not show suspicion about their statements. 
 By so doing you will appeal to what is best in them, 
 and they will be above an attempt to deceive you. Dr. 
 Arnold did not ask a boy for proof of his assertion: 
 " If you say so, that is quite enough ; of course I be- 
 lieve your word." And the boys said : " It is a shame 
 
GOVERNMENT ';-,; \\\ ] /,\ 101 
 
 to tell Arnold a lie ; he always believes us." We know 
 well enough that he did not always believe that they 
 were telling the whole truth when he accepted their 
 statements, but it was a better reply to make than 
 the one that has been a favorite with so many modern 
 teachers : " That is a pretty small hole to crawl 
 through — but you got through." No schoolboy's na- 
 ture at its worst can be totally bad. His experience of 
 evil is not yet far enough advanced to harden him 
 against the unselfish interest of one who has faith in 
 him. 
 
 To understand how to deal wisely with any individual 
 boy, you must learn all you can about him. You will 
 need to know what kind of a home he comes from; 
 something about his parents and whether he is an only 
 child ; of what sports and amusements he is fond ; what 
 books and magazines he reads ; what his tastes and 
 ideals are; what he plans to do when he becomes a 
 man ; who his companions are, and what his reputation 
 is with them ; whether he is a leader among other boys, 
 or is led around by them ; and of course what his pre- 
 vious record in school has been. The more you know 
 about his home and his previous history, the better able 
 you will be to help him. If you have the time and op- 
 portunity, a personal acquaintance with the parents is 
 desirable. In some cases, the more you know about the 
 parents, the more sympathy you will have for the son. 
 A teacher gets knowledge of much that is sad in the 
 families of some of his pupils, not only of bereavement 
 and sorrow, but of lack of parental love and care, in 
 
102 T33.& KOUNQ MAN, AND TEACHING 
 
 the homeless lives of children whose parents are sepa- 
 rated. 
 
 Sometimes the best kind of treatment is that of which 
 the boy has felt the want in his early training. In my 
 first school there was one difficult case to which I still 
 look back with great satisfaction. It was that of a 
 boy whom no teacher had been able to manage. He 
 seemed ugly and revengeful; the more he was scolded 
 and punished, the worse he grew. I asked my pred- 
 ecessor how he governed him, and he said : " He is 
 beyond hope. There is only one thing to do ; knock 
 him down ; and even that never seems to make him any 
 better." I could not understand how a boy could be 
 made better by that method of discipline, and I had not 
 the heart to adopt it. This was my first hard problem, 
 and I think I solved it in the right way. I was con- 
 vinced that the boy had never known what appreciation 
 and kindness were. He had received nothing but harsh 
 treatment at home and in school. I patiently tried 
 the method to which he had been a stranger. The re- 
 sult surprised and delighted me. He responded to 
 friendly treatment and began to enjoy doing well in 
 the tasks which I required of him. It gratified him 
 to receive commendation and praise. Within a short 
 time there was no better boy in school; he grew fond 
 of books and even became a favorite with those who had 
 most despised him. 
 
 When at i!he beginning of the year a teacher takes a 
 new class, he can get helpful information about boys 
 whom he does not know from those who have had them 
 
GOVERNMENT 103 
 
 before. This will save him mistakes and mis judgments, 
 and will secure a fairer treatment for them. A few 
 characteristic phrases attached to their names, favor- 
 able or unfavorable as each case requires, will serve 
 like weather signals, showing about what may be ex- 
 pected. But they are to be considered only as cau- 
 tionary signals, and are not to influence one's judgment 
 based on his own experience. In a new subject a boy 
 may do a great deal better or a great deal worse than 
 he has done before. His deportment also may change 
 for the better or worse as he advances to a higher 
 grade. On a list of one hundred students, perhaps 
 sixty-five or seventy will be commended as " first-class," 
 for whom no further note is necessary. Of the others, 
 such individual characteristics may be given as will 
 be helpful to a teacher who has them under his charge 
 for the first time. The following examples are taken 
 from actual reports made many years ago, and are 
 at least interesting as showing that students of a 
 former generation had much the same characteristics 
 as those of the present day: 
 
 1. Exemplary in every way; scholarship good. 
 
 2. Fine fellow; truthfulness itself, but needs control. 
 
 3. Footless; poor scholar; great baby; forced to go to 
 
 school against his wishes; ought to be on probation 
 all the time. 
 
 4. Good, but careless about written exercises. 
 
 5. Overworks; hard dig. 
 
 6. Careless, effusive, needs rein. 
 
 7. Rather too easy-going, but not a bad boy. 
 
 8. Irregular from nervous prostration; fine fellow. 
 
104 THE YOUNG MAN AND TEACHING 
 
 9. Mothered too much. 
 
 10. Hard worker; scholarship fair. 
 
 11. Has many illnesses, but faithful, quiet fellow. 
 
 12. Great bluffer. 
 
 13. Has reformed and turned over entirely new leaf; 
 
 promises well; needs firm hand. 
 
 14. Wants many privileges, but in general deserves them. 
 
 15. A complaining struggler. 
 
 16. Good intentions; weak; needs close watch. 
 
 17. Health poor; choice young man. 
 
 18. Champion sponge and bluffer; healthy invalid; spoiled 
 
 at home. 
 
 19. Poor scholar with weak eyes. 
 
 20. Nice, harmless little fellow. 
 
 21. Thorough gentleman; honorable; scholarship good. 
 
 22. First-class rough diamond. 
 
 23. Footless; nothing vicious, simply lazy. 
 
 24. Spoiled mother's boy. 
 
 25. Modest, sickly, sensitive, but well-meaning. 
 
 26. Started well, grew more and more careless, scholarship 
 
 declining. 
 
 27. Inclined to neglect serious work for outside activities. 
 
 28. Dull; seems obstinate; supports himself; hardly worth 
 
 educating. 
 
 The advantages that come from a teacher's reputa- 
 tion for good order must not be overlooked. Boys are 
 not inclined to trifle with a master who has a reputation 
 for strictness, who insists on gentlemanly deportment, 
 and will not accept slovenly or careless work. They 
 expect to behave and to study when they come under 
 him, and this relieves him from almost everything that 
 is difficult and disagreeable in the management of his 
 room. The teacher who is loose in government will 
 
GOVERNMENT 105 
 
 have indifferent pupils, and cannot hope to create a 
 general interest in study. The normal boy likes to be 
 commanded by one who has the right to command. 
 As the member of an athletic team, he submits with 
 manly pride to the orders of his captain. He likes 
 military drill, and prefers a teacher whose discipline is 
 firm and consistent, who is a real master, to one who 
 lets him do much as he pleases. The master who is 
 uniformly strict may be feared more than he is loved, 
 but if he is always just, he will be respected, and when 
 his boys become men they will realize that strict dis- 
 cipline was what they needed. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 RULES AND PENALTIES 
 
 The fewer rules, the better. Unsatisfactory results of a general 
 rule. Corporal punishment once the usual penalty in school and 
 family. This penalty now generally abandoned. As far as 
 possible, govern without penalties. Herbert Spencer's views on 
 natural penalties. What the discipline of the school should teach 
 about the results of wrong-doing. Self-government. Reproof and 
 penalties not to be given in presence of the school or class. Dis- 
 cipline must be uniform. For serious offenses the natural penalty 
 is dismissal. 
 
 The right man to put in charge of a schoolroom is 
 the one who can control it by his presence and has little 
 need of rules and penalties. Benjamin Apthorp Gould 
 of the Boston Latin School had a rare faculty for main- 
 taining discipline without severity. His predecessor 
 had withdrawn because the school was in such a condi- 
 tion of disorder that he could not control it. 1 Ralph 
 Waldo Emerson was a student in the school at this 
 time, and he thus describes Mr. Gould's first act when 
 
 i Mr. Gould was appointed to fill this unexpected vacancy in 
 May, 1814, while a senior at Harvard. He gave such satisfaction 
 that he was continued as headmaster, and was allowed to receive 
 his degree with his class. Under his administration the school 
 rose from a temporary depression to which it had been gradually 
 falling under his predecessor, and rapidly advanced in reputation 
 and numbers. He had a powerful personal influence, and his 
 government was uniformly kind and just. 
 
 106 
 
RULES AND PENALTIES ICJf 
 
 the committee had left the room in his care : " As soon 
 as the committee took their hats and turned the door, 
 the boys began to buzz their opinion of the new master 
 in low tones. Mr. Gould turned around to them and 
 lifted his finger to command silence, which was instantly 
 obeyed, and from that moment he ruled." l In a large 
 building, where there are many rooms and many teach- 
 ers, there must be a code of rules for the orderly move- 
 ment of the whole body ; but when it comes to the per- 
 sonal conduct of individual pupils in a classroom, the 
 fewer rules the better. I have already spoken of one 
 of my early schoolmasters, who had only one rule for 
 all pupils and for all cases : " Do right." This rule 
 appealed to the conscience of every boy. He knew 
 what was right and what was wrong, and he was put 
 on his honor. A boy will be tempted to break a rule 
 for the mere pleasure of doing it, when he would not 
 think of committing the act covered by it if it were 
 not forbidden. Thomas Hughes, in Tom Brown's 
 School Days, said of the Rugby students : " They only 
 looked upon rules as a sort of challenge from the rule- 
 makers which it would be rather bad pluck in them not 
 to accept." This is human nature. A good many men 
 do the same. 
 
 One unsatisfactory result of making a general rule is 
 that, if it is enforced impartially, the penalty may hit 
 an innocent boy and miss the real wrong-doer for 
 
 i Report of the Centennial Celebration of the Alumni of the 
 Boston Latin School in The Boston Daily Advertiser of Novem- 
 ber 10, 1876. 
 
108 THE YOUNG MAN AND TEACHING 
 
 whom it was intended. I would not make a rule, with 
 a fixed penalty, against this or that kind of disorder, 
 unless I was sure beyond a doubt that it could be en- 
 forced successfully and without injustice to any. One 
 of my friends was employed for a term or two as in- 
 structor of a college class. He was thoroughly quali- 
 fied to teach his subject, but he was without experience 
 in teaching and lacked the keenness of vision which is so 
 great an aid to the teacher in maintaining good order. 
 As his subject was considered dry and as the recitation 
 was not infrequently continued beyond the hour, the 
 students became restless, and missiles were sometimes 
 thrown across the room. As " the day we celebrate " 
 drew near, the missiles took the form of toy " torpe- 
 does." Finding himself unable to discover by whom 
 these were thrown, he made a rule that he felt sure 
 would be effective. He announced that he should hold 
 the person responsible nearest whom the projectiles 
 were exploded! Of course, after that they were all 
 exploded on the wall behind his back. 
 
 A great change has taken place within the last cen- 
 tury regarding ithe method of managing the young. 
 The early settlers of New England evidently believed 
 that boys were by nature bad, and that the only way 
 to make a bad boy good was to chastise him till his 
 " will was broken." This was a natural corollary of 
 the doctrine of total depravity. They looked upon 
 chastisement as a religious duty, and delegated to the 
 schoolmaster the power to inflict punishment on their 
 sons according to his own judgment, reserving to the 
 
RULES AND PENALTIES 109 
 
 father the right to make complaint only when he 
 thought punishment was too severe. As early as 1645, 
 the people of Dorchester, in the colony of Massachu- 
 setts Bay, adopted a long list of rules and orders for 
 the regulation of the public school in that town. 
 Among them is found one on corporal punishment, of 
 which the following is a part : 
 
 " And because the Rodd of Correction is an ordinance of 
 God necessary sometymes to be dispensed unto Children, 
 but such as may easily be abused by over much severity 
 and rigor on the one hand, or by over much indulgence and 
 lenitye on the other ; it is therefore ordered and agreed that 
 the schoolmaster for the tyme beeing shall have full power 
 to minister Correction to all or any of his Schollers without 
 respect of persons according as the nature and Qualitie of 
 the offense shall require; whereto all his Schollers must bee 
 duely subject; and no parent or other of the inhabitants 
 shall hinder or go about to hinder the master therein." 
 
 At the present day corporal punishment is forbidden 
 in the public schools of several of the larger cities, and, 
 in many others, is allowed only when all other means 
 have failed, and then under very definite restrictions. 
 In the best private schools it is now unknown. When 
 it ceased to be fashionable, the spirit of the pupils be- 
 came better, and it was found that what could not be 
 accomplished by brute force could often be attained by 
 more humane methods. Instead of attempting to sub- 
 due the evil in a boy's nature by harsh treatment, the 
 modern teacher appeals to his good impulses and manly 
 aspirations, to his sense of honor, and to his ambition 
 to be known as a gentleman. The self-willed boy need 
 
110 THE YOUNG MAN AND TEACHING 
 
 not " have his will broken " by beating him till he gives 
 in, if he can be taught to control his will and become 
 self-governing. But the one essential thing in disci- 
 pline is submission to authority, and the teacher who 
 fails to secure this fails disastrously. If this end can- 
 not be gained by any other means, the will must be 
 reached through the body; force is to be preferred to 
 failure. I am no friend of corporal punishment, as 
 generally understood, and never resorted to it when 
 a teacher in the public schools; but there is no doubt 
 that the use of the rod and ferule is a less evil than con- 
 tinued disobedience and a disorderly school. 
 
 I am convinced that it is best to govern without pen- 
 alties as far as possible, but of course this is not al- 
 ways possible. One may decide on the general prin- 
 ciple to follow, but it is not so easy to be clear about 
 the best course to pursue in an emergency. The safe 
 way is to act with great deliberation, and never settle 
 a difficult question of discipline on a sudden impulse. 
 The teacher may thus be saved from an act which he 
 might like to undo, and the boy who has committed the 
 offense will get no little punishment from the anxiety 
 and uncertainty caused by postponement. It is said 
 to have been the practice of Dr. Abbott of Exeter to 
 put the boy who had been guilty of a serious offense in 
 a room by himself and leave him in suspense, that he 
 might have opportunity to reflect on what he had done, 
 and to dread the impending punishment which he knew 
 would be severe when the Doctor came in to settle with 
 him. 
 
RULES AND PENALTIES HI 
 
 Though corporal punishment has been mostly done 
 away with, results as bad or even worse may be pro- 
 duced by the sarcastic rebuke which is no less brutal. 
 The sting of the rod was soon over. The sneering rep- 
 rimand inflicts a wound which lasts as long as the mem- 
 ory of the boy who receives it. It is well worth while 
 to deal patiently with the pupil who needs frequent cor- 
 rection. Such boys often make better men than those 
 who have a sort of precocious goodness, who some- 
 times prove in mature life unreliable and unable to with- 
 stand strong temptation. 
 
 Every teacher has days when the work drags, when 
 the boys are restless and troublesome, and all things 
 go wrong. This may be the result of the weather 
 or of the condition of the room. The reason may be 
 found in some event of yesterday or of to-morrow, in 
 which they are more interested than in their lessons. 
 Or the trouble may come from some bodily or mental 
 ailment of the teacher himself. If he is not at his 
 best, he cannot expect his pupils to be so. Whatever 
 the occasion may be, this is the time for the teacher 
 to maintain his calmness and self-control and to re- 
 frain from scolding and from inflicting penalties. The 
 occasion does not call for punishment, but for some- 
 thing that will cause the pupils to forget themselves, 
 and put them into a new mental attitude ; some exercise 
 that will so interest them that they will fix on it their 
 undivided attention, some story, or a talk on an un- 
 expected topic; or, for younger pupils, an attractive 
 task in which all can engage in a spirit of competition. 
 
112 THE YOUNG MAN AND TEACHING 
 
 During a half-century of teaching and administra- 
 tive work I have been a careful student of Herbert 
 Spencer's views on education and have been greatly in- 
 fluenced by what he writes in commendation of natural 
 penalties in his chapter on Moral Education. This is 
 excellent reading for any one who has responsibility 
 for the training of the young. 
 
 We need to keep constantly in mind that the pur- 
 pose of discipline, as well as of teaching, is to prepare 
 our pupils for the duties and responsibilities of life. 
 In a few years they will be free men, citizens of a free 
 state, and subject only to the laws which they and 
 their fellow-citizens unite to make. The time of great- 
 est danger to the boy is when he goes out from under 
 the control of his family and teachers, into the world, 
 where he is essentially his own master. It is then, 
 when suddenly freed from external restraint, that he 
 may be tempted to yield to influences that undermine 
 the foundations of character laid in the home and 
 school. When he reaches that period, he ought to 
 know, so thoroughly that he will not need to learn it 
 by costly experience, that by the law of nature good 
 or evil will come to him mainly as the result of his own 
 conduct. If he is not prompt and faithful as an em- 
 ployee, he will lose his place; if he is irregular in his 
 habits and reckless in his way of living, he will lose his 
 health; if he is square and honest, he will be respected 
 and trusted; if he is tricky and underhanded, he will 
 have no standing. The discipline of the school should 
 be such as to teach him this lesson of the natural result 
 
RULES AND PENALTIES 113 
 
 of his own conduct. This is not the ordinary lesson 
 derived from penalties that have no natural connection 
 with the offense, and which are often inflicted arbi- 
 trarily, according to the whim of the parent or teacher. 
 It is not to be denied that such punishments check the 
 evil action for a time, but they do not tend to pro- 
 duce a permanent reform in the boy, and while we do 
 not forget what is due the school as a whole, in dealing 
 with the young the reform of the individual should be 
 the chief object sought in the giving of penalties. 
 When arbitrary punishment is inflicted, the boy is de- 
 terred from committing a like offense again by the 
 fear of punishment, but not because he cares whether 
 his conduct was right or wrong. To him any kind of 
 conduct in school becomes right enough if it does not 
 involve some penalty. When he gets where there is no 
 longer any supervision over him, and where the pen- 
 alties for wrong-doing are very remote, what restrain- 
 ing influence will he feel as a result of such discipline? 
 The temptation to go wrong will be hard to resist be- 
 cause he sees nothing to fear in the way of immediate 
 punishment, and is unmindful of future evil results. 
 
 That kind of discipline in school is best which comes 
 nearest to the discipline of a good home, where the 
 children are taught to understand the natural conse- 
 quence of their conduct. The best reward of good 
 conduct is the feeling of satisfaction that one has done 
 right and has contributed to the happiness or welfare 
 of others. The heaviest penalty of the wrong-doer 
 is his own self-condemnation, the feeling that he has 
 
114 THE YOUNG MAN AND TEACHING 
 
 done wrong and has injured others or has made them 
 unhappy. The sense of guilt with the consciousness of 
 having injured another, if a boy can be made to realize 
 it, is a heavier penalty than any that can be added by 
 the authority of the school. When the relations be- 
 tween teacher and pupil are friendly and cordial, to 
 have incurred a teacher's displeasure will be a penalty 
 which the boy will feel keenly. He will also suffer much 
 if he is conscious of a loss of the respect of his class- 
 mates. To apologize for an injury or insult to another 
 is a natural penalty, and while I would not force a 
 boy to apologize, I would advise it in such a way that 
 he would think it the only manly thing to do. The 
 loss of privileges which are highly prized is an appro- 
 priate and effective punishment. To atone as far as 
 possible for a wrong action by doing a good one will 
 seem just and proper to almost any one if the subject 
 is rightly presented to him. When a boy fails to pre- 
 pare his lesson, it seems a natural penalty to detain 
 him after the exercise till he learns it, but this often 
 punishes the teacher as well as the boy, and giving a 
 boy mental work to do as a penalty has a tendency to 
 make him dislike study. Every boy should be so 
 trained that he will desire above all things to be hon- 
 orable and trustworthy. He should be made to feel 
 that good conduct is right and that bad conduct is 
 wrong, that it is manly to do right and unmanly to do 
 wrong, and that all through life his standing as a 
 man among men will depend upon what he is in himself 
 and what he does. 
 
RULES AND PENALTIES 115 
 
 The best way to prepare a boy to meet temptation 
 when external restraint is removed, is to train him to 
 be self-governing. This is not done by over-zealous 
 watchfulness and continual urging, but by teaching 
 him right principles and leaving him more and more to 
 control himself. Of course the ordinary boy cannot be 
 made self-governing in a brief time, as plants are 
 forced in a hothouse. We do not expect or desire that, 
 either at home or in school. We have been in his 
 place and we understand and appreciate his feeling of 
 self-importance and independence, and his belief that 
 he does not need advice ; but we know, also, that if left 
 to himself he may become very selfish and conceited 
 and form wrong ideas of his duties toward other people. 
 He may need not only good admonition from a sympa- 
 thetic and friendly instructor, but often also whole- 
 some and sometimes severe correction. The develop- 
 ment toward self-control will be slow, as all sound 
 growth is. As long as he is in the lowest classes, he 
 will need the firm government of a strong but kind- 
 hearted teacher, who knows how to give penalties, if it 
 is necessary to give any, that have some natural con- 
 nection with the offense committed and who can lead 
 him to understand the natural consequence of trans- 
 gression. As the years pass, we may expect his moral 
 development to be such before he leaves the school that 
 he will need no restraint beyond the approval of his 
 instructors, the good opinion of his classmates and 
 companions, and his own sense of what is right and 
 wrong. 
 
