Mulberry Bend.—In striking contrast with this home are conditions in Mulberry Bend, New York, as described by a writer thoroughly conversant with conditions as they were until recently—conditions, however, now much bettered: "These alleys, running from nowhere to nowhere, alongside cellars where the light never enters and where nothing can live but beast-men and beast-women and rats; behind foul rookeries where skulk the murderer and the abandoned tramp; beside hideous plague-spots where the stench is overpowering—Bottle Alley, where the rag-pickers pile their bags of stinking stuff, and the Whyo Roost where evil-visaged beings prowl about, hunting for prey; dozens of alleys winding in and out and intersecting, so that the beast may slay his prey, and hide in the jungle, and be safe; these foul alleys—who shall picture them, or explore their depths, or describe their wretchedness and their hideousness?... Upon the doorsteps weary mothers are nursing little babies who will never know the meaning of innocent childhood, but will be versed in the immoral lore of the Underworld before they learn their alphabet. Ragged children covered with filth play about the pushcarts and the horses in the street, while their mothers chatter in greasy doorways, or shout from upper windows into the hordes below, or clatter about creaky floors, preparing the foul mess of tainted edibles which constitutes a meal."

With many other phases of this gruesome picture this author deals, and then concludes with the following: "But in the rookeries which, like their inmates, skulk and hide out of sight in the crowded street; in these ramshackle structures which line the back alleys, and there breed their human vermin amid dirt and rags—in these there is no direct sunlight throughout the long year. Rookeries close to the front windows, shutting out light and air, and rookeries close to the rear windows, and rookeries close to each side, and never a breath of fresh air to ventilate one of these holes wherein men and women and children wallow in dirt, and live and fight and drink and die, and finally give way to others of their kind." So long as such conditions as these continue in our country, sanitation as a manifestation of patriotism will not have done its perfect work, and the stars and stripes of our flag will lack somewhat of their rightful luster.

Patriotism in daily life.—When the influences of hygiene and of home economics, taught as life processes and not merely as prerequisites for graduation, by teachers who regard them as forms of patriotism,—when these influences have percolated to every nook and cranny of our national life,—to the homes, the streets and alleys, the farms, the shops, the factories, and the mines, such conditions as these will disappear, and we as a nation shall then have a clearer warrant for our profession of patriotic interest in and devotion to the welfare of our country as a whole. But so long as we can look upon insanitary conditions without a shudder; so long as we permit dirt to breed disease and crime; so long as we make our streams the dumping places for debris; so long as we tolerate ugliness where beauty should obtain; and so long as our homes and our farms betray the spirit of shiftlessness,—so long shall we have occasion to blush when we look at our flag and confess our dereliction of our high privilege of patriotism.

The American restaurant.—Perhaps no single detail of the customs that obtain in our country impresses a cultivated foreigner more unfavorably than the regime in our popular restaurants. The noise, the rattle and clatter and bang, the raucous calling of orders, and the hurry and confusion give him the impression that we are content to have feeding places where we might have eating places. He regards all that he sees and hears as being less than proper decorum, less than a high standard of intelligence, less than refined cultivation, and less than agencies that contribute to the graces of life. He marvels that we have not yet attained the conception that partaking of food amounts to a gracious and delightful ceremony rather than a gastronomic orgy. His surprise is not limited to the people who administer these establishments, but extends to the people who patronize them. He marvels that the patrons do not seek out places where there is quiet, and serenity, and pleasing decorum. He returns to his own land wondering if the noisy restaurant is typical of American civilization. He may not know that the study of domestic science in our schools has not had time to attain its full fruition in the way of inculcating a lofty conception of life in the dining room.

Thrift as patriotism.—Another important phase of patriotism is thrift; and here, again, we have come short of realizing our possibilities. There are far too many people who have failed to lay in store against times of emergency, far too many who care only for to-day with slight regard for to-morrow. Moreover, there are far too many who, despite sound bodies, are dependents, contributing nothing to the resources of society, but constantly preying upon those resources. There are in our country not fewer than one hundred thousand tramps, and by some the number has been estimated at a half-million. If this vast army of dependents could be transferred to the ranks of producers, tilling our fields, harvesting our crops, constructing our highways of travel, redeeming our waste places, and beautifying our streams, life would be far more agreeable both for them and for the rest of our people. They would become self-supporting and so would win self-respect; they would subtract their number from the number of those who live at public expense; and they would make contributions to the general store. They would thus relieve society of the incubus of their dependence, and largely increase the number of our people who are self-supporting.