116 THE YOUNG MAN AND TEACHING 
 
 It is generally better not to inflict penalties of any 
 kind in the presence of the school or class. It was 
 once a common practice to do this that other students 
 might observe the consequences of disobedience and 
 take warning. A penalty inflicted in the presence of 
 his companions makes a hero of the culprit, if he is a 
 brazen-faced and hardened offender, and causes him un- 
 necessary humiliation if He is sensitive and not prac- 
 ticed in mischief. If a master gets into a heated argu- 
 ment in the classroom with a boy who answers back, 
 or has a physical struggle with him, it makes an un- 
 pleasant scene both for the master and for those who 
 have to witness it, while the boy glories in it. It has 
 come down by tradition that the gentle and dignified 
 John Richardson, principal of Leicester Academy, fa- 
 miliarly called " Old Jack " by his boys, at first pun- 
 ished offenders in the public schoolroom, but that on 
 one occasion, in a contest with a rough and burly boy, 
 he found him more than his match, and " the boy got 
 the old man down," after which he wisely' took his more 
 pugnacious victims to the gloomy seclusion of his own 
 barn. 
 
 I do not like the idea of inflicting punishment mainly 
 for the purpose of warning others against wrong-doing. 
 When a boy caught in some general disorder is singled 
 out and punished as an example to the others, the pun- 
 ishment is apt to be too severe, as he is supposed to 
 suffer the penalty for the sins of his companions whom 
 he would not betray, as well as his own. It seems to 
 me that a severe penalty inflicted publicly for its effect 
 
RULES AND PENALTIES 117 
 
 on other students is generally evidence, not of strength, 
 but of weakness in government; but I can readily see 
 that the man who is responsible for the good order of 
 a large school may sometimes think it advisable to 
 act with this motive in view. 
 
 It is as important that discipline be uniform as it 
 is that it be strict, but this does not mean that the same 
 penalty should be given for a first offense that is to 
 be given to one who persists in disobedience. The cir- 
 cumstances, the age, the motive, the temptation, should 
 be taken into consideration. To be just, each case 
 must be decided on its merits, but the government 
 should be uniform from day to day. It is evidence 
 of great weakness to let things go at loose ends for a 
 considerable time, till the situation becomes so bad that 
 it can be endured no longer, and then suddenly impose 
 a very heavy penalty on a large number, including the 
 innocent with the guilty and sometimes allowing the 
 most guilty to escape altogether. The way of the 
 transgressor is not made hard when a guiltless com- 
 panion receives the same penalty as the chief offender. 
 We sometimes read that the faculty of an institution 
 has suspended a whole class for some rebellious action, 
 and this is supposed to show the strictness of discipline 
 in that school, whereas it shows lack of discipline. The 
 right kind of discipline would have produced in the 
 class a spirit of obedience and loyalty to the school 
 that would have made a general defiance of faculty au- 
 thority impossible. It is with the school much as it 
 is with the family. The father who in the government 
 
118 XHE YOUNG MAN AND TEACHING 
 
 of his children now and then finds it necessary to resort 
 to severe penalties is not infrequently punishing them 
 on account of his own neglect to exercise oversight 
 upon them from day to day. 
 
 If after patient and considerate treatment at the 
 hands of a competent master a boy still continues un- 
 manageable, or if his influence over his fellows is plainly 
 injurious, there remains one natural penalty, and that 
 is dismissal. If he is not willing or not able to be a 
 worthy member of the school community, his separation 
 from it follows as a matter of course. The principal 
 of a public school serving under the direction of a board 
 of education, and indirectly responsible to the tax pay- 
 ers and voters, may not feel free to inflict this penalty, 
 lest his action be not generally approved. The law of 
 the state also may require that children remain in the 
 public schools up to a certain age, and removal may 
 result in a transfer to a special school for the incor- 
 rigible or to a reform school, where the boy will as- 
 sociate with companions worse than himself. 
 
 But in the private schools and endowed academies 
 during the last one hundred years dismissal has been the 
 almost universal penalty for serious offenses often re- 
 peated. Dr. Arnold said : " The first, second and third 
 duty of a schoolmaster is to get rid of the unpromising 
 subjects." The master owes it to the earnest and well- 
 intentioned boys to protect them from the pernicious 
 influence of lazy and disorderly, as well as of vicious 
 and low-minded companions. When it is desirable to 
 get rid of a boy whose influence is demoralizing, but 
 
RULES AND PENALTIES 119 
 
 against whom no specific offense can be proved the 
 removal may be accomplished without calling special 
 attention to it, as, for example, at the end of the term, 
 or through an arrangement with the father. The rea- 
 son for the absence of an undesirable pupil under such 
 circumstances is generally well understood by his com- 
 panions. Forced withdrawal under any form is a pen- 
 alty which a boy will keenly feel, and the prospect of it 
 will help him to mend his ways if anything will. If a 
 boy is insolent and defiant, it is best for all concerned 
 that the blow fall suddenly, and such action should be 
 so far final that no petition for reinstatement or for 
 recommendation to another school can be considered 
 within the next twelve months. A school whose admin- 
 istration is characterized by this degree of firmness is 
 likely to have a long waiting list of desirable applicants 
 for admission. To suspend or to dismiss a boy, and 
 immediately take him back on an appeal from home, 
 supported perhaps by letters from men of wealth or 
 prominence, is evidence of weakness which no man fit to 
 be a head-master should be willing to display. 
 
 At the same time, there is need of caution that there 
 be no injustice done, and that a boy be not sent away 
 permanently if there is a good chance of saving him. 
 We ought to remember that schools are not established 
 solely for the benefit of those who do not need discipline ; 
 that boys with strong wills, if brought under proper 
 restraint, often make the best men; that the removal 
 of a wayward youth from good influences may cut him 
 off from any chance of reformation; that the bad boy 
 
120 THE YOUNG MAN AND TEACHING 
 
 thus removed will grow up to be a citizen of the state, 
 and probably a bad citizen; and that to make a good 
 boy out of a bad one is the highest triumph of a 
 teacher. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 TEACHING IN COLLEGE 
 
 Freedom of the college student. His personal responsibility. 
 Exposure to temptation. Helpful agencies and influences in col- 
 lege. Rules of the earliest American colleges. Faculty restric- 
 tions regarding attendance. Some penalty for absence needed. 
 Frequent tests. Personal influence of the faculty in college gov- 
 ernment. College names and customs. The student of to-day a 
 gentleman. The college teacher must be a growing scholar. 
 Should also be a productive scholar. The need of the undergrad- 
 uate college is good instruction. Freedom of the college in- 
 structor. Advantages and disadvantages of lecture courses. Ef- 
 fective instruction by lectures. Frequent revision of lecture 
 courses. Marking students' work. Preparation for college in 
 private schools, and in high schools. The college teacher's influ- 
 ence on character. Great opportunity for the right kind of teach- 
 ers for Freshman year. 
 
 The college student has a degree of freedom from 
 supervision which it would have been unwise to allow 
 him when only a schoolboy. He has passed from boy- 
 hood to young manhood. He is free to decide many 
 things for himself which the rules of the school have 
 heretofore decided for him. He has now to rely mostly 
 on his own judgment and to make his own decisions. 
 The faculty expect that he will do the work which they 
 require of him and do it well, and that he will do it 
 when required; that his conduct will be such as not 
 
 to interfere with the liberty and enjoyment of his 
 
 121 
 
122 THE YOUNG MAN AND TEACHING 
 
 fellows or with their general welfare, and such as not to 
 bring discredit on the college. If he satisfies the faculty 
 on such necessary requirements, he is, with few excep- 
 tions, free to spend his time, when not attending college 
 exercises, as he thinks best, and he has as much liberty 
 as is allowed to any law-abiding citizen. 
 
 This change throws upon the student much of the 
 responsibility that belonged to the teacher in the pre- 
 paratory school, who felt to a great degree responsible 
 for the boy's progress in his studies ; now, that responsi- 
 bility falls mainly on the student himself. The college 
 offers him the opportunity ; it is his business to see that 
 he profits by it. Herein may be found in part an expla- 
 nation of the complaint sometimes heard that the stu- 
 dent does not have teachers in Freshman year equal to 
 those who taught him in the preparatory school. This 
 may be sometimes true, for no college can provide for a 
 large class of Freshmen a staff of teachers all of whom 
 possess the ability and experience of some of the distin- 
 guished masters who have for many years taught the 
 graduating classes in the best schools, men like Dr. 
 Soule or Dr. Bancroft or Dr. Meigs. But the aim of 
 the college teacher is in some respects different. He 
 sets before his pupil the opportunity to learn and as- 
 sumes that he will appreciate his share of the responsi- 
 bility for the result. The young man has been declared 
 fit to enter college, by an examination board or by the 
 certificate of his principal, and it is right for the teacher 
 to assume that he has already been taught how to study 
 and is now able to concentrate his attention; that he 
 
TEACHING IN COLLEGE 123 
 
 knows how to take up new problems, and that he will not 
 shrink from those that are difficult; that he would not 
 be in college if he had not shown in some satisfactory 
 way his ability to do college work. It is right also for 
 the teacher to assume that the student has a purpose in 
 the selection of his studies, and that he has chosen his 
 course because he wishes to get a knowledge of the sub- 
 ject, and not simply to fill up his schedule of hours. 
 
 If a father should say to you : " Is there any one 
 who will take an interest in my son when he enters col- 
 lege ? " you would tell him the truth, and tell him what 
 he ought to keep in mind, if you should say in reply: 
 " There are always men who will seek the acquaintance 
 of the youth who goes away from home to take a posi- 
 tion where he must necessarily be placed more than he 
 has yet been upon his own responsibility, men who, hav- 
 ing no regard for his welfare, and exploiting his igno- 
 rance or inherited weakness for commercial ends, will 
 urge him to purchase what he does not want, and tempt 
 him into ways that lead to habits from which a self- 
 respecting man ought to flee. It is for him to choose 
 what sort of men he will allow to get interested in him. 
 If he has not already enough character for this, he is 
 not safe anywhere, unless it be under the constant watch- 
 fulness of father and mother, and perhaps not even when 
 with them." 
 
 On the other hand, you can assure the father that 
 there are many helpful agencies and good influences in 
 college, but that the newcomer must have courage and 
 independence enough to take advantage of them. In 
 
124. THE YOUNG MAN AND TEACHING 
 
 most colleges now each Freshman has a Division Officer, 
 or Faculty Adviser, or a member of the Faculty Fresh- 
 man Committee, to whom he can go, without apology for 
 the interruption, and with full confidence, when he needs 
 counsel. There is the College Christian Association, 
 which is more than ready to help him. The pastor of 
 the College Church, or of any church which students 
 attend, will always be glad to welcome a new student 
 who is willing to seek his advice. There is the " college 
 spirit " which has been developed by history and tradi- 
 tion, by pride in great teachers and distinguished grad- 
 uates, by rivalries with other colleges and by victories 
 won by the undergraduates in debate or in athletic 
 sports. In an institution of learning worthy to be 
 called a college the spirit of the place stands for man- 
 hood and honor, and for a clean and upright life. It 
 would be a great help to the new student if he could be 
 convinced when he enters that a man in college is rated 
 by his classmates for what he really is, and that bad 
 habits and selfish conduct spoil his reputation and make 
 it impossible for him to associate with the best men. He 
 ought to know that he will be himself responsible for the 
 influence which college life has upon him ; that his repu- 
 tation and social standing among his fellows will be 
 essentially what his companions, his habits, and his man- 
 ners make them; and that he cannot justly throw the 
 blame for bad habits on evil companions, for his com- 
 panions will be those whom he has selected, or whom he 
 has allowed to select him, and his habits will be such as 
 he has not been unwilling to form. A youth when enter- 
 
TEACHING IN COLLEGE 125 
 
 ing college should understand at the beginning, and the 
 father should also understand, that college is a place of 
 much freedom and that the student is responsible for the 
 use which he makes of that freedom. Both father and 
 son should understand that many young men start 
 wrong because, among new companions, they dare not 
 take a stand for the principles for which they have been 
 known at home, and have not the courage to live up to 
 the traditions of the family which they represent. 
 
 During the first century of the oldest American col- 
 leges, the rules were many and minute, and restricted 
 the student's liberty more than would be thought wise in 
 any boys' school to-day. They concerned not only his 
 conduct, but also his manners, his beliefs, his conversa- 
 tion, his dress, his recreations, his time for study and for 
 exercise. The early students in Harvard and Yale lived 
 constantly under rules. Gradually the narrow regula- 
 tions have been done away with. A hundred years ago 
 college students were forbidden to do many things which 
 the faculty some years later not only allowed but en- 
 couraged. A graduate of Yale, out of college thirty 
 years or more, meeting Professor Thacher, expressed a 
 desire to see some of the new buildings. They went to 
 the recently built gymnasium and after watching the 
 students at their exercise in the main hall, the Professor 
 took him to the basement, showed him the bowling alleys, 
 and suggested that he try his skill with the ball. The 
 visitor said : " Why, Professor Thacher, when I was in 
 college I was suspended for rolling tenpins ! " 
 
 The American college, standing between the prepara- 
 
126 THE YOUNG MAN AND TEACHING 
 
 tory school and the graduate school, while it allows 
 greater freedom than the preparatory school, cannot 
 safely allow the freedom of the graduate and profes- 
 sional schools, and there are some restrictions to which 
 the college student must be subject; but these relate 
 mostly to his college exercises, and very few concern his 
 personal conduct when outside of the classroom. 
 
 If you are called to teach in a college where attend- 
 ance is optional, you will be expected to make your in- 
 struction so interesting and stimulating that your stu- 
 dents will come to your classes voluntarily and study for 
 the love of it. That would be an ideal state. But in a 
 large college regular and punctual attendance at all 
 exercises is not often secured without some faculty re- 
 strictions. In the graduate or professional school the 
 student will not be absent from an exercise if he can 
 avoid it, because absence means the loss of what he came 
 to the university to get ; but many of the students in a 
 college class would consider such absence a gain if there 
 were no other penalty than the loss of instruction. Ex- 
 pressions of regret and disappointment on the part of 
 the class are not often heard when a college instructor 
 omits his recitation. Absence from the classroom exer- 
 cise must cost the student something which he will appre- 
 ciate, and if he does not care about the loss of the oppor- 
 tunity to gain knowledge, he needs something in the na- 
 ture of a penalty which he will feel. Whether the pen- 
 alty for absence be reckoned in a loss of privileges or in 
 lowering the grade of scholarship, or whether it is al- 
 lowed to stand as an uncanceled warning against the 
 
TEACHING IN COLLEGE 127 
 
 student, continued irregularity cannot be tolerated and 
 should result in suspension or dismissal. 
 
 I believe that the faculty should in some way see to it 
 that the student does the work expected of him day by 
 day, and independently. Now when there are so many 
 ways of being prepared for an examination, by private 
 tutors, digests, "lectures," and other like devices, the 
 fact that a student gets a passing mark on a term exami- 
 nation is no proof whatever that he has satisfactorily 
 done the term's work. Most young men of college age 
 will yield to the temptation to neglect their studies from 
 day to day unless they have to meet frequent tests on 
 work assigned them and on which they must be prepared 
 at definite times. Where a written test is given to suc- 
 cessive divisions, new sets of questions should be made 
 out for each division taking a test in the same assign- 
 ment. 
 
 In a college long established the conduct of the stu- 
 dents outside the classroom is to a great extent deter- 
 mined by tradition. The faculty has a hard job on its 
 hands when it undertakes to compel the student body to 
 give up a long-established custom by the passage of laws 
 to which severe penalties are attached. College stu- 
 dents can be governed by personal influence much better 
 than by rules. They can be persuaded by members of 
 the faculty whom they respect and esteem to do almost 
 anything that is reasonable in the way of abolishing bad 
 customs and establishing better ones in their place, but 
 the attempt to bring about a reform by force may lead 
 to strong opposition and often ends in failure. Since 
 
128 THE YOUNG MAN AND TEACHING 
 
 they are allowed great freedom in the management of 
 their own affairs, it is not difficult to enlist their cooper- 
 ation in securing good order and to make them in great 
 degree self-governing, both on the campus and elsewhere. 
 The greater the freedom allowed them, the greater will 
 be their sense of responsibility and their willingness to 
 form a community that in matters outside the classroom 
 for the most part governs itself and does not need to be 
 under the constant control of the faculty. 
 
 You need not be annoyed or disturbed at any of the 
 peculiar ways of undergraduate students, whether you 
 teach in your own college or in one with whose customs 
 you are not familiar. You should not feel troubled if 
 you find that among themselves your pupils have a nick- 
 name for you based on some personal peculiarity, or 
 that they call you familiarly by your first name. When 
 students shorten an instructor's catalogue title to 
 " Toot," or " Doc," or " Prof," it is a sign of fondness 
 and affection. If they heartily dislike a teacher, they 
 often refer to him by some name too bad to quote. 
 Each college forms a little community by itself. It has 
 its own peculiar customs and uses many characteristic 
 names, some originating within its own walls and some 
 common to all colleges. The authorities may lay out a 
 broad street leading to the dining hall and pave it and 
 plant trees along the border and name it University 
 Avenue, but the students will very likely call it Grub 
 Street, partly because they prefer two syllables to eight 
 and partly because it seems to them a peculiarly appro- 
 priate name. 
 
TEACHING IN COLLEGE 129 
 
 The college student to-day considers himself a gentle- 
 man and expects to give you in the classroom, and to 
 receive from you, the treatment which becomes a gentle- 
 man. He may lack interest in his studies and slight 
 them when he can. He may even write letters and read 
 novels in your recitation or lecture, but he will not 
 amuse himself by whittling the benches and making a 
 fire of the chips, nor, if you have the unfortunate habit 
 of holding your classes too long, will he bring in an 
 alarm clock set to go off on the minute when the exercise 
 should close, as his father may boast that he did. I 
 wonder how a father can take delight in describing to his 
 son the tricks which he played on the faculty and in 
 claiming that he got along without study when he was in 
 college. A father who takes pleasure in enlarging upon 
 his own weaknesses when he was a student, makes it more 
 difficult for the college to do anything for his boy. But 
 fortunately there are not many such. The father who 
 had a crooked course in college generally takes unusual 
 pride in having a son rank higher and behave better 
 than he did. 
 
 To be a successful teacher in college, you must be a 
 thorough and accurate scholar and must not cease to 
 grow in knowledge and power. Otherwise you will lose 
 the confidence of your students and fail to commend 
 yourself to the men above you in your department. 
 You may, after you have had the advantage of a few 
 years' experience with college studies, and have learned 
 how a boy ought to be prepared for college life, prefer 
 to take up teaching in a good school, perhaps as head- 
 
130 THE YOUNG MAN AND TEACHING 
 
 master, but you must not allow yourself to be forced to 
 give up college teaching on account of lack of scholar- 
 ship. Probably at first you will find your income small. 
 If so, it will be a mistake to add to it by private tutor- 
 ing. It will be better economy to devote your spare 
 time to your own mental development and to the acqui- 
 sition of knowledge that will enable you to become a 
 superior teacher. No member of the faculty should be 
 allowed to give private instruction, for money, to stu- 
 dents in his own courses ; it is difficult to believe that 
 any teacher, who has thought the matter through, 
 would think it fair or honorable to do this, but it is 
 said that it has sometimes been done. 
 
 One who devotes his life to college instruction ought 
 to be a productive scholar. If he is not pursuing a line 
 of investigation with the purpose of producing some- 
 thing worthy to be read either before a local club for 
 study and research or in a larger gathering of teachers, 
 or to be issued in printed form, he is likely to cease to 
 grow intellectually. He has ample time for investiga- 
 tion and writing. Few college instructors are occupied 
 in the classroom more than twelve or fifteen hours per 
 week. The comparatively short working day and the 
 many weeks of vacation offer the opportunity for pri- 
 vate study and research, and if they are not thus im- 
 proved, the time not actually needed for classroom and 
 committee duties will probably be spent at a club, or in 
 purposeless social amusements that could be given up 
 without loss. To produce anything that will have 
 value, such studies ought to be voluntary and pursued 
 
TEACHING IN COLLEGE 131 
 
 on account of interest in the subject and love of the 
 work, and not solely or chiefly from the hope of advance- 
 ment in rank. 
 
 Important as it is that you become a creditable 
 scholar, it is no less important, if you are to continue 
 with undergraduate students, that you prove yourself 
 also a good teacher. The demand of the graduate 
 school is for specialists, for great scholars who can 
 investigate and produce works that are valuable. The 
 graduate student needs to place himself under the influ- 
 ence of such men. But what the undergraduate college 
 needs is good instruction. Here is a most interesting 
 and attractive body of young men. Not many of them 
 will become scholars, and those who do will pursue ad- 
 vanced studies in the graduate school; but the greater 
 part will be men of influence and power in the commu- 
 nities where they live. To work with them is an ines- 
 timable privilege, and while for your own sake and the 
 sake of the college you should continue to be a growing 
 scholar, your first duty to your students is to be a good 
 teacher. Investigation and publication will be helpful 
 to you and ought to make you a better teacher because 
 such tasks will keep the mind sharp and active. The 
 danger is that you may think this the only work to 
 which you need to give any thought and may come to 
 regard classroom work as only necessary drudgery. 
 This is a wrong view, though many hold it. As long as 
 you teach undergraduates, the demand on you which 
 rises above all others is that you be a good teacher. 
 
 One much appreciated advantage which the college 
 
132 THE YOUNG MAN AND TEACHING 
 
 teacher has over the teacher in the school lies in his 
 freedom in the selection of the courses which he may 
 offer and in his method of treating his subject. When 
 he has proved himself a valuable member of the faculty, 
 he may be encouraged by the head of his department to 
 introduce new courses, as he has time to prepare them, 
 and to devise new ways of presenting them. He can 
 limit the number who will be allowed to select a course 
 so that he may teach a few by questions and explana- 
 tions, or he can open a course to an entire class, or per- 
 haps to more than one class, with the hope of having 
 so many take it that he will have a good reason for 
 instructing them by lectures. A mistake into which a 
 young teacher is in danger of falling is to aim at large 
 numbers, in the belief that this will show that he is a 
 superior instructor. It may show rather that he makes 
 his course too easy or that he is a good talker, who fur- 
 nishes the class with more entertainment than instruc- 
 tion. 
 
 If one of your courses is chosen by so many students 
 that you think you cannot teach them satisfactorily in 
 divisions, you will probably not be disappointed. You 
 remember some of the helpful courses of lectures which 
 you had in your undergraduate days, and perhaps re- 
 gard this as the ideal method for a college instructor. 
 It may be for some, but not for all. Beyond question, 
 the best teaching for undergraduates is done where the 
 divisions are so small that the teacher knows each indi- 
 vidual student, discovers his difficulties and deficiencies, 
 is able to give him the guidance that he needs, and can 
 
TEACHING IN COLLEGE 133 
 
 be sure by questions and tests that he studies system- 
 atically and prepares for every exercise. For this end 
 there ought to be not more than twenty or thirty stu- 
 dents in a division, and many courses could be better 
 taught to divisions of ten to fifteen. This would involve 
 greater expense than most colleges would be ready to 
 bear. Moreover, it would result in many cases in bring- 
 ing in inferior teachers, and would make it impossible 
 for all students to come under the influence of the best 
 men on the faculty, unless the number of students in the 
 college were quite small. In subjects that nearly all 
 students are likely to choose, the instruction is more 
 often given by lectures, especially in the two upper 
 years. In general, the lecture is a poor substitute for 
 the recitation as far as instruction goes, because the lec- 
 turer addresses a body of students whose ability and 
 qualifications are not known to him by personal ac- 
 quaintance. Like any audience at a public lecture, they 
 may be interested at the time in what they hear, but will 
 have only a general impression of it a day or two after- 
 ward. If, however, the instructor has the natural gifts 
 of a good public speaker, many of those who hear him 
 will get an inspiration from his presence that the best 
 textbooks cannot awaken. 
 
 If you decide to give your instruction in a course by 
 lectures, you should know your subject thoroughly and 
 be ready to present it in the clearest and most attractive 
 form. Your lecture must be carefully prepared; it 
 should be written out and your plan of it followed; 
 otherwise you will unconsciously wander off into roads 
 
134 THE YOUNG MAN AND TEACHING 
 
 that lead nowhere. But it will be coldly received if it 
 be read from the manuscript. I remember a professor 
 who dictated every word of his lectures, and even indi- 
 cated what words should be underscored and what should 
 be double underscored; his lectures were not impressive 
 and were not thought valuable by his students. Dictat- 
 ing lectures word by word is not to be recommended, but 
 one who lectures to college students should be concise 
 and logical in his statements and should speak distinctly 
 and proceed with deliberation. The important points 
 should be repeated and dwelt upon and emphasized till 
 you are sure that every one is able to understand them, 
 and your talk should not become wearisome on account 
 of its length. Your purpose is to interest and instruct 
 all who hear you. The hour of your lecture is all the 
 time you have in which to impress your thoughts upon 
 your students, and you must make sure that your effort 
 leaves no doubt in their minds as to your meaning. For 
 this you are responsible. You give to the class the best 
 you have and leave the result to them. 
 
 Two things are necessary to give value to a lecture to 
 students who are not enough interested to train them- 
 selves. (1) Some preparation ought to be required 
 from portions of textbooks to be read before the lecture. 
 One who is not prepared in advance to follow and under- 
 stand a lecture will get little or nothing from it, except 
 perhaps a pleasant hour. (£) All members of the class 
 should take notes, and a test on the pages assigned to be 
 read and on the material of the lecture should be held, 
 perhaps at the beginning of the next exercise, or at 
 
TEACHING IN COLLEGE 135 
 
 special exercises conducted by quiz masters. If the 
 students do not take notes, but find that they can depend 
 for all that they need to know about a course on other 
 students or on private tutors, they may conclude that 
 the hour spent in the lecture is for them so much wasted 
 time. To insure accuracy in names and dates, and in 
 statistics of all kinds, these should be given out in 
 printed or typewritten form or written before the exer- 
 cise on the blackboard. 
 
 In general you will not find it wise to repeat a course 
 of lectures to a succeeding class in the exact form in 
 which they were given the year before. This might 
 suggest to the more thoughtful men in the class that you 
 are not doing any serious work in your subject, and the 
 student would soon learn that a notebook handed down 
 from last year's class is an easy and adequate substitute 
 for one which he takes the trouble to write out himself. 
 
 The college will perhaps require you to report to the 
 dean or registrar the relative grades of the students in 
 your courses, in order to prepare an honor list. In 
 marking a student's work, whether on daily recitations 
 or on term examination, a wide distinction should be 
 made between that which is excellent and that which is 
 good, between the very best and that which is second 
 best ; and as the best recitation is rarely perfect, a per- 
 fect mark should not often be given. An examination 
 paper which shows no knowledge of the subject should 
 be marked as a failure, or, in some cases, worse than a 
 failure, without regard to the number of pages that have 
 been written over. The student who tries to bluff and 
 
136 THE YOUNG MAN AND TEACHING 
 
 pretends to knowledge when he has none, ought really to 
 be rated lower than the one who hands in a blank sheet, 
 or who in answer to a question frankly confesses that he 
 does not know and is given a zero. The principal of a 
 large private school, when bringing some of his grad- 
 uates to take the college entrance examinations, in order 
 to show the thoroughness of scholarship in his school 
 told me that the average standing of his senior class for 
 the entire year had been ninety-five per cent, a standing 
 higher than had ever been given even to the best scholar 
 in some of the good schools and colleges. This was no 
 proof of unusual excellence in scholarship. It showed 
 rather that his teachers marked all recitations so high 
 that the highest standings which they gave were no evi- 
 dence whatever of superior scholarship. 
 
 If a young man comes to college before he is in a 
 condition to feel a good degree of responsibility for his 
 own progress and while he is unable to profit by the 
 freedom which the college allows, he has come too young 
 or has not had the necessary training at home or in the 
 school. Perhaps in some private schools the rules are 
 too many and too minute. The schools that place much 
 responsibility on the students, and trust them with as 
 much liberty outside the classroom as they can safely 
 be allowed to have, send their graduates to college better 
 prepared to use without harm the greater freedom which 
 they there enjoy. In these schools the test of a boy's 
 ability to take care of himself comes at an earlier period, 
 and those who cannot stand the test the schools send 
 away. The most of these delinquents complete their 
 
TEACHING IN COLLEGE 137 
 
 preparatory studies under private tutors or at a tutor- 
 ing school and enter college, some to do fairly well, some 
 to fail early in Freshman year, some to wriggle through 
 in the way by which they entered, by being crammed for 
 examinations by private tutors, and finally to get a 
 degree which they do not deserve. One is amazed to 
 discover the ability which a skillful private tutor has 
 in preparing students to hand in papers which the in- 
 structor accepts, although he is well convinced that 
 they have done no real work in his course. 
 
 Boys who have lived at home and have been prepared 
 at the local high schools generally have less difficulty in 
 adapting themselves to the freedom of college life. 
 They have already had to think and plan for them- 
 selves, getting such help as the high school faculty could 
 give them. They have grown strong and independent 
 through the difficulties which they have had to meet. 
 At college, in their own class or in the class above them, 
 they have few acquaintances, and being often somewhat 
 deficient in preparation and obliged to spend all their 
 time in study, they are not likely to be unfavorably 
 influenced by evil companions. The real worth of a 
 student's preparation is not shown merely by his ability 
 to get in without conditions, but more by his ability to 
 profit by the freedom of college life and to make good 
 use of the opportunities which the college affords. 
 The truest tests are the progress he makes after enter- 
 ing college, and his rank and character at the end of 
 Freshman or Sophomore year. 
 
 A college teacher may not feel guilty of neglecting his 
 
138 THE YOUNG MAN AND TEACHING 
 
 duties as long as he gives his classes the best instruc- 
 tion of which he is capable ; but, though he rightly as- 
 sumes that his students are advanced enough to feel 
 responsible for their progress in study and to have due 
 regard for their character and habits, yet he knows that 
 there are many who do not fully recognize this respon- 
 sibility, and some who have no real conception of it. 
 There is before him a great opportunity for personal 
 influence over the young men whom he instructs, an op- 
 portunity to help them in the formation of a character 
 which will stand the ordinary tests of manhood. He 
 ought not to be satisfied with merely teaching them his 
 subject. There ought to be something in his methods 
 of teaching and in his manner of dealing with them 
 which will strengthen them in a purpose to live clean 
 and upright lives. During the first two college years 
 such influences are especially needed. 
 
 It is a question whether much can be done by his 
 teachers to help the young man who is by inheritance or 
 early training vicious, or who is weakened in body and 
 mind by enervating habits ; in many cases his class- 
 mates and companions can reach him better than his 
 instructors. If a student's influence is unquestionably 
 bad and there seems no reasonable chance of reforming 
 him, for the good of the community he ought not to be 
 allowed to remain in college. He is getting no good, is 
 injuring others, and tarnishing the good name of the 
 college. It is clear enough that in future years he will 
 not be an honor to the institution if he is counted among 
 its alumni. 
 
TEACHING IN COLLEGE 139 
 
 But the majority of those who are weak and unstable, 
 who came to college a year too soon, who have not yet 
 the character to endure without some encouragement and 
 support, can be reached and strengthened before they 
 get beyond help. It is in most instances easy for a 
 teacher to discover when a student in his first term is 
 beginning to go wrong. Association with bad com- 
 panions and the first steps in paths that lead to disaster 
 are generally accompanied by neglect of study and slip- 
 shod classroom work. A few sympathetic words of 
 warning spoken with authority by a friendly instructor 
 at the first signs of a loss of interest may be worth more 
 to a young man than all the learning that he will acquire 
 from a year's course of study. There is no kind of col- 
 lege work that is superior to that done by a good teacher 
 of Freshmen who understands the peculiar difficulties 
 and temptations which surround them, and who is at all 
 times ready to make any personal sacrifice if he can 
 save and strengthen those who are in danger of falling, 
 and be to them a safe counselor and guide. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 SUGGESTIONS 
 
 Vacations. The earliest New England schoolmasters did not 
 have regular vacations. The modern teacher especially favored. 
 A teacher's vacations not solely for his own enjoyment. Read- 
 ing and study. Rest and relaxation. New associations. Danger 
 to some of overwork in vacation. Loyalty to the school. Written 
 examinations. Written classroom exercises. These to be read and 
 returned promptly. A teacher's proper business is not to correct 
 written papers. The teacher must continue to be a student. 
 Should have an avocation. Should be what he wishes his pupils 
 to become. Easily becomes dictatorial in manner. Should be 
 ready to accept criticism. Seeking a new position. The teacher 
 as a citizen. 
 
 The very early New England schoolmasters did not 
 enjoy the luxury of short school-days and regular vaca- 
 tions. They taught six days in the week, and not 
 less than eight hours in the day, beginning sometimes 
 as early as six o'clock in the morning the year round. 
 At Roxbury the master was hired " to keepe a schoole 
 for ye space of one full yeare " (of fifty-two weeks), 
 being allowed no doubt some time to attend to his per- 
 sonal affairs, " but without unnecessarily absenting him- 
 self to the prejudice of his schollers and hindering their 
 learning." In one case found on the New Haven town 
 records the master was by special vote of the com- 
 mittee to " have liberty once a year to see his friends," 
 
 140 
 
SUGGESTIONS 14)1 
 
 from which we may reasonably infer that without some 
 special vote there was no such liberty. 
 
 Ministers and public servants have not always had 
 regular vacations, and sometimes have taken no vaca- 
 tion at all for long periods, however much they were in 
 need of it. Horace Mann said in a Supplementary Re- 
 port appended to his last Annual Report as Secretary 
 of the Massachusetts Board of Education : 
 
 M I trust, then, that I may be permitted to state, without 
 any imputation of improper motives, that from the time 
 when I accepted the secretaryship, in June, 1837, until 
 May, 1848, when I tendered my resignation of it, I labored 
 in this cause, an average of not less than fifteen hours a 
 day; that, from the beginning to the end of this period, I 
 never took a single day for relaxation; and that months 
 and months together passed without my withdrawing a sin- 
 gle evening from working-time to call upon a friend." x 
 
 Now every one, who can, wisely takes a vacation, and 
 the teacher is favored above all others. A man em- 
 ployed in business has to be satisfied with a vacation 
 of two weeks in the year. The young physician or 
 lawyer does not often take more. The teacher is al- 
 lowed about one-fourth of the calendar year, not be- 
 cause his work is so much more exhausting that he re- 
 quires it, but because the pupils are supposed to require 
 it. 
 
 If the school authorities allow the teacher so many 
 weeks of freedom, it is evident that he is under obliga- 
 
 i Twelfth Annual Report of the [Massachusetts] Board of 
 Education, p. 150. 
 
142 THE YOUNG MAN AND TEACHING 
 
 tion to use these periods not solely for his own enjoy- 
 ment, but in such a way that he may be at their close 
 in the best possible condition for his school duties. He 
 should come back from the long summer vacation fresh 
 and enthusiastic, and eager to begin the work of the 
 new year. It is wise for him to forget the schoolroom 
 altogether for some consecutive weeks of this extended 
 period (never less than two) ; but if the summer vaca- 
 tion has been spent wholly in idleness, or in some mild 
 form of sport, or in reading something so easy that 
 it requires no thought, he is likely to return with slug- 
 gish mind and almost wishing that life were all one 
 continuous vacation. Unless a teacher is utterly ex- 
 hausted or is in feeble health, long-continued idleness 
 is not the kind of rest which he needs. 
 
 A vacation furnishes a splendid opportunity for out- 
 side reading which the pressure of duties in term-time 
 does not allow. The summer months are favorable 
 for reading and study, as the long day makes artificial 
 light unnecessary. I am convinced that for a consid- 
 erable part of the long vacation a teacher who is in 
 proper physical condition should take systematically 
 a part of each day, at least two or three hours, and 
 always the same part, for fascinating and rather diffi- 
 cult intellectual work of some kind. This will keep 
 the mind active, and the satisfaction that comes from 
 doing something worth while will stimulate and 
 strengthen the whole being. 
 
 You will find the needed rest in a change of scene or 
 in a different kind of occupation. There are many 
 
SUGGESTIONS 143 
 
 advantages in a secluded retreat in the country, where 
 one can be quiet and undisturbed. A certain amount 
 of travel is beneficial, and a man on a teacher's salary 
 is not generally in danger of affording too much of it. 
 The teachers in England have the desirable opportunity 
 of making short and easy vacation trips to Italy or 
 Greece, or to some other interesting spot on the Conti- 
 nent. For us a visit to Europe takes much time and is 
 expensive. But if we cannot visit foreign countries, we 
 can travel in our own. Every teacher ought to take 
 trips to as many places of historical interest on this 
 side of the Atlantic as his time and means allow. Such 
 visits will make him a better American, and hence a bet- 
 ter teacher of American youth; and he will bring back 
 illustrative material that will brighten his recitations, 
 ,even if he teaches mathematics or an ancient language. 
 To get the most out of the periods of vacation, it is 
 obvious that they should not be spent to any great 
 extent with the colleagues with whom one is associated 
 during three-fourths of the year. There is opportunity 
 enough to visit and talk and debate with these during 
 the thirty-six weeks of term-time. For his own growth, 
 one needs to form new acquaintances among the teach- 
 ing profession and to have a chance to discuss with 
 them some of the problems that vex him at home. It 
 is not necessary to say, also, that he should religiously 
 accept the opportunities afforded by the school au- 
 thorities for visiting other schools, and for attending 
 gatherings planned and managed by educational boards 
 and by teachers' associations. One cannot expect to 
 
144 THE YOUNG MAN AND TEACHING 
 
 be a growing teacher if he lazily avoids these oppor- 
 tunities of learning from the experience and investiga- 
 tions of others. It is well, also, to form acquaintances 
 with men of other occupations. There is no kind of 
 practical knowledge which is not valuable to the teacher. 
 He will learn much from studying the methods of men 
 in other professions or in business. 
 
 While in general that vacation is best spent in which 
 one does a certain amount of study or writing, yet it is 
 not just to the school in which he is employed that a 
 master should give so much time to literary work that 
 he returns at the beginning of the new year more in 
 need of rest than at the beginning of the vacation. Do 
 not be too eager to finish a book or an article before 
 the term opens. Many teachers have suffered seriously 
 in health from having to go on with classroom work 
 after such a strain, and some have greatly shortened 
 their lives by it. 
 
 The first obligation of a teacher is to the school 
 of which he is a part. The Board which has given him 
 his place and the headmaster under whose direction he 
 serves have a right to expect that he will be thoroughly 
 loyal. A school in which the headmaster and his sub- 
 ordinate teachers do not believe, and in which they are 
 not working together in harmony for the common wel- 
 fare, cannot be a fit place to which to send boys and 
 will not long retain its patronage. If a teacher is not 
 at heart loyal, cannot take pride in his school and 
 " talk it up," and feel that, while he is connected with 
 it, its welfare is bound up with his own, he ought to 
 
SUGGESTIONS 145 
 
 withdraw from its faculty and seek a position else- 
 where. 
 
 It is proper to remember also that it is good policy 
 for a teacher to be loyal. People generally have not 
 much use for a faultfinder. The teacher who talks 
 about the peculiarities of a colleague or the inefficiency 
 of the headmaster, with the evident purpose of giving 
 others an unfavorable opinion of them, is much more 
 likely to injure himself in the estimation of those who 
 hear him than he is to damage the reputation of those 
 whom he criticizes. The natural inference will be that 
 he is himself not a congenial colleague and is not a 
 pleasant man with whom to get on. 
 
 One of the heavy burdens of the teacher who has 
 large classes is the reading of examination papers and 
 written exercises. Regarding the reading of examina- 
 tion papers not much needs to be said, for if an exami- 
 nation is in writing, of course the papers must be very 
 carefully read by the teacher at his convenience, as 
 each student's standing, in part at least, is to be de- 
 termined by them; but the question paper should be 
 so planned that the written answers can be read rap- 
 idly, and their value determined by an easy system. 
 