Some contrasts.—We are making some progress in the line of thrift through our school savings and postal savings, but we have not yet attained to a national conception of thrift as an element of patriotism. This is one of the large yet inspiring privileges of the vitalized school. Thrift is so intimately identified with life that they naturally combine in our thinking, and we have only to reach the conception that our mode of life is the measure of our patriotism in order to realize that thrift and patriotism are in large measure identical. The industrious, frugal, thrifty man is patriotic; the unthrifty, lazy, shiftless man is unpatriotic. The one ennobles and honors his country; the other dishonors and degrades his country.

Conclusion.—If the foregoing conclusions are valid, and to every thoughtful person they must seem well-nigh axiomatic, then the school has a wide field of usefulness in the way of inculcating a loftier and broader conception of patriotism. The teacher who worthily fills her place in the vitalized school will give the boys and girls in her care such a conception of patriotism as will give direction, potency, and significance to every school activity and lift these activities out of the realm of drudgery into the realm of privilege. Her pupils will be made to feel that what they are doing for themselves, their school, and their homes, they are doing for the honor and glory of their country.

QUESTIONS AND EXERCISES

1. In what ways and to what extent should patriotism affect conduct?

2. Indicate methods in which patriotism may be used as an incentive to excel in the different branches of study.

3. What branches of study should have for their sole function to stimulate the growth of patriotism? Discuss methods and give instances.

4. Distinguish from patriotism each of the following counterfeits: sectionalism; partisanship; nationalism; and jingoism. Should teachers try to eradicate or sublimate these sentiments? How?

5. What should be the attitude of the teacher of history toward Commodore Decatur's toast: "My country, may she always be in the right; but right or wrong, my country"?

6. Cite recent history to prove that temperance and sanitation are necessary for the realization of national victories and the perpetuation of the common welfare.

7. Is the "Golden Rule" a vital principle of patriotism? Why?

8. How are culture and refinement related to patriotism? thrift?

9. Make a list of songs, poems, novels, paintings, and orations that are characterized by lofty patriotic sentiments. Name some that are usually regarded as patriotic but which are tainted with inferior sentiments.

10. Discuss the adaptability of these to the different periods of youthful development and the methods whereby their appeal may be made most effective.



CHAPTER IX

WORK AND LIFE

Tom Sawyer.—Tom Sawyer was one of the most effective teachers that has figured in the pages of the books; and yet we still regard Mark Twain as merely the prince of humorists. He was that, of course, but much more; and some day we shall read his books in quest of pedagogical wisdom and shall not be disappointed. It will be recalled that Tom Sawyer sat on the top of a barrel and munched apples while his boy companions whitewashed the fence in his stead. Tom achieved this triumph because he knew how to emancipate work from the plane of drudgery and exalt it to the plane of a privilege. Indeed, it loomed so large as a privilege that the other boys were eager to barter the treasures of their pockets in exchange for this privilege. And never did a fence receive such a whitewashing! There wasn't fence enough and, therefore, the process must needs be repeated again and again. The best part of the entire episode was that everybody was happy, Tom included. Tom was happy in seeing his plan work, and the other boys were happy because they were doing work that Tom had caused them to become eager to do.

Work as a privilege.—To make work seem a privilege is a worthy task for the school to set before itself, and if it but achieves this it will prove itself worth all it costs. At first thought, it seems a stupendous task, and so it is. But Tom Sawyer accomplished it in an easy, natural way, with no parade or bombast. He had habit and tradition to contend against, just as the school has, but he overbore these obstacles and won the contest. Some of those boys, before that morning, may have thought it ignoble to perform menial tasks; but Tom soon overcame that feeling and led them to feel that only an artist can whitewash a fence properly. Some of them may have been interpreting life as having a good time, but, under the tutorage of Tom, they soon came to feel that having a good time means whitewashing a fence.

The persistency of habit.—In striving to exalt and ennoble work, the school runs counter to habits of thought that have been formed in the home, and these habits prove stubborn. The home has so long imposed work as a task that the school finds it difficult to make it seem a privilege. The father and mother have so often complained of their work, in the presence of their children, that all work comes to assume the aspect of a hardship, if not a penalty. It often happens, too, that the parents encourage their children to think that education affords immunity from work, and the children attend school with that notion firmly implanted in their minds. They seem to think that when they have achieved an education they will receive their reward in the choicest gifts that Fortune has to bestow, and that their only responsibility will be to indicate their choices.