 One purpose of reading written classroom exercises 
 is to find out how much the student knows and to de- 
 termine his standing, but this is only a minor purpose. 
 If the written exercise takes the place of a recitation, 
 the student ought to know whether his work is right. 
 An instructor who is satisfied with hearing his boys 
 recite and does not take the trouble to tell them clearly 
 
146 THE YOUNG MAN AND TEACHING 
 
 whether what they do is right or wrong, fails in the 
 most important part of his duty. A daily written 
 exercise which is not corrected and returned, while it 
 shows the instructor, if he reads it, how much the boy 
 knows, will not be a proper recitation for the student 
 because he is not shown his mistakes. It is well to 
 require some written exercises from every class. They 
 give the boy a task on which he has an opportunity to 
 do his best, and it is good practice for him to concen- 
 trate his thoughts on an important paper which must 
 be written within a limited time. The teacher also 
 is enabled, if he reads the exercise faithfully, to get a 
 good idea of the boy's ability. There are subjects in 
 which, from their nature, a considerable part of the 
 work must be written and handed in, to be read by the 
 teacher and handed back. When there is no escape 
 from this, the teacher must submit and plan to make the 
 unwelcome task as light as possible for himself by his 
 skill in setting a few questions that are a real test of 
 scholarship. 
 
 The teacher who has not grown wise by experience is 
 likely to set too high a value on written exercises. Per- 
 haps he has so many boys in his class that it is diffi- 
 cult to call them up often. He also finds it pleasanter 
 for him and for them to spend a considerable part of 
 the hour in explanation, and he decides to give a writ- 
 ten test every day, intending to correct the papers and 
 hand them back. If he gets as far as this, for his own 
 peace of mind, as well as for the good of his students, 
 he must never put off till to-morrow the reading of the 
 
SUGGESTIONS 147 
 
 papers that have been handed in to-day. If he begins 
 to delay, the work will pile up so fast that he cannot 
 keep in sight of the end of it. Every convenient place 
 in his study will soon be covered with unread exercises, 
 and they may last on even into vacation. To read 
 papers in this way is an entire waste of time. Little 
 good comes to the student from a corrected paper un- 
 less it is handed back to him at once. If he gets it back 
 a month, or even a week, after it was written, it is tol- 
 erably certain that he will not have enough interest left 
 to examine it carefully, and he probably will not look 
 at it at all. 
 
 In my opinion, many teachers spend altogether too 
 much time in reading and correcting written classroom 
 exercises. It is a wearisome and nerve-racking task. 
 When a person is hired to be a reader of papers, and 
 nothing more, it makes no difference to any one else 
 how many hours a day he spends upon it. If he be- 
 comes nervous from overwork of this kind, as he well 
 may, he alone suffers. But the teacher is not employed 
 primarily to be a reader of papers, but to teach. It is 
 his business to give his pupils the best instruction in 
 the classroom of which he is capable, to keep them 
 interested in their studies, and to be to them a constant 
 inspiration. He cannot do this if he burdens himself 
 so heavily with duties outside the classroom that he is 
 not able to appear before them every day with renewed 
 vigor of body and mind and fresh enthusiasm. He is 
 not only preparing for himself an unpleasant job, but 
 is doing his pupils a great wrong if he requires of them 
 
148 THE YOUNG MAN AND TEACHING 
 
 so much written work that a considerable part of his 
 strength is taken up with the task of reading their 
 exercises, so that he comes in consequence to his recita- 
 tion-room weary and dispirited. 
 
 When the recitations were oral, as they were in my 
 schooldays, all errors were corrected before the class, 
 and each member was expected to get a good under- 
 standing of the advance lesson, to note the additional 
 explanations of the teacher, and to be able to give 
 everything correctly in the review exercise of the next 
 day. Where it is thought best to make a part of each 
 recitation written, it does not seem difficult to devise 
 some plan for correcting the written exercises at the 
 close of the recitation. 
 
 As one gets more and more interested in teaching, and 
 has perhaps in addition some responsibility for ad- 
 ministration, there is danger that he will be satisfied with 
 himself and give up any serious effort to add to his 
 own mental equipment. To increase his mental power, 
 and even to retain that power which he already has, 
 he must be a student as well as a teacher. It would not 
 be far wrong to say that he must be a hard student in 
 order to be a good teacher. If one should spend a 
 half-hour each day in the same kind of study that he 
 did in college under his most exacting instructor, his 
 mind would keep sharp and active, his memory would 
 remain good, and he would feel ready to undertake 
 anything. A little strenuous exercise is as good for 
 a sound mind as it is for a healthy body. It does not 
 matter so much what the subject of study is; the chief 
 
SUGGESTIONS 149 
 
 point is that it be interesting to the person who under- 
 takes it and that it require fixed attention; but it is 
 desirable that the private studies of a teacher be more or 
 less directly connected with his own subject of instruc- 
 tion in order that he may constantly enlarge his stock 
 of knowledge in that subject, as well as increase his 
 power to impart it. A conscientious and ambitious 
 teacher will not be satisfied to give the same instruction 
 to his class from year to year. He will desire to grow 
 in knowledge and power in order to make his services 
 more valuable and with the hope of advancement. 
 
 When a teacher feels entirely satisfied with his pres- 
 ent attainments, has no desire either to grow or to 
 improve his instruction, thinks that he knows all that 
 his work requires, and sees no place wherein his teach- 
 ing needs to be made better, it is time for him to ask 
 himself whether he is not beginning to vegetate and 
 whether his work could not be better done by another 
 man with more vigor and ambition. 
 
 While not neglecting his own special line of work, 
 the teacher will find it helpful also to have some occu- 
 pation not in any way connected with his daily tasks 
 and so fascinating to him that it will absorb his atten- 
 tion when he wishes to banish from his thought the class- 
 room and everything connected with it. Many find it 
 profitable to pursue as a side issue a favorite study, 
 some division of history or literature perhaps, or some 
 branch of science which offers a ready field for observa- 
 tion, like botany or astronomy. Some find photog- 
 raphy well adapted to this end, especially where there 
 
150 THE YOUNG MAN AND TEACHING 
 
 is included the delightful pleasure of developing the 
 plates or films. If one takes along his camera to pick 
 up the interesting things in nature, he will combine 
 exercise and recreation with an absorbing avocation. 
 Some get similar results from a private workshop fur- 
 nished with good tools, or from a small piece of land 
 devoted to the cultivation and study of fruits and 
 flowers. Each one can choose that which seems to him 
 best for the end desired, but I believe a teacher will 
 reach the limit of his usefulness at an earlier age if 
 he does not with considerable regularity allow himself 
 some intellectual diversion of this nature. 
 
 No man can expect success in influencing others to 
 a right life who is not himself willing to follow the 
 rules which he recommends. This is especially true of 
 the preacher and of the teacher. Both have a pe- 
 culiarly sacred mission: they are devoting their lives 
 to the highest purpose known to man. The end and aim 
 of all their work is to make men better. All will agree 
 that the minister is unfit for his high calling if he does 
 not practise what he preaches. The teacher's calling 
 is no less high, and his influence comes at that period 
 of life when the foundations of character are being 
 laid. Is he not under a like obligation to be in reality 
 what he would have his pupils become? They will be 
 more likely to imitate him than any person outside their 
 own homes. If he is habitually neat, polite, punctual 
 and systematic, they will naturally tend to develop the 
 same traits of character. 
 
 I believe that a master's own conduct should corre- 
 
SUGGESTIONS 151 
 
 spond with the moral principles which he lays down 
 for the conduct of his students. In daily life I would 
 not allow myself indulgence in practices which were for- 
 bidden to my pupils. If the rules of the school for- 
 bade card-playing, I would not play cards ; if they for- 
 bade theater-going, I would not go to the theater; if 
 they forbade smoking, I would not smoke. I am not a 
 believer in many rules, unless made by the students 
 themselves; but if I thought it best for the interest of 
 the boys to make a rule by which certain indulgences 
 were forbidden, I would gladly deny myself the indul- 
 gences which were denied them. I know that many 
 teachers will not agree with me in this, but I am firmly 
 convinced that it is the best principle for us to follow. 
 I do not believe it has a good effect on a boy to be 
 forbidden by a general rule to do something which he 
 wishes to do and which he sees his teacher doing every 
 day. Is he not likely to question the sincerity of the 
 rule makers, or to have doubts about the fairness of 
 the rule? If any practice is harmful for a boy, it can 
 be no great hardship for his teacher to abstain from it. 
 
 There should be no insinuations or suggestions in a 
 master's teaching which could give offense to the most 
 conscientious of his pupils, nothing to lessen a boy's 
 respect for his early religious belief, whatever that be- 
 lief may be. 
 
 The daily practice of correcting errors and telling 
 others dogmatically what is right and what wrong, tends 
 to give one the manners of a person who has an exag- 
 gerated idea of the amount of his own knowledge and 
 
152 THE YOUNG MAN AND TEACHING 
 
 to make him seem dictatorial and sometimes arrogant 
 in conversation. One gets so in the habit of talking 
 to his pupils in an authoritative tone that before he 
 realizes it he is talking to his friends in the same way. 
 This may be nothing more than a habit, which does not 
 necessarily show that he is really self-opinionated or 
 lacking in respect for the views of other people. But 
 the man who knows it all, who habitually corrects his 
 friends' mistaken views and has a solution for all diffi- 
 cult questions, is in danger of making many misstate- 
 ments, and we do well to be on our guard lest we get 
 the reputation of belonging to that class " whose weak- 
 ness is not that they know so little as that they know 
 so much that is not so." 
 
 A young teacher is not a safe judge of the quality of 
 his own work. He may think it better than it really 
 is, and go on too long with this false view, greatly to 
 his own disadvantage. Friends and associates are very 
 ready to commend and praise, but few have the cour- 
 age to offer unfavorable criticism, even when there are 
 perfectly obvious faults that might be remedied. Peo- 
 ple do not like to be criticized and are apt to feel resent- 
 ment when their deficiencies are suggested. Hence criti- 
 cism on the part of friends is very infrequent, and we 
 learn our shortcomings more often from those whom 
 we have offended and who speak before they think, or 
 from gossips who come to us to relate what others have 
 said about us. Even the headmaster will hesitate long 
 before he tells a subordinate his failings, being in great 
 uncertainty as to how his criticism will be received. In 
 
SUGGESTIONS 153 
 
 many cases he will prefer to let a teacher with whom he 
 is not quite satisfied go at the end of the year, rather 
 than make an effort to remove his faults. 
 
 Therefore I think we who are teachers ought to listen 
 in a friendly spirit to any criticism of our work, from 
 whatever source it comes or with whatever motive it is 
 given. We may have a chance to hear something about 
 ourselves that it will be for our advantage to learn. A 
 colleague, out of sorts and irritated by something which 
 we have said or done, may free his mind and tell us 
 facts that it will do us good to think about. Some 
 comment on our way of doing things may be expected 
 from fathers or mothers who have been unfavorably 
 influenced by the complaints of their children and who 
 come to us in a manner uncivil and insulting. It is the 
 part of wisdom to treat all self-appointed censors with 
 forbearance, to avoid argument, and if possible to get 
 some profit from their words. Wherein we have been 
 at fault we want to know, if for no better reason, in 
 order to prevent further unfavorable criticism. 
 
 If you are not satisfied with the place which you 
 now have, you may wish to better your condition by 
 a change to another school. In seeking a new position, 
 however, there are a few points which it is well for one 
 to remember. 
 
 I have always advised a dissatisfied teacher not to 
 give up his present place till he is sure of another. For 
 every vacancy the number of applicants is large, often 
 surprisingly large, and one who resigns with no certain 
 assurance of another engagement may find himself 
 
154 THE YOUNG MAN AND TEACHING 
 
 forced either to accept a place no better than the one 
 he has left or to go without occupation. 
 
 If you should secure a position which now seems more 
 attractive, it may prove not to be so. You know all 
 the disagreeable things connected with the place in 
 which you now are, and probably picture in too bright 
 colors the advantages to be gained from a change. You 
 may find things just as unsatisfactory and perhaps 
 even more annoying, elsewhere. It is a good recom- 
 mendation for a teacher that he has remained for a long 
 period in one school. 
 
 If after due deliberation you decide to make a change, 
 you must go with the good-will of the authorities of 
 your present school and with a strong letter from the 
 headmaster. All the other testimonials which you can 
 bring will not weigh as much as the letter from the man 
 under whose supervision you taught last. Certificates 
 as to scholarship and promise, from your former in- 
 structors, are valuable when you begin; but when you 
 have had five or ten years' experience in teaching, a 
 school board or a principal, in considering your appli- 
 cation, will wish to know most of all what the men who 
 have been in close contact with you during the last year 
 think of your personality, of your ability and tact, and 
 skill in discipline and instruction, of your influence over 
 your pupils, and of your attitude as a subordinate and 
 a colleague. 
 
 In your correspondence with regard to an engage- 
 ment, whether with principal or trustees or teachers' 
 agencies, remember that one of the strongest witnesses 
 
SUGGESTIONS 155 
 
 for or against you will be the letters which you write. 
 Men in some positions may without risk write slovenly 
 and illegible letters, but you cannot. The ability to 
 write a good letter, in good English, in a legible hand, 
 with every point clearly stated, is rightly expected of 
 one who claims to have the qualifications of a teacher. 
 
 Your first engagement to teach was perhaps secured 
 through applications, on the basis of testimonials, but 
 after you have taught in one school and established a 
 record as teacher it is not pleasant to have to secure 
 a new set of recommendations and references, and make 
 application for a position in some other school. The 
 best way to gain advancement is to earn it by being the 
 kind of teacher and doing the kind of work which war- 
 rant an unsolicited call to a higher place. 
 
 The life of Dr. Bancroft of Andover shows how much 
 a teacher or principal can do as a citizen. He lived 
 for twenty-eight years in a New England town which 
 had become famous for its institutions of learning and 
 which was the home of many persons widely known for 
 scholarship and literary talent. While he greatly en- 
 joyed the society of these learned men, he took special 
 pains to mingle freely with all classes and showed that 
 he felt in no way above any fellow-townsman. He was 
 active in town meetings, urged progressive measures, 
 and helped secure many needed improvements. He came 
 to be regarded as " the first citizen of Andover." When 
 the town celebrated the 250th anniversary of its settle- 
 ment, he was chosen without question to be chairman 
 of the most important committee. He served the pub- 
 
156 THE YOUNG MAN AND TEACHING 
 
 lie in positions of trust. He was a director of the 
 Andover National Bank and of the Merrimack Insur- 
 ance Company, and was appointed by the Governor of 
 Massachusetts on the Board of Management of the 
 State Hospital at Tewksbury. 
 
 The school should not forget its obligation to the 
 town. Much of its property is exempt from taxation, 
 yet the town furnishes it such protection against fire, 
 theft and lawlessness as it is able to give. Probably 
 the greater part of its endowment has been contributed 
 by citizens or natives of the town. Certainly the teach- 
 ers of a school ought to be as much interested as the 
 best citizens in having the town in which the school is 
 located prosperous and well governed. 
 
 It is one of the special privileges of the teacher to 
 be a good citizen. Every loyal citizen is under obliga- 
 tion to work and vote for measures that will contribute 
 to the welfare of the community in which he lives. 
 But the teacher by his avowed principles and his per- 
 sonal example, can help greatly to keep the moral 
 standard high and the amusements wholesome, and he 
 ought to understand better than any one else the evils 
 that are hindrances to public progress, and how to 
 reach and correct them. 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 FOR BETTER SCHOOLS 
 
 The teachers. Selection of teachers. Trustees of private 
 schools. Boards of education. Lack of home training. Environ- 
 ment. Demand for amusement. The spirit of the age. Unfavor- 
 able influences to be counteracted by the schools. Teachers' views 
 of the modern schoolboy. The short-cut. Enervating habits. 
 Athletics for younger boys. Demand for good teachers in the 
 rural schools. Boyhood in the country. The tendency to move 
 into the city. Importance to the nation of an intelligent country 
 population. Residence in country towns made more attractive by 
 good schools. Education which is complete. 
 
 In order to have ideal schools there is need of su- 
 perior teachers, competent trustees and boards of edu- 
 cation, good home training, good environment, a help- 
 ful public spirit, and ambitious students of good char- 
 acter, free from debilitating habits. 
 
 There are to-day many American teachers who are 
 as efficient as any that the country has had or ever will 
 have, and many American boys are being educated by 
 methods which yield as good results as any that can 
 be devised. The vocation has rightly suffered in public 
 estimation because so many have adopted it who have 
 not possessed the needed qualifications. Some have 
 taken up teaching, because they thought it a more re- 
 spectable occupation than one involving manual labor, 
 some from a mistaken idea that they had a call to 
 teach, and some have drifted into it because they 
 
 157 
 
158 THE YOUNG MAN AND TEACHING 
 
 could not find anything else to do. One cannot teach 
 what he does not know, and the master who has zeal 
 without knowledge is likely to give his pupils much 
 that they will have to unlearn. On the other hand, 
 one may take honors in college and not be an efficient 
 teacher of a class in a subject which he himself under- 
 stands. Uninterested students are as likely to read 
 books and write letters under a scholar who is an in- 
 competent teacher, as tired hearers are to sleep under 
 a theologian who is a dry preacher. 
 
 It is possible to have good schools in poor buildings 
 and with poor text books, but we cannot have good 
 schools without good teachers. It is evident, then, that 
 the way to keep the schools up to a high standard is 
 to eliminate the poor teachers, and to retain and pro- 
 mote the best, giving them such encouragement to make 
 teaching their permanent profession that they cannot 
 be drawn away by calls to any other occupation. The 
 ill j tempered, the sarcastic, the listless and indifferent 
 can be spared without loss, and in general those may be 
 allowed to withdraw who have fled for refuge to teach- 
 ing because they have failed in other occupations. The 
 salaries of teachers and principals and superintendents 
 must be large enough to secure the best men and women 
 for the profession. Many persons who would make 
 excellent teachers, and who would be glad to devote 
 their lives to teaching, now select other occupations 
 because they cannot live comfortably on a teacher's in- 
 come. 
 
 It is a difficult task to pick from a long list of candi- 
 
FOR BETTER SCHOOLS 159 
 
 dates a competent superintendent or principal, and to 
 select the right kind of teachers from the numerous 
 applicants, all of whom seem to come about equally well 
 recommended. The only sure test of fitness for teach- 
 ing is experience. Some who seem to have the neces- 
 sary qualifications fail, and many for whom success 
 cannot be promised do well. 
 
 The trustees of a good private school are, as a rule, 
 chosen on account of some special fitness for the duties 
 which they are expected to perform. They serve with- 
 out compensation and hold office long enough to be- 
 come closely identified with the school and to have a 
 personal interest in it. They are ready to pay sal- 
 aries that will attract good teachers and they have it 
 in their power to pay such salaries when the income of 
 the school allows it. The selection of teachers they 
 leave mainly to the headmaster or to a small and compe- 
 tent committee with whose decisions they do not inter- 
 fere. These schools are dependent for income mainly 
 on their patronage, and the trustees understand that 
 they must have the best teachers that can be secured. 
 They therefore do business on business principles. 
 
 On the other hand, the public schools of a city, both 
 primary and secondary, are supported by taxation and 
 are managed by a board of education which is often 
 elected by the voters, many of whom have little inter- 
 est in public education. This board is expected to be 
 economical and is not allowed to spend the public money 
 without the approval of some other body which controls 
 the city expenditures. On such boards of education 
 
160 THE YOUNG MAN AND TEACHING 
 
 many persons have served who have been qualified for 
 the position, but a valuable member is by no means sure 
 to be retained, especially if he has been an advocate of 
 reform or of an increase in the school expenses ; the 
 body is subject to very frequent changes, and sometimes 
 the whole board may be replaced by another when a 
 new political party comes into power. A board so con- 
 stituted and limited cannot, at best, be as efficient as 
 a modern school board ought to be and is not likely 
 to be composed largely of men of sufficient experience 
 and sufficient judgment of character to have the re- 
 sponsibility of selecting superintendent, principals and 
 the large body of teachers needed in the public schools. 
 It will often be found that the members of the board 
 who know least about the needs of the schools will be 
 the ones to have the most to say about their manage- 
 ment. Where the board is composed of men elected by 
 party vote or appointed through political influence, 
 who are more anxious to serve their party than to serve 
 the public, the chances of having good schools are of 
 course very doubtful. It is so important to have a 
 board of education composed of persons especially fitted 
 for the position, who will act from no other motive than 
 that of the public good, and whose position on the 
 board is as secure as that of a Justice of the Supreme 
 Court, that the time must soon come when membership 
 in this important office will everywhere be placed en- 
 tirely beyond political control. 
 