Misconceptions of work.—Still further, when children enter school imbued with this conception of work, they feel that the work of the school is imposed upon them as a task from which they would fain be free. If their parents had only been as wise as Tom Sawyer and had set up motives before them in connection with their home activities and thus exalted all their work to the plane of privilege, the work of the school would be greatly simplified. It is no slight task to eradicate this misconception of work, but somehow it must be done before the work of the school can get on. Until this is done, the work of the school will be done grudgingly instead of buoyantly, and work that is done under compulsion is never joyous work. Nor will work that is done under compulsion ever be done in full measure, as the days of slavery clearly prove.

Illustrations.—Life and work are synonymous, and no amount or form of sophistry can abrogate their relation. The man who does not work does not have real life, as the invalid will freely witness. The tramp on the highway manages to exist, but he does not really live, no matter what his philosophy may be. Many children interpret life to mean plenty of money and nothing to do, but this conception merely proves that they are children with childish misconceptions. They see the railway magnate riding in his private car and conceive his life to be one of ease and luxury. They do not realize that the private car affords him the opportunity to do more and better work. They see the president of the bank sitting in his private office and imagine that he is idle, not realizing that his mind is busy with problems of great magnitude, problems that would appall his subordinates. They cannot know, as he sits there, that he is projecting his thoughts into far-off lands, and is watching the manifold and complex processions of commerce in their relations to the world of finance.

Concrete examples.—They see the architect in his luxurious apartments, but do not realize that his brain is directing every movement of a thousand men who are causing a colossal building to tower toward the sky. They see a Grant sitting beneath a tree in apparent unconcern, but do not know that he is bearing the responsibility of the movements of a vast army. They see the pastor in his study among his books, but do not know the travail of spirit that he experiences in his yearning for his parishioners. They see the farmer sitting at ease in the shade, but do not know that he is visualizing every detail of his farm, the men at their tasks, the flocks and herds, the crops, the streams, the machinery, the fences, and the orchards and vineyards. They see the master of the ship, standing on the bridge clad in his smart uniform, and imagine that he is merely enjoying the sea breezes the same as themselves, not knowing that his thoughts are concentrated upon the safety of his hundreds of passengers and his precious cargo.

The potency of mental work.—Only by experience may children come to know that work may be mental as well as physical, and the school is charged with the responsibility of affording this experience. Through experience they will come to know that mind transcends matter, and that in life the body yields obedience to the behests of the mind. They will come to know that mental work is more far-reaching than physical work, in that a single mind plans the work for a thousand hands. They will learn that mental work has redeemed the world from its primitive condition and is making life more agreeable even if more complex. They will come to see the mind busy in its work of tunneling mountains, building canals and railways, navigating oceans, and exploring the sky. They will come to realize that mental work has produced our libraries, designed our machinery, made our homes more comfortable and our fields more fertile.

Work a blessing.—As a knowledge of all these things filters into their minds, their conception of life broadens, and they see more and more clearly that life and work are fundamentally identical. They see that work directs the streams of life and gives to life point, potency, and significance. They soon see that knowledge is power only because it is the agency that generates power, and that knowledge touches life at every point. They will come to realize that work is the one great luxury in life, and that education is designed to increase the capacity for work in order that people may indulge in this luxury more abundantly. The more work one can do, the more life one has; and the better the work one can do, the higher the quality of that life. They learn that the adage "Work to live and live to work" is no fiction but a reality.

Work and enjoyment.—The school, therefore, becomes to them a workshop of life, and unless it is that, it is not a worthy school. It is not a something detached from life, but, rather, an integral part of life and therefore a place and an occasion for work. The school is the Burning Bush of work that is to grow into the Tree of Life. But life ought to teem with joy in order to be at its best, and never be a drag. Work, therefore, being synonymous with life, should be a joyous experience, even though it taxes the powers to the utmost. If the child comes to the work of the school as the galley-slave goes to his task, there is a lack of adjustment and balance somewhere, and a readjustment is necessary. It matters not that a boy spends two hours over a problem in arithmetic if only he enjoys himself during the time. But, if he works two hours merely to get a passing grade or to escape punishment, the time thus spent does not afford him the pleasure that rightfully belongs to him, and some better motive should be supplied.

The teacher's problem.—The teacher's mission is not to make school work easy, but, rather, to make the hardest work alluring and agreeable. Here, again, she may need to take counsel with Tom Sawyer. Whitewashing a fence is quite as hard work as solving a problem in decimals or cube root. Much depends upon the mental attitude of the boy, and this in turn depends upon the skill of the teacher and her fertility of mind in supplying motives. Whitewashing a fence causes the arms to grow weary and the back to ache, but the boys recked not of that. On the contrary, they clamored for more of the same kind of work. This same spirit characterizes the work of the vitalized school. The pupils live as joyously in the schoolroom as they do outside, and the harder the work the greater their joy.

When work is made a privilege by the expert teacher, school procedure becomes well-nigh automatic and there is never any occasion for nagging, hectoring, or badgering. Such things are abnormal in life and no less so in the vitalized school. They are a confession on the part of the teacher that she has reached the limit of her resources. She admits that she cannot do what Tom Sawyer did so well, and so proclaims her inability to articulate life and work effectively.

QUESTIONS AND EXERCISES

1. Read that chapter of "Tom Sawyer" which deals with the whitewashing episode.

2. What principles of teaching did Tom Sawyer apply?

3. Discuss, from the pupils' viewpoint, how the study of different subjects may be made a privilege.

4. In accordance with Tom Sawyer pedagogy, discuss plans for the formation of the reading habit in pupils. How direct the pupils' choice of reading matter?

5. How would you demonstrate to pupils that mental work is more exhausting than manual labor?

6. Why is work a blessing? How convince an indolent pupil of this truth?

7. State the chief problem of the teacher.

8. Show that the pedagogical doctrines of this chapter are not to be classified under the head of "soft pedagogy."



CHAPTER X

WORDS AND THEIR CONTENT

Initial statement.—Life and words are so closely interwoven that we have only to study words with care in order to achieve an apprehension of life. Indeed, education may be defined as the process of enlarging the content of words. No two of us speak the same language even though we use the same words. The schoolboy and the savant speak of education, using the same word, but the boy has only the faintest conception of the meaning of the word as used by the savant. We must know the content of the words that are used before we can understand one another, either in speaking or in writing. For one man, a word is big with meaning; for another, the same word is so small as to be well-nigh meaningless. To the ignorant boor, the word "education" means far less than the three R's, while to the scholar the word includes languages, ancient and modern, mathematics through many volumes, sciences that analyze the dewdrop, determine the weight of the earth and the distances and movements of the planets, history from the Rosetta Stone to the latest presidential election, and philosophy from Plato to the scholar of to-day.

The word "education."—And yet both these men spell and pronounce the word alike. The ignorant man has only the faintest glimmering of the scholar's meaning of the word when he speaks or writes it. Still the word is in common use, and people who use it are wont to think that their conception of its meaning is universal. If the boor could follow the expansion of the word as it is invested with greater and greater content, he would, in time, understand Aristotle, Shakespeare, Gladstone, and Max Mueller. And, understanding these men, he would come to know philosophy, literature, and language, and so would come to appreciate more fully what education really is. In contemplating the expansion of the word, one might easily visualize the ever widening circle produced by throwing a pebble into a pool; but a better conception would be the expansion of a balloon when it is being inflated. This comparison enables one to realize that education enlarges as a sphere rather than as a circle.

The scholar's concept of the sea.—The six-year-old can give the correct spelling of the word sea as readily as the sage, but the sage has spent a lifetime in putting content into the word. For him, the word epitomizes his life history. Through its magic leading he retraces his journeys through physiography and geology, watching the sea wear away two thousand feet of the Appalachian Mountains and spread the detritus over vast areas, making the great fertile corn and wheat belt of our country. He knows that this section produces, annually, such a quantity of corn as would require for transportation a procession of teams that would encircle the earth nine times, at the equator, and he interprets all this as sea. The word leads him, also, through the mazes and mysteries of meteorology, revealing to him the origin of the rain, the snow, the dew, and the frost, with all the wonders of evaporation, condensation, and precipitation.

Further illustration.—He can discern the sea in every blade of grass, in every leaf, and in every flower. In the composition of his own body, he finds that ninety per cent of it is sea. He finds his heart pumping the sea through his veins and arteries as a vital part of the life process; and through the power of capillary attraction, the sea is coursing through every hair of his head. In the food upon his table, the meat, the bread, the milk, the vegetables, and the fruits, he finds the sea. Not his poetry, but his science follows the raindrop from the roof to the rivulet, on to the river, then to the ocean, then into vapor and on into rain down into the earth, then up into the tree, out into the orange, until it finally reappears as a drop of juice upon the rosy lip of his little six-year-old.