 American children at birth are not inferior to those 
 born in Europe, but it is generally admitted that Amer- 
 
FOR BETTER SCHOOLS 161 
 
 ican boys in the high schools are at least two years 
 behind English, French, and German boys of the same 
 age, both in intellectual attainments and in development 
 toward manhood. If there is this inferiority in the 
 period of youth, when there was no innate inferiority, 
 then there must be something lacking in the training 
 of American children, and for this the blame is often 
 placed upon the schools. But this deficiency in develop- 
 ment is due in great part to lack of discipline in the 
 home, to unfavorable environment, to the spirit of the 
 age, to enervating and debasing habits, and to other 
 influences which the schools, in the nature of the case 
 do not, and cannot control. 
 
 We cannot expect to have ideal schools, unless the 
 pupils come to us from good homes. Children well 
 brought up at home begin their education with a good 
 preparation. They are easily taught to be systematic 
 in their exercises, and to respect authority. They 
 make better progress in their studies, and get better 
 mental and moral training. Our public schools have 
 had a remarkable development during the last half- 
 century, but there is too little now of that careful 
 home training which prepared the children of former 
 generations for the work of the schoolroom, and this 
 deficiency has thrown a heavier burden upon the teach- 
 ers. Before going to college, I taught several terms 
 in the district and select schools of a small town in 
 Massachusetts. This was just before and during the 
 first year of the Civil War, a time of more than usual 
 mental activity in New England. The children were 
 
162 THE YOUNG MAN AND TEACHING 
 
 ambitious to learn, and it required no effort to make 
 them study. For most of them the town school, last- 
 ing not more than twenty-four weeks in the year, would 
 furnish all the education they were expected to have. 
 They had plenty of vigorous exercise, and there was 
 no need of artificial devices to amuse them. Their 
 recreation was found in the out-of-door sports in which, 
 at that period, young people in the country villages 
 naturally engaged. 
 
 It was delightful to teach in such an atmosphere. 
 The plain schoolroom was attractive to both teacher 
 and pupils, because the attitude of the pupils toward 
 study was almost ideal. The reaction upon the teacher 
 was immediate and stimulated him to do his best. 
 
 I kept up my acquaintance with a number of these 
 pupils for many years. The most of the young men 
 who did not lose their lives in the Civil War became use- 
 ful citizens, and many filled creditably more or less im- 
 portant public offices in the towns where they resided. 
 The results show that they were well trained for what 
 they had to do, but it would not be right to give credit 
 for this wholly or mainly to the schools, which could 
 not compare with those of the present day. Their one 
 great advantage was that they were brought up in good 
 homes. They were not weakened by too much indul- 
 gence, nor spoiled by idleness. They were taught to 
 obey and to work. They were eager to learn. The 
 influence of the home and the spirit of the time gave 
 them the ambition to know and to do. When they had 
 finished their limited education, they had before them 
 
FOR BETTER SCHOOLS 163 
 
 the example of worthy fathers and mothers, and they 
 started out with no other inheritance to make their 
 way in the world. 
 
 It is unjust to throw the blame on the public schools 
 because many who have enjoyed their advantages show 
 marked defects in their character and education. It 
 is not easy to make a good student out of a boy who 
 comes from a home where he has been allowed to have 
 his own way, or where the only purpose of the family 
 is to have a good time. You cannot expect every boy 
 to acquire the habit of speaking good English from the 
 school, when so many never hear it correctly spoken 
 anywhere else. The teachers cannot be held respon- 
 sible for the moral character of children who are con- 
 stantly surrounded by corrupting influences in their own 
 families and on the street. The schools are doing a 
 great deal for children who have not had early advan- 
 tages, but they cannot counteract altogether the effects 
 of unfavorable environment. The public schools open 
 their doors to all that come. They receive children 
 from all sorts of homes, of many nationalities, with 
 every variety of inherited prejudice, with all grades of 
 ability, with all possible differences in disposition, and 
 make of the greater part creditable citizens. The won- 
 der is that the result is so good. 
 
 There is now among our American people an exces- 
 sive demand for amusement. The children have no re- 
 sources of their own. They cannot be satisfied with 
 the natural enjoyments of the home, but continually 
 seek some outside excitement to keep them from becom- 
 
164 THE YOUNG MAN AND TEACHING 
 
 ing weary with life. Think how much time most par- 
 ents give to clubs, to public entertainments, to private 
 parties, to pleasure trips ! Amusements that formerly 
 were patronized occasionally are now indulged in every 
 day. Games that were once practiced for healthful 
 exercise are now played for the entertainment of vast 
 crowds, by men who adopt this career as a profession. 
 Of course, where the attention of parents and friends 
 is fixed so constantly on amusement, the thoughts of the 
 younger members of the family must be fully occupied 
 by it also. Most children nowadays who have anything 
 that can be called a bringing up are brought up to be 
 amused. That amusements take so much time of the 
 pupils and return them weary to their tasks is not the 
 only evil; they absorb their attention and become the 
 chief subject of interest, so that studies are regarded as 
 of secondary importance, or, it may be, of no impor- 
 tance at all. 
 
 The schools are affected by the spirit of the age, and 
 when the tendencies of the people are bad the schools 
 suffer and the teachers have so much more to contend 
 with and overcome. There has been a growing disre- 
 gard for law and authority among the American peo- 
 ple, which has had an unfortunate influence on the 
 young, who display their independence in the home, in 
 the school, on the street, and in places of public resort. 
 There is a prevalent desire to get something for nothing, 
 an ambition to accumulate property without earning it, 
 by defrauding other people or by taking advantage of 
 their ignorance or weakness or inexperience. The in- 
 
FOR BETTER SCHOOLS 165 
 
 fluence of this spirit reaches down into the schools, 
 where we too often find a lack of honor in dealing with 
 instructors and with rivals in sports, and too great 
 readiness to appropriate the property of others. The 
 young get a wrong idea of success. Their standard 
 will be the standard of the men who seem to them to 
 prosper, and prosperity in the eyes of a young man 
 generally means easily gotten wealth. There is among 
 many a feeling that it is more respectable to spend what 
 others have accumulated than it is to work, and that a 
 happy life is one of idleness and pleasure. When 
 young people are under the influence of this feeling, it 
 is almost impossible to arouse in them an ambition for 
 the best things or to get them interested in serious tasks. 
 The teachers, more than any other class, have it in 
 their power to counteract wrong tendencies among the 
 people, partly by their indirect influence in the com- 
 munity, but mostly by inculcating high standards of 
 conduct among their pupils and by laying the foun- 
 dations for a higher moral tone. The first thing for 
 a pupil to learn is respect for authority and ready 
 obedience to those who govern, including parents 
 and public officials, as well as instructors. If right 
 influences prevail in the schools the pupils ought to 
 grow up with the conviction that the successful man 
 is not the one who gets property in questionable 
 ways; that the really happy life is not the one 
 spent in accumulating a great fortune for some one 
 else to spend, or in spending the money which some one 
 else has earned ; that the best way to spend a large for- 
 
166 THE YOUNG MAN AND TEACHING 
 
 tune is to give it away where it will do the most good ; 
 that man's nature is such that useful occupation is nec- 
 essary to lasting happiness ; and that no man is satisfied 
 with life who is not upright, honorable and trustworthy. 
 A few years ago I had some correspondence with sev- 
 eral leading headmasters and principals of secondary 
 schools for the purpose of getting their views regarding 
 the quality of the students whom they were then sending 
 to college. There was a general agreement that the 
 boys then in school were not lacking in inherited ability, 
 but that they were less interested in study, less ambi- 
 tious and more listless and lazy than their fellows of 
 twenty or thirty years earlier. I quote very briefly 
 from the letters of four teachers of long experience : 
 
 (1) " The short-cut habit tends to narrow or superficial 
 scholarship. In some cases it is both narrow and super- 
 ficial. Nearly all pupils that come to us now are in haste." 
 
 (2) "I look with grave apprehension upon the tendency 
 to lack of thoroughness, which results from the attempt to 
 do in a certain time more than can be done well by the 
 average boy/' 
 
 (3) " It is my opinion that in general information, alert- 
 ness and breadth of attainment the pupils of to-day are 
 superior to those of ten years ago; but that in exactness of 
 scholarship, painstaking effort, and concentration they are 
 inferior. The difference is due doubtless to the extension 
 of the curriculum, which requires attention to a larger 
 number of subjects than formerly, and to the changes in 
 the student life, which give a larger part to athletics and 
 other forms of student activity." • 
 
 (4) " Owing to the pernicious and almost universal habit 
 of cigarette smoking, and the undue excitement in regard to 
 
FOR BETTER SCHOOLS 167 
 
 all branches of athletics, young men do not do as good work 
 as they did formerly, and many are becoming totally unable 
 to do any work in mathematics or in other studies requiring 
 close mental application. Unless the curse of cigarette 
 smoking can be abated by legal means or otherwise, the 
 intellectual outlook for our young men is not encouraging. ,, 
 
 When schools allow the pupils to be forced beyond 
 what is wise, it is because they are compelled to do this 
 to satisfy the demands of parents or of the taxpayers. 
 The taxpayers generally object to a high school course 
 of four years if the work can possibly be crowded into 
 three, and most parents seem anxious to save as much 
 time as possible in their sons' education for business or 
 in preparation for college. When a short cut to col- 
 lege is the chief end sought, it is best to prepare for some 
 institution that does not require much for admission. 
 The powers of the mind, like those of the body, are de- 
 veloped gradually, and it is a great mistake to force a 
 boy to attempt more than he can do well. Time is an 
 important element in education. 
 
 There is abundant evidence to show that many of the 
 boys of the present day are forming habits that will 
 seriously affect their capacity to do the hard work that 
 will some time be demanded of them. The youth who 
 impairs his strength by indulgence in enervating habits 
 and thus unfits himself for the duties and responsibilities 
 of manhood, is not only throwing himself away and 
 wasting the resources of his family, but is inflicting a 
 loss upon the nation, which in its time of need must rely 
 on the character and endurance of its young men. 
 
168 THE YOUNG MAN AND TEACHING 
 
 Where is the necessity of temperate and clean living to 
 be taught, if not in the homes and in the schools? 
 
 Systematic exercise under the guidance of a careful 
 trainer is good for body and mind, but much harm may 
 come to boys in the secondary schools from exercise 
 which is too vigorous or too long continued. Games 
 between rival schools may not seriously interfere with 
 scholarship; in general, I do not think they do. But 
 the long and hard training in preparation, and the in- 
 tense exertion in a close game, where each side is ready 
 to make any sacrifice to win, may have more serious 
 results than bruises and broken bones. Whatever may 
 be true of their older brothers in college, such strain for 
 undeveloped boys of high school age involves too great 
 risk of permanent bodily impairment, especially of the 
 heart, which may greatly lessen the capacity for work 
 in maturer years and shorten life. 
 
 We look for the day when study will again be fash- 
 ionable, when the boy who devotes his main attention to 
 the work for which he goes to school will no longer be 
 sneeringly referred to as a " dig " or a " grind," when 
 scholarship will be as earnestly sought as prowess in 
 athletic sports. 
 
 The teacher who is anxious to put his life in where he 
 can do most for the nation will find a great field for 
 usefulness in connection with the rural schools. Much 
 has already been done to improve the educational ad- 
 vantages of the country towns, but a beginning only has 
 been made. The children in the country must have op- 
 portunities for education that will be more nearly equal 
 
FOR BETTER SCHOOLS 169 
 
 to those in the cities. At present, one strong argument 
 against living in small towns is the inferiority of the 
 local schools. Now that so large a proportion of the 
 teachers come from normal schools, the country towns 
 are likely to get only those that the cities have no 
 room for, and as soon as a teacher in a rural school does 
 work good enough to attract the attention of the super- 
 intendent, there almost invariably comes a call to a 
 larger community and a higher salary which it is very 
 difficult for one with ambition to refuse. 
 
 The young man has missed a great deal which cannot 
 be wholly made up, who has been deprived of the oppor- 
 tunities of boyhood in the country. The one who grows 
 up in the country gets a kind of practical education out- 
 side of the schools which is of very great value, and 
 which sometimes is worth more to him than what he now 
 gets from his teachers. Abundant exercise in the broad, 
 open fields makes him strong and agile, and assures him 
 a good degree of health and endurance in mature life. 
 He has work to do which is a pleasure because he feels 
 that he is learning to do what men do. He takes pride 
 in being given responsibility for certain duties that are 
 left to him. He becomes acquainted with machinery 
 and tools and learns how to make things for his own 
 use or amusement. He enjoys the freedom of the coun- 
 try. He can roam through the fields and forests and 
 by the ponds and streams, and acquires by observation 
 a knowledge of animal and plant life. He enjoys the 
 singing of birds and the sight of mountains and valleys. 
 He has constantly before him a view of the glory of sun- 
 
170 THE YOUNG MAN AND TEACHING 
 
 rise and sunset, and of the whole starry sky at night 
 down to the horizon on every side. This is vastly better 
 for his physical and moral development than crowded 
 tenements, noisy streets, questionable shows, and the 
 chance companions of the city. But he misses the supe- 
 rior mental training which boys of his age in the city 
 receive. 
 
 The father who has a right appreciation of his obli- 
 gations to his family and to the state, naturally wishes 
 to give his children a good education. If he is living in 
 a small town, where the school privileges are poor, as 
 soon as his children are of school age he begins to feel 
 dissatisfied with his surroundings and seeks a situation 
 in a city, where he himself will be an unknown man in 
 the crowd, with few friends, and no social standing to 
 be compared with that which he is leaving, but where his 
 children will have the advantage of much better schools. 
 The citizen who earns his support by daily toil cannot 
 afford private schools which are open to men of larger 
 means, though it is no less important to the state that 
 his children be properly educated, for children brought 
 up to work and to economize generally prove superior 
 in achievement and attainment to those brought up in 
 luxury and idleness. 
 
 It is of the greatest importance to the nation that the 
 country towns be occupied by thrifty, intelligent and 
 contented citizens. A vigorous and loyal yeomanry are 
 the nation's strength. Unless the future is unlike the 
 past, the country towns will continue to furnish a large 
 proportion of the leading men in business and in the 
 
FOR BETTER SCHOOLS 171 
 
 professions ; and in case of a great war they must pro- 
 duce young men hardy and brave to fill up the nation's 
 armies. 
 
 The time must come when the rural population will 
 cease to crowd into the cities, and when men of moderate 
 means living in the cities, who value the health and 
 happiness of their families and who wish to rear their 
 children amid wholesome surroundings, will be willing 
 to leave the questionable attractions of city life and seek 
 homes in the country, where they may have houses and 
 lands which they can call their own. The manifold 
 conveniences and comforts brought to country homes 
 by modern inventions will do much to encourage this 
 desirable movement, but nothing will hasten it more than 
 a large increase in the school privileges open to the 
 children in the country towns. 
 
 No education approaches completeness that does not 
 develop body, mind and character. In the early New 
 England education, the chief aim was religious and 
 moral training, and though on the religious side too 
 much stress was laid on doctrine, yet the schools turned 
 out men of strong character, who could withstand temp- 
 tation. 
 
 Then there came a time when the only aim of the 
 schools seemed to be the training of the mind and the 
 acquisition of knowledge, when many teachers held the 
 view that their sole mission was to teach their subjects, 
 and that they were in no way responsible for the 
 health or morals or manners of their students. 
 
 In more recent times the chief emphasis seems to be 
 
172 THE YOUNG MAN AND TEACHING 
 
 laid on physical education, on health, muscular devel- 
 opment and bodily symmetry. Boys are encouraged to 
 give much time to gymnastics and athletics, and neglect 
 of study is thought by many preferable to the neglect of 
 physical training. 
 
 All these objects are important. We are not likely 
 to overestimate any one of the three, if we do not at the 
 same time underestimate the other two. The school 
 must not neglect that knowledge which is necessary for 
 the pupils' health and bodily development. A well- 
 educated man of ability and character has less chance 
 of doing a man's work in the world if he is burdened by 
 ill-health. The studies must not be slighted, for the 
 men who can think and plan are to be the men of power 
 and influence. But the highest end of all instruction 
 and discipline is character. Our students must become 
 men who will keep the commandments, who cannot be 
 tempted to do wrong by promise of personal advantage. 
 If a bright pupil turns out to be a bad man, all that 
 has been done to make him strong in body and mind 
 only helps him to become a greater curse to society. 
 Life and health are worth more to the individual than 
 mental culture, but what will a man's physical strength 
 and intellectual power be worth to the nation if his 
 purposes are only bad? 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 GREAT TEACHERS 
 
 The school is what the master makes it. Some characteristics 
 of great masters. Ezekiel Cheever of the Boston Latin School. 
 Samuel Moody of Dummer Academy. Thomas Arnold of Rugby. 
 Benjamin Abbott and Gideon L. Soule of Phillips-Exeter Acad- 
 emy. Francis Gardner of the Boston Latin School. Samuel H. 
 Taylor of Phillips Academy, Andover. Cecil F. P. Bancroft of 
 Phillips Academy, Andover. John Meigs of the Hill School. 
 
 The great headmaster gives a school a reputation 
 which lasts long after his connection with it is ended. 
 Age, tradition, location, endowment, buildings, fields for 
 out-door pastime may do much for a school, but it is the 
 headmaster who makes it what it is. That teacher is 
 worthy of a great name who has such a talent for man- 
 aging and teaching boys that he sends them forth with a 
 complete preparation for a higher institution of learn- 
 ing and with a character which will enable them to meet 
 successfully the tests both of college and of after life. 
 
 In the following pages will be found brief sketches of 
 a very few teachers who have shown unusual capacity 
 for managing boys. The sketches are made up mostly 
 of quotations from books or addresses prepared by 
 those who have been their pupils or associates. These 
 teachers had their personal peculiarities, but in some 
 respects they were much alike. All were strict disci- 
 plinarians, and sometimes severe, or apparently severe ; 
 
 173 
 
174 THE YOUNG MAN AND TEACHING 
 
 but all were kind-hearted and sympathetic. Some of 
 these men were not broad scholars, but all were com- 
 plete masters of the subjects which they taught, and 
 therefore commanded the respect of their pupils for 
 their learning. All had qualities which enabled them to 
 create enthusiasm for study and to secure obedience. 
 All had pronounced views on the best methods of instruc- 
 tion and discipline, and followed their own principles, 
 uninfluenced by criticism. All freely dismissed pupils 
 whose presence was harmful to the school. All were left 
 free by the trustees to manage the school in their own 
 way. 
 
 EZEKIEL CHEEVER 
 Master of the Boston Latin School, 1670-1708 
 
 Ezekiel Cheever was called by Henry Barnard " the 
 Father of Connecticut School-masters, the Pioneer, and 
 Patriarch of elementary classical culture in New Eng- 
 land." He was the son of a linen-draper, was born in 
 London, England, January 25, 1614. There is a tra- 
 dition that he was a pupil at St. Paul's School in Lon- 
 don. A note on the Register shows that he was entered 
 at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, January 12, 1632— 
 33. Wherever he may have studied, he received an 
 excellent classical training. He came to America in 
 order to enjoy freedom of worship, arriving in Boston 
 in June, 1637. In the following year he went with 
 John Davenport and Theophilus Eaton to Quinnipiac, 
 and assisted in planting the colony and church of New 
 Haven. He began his career as schoolmaster in 1638 
 
GREAT TEACHERS 175 
 
 and taught in New Haven twelve years. In November, 
 1650, as a result of trouble with the New Haven church, 
 he removed to Ipswich, Massachusetts, where he re- 
 mained eleven years and made the Ipswich school " fa- 
 mous in all the country," and was mainly instrumental 
 in placing that town " in literature and population 
 above all the towns of Essex County." From 1661 to 
 1670 he taught the grammar school in Charleston. In 
 1670, at the age of fifty-six, an age at which many 
 teachers are ready to retire from active service, he re- 
 moved to Boston, where he was master of the Boston 
 Latin School for thirty-eight years. When he closed 
 his long period of service, the Boston Latin School was 
 " the then only Publick and Free Grammar School of 
 this Great Town, the Principal School of the British 
 Colonies, if not of all America." 1 
 
 His Accidence, A Short Introduction to the Latin 
 Tongue, written during his residence in New Haven, 
 reached its twentieth edition in 1785. It was used for 
 more than one hundred and fifty years. In a com- 
 mendatory letter printed in an edition published in 
 1838, President Quincy of Harvard College said : " It 
 is distinguished for simplicity, comprehensiveness, and 
 exactness ; and, as a primer or first elementary book, I 
 do not believe it is exceeded by any other work, in re- 
 spect to those important qualities." In another letter 
 printed in the same edition, Samuel Walker, a well-known 
 teacher of Latin, wrote : " The Latin Accidence, which 
 
 i Prince, Funeral Sermon on Mr. Nathaniel Williams [the suc- 
 cessor of Mr. Cheever]. 
 
176 THE YOUNG MAN AND TEACHING 
 
 was the favorite little book of our youthful days, has 
 probably done more to inspire young minds with the 
 love of the study of the Latin language than any other 
 work of the kind since the first settlement of the coun- 
 try. I have had it in constant use for my pupils, when- 
 ever it could be obtained, for more than fifty years, and 
 have found it to be the best book, for beginners in the 
 study of Latin, that has come to my knowledge. And 
 no work of the kind have I ever known, that contains so 
 much useful matter in so small a compass." 
 
 President Stiles in his Diary has two entries about 
 Mr. Cheever: 
 
 " April 25, 1772. The Revd. and aged Mr. Samuel Max- 
 well of Warren, was at the Fast at Bristol. He was born 
 I think 1688. He told me he well knew the famous 
 Grammar School Master Mr. Ezekiel Cheever of Boston, 
 Author of the Accidence : that he wore a long white Beard 
 terminating in a point; that when he stroked his Beard to 
 the point, it was a sign to the Boys to stand clear. 1 
 
 " July 17, 1774. Read Dr. Mathers sermon on the Death 
 of Mr. Ezekiel Cheever. He had been the most eminent 
 Grammar School Master for above 70 years. . . . He was 
 a pious and learned Divine as well as Praeceptor. He wore 
 his Beard to the day of his Death. He very much formed 
 and established the New England Pronunciation of Latin 
 and Greek. He printed an English Accidence still in use. 
 The Hair of his Head and Beard were white as Snow. 
 ' He died leaning like old Jacob upon a Staff; the Sacrifice 
 and the Righteousness of a glorious Christ, he let us know 
 was the golden Staff which he leaned upon ' — I have seen 
 
 i Dexter, The Literary Diary of Ezra Stiles, New York, 1901, 
 Vol. I, pp. 227-228. 
 
GREAT TEACHERS 177 
 
 those who knew the venerable old Saint; and particularly 
 Rev. John Barnard of Marblehead who was fitted for Col- 
 lege by Mr. Cheever and entered 1696. It is said that if he 
 stroked his Beard, upon his Boys doing ill, it was a certain 
 Sign of Severity." * 
 
 Mr. Cheever died on Saturday morning, August 21, 
 1708. He was " venerable not merely for his great age 
 (94), but for having been the schoolmaster of most of 
 the principal gentlemen in Boston, who were then upon 
 the stage." 2 In Judge Sewall's Diary there are entries 
 on the days of his death and burial. " August 21, 
 1708. Mr. Edward Oakes tells me Mr. Cheever died this 
 last night. He was born January 25th, 1614. Came 
 over to N.E. 1637, to Boston: to New-Haven 1638. 
 Married in the Fall, and began to teach School, which 
 Work he was constant in till now: ... so that he has 
 Labour'd in that Calling, Skillfully, diligently, con- 
 stantly, Religiously, Seventy years. A rare instance of 
 Piety, Health, Strength, Serviceableness. The Welfare 
 of the Province was much upon his Spirit. He abomi- 
 nated perriwigs." " August 23. Mr. Cheever was 
 buried from the School house. The Govr, Councillors, 
 Ministers, Justices, Gentlemen there. Mr. Williams 3 
 made a handsome Latin oration in his Honor." 
 
 Cotton Mather preached a funeral discourse on Mr. 
 Cheever, which he published with a Historical Introduc- 
 
 i Ibid., pp. 449-450. 
 
 2 Hutchinson's History of Massachusetts, London, 1768, Vol. II, 
 p. 175, note. 
 
 s Mr. Cheever's successor as Headmaster in the Boston Latin 
 School. 
 
178 THE YOUNG MAN AND TEACHING 
 
 tion. From this pamphlet the following passages are 
 taken : 
 
 " We generally concur in acknowledging, that New Eng- 
 land has never known a better Master. I am sure, I have 
 as much reason to appear for him, as ever Crito for his mas- 
 ter Socrates. He had been a Skillful, Painful, Faithful 
 Schoolmaster for Seventy Years, and had the Singular favor 
 of Heaven, that though he had Usefully spent his Life 
 among Children, yet he was not become Twice a Child, but 
 held his Abilities, with his Usefulness in an unusual Degree, 
 to the very last. . . . His Eminent Abilities for the Work 
 which rendered him so long Useful in his Generation, were 
 universally acknowledged, and it was noted that when 
 Scholars came to be Admitted into Colledge, they who came 
 from the Cheeverian Education were generally the most un- 
 exceptionable. . . . He that was my Master Seven and 
 Thirty years ago was a Master to many of my Betters no 
 less than Seventy Years ago; so long ago, that I must even 
 mention my father's Tutor for one of them. . . . He lived 
 as a Master the Term which has been for above three thou- 
 sand years assigned for the Life of Man. He continued 
 unto the Ninety Fourth year of his Age, an unusual instance 
 of Liveliness, his Intellectual Force as little abated as his 
 Natural." 
 
 SAMUEL MOODY 
 
 Master of Dummer Academy, South Byfield, Mass. 
 1763-1790 
 
 Samuel Moody, son of Rev. Joseph Moody, was born 
 in 1726 in York, at that time a town in Massachusetts, 
 but now in Maine. He was graduated from Harvard 
 College in 1746. He came to Byfield from York, where 
 
GREAT TEACHERS 179 
 
 he had been master of the grammar school for sixteen 
 years, and had given it a wide reputation for thorough- 
 ness. He began to teach at Dummer School, March 1, 
 1763. In 1782 this school was incorporated as Dum- 
 mer Academy, by Act of the General Court. 
 
 Among his earliest pupils was Samuel Phillips, who 
 was graduated from Harvard College in 1771 and 
 seven years later projected Phillips Academy at An- 
 dover. Master Moody fitted about seventy boys for 
 college at Dummer School, before the Academies at An- 
 dover and Exeter were opened. He continued at the 
 head of the institution for more than twenty-seven years 
 and gave instruction to five hundred and twenty-five 
 boys. He resigned in 1790, and died in Exeter, N. H., 
 December 14?, 1795, in his seventieth year. 
 
 Some traditions relating to Mr. Moody's characteris- 
 tics and to his methods of teaching have been preserved 
 in addresses delivered at the Academy on anniversary 
 occasions : 
 
 " I have no reason to think that his scholarship extended 
 over a wide range of subjects. ... It was in Latin and 
 Greek — especially the former — that his strength as a 
 scholar and teacher mainly lay. . . . There is no reason 
 to suppose that he had read many of the ancient authors. 
 ... To fit his boys for College and to fit them well, was his 
 ambition and pride. . . . His acquaintance with the text- 
 books necessary to this end was minute, thorough and re- 
 markably exact. Within those limits he was always and 
 everywhere at home; so far, at least, no question of inter- 
 pretation, of syntax, or of prosody, ever found him unpre- 
 pared. These habits of accuracy, of readiness, and of 
 
180 THE YOUNG MAN AND TEACHING 
 
 freshness, he kept up by constant exercise and unremitted 
 application. One fact — incredible as it seems — I had 
 from authentic sources. He was in the habit of studying 
 the French and Latin dictionaries, in regular course from 
 A to Z. 
 
 " His views of order in a schoolroom differed from those 
 which usually prevail. Silence, there, he thought, was 
 more distracting than noise. Accordingly, he not only per- 
 mitted, but encouraged his scholars to study audibly. The 
 buzz of sixty or seventy boys loudly conning their vari- 
 ous tasks, not only filled the room, but could be heard at 
 some distance from the house. Newcomers unused to the 
 practice were disturbed at first, but soon fell in with the 
 current, and liked it well. This confused murmur made 
 the recitation of classes and remarks of teachers inaudible 
 to the rest, and thus favored abstraction and attention. . . . 
 
 " I have no reason to think that his discipline was uniform 
 or always judicious. Wayward and impulsive, he some- 
 times failed to control himself. But youth can appreciate, 
 and not unwillingly forgives, even the passionate outbreaks 
 of an honest, kindly, whole-souled instructor. For the 
 indolent and vicious he had a large and diversified list of 
 penalties, some of which were amusing to the lookers-on, if 
 not always to the culprits. . . . 
 
 " Though he lived long before the days of gymnastic ap- 
 paratus and instruction, he looked carefully after the 
 amusements, the health, and the safety of his boys. In 
 the matter of bathing his regulations were strict and pe- 
 culiar. The time and the place were fixed by him. The 
 state of the tide was carefully observed, and if the favorable 
 moment happened to come in the midst of school hours, he 
 suspended work for a while, and sent the boys out to 
 bathe/' 
 
 Nehemiah Cleaveland, The First Century of 
 Dummer Academy, August 12, 1863, pp. 24-26. 
 
GREAT TEACHERS 181 
 
 " My grandfather, Dr. Daniel Noyes Poore, was one of 
 those prepared for college by Master Moody, and I have 
 often heard him describe the good old pedagogue, wearing 
 a long green flannel morning gown and velvet smoking cap, 
 with an assortment of instruments of punishment on his 
 desk, the ferrula, the long flat rule, and several switches, 
 the heaviest being for the oldest boys." 
 
 Maj. Ben: Perley Poore, in an address at 
 Dummer Academy, October 22, 1885, p. 12. 
 
 " The reputation of Master Moody as a successful in- 
 structor has not been surpassed, if it has been equaled, by 
 that of any other teacher in the commonwealth. He pos- 
 sessed a wonderful power of control of boys, and of inter- 
 esting them in their work. He aroused and stimulated 
 their manly instincts. Severely just and impartial in his 
 treatment of all, exhibiting in his life and conversation 
 the best example of true manliness and of purity and no- 
 bility of character, comprehending instinctively all the 
 springs of action in youth, he governed his pupils in such 
 a kindly and paternal manner, yet by such efficient means, 
 as to secure for him the love and respect of all. In his 
 later days he often referred with pride to the fact that 
 for a term of years while he was master of the school he 
 never resorted to the use of the rod as an instrument of 
 discipline. His great characteristic as a teacher was his 
 very thorough and accurate instructions. What was to be 
 learned must be learned perfectly." 
 
 William Dummer Northend, in an address at 
 Dummer Academy, June 19, 1888, pp. 36-37. 
 
 Master Moody lies buried in the old cemetery in York, 
 Maine. The somewhat unusual inscription on the plain 
 stone which marks his grave sums up well the character 
 and influence of this early teacher: 
 
182 THE YOUNG MAN AND TEACHING 
 
 Integer vitae scelerisque purus, 
 
 SAMUEL MOODY, ESQ. 
 Preceptor of Dummer Academy 
 The first Institution of its kind in Massachusetts. 
 He left no child to mourn his sudden death, 
 (for he died a bachelor,) 
 Yet his numerous pupils in the United States will ever 
 retain a lively sense of the sociability, industry, 
 integrity, and piety he possessed in an un- 
 common degree; as well as the disinter- 
 ested, zealous, faithful, and useful 
 manner he discharged the 
 duties of the Academy 
 for thirty years 
 He died at Exeter Dec. 14, 1795 
 Aged seventy. 
 
 THOMAS ARNOLD 
 
 Headmaster of Rugby, 1828-1842 
 
 Thomas Arnold has bad a wide influence on American 
 teachers and American secondary schools. He was 
 called to be headmaster of Rugby when the English pub- 
 lic schools were subject to severe criticism on account of 
 their limited range of studies and their unsatisfactory 
 moral tone. His great purpose was to make Rugby a 
 place of really Christian education, where boys would 
 receive thorough intellectual training and where the 
 atmosphere would be such that they would grow up to 
 be Christian men. He was a man of intensely religious 
 character, and influenced his pupils greatly by his ad- 
 
GREAT TEACHERS 183 
 
 dresses in the school chapel. During his fourteen years 
 as headmaster of Rugby he brought about changes in 
 the school life which affected all the public schools of 
 England. 
 
 He was born June 13, 1795, at West Cowes, Isle of 
 Wight. He was a schoolboy at Warminster and later 
 at Winchester. In 1811 he was elected Scholar at Cor- 
 pus Christi College at Oxford. Four years later he 
 was elected Fellow of Oriel College, Oxford, where he 
 continued his studies till 1819, when he established him- 
 self as a private teacher at Laleham, taking not more 
 than seven or eight young men at a time, and preparing 
 them for the universities. He became headmaster of 
 Rugby in August, 1828. 
 
 Dr. Arnold died suddenly, from a disease of the heart, 
 on Sunday morning, June 12, 1842, at the close of his 
 forty-seventh year. 
 
 Before his appointment at Rugby he thus expressed 
 his views regarding the duties of the master of a great 
 school : 
 
 " I confess that I should very much object to undertake 
 a charge in which I was not invested with pretty full dis- 
 cretion. According to my notions of what large schools 
 are, founded on all I know and all I have ever heard of 
 them, expulsion should be practiced much oftener than it is. 
 Now, I know that trustees, in general, are averse to this 
 plan, because it has a tendency to lessen the numbers of the 
 school, and they regard quantity more than quality. In 
 fact, my opinion on this point might, perhaps, generally be 
 considered as disqualifying me for the situation of master of 
 a great school ; yet I could not consent to tolerate much that 
 
184 
 
 THE YOUNG MAN AND TEACHING 
 
 I know is tolerated generally, and, therefore, I should not 
 like to enter on an office which I could not discharge accord- 
 ing to my own views of what is right. I do not believe 
 myself, that my system would be, in fact, a cruel or a 
 harsh one, and I believe that with much care on the part of 
 the masters, it would be seldom necessary to proceed to 
 the ratio ultima; only I would have it clearly understood, 
 that I would most unscrupulously resort to it, at whatever 
 inconvenience, where there was a perseverance in any habit 
 inconsistent with a boy's duties. . . .** 
 
 Stanley, Life and Correspondence of Thomas 
 Arnold, New York, 1887, Vol. I, p. 86. 
 
 A few years later, in a letter to one of the assistant 
 masters, he thus expressed his indifference to criticism: 
 
 " I do not choose to discuss the thickness of Praeposters' 
 sticks, or the greater or less blackness of a boy's bruises, 
 for the amusement of all the readers of the newspapers ; nor 
 do I care in the slightest degree about the attacks, if the 
 masters themselves treat them with indifference. If they 
 appear to mind them, or to fear their effect on the school, 
 the apprehension in this, as in many other instances, will 
 be likely to verify itself. For my own part, I confess that 
 I will not condescend to justify the school against attacks, 
 when I believe it is going on not only not ill, but positively 
 well. Were it really otherwise, I think I should be as sen- 
 sitive as any one, and very soon give up the concern. But 
 these attacks are merely what I bargained for, so far as 
 they relate to my conduct in the school, because they are 
 directed against points on which my ' ideas ' were fixed 
 before I came to Rugby, and are only more fixed now ; e. g., 
 that the authority of the Sixth Form is essential to the good 
 of the school, and is to be upheld through all obstacles from 
 within and from without, and that sending away boys is a 
 
GREAT TEACHERS 185 
 
 necessary and regular part of a good system, not as a 
 punishment to one, but as a protection to others. Un- 
 doubtedly it would be a better system if there was no evil; 
 but evil being unavoidable we are not a jail to keep it in, 
 but a place of education where we must cast it out, to pre- 
 vent its taint from spreading. Meanwhile let us mind our 
 own work, and try to perfect the execution of our own 
 ' ideas,' and we shall have enough to do, and enough al- 
 ways to hinder us from being satisfied with ourselves." 
 
 Ibid., p. 124. 
 
 Dean Stanley, in his biography, thus describes his 
 methods of dealing with his pupils in the matter of 
 instruction : 
 
 1 His whole method was founded on the principle of 
 awakening the intellect of every individual boy. Hence it 
 was his practice to teach by questioning. As a general rule, 
 he never gave information, except as a kind of reward for an 
 answer, and often withheld it altogether, or checked him- 
 self in the very act of uttering it, from a sense that those 
 whom he was addressing had not sufficient interest or sym- 
 pathy to entitle them to receive it. His explanations were 
 as short as possible — enough to dispose of the difficulty 
 and no more; and his questions were of a kind to call the 
 attention of the boys to the real point of every subject, and 
 to disclose to them the exact boundaries of what they knew 
 or did not know. With regard to younger boys, he said, 
 ' It is a great mistake to think that they should understand 
 all they learn; for God has ordered that in youth the mem- 
 ory should act vigorously, independent of the understand- 
 ing — whereas a man cannot usually recollect a thing un- 
 less he understands it.' But in proportion to their advance 
 in the school he tried to cultivate in them a habit not only 
 of collecting facts, but of expressing themselves with fa- 
 
186 THE YOUNG MAN AND TEACHING 
 
 cility, and of understanding the principles on which their 
 facts rested. ' You come here/ he said, ' not to read, but 
 to learn how to read'; and thus the greater part of his 
 instructions were interwoven with the process of their 
 own minds; there was a continual reference to their 
 thoughts, an acknowledgment that, so far as their informa- 
 tion and power of reasoning could take them, they ought to 
 have an opinion of their own." 
 
 Ibid, p. 133. 
 
 The following quotations from Tom Brown's School 
 Days relate to his ideas of discipline and the influence 
 of his Chapel talks : 
 
 " We looked upon every trumpery little custom and habit 
 which had obtained in the school as though it had been a 
 law of the Medes and Persians and regarded the infringe- 
 ment or variation of it as a sort of sacrilege. And the Doc- 
 tor, than whom no man or boy had a stronger liking for the 
 old school customs which were good and sensible, had, as 
 has already been hinted, come into most decided collision 
 with several which were neither the one nor the other. And 
 as old Brooke had said, when he came into collision with 
 boys or customs, there was nothing for them to do but to 
 give in or take themselves off; because what he said had 
 to be done, and no mistake about it. And this was begin- 
 ning to be pretty clearly understood; the boys felt that 
 there was a strong man over them, who would have things 
 his own way ; and hadn't yet learned that he was a wise and 
 loving man also. His personal character and influence had 
 not had time to make itself felt, except by a very few of 
 the bigger boys with whom he came more directly in con- 
 tact ; and he was looked upon with great fear and dislike by 
 the great majority even of his own house. For he had 
 found School, and Schoolhouse, in a state of monstrous li- 
 
GREAT TEACHERS 187 
 
 cence and misrule, and was still employed in the necessary 
 but unpopular work of setting up order with a strong hand/' 
 Tom Brown's School Days, G. P. Put- 
 nam's Sons, New York, 1913, p. 110. 
 
 " But what was it after all which seized and held these 
 three hundred boys, dragging them out of themselves, will- 
 ing or unwilling, for twenty minutes, on Sunday after- 
 noons? True, there always were boys scattered up and 
 down the School, who in heart and head were worthy to 
 hear and able to carry away the deepest and wisest words 
 there spoken. But these were a minority always, generally 
 a very small one, often so small a one as to be countable 
 on the fingers of your hand. What was it that moved and 
 held us, the rest of the three hundred reckless, childish 
 boys, who feared the Doctor with all our hearts, and very 
 little besides in heaven or earth; who thought more of our 
 sets in the School than of the Church of Christ, and put 
 the traditions of Rugby, and the public opinion of boys in 
 our daily life above the laws of God? We couldn't enter 
 into half that we heard; we hadn't the knowledge of our 
 own hearts or the knowledge of one another; and little 
 enough of the faith, hope, and love needed to that end. 
 But we listened, as all boys in their better moods will lis- 
 ten (aye, and men, too, for the matter of that), to a man 
 who we felt to be, with all his heart and soul and strength, 
 striving against whatever was mean and unmanly and un- 
 righteous in our little world. It was not the cold, clear 
 voice of one giving advice and warning from serene heights 
 to those who were struggling and sinning below, but the 
 warm, living voice of one who was fighting for us and by 
 our sides, and calling on us to help him and ourselves and 
 one another. And so, wearily and little by little, but surely 
 and steadily on the whole, was brought home to the young 
 boy, for the first time, the meaning of his life: that it was 
 no fool's or sluggard's paradise into which he had wan- 
 
188 THE YOUNG MAN AND TEACHING 
 
 dered by chance, but a battle-field ordained from of old, 
 where there are no spectators, but the youngest must take 
 his side, and the stakes are life and death." 
 