The child's conception.—Whether the child ever wins the large conception of the sea that her father has depends, in part, upon the father himself, but, in a still larger degree, upon her teacher. If the teacher thinks of the sea merely as a word to be spelled, or defined, or parsed, that she may inscribe marks in a grade book or on report cards, then the child will never know the sea as her father knows it, unless this knowledge comes to her from sources outside the school. Instead of becoming a living thing and the source of life, her sea will be a desert without oasis, or grass, or tree, or bird, or bubbling spring to refresh and inspire. It would seem a sad commentary upon our teaching if the child is compelled to gain a right conception of the sea outside the school and in spite of the school, rather than through and by means of the school.

The quest of teacher and child.—The vitalized teacher knows the sea as the sage knows it, and can infuse her conception into the consciousness of the child. She feels it to be her high privilege to lead the child on in quest of the sea and to find, in this quest, pulsating life. In this alluring quest, she is putting content into the word, and thus discovering, by experience, what life is. This is education. This is the inviting vista that stretches out before the eyes of the child under the spell and leadership of such a teacher. In their quest for the meaning of the sea, these companions, the child and the teacher, will come upon the fields of grain, the orchards, the flocks and herds, the ships, the trains, and the whole intricate world of commerce. They will find commerce to be a manifestation of the sea and moreover a big factor in life. It will mean far more than mere cars to be counted or cargoes to be estimated in the form of problems for the class in arithmetic. The cargoes of grain that they see leaving the port mean food for the hungry in other lands, and the joy and vigor that only food can give.

The sea as life.—At every turn of their ramified journey, these learners find life and, best of all, are having a rich experience in life, throughout the journey. They are immersed in life and so are absorbing life all the while. Wider and wider becomes their conception of life as exemplified by the sea, and their capacity for life is ever increasing. Day by day they ascend to higher levels and find their horizon receding farther and farther. For them, life enlarges until it embraces all lands, the arts, the sciences, the languages, and all history. Whether they pursue the sea into the mountains; to the steppes, plateaus, or pampas; to the palace or the hovel; to the tropics or the poles,—they find it evermore representing life.

The word "automobile."—It would seem to be quite possible to construct a twelve-year course of study based upon this sort of study of words and their content with special emphasis upon the content. Since life is conterminous with the content of the words that constitute one's vocabulary, it is evident that the content of words becomes of major importance in the scheme of education. To be able to spell the word "automobile" will not carry a young man very far in his efforts to qualify as a chauffeur, important though the spelling may be. As a mere beginning, the spelling is essential, but it is not enough. Still the child thinks that his education, so far as this word is concerned, is complete when he can spell it correctly, and carry home a perfect grade. No one will employ the young man as a driver until he has put content into the word, and this requires time and hard work. He must know the mechanism of the machine, in every detail, and the articulation of all its parts. He must be able to locate trouble on the instant and be able to apply the remedy. He must be sensitive to every slightest sound that indicates imperfect functioning. This, of course, carries far beyond the mere spelling of the word, but all this is essential to the safety of his passengers.

Etymology.—Etymology has its place, of course, in the study of words, but it stops short of the goal. It may be well to take the watch apart in order to make an examination of its parts, but until it is reconstituted and set going, it is useless as a watch. So with a word. We may give its etymology and rhapsodize over its parts, but thus analyzed it is an inert thing and really inane so far as real service is concerned. If word study does not carry beyond the mere analysis, it is futile as a real educative process. To be really effective, the word must be instinct with life and busy in the affairs of life, and not a mere specimen in a museum. Too often our work in etymology seems to be considered an end in itself, rather than a means to an end.

The word in use.—Arlo Bates says that the word "highly" in the Gettysburg Speech is the most ornate word in the language in the setting that Lincoln gave it. The merest tyro can give its etymology, but only when it was set to work by a master did it gain potency and distinction. The etymology of the word "fidelity" is reasonably easy, but this analysis is powerless to cause the child to thrill at the story of Casabianca, or of Ruth and Naomi, or of Esther, or Antigone, or Cordelia, or Nathan Hale, or the little Japanese girl who deliberately bit through her tongue that she might not utter a syllable that would jeopardize the interests or safety of her father. The word analyzed is a dead thing; the word in use is a living thing. The word merely analyzed is apt to be ephemeral; the word in use is abiding and increasingly significant. As the child puts more and more content into the word, he, himself, expands at the same rate in the scope and power of his thinking. Words are the materials out of which he weaves the fabric of life, and the pattern depends upon the content of his words.

Illustrations from art.—The child can spell the word "art" and can repeat the words of the book by way of a memorized definition, but he cannot define the word with even a fair degree of intelligence. He cannot know the meaning of the word until its significance becomes objectified in his life processes. This requires time, and thought, and experiences with books, with people, and with galleries. In short, he must live art before he can define the word; and his living art invests the word with content. The word will grow just as he grows in his conception of art. At first, he may denominate as art the simple little daubs of pictures that he makes with the teacher's hand guiding his brush. But, later on, as he gains a larger conception, these things will appear puerile if not silly. The time may come when he can read the thoughts of the masters as expressed in their masterpieces. Then, and only then, will he be able to define the word.

Michael Angelo.—At the age of fifteen, Michael Angelo wrought the Mask of the Satyr, which would not be considered a work of art if that were the only product of his chisel. What he did later was the fulfillment of the prophecy embodied in the Mask. At the age of eighty, he produced the Descent from the Cross, which glorifies the Duomo in Florence. In between these productions, we find his David, his Moses, the Sistine Ceiling, with many others scarcely less notable. He rose to a higher and higher conception of art as he lived art more and more fully, and his execution kept pace with the expansion of his conception. He gave content to the word both for himself and for the world until now we associate, in our thinking, art with his name. He himself is now, in large measure, our definition of art—and that because he lived art.

The child's conception of truth.—In his restricted conception, the boy conceives truth to be the mere absence of peccadillos. He thinks that his denial of the charge that he was impolite to his sister, or that he went on a foraging expedition to the pantry, is the whole truth and, indeed, all there is to truth. It requires a whole lifetime to realize the full magnitude of his misconception. In the vitalized school, he finds himself busy all day long trying to find answer to the question: What is Truth? In the Alps, there is a place called Echo Glen where a thousand rocks, cliffs, and crags send back to the speaker the words he utters. So, when this boy asks What is Truth? a thousand voices in the school and outside the school repeat the question to him: What is Truth? Abraham Lincoln tried to find the answer as he figured on the bit of board with a piece of charcoal by the firelight. Later on, he wrote the Emancipation Proclamation, and in both exercises he was seeking for the meaning of truth.

The work of the school.—Christopher Columbus was doing the same thing in his quest, and thought no hardship too great if he could only come upon the answer. Galileo, Huxley, Newton, Tyndall, Humboldt, Darwin, Edison, and Burbank are only the schoolboys grown large in their search for the meaning of truth. They have enlarged the content of the word for us all, and by following their lead we may attain to their answers. Every school study gives forth a partial answer, and the sum of all these answers constitutes the answer which the boy is seeking. Mathematics tells part of the story, but not all of it; science tells another part, but not all of it; history tells still another part, but not all of it. Hence, it may be reiterated that one of the prime functions of the vitalized school is to invest words with the largest possible content.

QUESTIONS AND EXERCISES

1. To what extent is education the process of enlarging the content of words?

2. As a concrete illustration of the differences in the content of words, compare various definitions of education. Choose typical definitions of education to reflect the ideas of different educational periods.

3. Suggest other methods than the use of the dictionary for the enlargement of the pupil's content of words.

4. How may words be vitalized in composition?

5. Should the chief aim of language work in the grades be force, accuracy, or elegance in the use of language?

6. Add to the author's list of words, other words the content of which may be expanded by education.

7. How may the vitalized teacher encourage in pupils the formation of habits of careful diction?

8. How remove unnatural stilted words and expressions from the oral and written expressions of pupils?



CHAPTER XI

COMPLETE LIVING

The question raised.—That education is a preparation for complete living has been quoted by every teacher who lays any sort of claim to the standard definitions. Indeed, so often and so glibly has the quotation been made that it is well-nigh axiomatic and altogether trite. But we still await any clear explanation of what is meant by complete living. On this point we are still groping, with no prophetic voice to tell us the way. By implication we have had hints, and much has been said on the negative side, but the positive side still lies fallow. When asked for an explanation, those who give the quotation resort to circumlocution and, at length, give another definition of education, apparently conscious of the mathematical dictum that things that are equal to the same thing are equal to each other. So we continue to travel in a circle, with but feeble attempts to deviate from the course.