 Ibid., pp. 123-124. 
 
 BENJAMIN ABBOTT 
 Principal of Phillips-Exeter Academy, 1788-1838 
 
 GIDEON LANE SOULE, 
 Principal of Phillips-Exeter Academy, 1838-1873 
 
 Benjamin Abbott, and his successor, Gideon L. Soule, 
 were principals of Phillips-Exeter Academy for a period 
 of eighty-four years, and these two eminent teachers 
 gave to the school its distinguished character. Mr. 
 Abbott took charge of the school five years after its 
 foundation. It was then small in numbers and back- 
 ward in scholarship, there being only two pupils far 
 enough advanced to begin the study of Latin. 
 
 Benjamin Abbott was born September 17, 1762, in 
 Andover, Mass., was prepared for college at Phillips 
 Academy in that town, and was graduated from Har- 
 vard in 1788 with high credit for scholarship. In Au- 
 gust of the same year he became principal of Phillips- 
 Exeter Academy and continued in that office for half a 
 century. Dr. Abbott died in Exeter, October 25, 1849. 
 
 Gideon Lane Soule was born July 25, 1796, in Free- 
 port, Maine. In 1813 he entered Phillips-Exeter 
 Academy. After studying there three years he was 
 admitted to the Junior Class in Bowdoin College, from 
 which he was graduated in 1818. Four years later he 
 
GREAT TEACHERS 189 
 
 became an instructor at the Academy, and was subse- 
 quently appointed Professor of Ancient Languages. 
 He was associated with Dr. Abbott for sixteen years, 
 and by reason of the Doctor's impaired health prac- 
 tically exercised the powers of principal during the lat- 
 ter part of this period. On Mr. Abbott's retirement in 
 1838, Mr. Soule was elected principal, which position he 
 held till 1873. Dr. Soule died May 28, 1879. 
 
 Joseph G. Hoyt, a teacher at Exeter for eighteen 
 years, wrote of Dr. Abbott : 
 
 " The lofty bearing of a nobleman sat easy on him, sim- 
 ply because he was a nobleman. . . . He knew how to be 
 dignified without being ungenial. . . . His pupils feared 
 him, but not half so much as they loved him. They never 
 doubted his honor or his truth. They knew that he was 
 their friend, great-hearted and strong. . . . He had the 
 faculty of making his classes believe that the particular 
 subject on which they were engaged was the most important 
 and attractive branch of study in the world. They caught 
 fire from him, and teacher and pupils alike glowed with the 
 same enthusiasm. . . . His pupils came from every State 
 in the Union and from foreign countries. There was 
 among them every variety of character and disposition, 
 . . . but to all of them alike the ominous shake of that 
 long forefinger was as decisive as the nod of Jove. There 
 was no appeal from him, — no escape from the penalty of 
 violated law. . . . Though he had a voice like the voice 
 of many waters, yet he seldom spoke so loud as to be heard 
 across the recitation-room. The scarcely audible tap of his 
 penknife on his desk hushed his room to silence in a mo- 
 ment. However indignant he might be at any act of wick- 
 edness or folly, his speech was always gentlemanly. . . . 
 But the day when the culprit, especially if he had been 
 
190 THE YOUNG MAN AND TEACHING 
 
 guilty of a lie, was sent up into the library, and, after lis- 
 tening for a time in anxious suspense for the slow step and 
 creaking shoes on the stairs, was visited at length by the 
 Doctor with his rattan, was a day in his history to date 
 from and be remembered. " x 
 
 Hon. George Bancroft said of Dr. Abbott, at the 
 Centennial Celebration of the Academy in 1883 : 
 
 " As a ruler of young men he was not to be surpassed. 
 In all the long period of his service he was never known to 
 use a word or a tone that needed to be recalled or softened. 
 He never reproved one scholar in the presence of another. 
 In the time that I was under his care I cannot recall from 
 any pupil a saying about him that was not full of respect. 
 To-day, though it is seventy years since I passed from his 
 care my heart warms with affection as I recall his name." 
 
 Charles H. Bell, in his Historical Sketch of the Acad- 
 emy, thus characterizes Dr. Abbott and Dr. Soule : 
 
 " Nature had gifted Dr. Abbott with qualities which sin- 
 gularly fitted him to be a tutor and governor of youth. 
 Though inflexibly just, he was only too happy to temper 
 justice with mercy, whenever it would not be subversive of 
 good discipline. He was never over ready to take notice 
 of a fault that might be passed by without harmful con- 
 sequences. It was a favorite remark of his that ' it was a 
 great accomplishment to know how to wink ! ' Probably 
 many a boy attributed to his teacher's want of observation 
 what was really the result of merciful voluntary blindness. 
 Though he shrank from causing pain to the lowest creature, 
 yet in those instances where punishment was really merited, 
 he inflicted it without flinching. In the happily rare cases 
 
 i North American Review, July, 1858, pp. 135-138. 
 
GREAT TEACHERS 191 
 
 in which he had to deal with a vicious or depraved lad, he 
 administered a lesson, both to mind and body, that served as 
 a wholesome reminder of duty. He was not the man to 
 spoil the child, in such cases, by sparing the rod. In gen- 
 eral, however, he governed with the least possible display 
 of authority. In the schoolroom, a look, a tap on the desk, 
 or a shake of the forefinger was enough to recall the wan- 
 dering attention of the most wayward, and fix it upon the 
 business of the hour. . . . An authentic anecdote gives an 
 idea both of his philological attainments and of his impres- 
 sive style of imparting information. One of his best 
 pupils, John P. Robinson, presented him his exercise in 
 writing Latin, one day, for correction. Dr. Abbott re- 
 turned it, with a single word marked as erroneous. Rob- 
 inson consulted grammar and lexicon, and racked his brains 
 to find out the mistake he had committed, but all in vain; 
 and was at last obliged to take back the exercise to the Doc- 
 tor, with the confession that he could not discover in what 
 the fault lay. ' Robinson/ replied the Doctor, ' words are 
 like men ; none but gentlemen are found in gentlemen's com- 
 pany/ 
 
 " His manners were such as would become a nobleman. 
 Courteous as he was dignified, he doffed his hat in response 
 to the greeting of the lowliest person he met. As he 
 walked down the aisle of the schoolroom, bowing graciously 
 to the right and the left, his appearance so impressed every 
 pupil, that the memory of it will never fade away. It made 
 generations more manly. 
 
 " Dr. Soule had the advantage of a fine person; he was 
 tall, perfectly erect, and his air was dignified and command- 
 ing. His features were bold and handsome, his voice well 
 modulated, his smile winning. His temper was equable, 
 and his self-control was rarely disturbed. Like Dr. Abbott, 
 he possessed peculiar qualifications for the position of chief 
 of a great school. Many of his predecessor's methods he 
 
192 THE YOUNG MAN AND TEACHING 
 
 carried along into his own practice, though his cooler tem- 
 perament caused, perhaps, a more perceptible distance be- 
 tween him and his pupils. But he understood well how to 
 appeal to their better and nobler instincts, and had confi- 
 dence in their general rectitude of intention. He never 
 lost consciousness of the fact that boys were men in minia- 
 ture; and looking forward through their present to their 
 future, always made a point of treating them in manly 
 fashion. He had a remarkable store of anecdotes, from 
 which he used to draw illustrations to enforce his teach- 
 ings. Here he never missed his aim. . . . 
 
 " Under his administration the students made a great for- 
 ward stride in self-government. They were given to under- 
 stand that they were not to be held amenable to any written 
 code, but were to conform their conduct to the common law 
 of right and propriety, recognized by every member of an 
 enlightened community. And it was while he held the 
 reins of government, that the radical innovation of allow- 
 ing all the students the privilege of preparing lessons in 
 their own rooms, unwatched by tutors' eyes, was intro- 
 duced. . . . 
 
 " As an instructor, especially in his own chosen depart- 
 ment, the ancient classics, Dr. Soule's qualifications and 
 success were of the highest. In the Latin language and 
 literature, to which he gave special attention, he was preem- 
 inent. His thorough knowledge, his critical exactness, his 
 cultivated taste, enabled him to make the study of the 
 authors of antiquity a pleasure, instead of a task, to his 
 pupils. . . . No better work, no more thorough training 
 presented itself for examination from any quarter, than that 
 which was accomplished under his immediate inspection. 
 
 " The two men had certain important qualities in com- 
 mon; scholarship, the gift of command, and especially that 
 fine influence which springs from innate courtesy and sense 
 of justice. Both were gentlemen, not merely in their man- 
 
GREAT TEACHERS 193 
 
 ners, but in their hearts. They set the example by words 
 and acts, of Christian kindness and honorable sentiments, 
 united with perfect urbanity. They inspired their pupils 
 not only with the love of learning, but with an apprecia- 
 tion of the graces of character and of the amenities of re- 
 fined life." 2 
 
 FRANCIS GARDNER 
 Headmaster of the Boston Latin School, 1851-1875 
 
 Francis Gardner, son of Honorable Francis Gardner, 
 a member of Congress, was born March 15, 1812, in 
 Walpole, N. H., and was graduated from Harvard 
 College in 1831. In the autumn following his gradua- 
 tion he was appointed an usher in the Boston Latin 
 School. While engaged in teaching he began the study 
 of law, intending to enter that profession; but on the 
 death of his father in 1835, he decided to continue 
 teaching in order to be better able to care for his mother 
 and sisters. He was connected with the Boston Latin 
 School as usher, sub-master, and master, with the excep- 
 tion of one year spent in private teaching, from 1831 
 till his death on January 10, 1875. 
 
 Memorial services were held in Huntington Hall, 
 March 15, 1876, the anniversary of Dr. Gardner's 
 birth. William R. Dimmock delivered the Memorial 
 Address, from which some extracts are here given : 
 
 "Life seemed to him rightly spent only as it was spent 
 for use. The ordinary enj oyments of men, the social pleas- 
 
 iBell, Historical Sketch of Phillips-Exeter Academy, Exeter, 
 1883, pp. 52-57. 
 
194 THE YOUNG MAN AND TEACHING 
 
 ures, absorption in the delights of literature, all these he 
 put away forever from him. He was never seen at places 
 of public amusement, never, during the larger part of his 
 life, at the table even of a friend; all invitations were de- 
 clined; not even the annual dinner at Commencement found 
 him present. But if a boy had a question to ask, if a 
 former pupil or even a stranger sought instruction, all that 
 he knew, and all his skill, were given, without thought of 
 time, and with absolute refusal to take reward. . . ." 
 
 P. 21. 
 
 " Just six feet in height, his weight one hundred and 
 ninety pounds, all bone and muscle, he was very active in all 
 his movements till his powers began to fail. How often 
 have I thought, as I have seen him running up that long, 
 winding staircase at the Latin School, generally two steps at 
 a time, of Dr. Arnold's saying, that when he could no longer 
 run up the library stairs, he should know that it was time 
 for him to go. ... That iron frame and those immense 
 powers gave him great capabilities for work. . . . No or- 
 dinary toil or care could weary him. He must have been 
 fifty years of age when he told me that so far as fatigue 
 was concerned, he never knew the day when he could not, 
 at its close, do the whole day's work right over again. . . ." 
 
 Pp. 28-29. 
 
 " He had a remarkable facility for illustrating subjects 
 by familiar objects and incidents. He was a marvel of pa- 
 tience in giving explanations. When he felt that the class 
 or the individual boy was really seeking to understand a 
 subject, he would repeat and vary his efforts over and over 
 again, until the subject was made clear. These illustra- 
 tions of his were often homely and quaint; his anecdotes 
 were pointed and odd; and they gave so much of originality 
 to his instruction that boys were first interested and 
 aroused by his manner and methods, and then received with 
 zest the knowledge that he was trying to convey. He had 
 
GREAT TEACHERS 195 
 
 especial skill with the lower end of the class, with those 
 who had, perhaps, been thought idlers or dunces through 
 years of their school course. . . . The progress made by 
 the poorest scholars in his room was constantly a sur- 
 prise. . . ." Pp. 31-32. 
 
 " In the government of his school he required strict obe- 
 dience, unquestioned submission to authority, and respect in 
 both words and manner. But he was not particular about 
 points of order regarded as essential by many. His author- 
 ity was so absolute, that he could allow a great deal of 
 freedom in the schoolroom. His own physical powers 
 were so vigorous, that he appeared to sympathize with the 
 restlessness of boys. He endeavored to secure their inter- 
 est in their studies, believing that then the ordinary forms 
 of school discipline could be dispensed with. There was 
 always in his room an impression of vigorous life. The 
 painful stillness of the House of Correction and of many 
 schools — a stillness as of death, you did not find, but indi- 
 cations of intelligent study and happy work." P. 35. 
 
 Horace E. Scudder wrote thus of Dr. Gardner in 
 Harper's Magazine, Vol. LV, pp. 712-714: 
 
 " A stranger entering the great hall at the top of the 
 Latin School building, where the first class always had their 
 desks, would get the impression from the tall, muscular, and 
 bony figure that glowered upon him with penetrating eyes 
 through a pair of gold-bowed spectacles, that the master 
 was a most stern, forbidding man ; and his impression would 
 probably be deepened if he were to catch the master hear- 
 ing a class recite, his head partly bent and turned to one 
 side, and the questions coming forth in a gruff voice, curt, 
 and, very likely, snappish. Certainly Mr. Gardner was 
 not a lovely man at first sight. . . . 
 
 " There are two words which sum in brief Mr. Gardner's 
 
196 THE YOUNG MAN AND TEACHING 
 
 character and influence — duty, honor. It was his stern, 
 unflinching obedience to duty which bade him turn aside 
 from pleasant ways in his life into solitary paths of renun- 
 ciation, and partly thus to become incrusted with manners 
 that were ungentle; it was his loyalty to duty that made 
 him spare himself in no regard if he could increase his own 
 efficiency and perfect the school; and it was a high sense of 
 honor which he inculcated in the boys — honor which was 
 at the bottom of his noble life, and sometimes burst forth 
 into fiery indignation or deep scorn at what was base, mean, 
 or unworthy in the boys before him. It was a strange 
 character which gradually disclosed itself to boys, and 
 never was wholly understood by them; only as one brings 
 together the testimony of his contemporaries and of those 
 who added mature friendship to boyish fear and admira- 
 tion, can the outlines of his nature be discerned/' 
 
 Another of his pupils wrote concerning him : 
 
 " This great master, whatever else he lacked, had char- 
 acter, not of the fine-lined, sentimental kind, cut and pol- 
 ished as a well-proportioned statue, but in the bulk, a mas- 
 sive bulwark protesting against all cant, superciliousness 
 and untruth. All who came under his instruction during 
 his more than forty years' connection with the school, will 
 testify to this, when they remember his devotion to truth 
 in language and manner, which, if it seemed crude and 
 austere in its simplicity, never deceived any man as to its 
 intent and was an ever-biding lesson to all under him of a 
 man terribly in earnest, who believed in duty." 
 
 SAMUEL HARVEY TAYLOR 
 Principal of Phillips Academy, Andover, 1837-1871 
 
 Samuel Harvey Taylor was born October 3, 1807, in 
 Derry, New Hampshire. His first American ancestor 
 
GREAT TEACHERS 197 
 
 was Matthew Taylor, one of the sixteen Scotch-Irish 
 Presbyterians who settled the town of Londonderry in 
 that state in 1719. He was graduated from Dart- 
 mouth in 1832, and from Andover Theological Seminary 
 in 1837. During a part of his seminary course he was 
 Tutor in Dartmouth College. On the completion of his 
 theological studies he was elected Principal of Phillips 
 Academy at Andover, which position he held till his 
 death. 
 
 He died suddenly, of a disease of the heart, on Sunday 
 morning, January 29, 1871, in the vestibule of the Acad- 
 emy building, while on his way to meet his large student 
 Bible class. The day was stormy, and he had already 
 shown symptoms of approaching illness, but when Mrs. 
 Taylor urged him to omit his class for that day, he 
 replied : " My duty lies with my pupils." 
 
 W. A. Mowry, when giving a list of great teachers, 
 said : 
 
 " In Great Britain, as a schoolmaster, Thomas Arnold 
 takes the lead. In America, with all deference to many 
 others, I venture to place at the head of this list the name 
 of Samuel H. Taylor of Andover." * 
 
 A Memorial of Samuel Harvey Taylor was published 
 by his last class, which contained an Address by Pro- 
 fessor Edwards A. Park and a Funeral Discourse by 
 Professor J. W. Churchill. From these addresses some 
 extracts are here given : 
 
 i Mowry, Recollections of a New England Educator, New York, 
 1908, p. 73. 
 
198 THE YOUNG MAN AND TEACHING 
 
 " When the trustees appointed Mr. Taylor as principal, 
 they intended and expected that he would be faithful to 
 the traditions of the office. He was constitutionally fitted 
 for a disciplinarian. He had an instinct of government. 
 . . . He had a stern conscience, a keen sense of duty, a 
 deep regard for obligation. It was his firm belief that men 
 in the learned professions would accomplish more than they 
 now do, if they were more regular in their habits of study, 
 if they had their fixed hours for intellectual toil: he there- 
 fore deemed it his duty to insist on strict regularity in his 
 school. . . . He believed that one of the dangers to which 
 this democratic land lies exposed is a disrespect for law: 
 he therefore believed that he was performing an act of 
 kindness to his pupils when he was accustoming them to 
 obey. . . . He believed that indolence is not only a beset- 
 ting sin of men, but the parent of a numerous progeny of 
 other sins: he regarded himself, therefore, as performing 
 an act of kindness for his scholars whenever he broke up 
 their habits of idleness. . . . He united accuracy in the 
 details of classical literature with an enthusiasm in its gen- 
 eral spirit. Accuracy is essential to the success of a 
 teacher, but does not insure it. . . . In his view, no error 
 was trivial. With scrupulous care he exposed the slightest 
 mistake of a pupil. He was not, however, so engrossed 
 in looking at the trees, that he failed to see the grove. . . . 
 The scene in his recitation room reminded one of a torrent 
 rushing onward to the sea; one wave not waiting for an- 
 other, but every wave hastening forward as if instinct with 
 life. Every mind was on the alert. Those who were nat- 
 urally quick learned to be accurate before him; those who 
 were naturally slow spurred themselves onward before him. 
 He not only had a knowledge of his theme, and an interest 
 in it, but a knowledge of his pupils, and an interest in 
 them. He well understood the nature of young men: he 
 divined their thoughts; his insight of their character ap- 
 peared at times mysterious; he knew how to incite and em- 
 
GREAT TEACHERS 199 
 
 bolden them. He derived a fresh esteem for them from 
 the very fact that they could be incited to study, and em- 
 boldened to press through obstacles. . . . He was a very 
 model of patience in helping dull scholars if they were in- 
 dustrious; a very model of perseverance in explaining the 
 text, and repeating his explanations, until he made it clear 
 to obtuse minds, if they meant well. He had a reverence 
 for good intentions. He loved the sterling virtues of his 
 pupils. He prized their moral excellence more than their 
 mental acumen. Hundreds of these pupils confess that he 
 started them in their career of usefulness, breathed courage 
 into them if they were timorous ; and, when he refused to do 
 their work for them, he gave them a richer benefit in stim- 
 ulating them to do their own work for themselves. He val- 
 ued his pupils, not so much for what they knew, as for 
 what they could and would learn. He did not love to 
 crowd their memory with thoughts, so much as to enable 
 them to think. He was careful not to overload their minds, 
 and equally careful to develop them. His aim was not to 
 give them knowledge, but to qualify them for getting it." 
 From Professor Park's Address, pp. 19-31. 
 
 " We all felt that he wanted to develop in us a self-re- 
 specting manhood, for one thing; and, for another thing, he 
 aimed at a healthy and harmonious development of all our 
 powers. It was the boy in the totality of his nature that 
 he aimed to educate. Accordingly, his method was to seek 
 to awaken the intellectual activity of every individual boy. 
 He told us as little as possible, but made us discover as 
 much as possible. To be educated in this way, as he 
 often used to tell us, was to be self-educated. He made us 
 feel most sensibly the difference between mere instruction 
 and education. It was the difference between the means 
 and the end to be secured by them. He seemed to teach as 
 if it was not his business simply to impart knowledge, but 
 
200 THE YOUNG MAN AND TEACHING 
 
 to teach the way of getting knowledge. . . . What we had 
 to do must be done accurately. It must be done with all 
 the speed possible and consistent: this required the con- 
 centration of our attention. We must be ready with our 
 reason for the faith that was in us. This cultivated logic. 
 Facts must not only be collected, but weighed, compared, 
 and classified; and this taught us method. With a start in 
 these four things, — accuracy, attention, logic, and method, 
 — he equipped us for college. . . . With the dullest of us 
 he was patient and helpful, if he could be assured that we 
 were doing our best; but for the geniuses of the class, who 
 ' got along ' by the light of Nature, without study, he had 
 no mercy." 
 
 From Professor Churchill's Sermon, pp. 86-89. 
 
 Dr. Claude M. Fuess, in An Old New England School, 
 pp. 237-300, gives a very complete account of Dr. 
 Taylor's administration. While he would rank the 
 Doctor among the great Principals, he has no sympathy 
 with his indifference to progress and his despotic meth- 
 ods. He says : 
 
 " The truth is that Dr. Taylor belonged to an age which 
 had already passed. The classroom practices which he 
 employed so successfully could not be used now; his scheme 
 of punishment would not be tolerated to-day. . . . He was 
 fortunate in the time of his death. Feebleness, decrepti- 
 tude, or senility seemed with him to be impossible, and it 
 was as if, rather than bend to the storm, he rendered up 
 his life in a protest which he knew at heart to be unavail- 
 ing. 
 
 " Times have changed, then, since those stormy inter- 
 views in * Number 9,' and the world has grown out of sym- 
 pathy with many of Dr. Taylor's aims, as well as decidedly 
 critical of his system. But it will never do to forget that 
 
GREAT TEACHERS 201 
 
 in both his faults and his virtues he was representative 
 of that Puritan New England where Phillips Academy was 
 founded. His sternness, his relentless dislike of frivolity 
 and hatred of evil, his scrupulous thoroughness and ac- 
 curacy, his steadfast adherence to the letter of the moral 
 code, his confidence in the efficacy of conversion, his abso- 
 lute trust in his own infallibility : — all these are qualities 
 which belonged to Bradstreet, Winslow, Jonathan Ed- 
 wards, even to Samuel Phillips, Jr., himself." 
 
 Pp. 266-67. 
 
 CECIL F. P. BANCROFT 
 
 Principal of Phillips Academy, Andover, 1873-1901 
 
 Cecil F. P. Bancroft was born in New Ipswich, N. H., 
 November 25, 1839; was graduated at Dartmouth 
 College in 1860, and from Andover Theological Semi- 
 nary in 1867. He was Principal of the New England 
 School for White Youth on Lookout Mountain from 
 1867 to 1872, and was Principal of Phillips Academy, 
 Andover, for twenty-eight years. 
 
 Dr. Bancroft was prominent in the movement to bring 
 about a better understanding between the preparatory 
 schools and the colleges, and in changing the require- 
 ments for admission so as to give a more complete 
 preparation for college. He was President of the Head 
 Masters' Association, and also of the New England As- 
 sociation of Colleges and Preparatory Schools. " He 
 lived to see college and preparatory school work to- 
 gether with greater oneness of endeavor." 
 
 During the first half of his principalship he was both 
 teacher and administrator; during the latter half, ad- 
 ministrator only. 
 
THE YOUNG MAN AND TEACHING 
 
 " In his teaching of Latin, he brought before his pupils 
 the bearing that classical study had upon an intelligent 
 reading of current literature and upon the discharge of a 
 rational citizenship. He insisted upon forms and technical 
 details, but not with the insistence of many teachers. He 
 looked beyond school years to the larger life with its perils 
 and its duties. 
 
 " As an administrator his task was two- fold, guiding and 
 harmonizing the group of teachers about him and develop- 
 ing and molding the purposes and character of his pupils, 
 and it would be difficult to say which problem presents the 
 greater difficulties. Among his colleagues he was always 
 urbane, gentle, deferent to the wishes of others, yet, in rare 
 instances, holding tenaciously to his own view that ran 
 counter to the expressed vote of his teachers, giving his rea- 
 sons with clearness and vigor. 
 
 " A most marked trait of his character in dealing with 
 his corps of teachers was his power of sustained waiting. 
 The impatient man must bide his time, not that the Doctor 
 was unwilling to carry into execution the plan proposed, but 
 that oftentimes a maturer judgment would suggest to the 
 man in haste a more practical method or would convince 
 him of its entire unwisdom. The teacher that was need- 
 lessly slow in coming to a decision or to action was moved 
 forward to prompt finality by a word that was both courte- 
 ous and compelling. Was there something to be done that 
 did not sharply present itself as any one man's specific 
 duty? He would himself take up the work, both that it 
 might be done and also as a lesson of self-denial to those 
 around him. 
 
 " The boys under his care and their parents always found 
 him heeding their restlessness and their questioning and 
 they always found his head and heart acting for their future 
 good and usually for their present happiness. . . . They 
 loved him for his delicacy of approach to their inner prob- 
 lems, they were grateful to him for solving or for helping 
 
GREAT TEACHERS 203 
 
 them to solve those perplexities, they revered him for his 
 kindly remembrance of them in face, in name and in kin. 
 And if disaster came to any boy and the sudden impulse or 
 the long planned effort swept him away from fidelity and 
 integrity, the boy knew that the discipline that fell upon 
 him would be explained to the friends at home in a way 
 most generous and helpful, for it was an invariable rule 
 with the Doctor to suggest to the parents some plan for 
 the immediate future of the erring boy, both to ease the 
 parents' grief and to effect the boy's redemption. 
 
 " The discipline that he administered was not without rea- 
 son or temporary, but was well considered through giving 
 courteous regard to the view-point of the boy, and the let- 
 ters that came in after years revealed the unusual wisdom 
 of his action. 
 
 " All those that taught with him and a large proportion of 
 his pupils are grateful that they were privileged to hear the 
 morning petitions offered in the school chapel. Those 
 prayers were gracious messages of peace and strength, and 
 enabled many to establish their ways against evil and to live 
 a life that was more true and more serviceable. The diver- 
 sity of approach in prayer and the range of appeal was 
 marvelous. The after chapel words of exhortation, rebuke, 
 encouragement and praise abide in the whole company of 
 those trained under him and are lodged ... in the im- 
 perishable years." 
 
 Professor George T. Eaton, in the 
 Andover Townsman, Oct. 11, 1901. 
 
 Dr. Claude M. Fuess writes as follows of Dr. Ban- 
 croft's ability and services : 
 
 " There has rarely been a case in educational history 
 where a man has been so marvelously adapted to his posi- 
 tion as Dr. Bancroft was to meet the problems confronting 
 him. If ' Intensity and Conservatism ' were Dr. Taylor's 
 
204< THE YOUNG MAN AND TEACHING 
 
 watchwords, ' Breadth and Progressiveness ' were Dr. 
 Bancroft's. The extent of his actual achievements may be 
 briefly summarized: he found his school with two hundred 
 and thirty-seven students, and left it with a record of an 
 average attendance of considerably over four hundred for 
 a continuous period of ten years; he increased the size 
 of the faculty from eight men to twenty-two, and gathered 
 around him a body of loyal and efficient teachers ; he added 
 largely to the endowment and was, through his personal 
 efforts, responsible for securing several new buildings and 
 bettering the equipment; he broadened the curriculum with- 
 out lowering the grade of instruction; and when he died, 
 Phillips Academy, mainly through his influence, was a 
 more virile and substantial institution than it had ever 
 been before. All this he accomplished quietly, without 
 drawing attention to his part in the transformation. . . . 
 It must be added, also, that he was always, even when 
 severely tried, a courteous gentleman; that he governed 
 firmly, but with justice and with comprehension of boy 
 motives and temptations; and that under him young men 
 met with fair play without losing the benefits which are 
 bound to result from strict discipline wisely administered. 
 . . . Like all the great Principals, he was occupied largely 
 with moral issues. The growing plant, the new dormi- 
 tories, the increased prosperity were all desirable only in 
 so far as they contributed to intellectual and religious 
 ends." * 
 
 JOHN MEIGS 
 Headmaster of the Hill School, 1876-1911 
 
 John Meigs was born in Pottstown, Pa., August 31, 
 1852, in one of the buildings of a private school estab- 
 
 i Fuess, An Old New England School, Boston, 1917, pp. 335-336. 
 
GREAT TEACHERS 205 
 
 lished by his father, Rev. Matthew Meigs, in 1851. He 
 was graduated from Lafayette College in 1871, and one 
 year later was appointed Assistant Professor in the 
 same institution, where he taught till 1876, obtaining 
 during this period his Doctor's degree. On account of 
 the failing health of his father and the consequent fall- 
 ing away of the school in numbers, Dr. Meigs gave up 
 his professorship at Lafayette, and in 1876, at the age 
 of twenty-four, assumed the charge of the school, which 
 was almost the only support of his father's family. 
 The school was in debt, the plant was inadequate, the 
 patronage small, and the prospect disheartening. He 
 was headmaster of the school until his death in 1911, 
 a period of thirty-five years, and under his guidance the 
 school grew from an enrollment of ten to a school of 
 nearly four hundred. 
 
 The following quotations are from an article, " John 
 Meigs," by Howard Bement, in American Youth for 
 April, 1912: 
 
 " His ambitions, moreover, all tended toward the field of 
 academic activity, and in this field he early displayed tal- 
 ents for instruction, coupled with a driving personal force, 
 which made him at once an inspiring teacher and a tireless 
 and always to be feared drill-master. No student ever 
 slumbered in his classes. The man who went to the recita- 
 tion with lesson well prepared was lifted up and swept 
 along on the resistless current of his rapid-fire methods; 
 while the ill-starred loafer looked forward to the period 
 with dread, and realized during the recitation more of 
 actual horror than he could possibly have conceived in the 
 anticipation of what was to come. If nature had endowed 
 
206 THE YOUNG MAN AND TEACHING 
 
 him with no ambition to learn, fear of John Meigs soon 
 supplied the defect. . . . 
 
 " He was as tender as a mother ; he was as stern as an 
 outraged father. With a boy's real troubles he could be as 
 sympathetic as proverbial motherhood; against a boy's 
 characteristic badness he could strike with a mailed fist. 
 Never was a man more impatient than he with half-hearted 
 application, desultory effort, flabby spiritual fiber, or moral 
 cowardice. His anger, when face to face with these, 
 blazed red; and the frown of his disapproval darkened the 
 boy's whole landscape as the blackness of some iEtna in 
 eruption. To be summoned to ' The Study ' always meant 
 something, and, as the boy responded, his heart-searchings 
 were invariably deep. He never quite knew what to ex- 
 pect, unless his dereliction were clear. Then he knew. If 
 he were really in doubt, however, he never could foretell 
 the state of the weather that awaited him. He might be 
 summoned to hear words of encouragement, of which Dr. 
 Meigs' multifarious sources of information told him the 
 boy stood sorely in need. He might have to listen to words 
 of cheer and hope that meant new life and new purpose. 
 On the other hand, he might receive a veritable thunder- 
 storm of rebuke and censure, equally productive of new res- 
 olutions. But whatever came to him, the boy invariably left 
 ' The Study ' with love and fear still blended in his heart, 
 and with the calming sense that justice had been done. . . . 
 
 " When he first took the struggling boarding school his 
 father turned over to him, and when a strong and influ- 
 ential clientele was sadly needed, there was entered at the 
 school the son of a man high in the nation's official life. 
 Here was a good reference at a time when one was needed 
 . . . but John Meigs had the courage to dismiss this boy 
 during his first term at the school, and for a reason with 
 which a man of less courage would have temporized. He 
 had a well-defined theory, even in those early days, about 
 
GREAT TEACHERS 207 
 
 the presence of boys in his school who were not amenable to 
 the school's purposes and ideals. Boys not amenable were 
 dismissed with a suddenness sometimes startling. . . . John 
 Meigs believed that no bad boy should be kept when there 
 was any possibility of that boy's doing the school any harm. 
 He viewed as sacred the charge committed to him by trust- 
 ing parents, and could never be brought to see that he had 
 any right even remotely to subj ect their sons to the dangers 
 of bad companionship. . . . 
 
 " To keep the boys busy, whether at work or at play, was 
 a cardinal principle with John Meigs. He permitted loaf- 
 ing neither in the schoolroom nor on the athletic field. 
 Since ' Satan finds some mischief still for idle hands to 
 do/ the hands, the hearts, and the heads must never be idle. 
 So it was that a Hill boy's day came to be crowded full. 
 Every hour brought its appointment that must be kept. 
 Tardiness was a sin; inattention and laxness of effort were 
 almost unpardonable. Excuses were minimized ; individual 
 responsibility was maximized. 
 
 " The result of such a moral and intellectual regimen was 
 two-fold, as John Meigs foresaw. Not only did it serve 
 the immediate purpose of the school, to get its boys into 
 college with few or no conditions, but it molded the school's 
 great by-product, character. The return of a comparatively 
 clean sheet when reports of the college entrance examina- 
 tions came in did not satisfy the Head Master. He wanted 
 to know what, in terms of life, he had made of the boy, the 
 dull boy equally with the bright one. He wanted to know 
 how straight the boy stood up against the moral back-bone 
 he had attempted to supply him. He wanted in the most 
 real sense to be a ' maker of men.' Moral failures of his 
 boys, in college or after, almost broke his heart. To min- 
 imize these failures he kept in touch, by correspondence and 
 otherwise, with an innumerable company of Hill graduates. 
 Hundreds, perhaps thousands, are the letters written in his 
 pwn hand, still preserved by old Hill fellows. . . . 
 
208 THE YOUNG MAN AND TEACHING 
 
 " Does it seem anomalous to some of us that this vigorous 
 schoolmaster, this hard-headed business administrator and 
 financier, should be a man of prayer? If so, is not the rea- 
 son that we are too prone to speak of our religion as virile 
 and manly, and think of it as puerile and ineffective when 
 we come to test it ? He came to think of his religion as the 
 source of all that was vigorous and real; and the early 
 morning of each day found him alone in his study, Bible 
 before him, that he might draw strength for the day from 
 that boundless store which only reading of the Scriptures 
 and prayer can open." 
 
 PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 
 
INDEX 
 
 Abbott, Benjamin, 12, 110, 188- 
 
 191 
 Administration, 12, 57 
 Admission requirements, 66, 73 
 Allen, Dea. James, 34 
 Americanization, 13 
 Amusement, excessive demand 
 
 for, 163 
 Apology, 114 
 Arnold, Thomas, 12, 13, 33, 40, 
 
 78, 93, 100, 118, 182-188 
 Athletics, 166, 168, 172 
 Attendance, 126 
 Authority, respect for, 165 
 Avocations, 149 
 
 Bancroft, Cecil F. P., 12, 122, 
 
 155, 201-204 
 Barnard, John, 86 
 Belief in one's pupils, 100 
 Benson, A. C, 60 
 Bluffing, 84 
 Boards of Education, 28, 29, 
 
 159 
 Brevity of speech, 42 
 
 Change of position, 153 
 Character training, 172 
 Characteristics of students, 103 
 Cheever, Ezekiel, 7, 11, 86, 174- 
 
 178 
 Cigarette smoking, 166 
 Citizenship, 156 
 Classroom exercises, conduct of, 
 
 74 
 College pastor, 124 
 College spirit, 124 
 
 College teaching, 10, 53, 121- 
 
 139 
 Compensations of the teacher, 
 
 31 
 Competition, 65, 82 
 Consecration to pupils, 45 
 Consistency, 150 
 Corporal punishment, 108-110 
 Correspondence, 154 
 Country schools, 169 
 Courage, 38 
 Criticism, attitude toward, 159 
 
 De Forest, John K. H., 91 
 Detention, 114 
 Dignity, 41, 99 
 Disagreeable pupils, 87 
 Disagreeable tasks, 74 
 Discouragement, 24, 26 
 Dismissal, 118, 138 
 Disregard for authority, 164 
 Division officer, 124 
 Divisions, size of, 69, 70, 133 
 Doctor's degree, 53 
 Dogmatism, 151 
 Drill, 64, 65, 75 
 Drudgery, 22 
 Dullness, 25, 81 
 
 Emerson, R. W., 106 
 Encouragement, 80 
 Enthusiasm, 44 
 Examinations, 81 
 Exceptional students, 71 
 Experience, 57, 89, 159 
 Extension work, 14 
 
 209 
 
210 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Faculty adviser, 124 
 
 Familiarity with pupils, 99 
 
 Family influences, 48, 101 
 
 Firmness, 39 
 
 Foreigners, 15 
 
 Formality, 77 
 
 Freedom of college students, 
 
 121 
 Freshman committee, 124 
 
 Gardner, Francis, 12, 74, 193- 
 
 196 
 General rules, 107 
 Gould, Benjamin A., 106 
 Government, 87-105 
 Graduate studies, 54 
 Growth, 144 
 
 Habits, enervating, 167 
 Headmastership, 12 
 Health, 37, 144 
 High schools, 137 
 Home training, 161 
 Honor System, 95 
 How to study, 64 
 Hughes, Thomas, 107 
 
 Illustrations, use of, 51 
 Income, see Salary 
 Instruction, 62-86 
 Interest, means of arousing, 44, 
 
 67 
 Investigation, 130, 131 
 
 Jesus as teacher, 47 
 
 Laziness, 81 
 Lectures, 72, 132-135 
 Loomis, Elias, 78 
 Loyalty, 144 
 
 Manners, 49, 96 
 Marks, 135 
 
 Marriage, 26 
 
 Master's degree, 54 
 
 Meigs, John, 12, 122, 204r-206 
 
 Mental discipline, 69 
 
 Mistakes, acknowledgment of, 
 
 85 
 Monotony, 19 
 Moody, Samuel, 12, 178-182 
 
 Natural penalties, 112 
 Normal schools, 56 
 Northrop, Cyrus, 77 
 
 Objections to the teaching ca- 
 reer, 19-31 
 Obligations, 2 
 Observation, 54 
 Oertel, Hans, 69 
 Olmsted, Denison, 24, 34, 99 
 Opportunities, 1, 3, 5 
 
 Parents, 14 
 Patience, 90 
 Penalties, 108-120 
 Permanency of position, 29 
 Personal influence, 138 
 Personality, 46 
 Phelps, William L., 16 
 Physical excellence, 36 
 Power, exercise of, 6 
 Preparation, educational, 48-61 
 Preparatory schools, 11 
 Principalship, 12, 57 
 Private schools, 159 
 Private tutoring, 130 
 Privileges, loss of, 114 
 Privileges, special, 81 
 Prizes, 82-84 
 Promptness, 76 
 Public infliction of penalties, 
 
 116 
 Public schools, 13, 55 
 
INDEX 
 
 £11 
 
 Publication, 130, 131 
 Purpose of instruction, 62, 64 
 
 Specialization, 7, 50, 51 
 Speech, correct habits of, 49 
 Spencer, Herbert, 112 
 Qualifications for teaching, 32- Spirit of the age, 50, 164 
 47 Study, private, 5, 60, 144 
 
 Questioning, art of, 65, 79 Supervision of dormitories, 23, 
 
 24, 97 
 Relations between faculty and Suspension, 117 
 
 students, 93, 98, 114, 129 Sympathy, 40 
 
 Religion, 46 Systematic life, 6 
 
 Reports, 135 
 Reserve, 41, 99 
 Responsibility, training for, 112 Taylor, Samuel H., 12, 20, 78, 
 
 Richardson, John, 116 
 Room management, 88 
 Rules, 106-108 
 Rural schools, 168-171 
 
 79, 80, 196-201 
 Teachers' colleges, 58 
 Teaching ability, 131 
 Testimonials, 155 
 Thacher, Thomas A., 125 
 Traditions, 127 
 Trustees, 159 
 
 Salary, 9, 27, 30, 31, 158 
 
 Sarcasm, 96 
 
 Satisfactions of the teacher's 
 
 life, 4, 17 
 Schedules, 22 
 Scholarship, 129, 130 
 Secondary schools, 53 
 Secret methods, 94 
 Self-government, 95, 115 
 Senior Class, 92, 93 
 Short-cuts, 166, 167 
 Size of divisions, 69, 70, 133 
 Social disadvantages, 21 
 Soule, Gideon L., 12, 66 t 122, Young Men's Christian Asso- 
 
 188-193 ciation, 124 
 
 Uniformity in discipline, 117 
 University teaching, 10 
 
 Vacation, 60, 140-144 
 
 Writing, private, 5, 144 
 Written exercises, 22, 145-148 
 
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