The vitalized school an exemplification.—Nor will this chapter attempt to resolve the difficult situation in which we are placed. It is not easy to define living, much less complete living. All that is hoped for here is to bring the matter to the attention of all teachers and to cause them to realize that the quest for a definition of complete living will be for them and for their pupils an exhilarating experience. The vitalized school will belie its name if it does not strive toward a solution of the difficulty, and any school that approximates a satisfactory definition will be proclaimed a public benefactor. In fact, the school cannot lay claim to the distinction of being vitalized if it fails to exemplify complete living, in some appreciable degree, and if it fails to groove this sort of living into a habit that will persist throughout the years. This is the big task that the school must essay if it would emancipate itself from the trammels of tradition and become a leader in the larger, better way. Complete living must become the ideal of the school if it would realize the conception of education of which it is a professed exponent.

Incomplete living.—The man who walks with a crutch; the man who is afflicted with a felon; the man who lacks a hand or even a finger,—cannot experience complete living. Through the power of adaptation the man with a crutch may compass more difficult situations than the man with sound legs will attempt, but he cannot realize all the possibilities of life that a sound body would vouchsafe to him. The man without hands may learn to write with his toes, but he is not employed as a teacher of penmanship. His life is a restricted one and, therefore, less than complete. We marvel at the exhibitions of skill displayed by the maimed, but we feel no envy. We may not be able to duplicate their achievements, but we feel that we have ample compensation in the normal use of our members. We know instinctively that, in the solitude of their meditations, they must experience poignant regrets that they are not as other people, and that they must pass through life under a handicap.

The sound body.—It is evident, therefore, that soundness of body is a condition precedent to complete living. The body is the organism by means of which the mind and the spirit function in terms of life; and, if this organism is imperfect, the functioning will prove less than complete. Hence, it is the province of the school to so organize all its activities that the physical powers of the pupils shall be fully conserved. The president of a large university says that during his incumbency of seventeen years they have found only one young woman of physical perfection and not a single young man, although the tests have been applied to thousands. College students, it will be readily conceded, are a selected group; and yet even in such a group not a physically perfect young man was found in tests extending over seventeen years. If a like condition should be discovered in the scoring of live stock at our fairs, there would ensue a careful investigation of causes in the hope of finding a remedy.

Personal efficiency.—We shall not achieve national efficiency until every citizen has achieved personal efficiency, and physical fitness is one of the fundamental conditions precedent to personal efficiency. Here we have the blue print for the guidance of society and the school. If we are ever to achieve national efficiency, we must see to it that every man and woman, every boy and girl, has a strong, healthy body that is fully able to execute the behests of mind and spirit. This may require a stricter censorship of marriage licenses, including physical examinations; it may require more stringent laws on our statute books; it may require radical changes in our methods of physical training; and it may require the state to assume some of the functions of the home when the home reveals its inability or unwillingness to cope with the situation. Heroic treatment may be necessary; but until we as a people have the courage to apply the remedies that the diagnosis shows to be necessary, we shall look in vain for improvement.

Physical training.—Seeing that it is so difficult to find a man or a woman among our people who has attained physical perfection, it behooves society and the schools to take a critical inventory of their methods of physical training and their meager accomplishments as a preliminary survey looking to a change in our procedure. We seem to have delegated scientific physical training to athletics and pugilism, with but scant concern for our people as a whole. If pink-tea calisthenics as practiced mildly in our schools has failed to produce robust bodies, then it is incumbent upon us to adopt a regime of beefsteak. What the traditional school has failed to do the vitalized school must attempt to do or suffer the humiliation of striking its colors. There is no middle course; it must either win a victory or admit defeat in common with the traditional school. The standard is high, of course, but every standard of the vitalized school is and ought to be high.

Cigarettes.—If the use of cigarettes is devitalizing our boys, and this can be determined, then the manufacture and sale must be prohibited unless our legislative bodies would plead guilty to the charge of impotence. But we are told that public sentiment conditions the enactment of laws. If such be the case, then the school and its auxiliaries should feel it a duty to generate public sentiment. If cigarettes are harmful, then they should be banished, and the task is not an impossible one by any means. As to the injurious effects of cigarettes, as distinguished an authority as Thomas A. Edison says the following:

"The injurious agent in cigarettes comes principally from the burning paper wrapper. The substance thereby formed is called 'acrolein.' It has a violent action on the nerve centers, producing degeneration of the cells of the brain, which is quite rapid among boys. Unlike most narcotics, this degeneration is permanent and uncontrollable. I employ no person who smokes cigarettes."

We have eliminated dangerous explosives from our Fourth of July celebrations, and the ban can as easily be placed upon any other dangerous product. Just here we inevitably meet the cry of paternalism, but we shall always be confronted by the question to what extent the government should stand aside and see its citizens follow the bent of their appetites and passions over the brink of destruction. It is the inherent right of government to maintain its own integrity, and this it can do only through the conservation of the powers of its citizens. If paternalism is necessary to this end, then paternalism is a governmental virtue. Better, by far, some paternalism than a race of weaklings.

Military training.—We may shrink away from military training in the schools, just as we shrink from the regime of pugilism; but we may profit by observing both these types of training in our efforts to develop some method of training that will render our young people physically fit. We need some type of training that will eliminate round and drooping shoulders, weak chests, shambling gait, sluggish circulation, and shallow breathing. The boys and girls need to be, first of all, healthy animals with large powers of endurance, elastic, buoyant, graceful, and in general well set up. These conditions constitute the foundation for the superstructure of education. The placid, anaemic, fiberless child is ill prepared in physique to attain to that mastery of the mental and spiritual world that makes for an approximation to complete living.

Examples cited.—If one will but make a mental appraisement of the first one hundred people he meets, he will see among the number quite a few who reveal a lack of physical vigor. They droop and slouch along and seem to be dragging their bodies instead of being propelled through space by their bodies. They can neither stand nor walk as a human being ought to stand and walk, and their entire ensemble is altogether unbeautiful. We feel instinctively that, being fashioned in the image of their Maker, they have sadly declined from their high estate. Their bodily attitude seems a sort of apology for life, and we long to invoke the aid of some teacher of physical training to rescue them from themselves and restore them to their rightful heritage. They are weak, apparently ill-nourished, scrawny, ill-groomed; and we know, without the aid of words, that neither a vigorous mind nor a great spirit would choose that type of body as its habitation.

The body subject to the mind.—A healthy, vigorous, symmetrical body that performs all its functions like a well-articulated, well-adjusted mechanism is the beginning, but only a beginning. Next comes a mind that is so well trained that it knows what orders to give to the body and how to give them. Many a strong body enters the door of a saloon because the mind is not sufficiently trained to issue wise orders. The mind was befuddled before the body became so, and the body becomes so only because the mind commands. Intoxication, primarily, is a mental apostasy, and the body cannot do otherwise than obey. If the mind were intent upon securing a book at the library, the body would not have seen the door of the saloon, but would have been urgent to reach the library. There is neither fiction nor facetiousness in the adage, "An idle brain is the devil's workshop." On the contrary, the saying is crammed full of psychology for the thoughtful observer. Hence, when we are training the mind we are wreaking destruction upon this workshop.

Freedom a condition precedent.—Complete living is impossible outside the domain of freedom. The prisons show forth no examples of complete living. But mental thralldom is quite as inimical to complete living as thralldom of the body. The mind must know in order to move among the things of life in freedom. Ignorance is slavery. The mind that is unable to read the inscription on a monument stands baffled and helpless, and no form of slavery can be more abject. The man who cannot read the bill of fare of life is in no position to revel in the good things that life offers. The man who cannot read the signboards of life gropes and flounders about in the byways and so misses the charms. If he knows the way, he has freedom; otherwise he is in thralldom. The man who cannot interpret life as it shows itself in hill, in valley, in stream and rock and tree, goes through life with bandaged eyes, and that condition affords no freedom.

Street signs.—A man who had been traveling through Europe for several weeks, and had finally reached London, wrote enthusiastically of his pleasure at being able to read the street signs. All summer he had felt restricted and hampered, but when he reached a country where the street signs were intelligible, he gained his freedom. Had he been as familiar with Italian, German, and French as he is with English, life would have been for him far more nearly complete during that summer and therefore much more agreeable and fertile. There is no more exhilarating experience than to be able to read the street signs along the highway of life, and this ability is one of the great objectives of every vitalized school.

Trained minds.—Nature reveals her inmost secrets only to the trained mind. No power can force her, no wealth can bribe her, to disclose these secrets to others. Only the mind that is trained can gain admission to her treasure house to revel in its glories. John Burroughs lives in a world that the ignorant man cannot know. The trained mind alone has the key that will unlock libraries, art galleries, the treasure houses of science, language, history, and art. The untrained minds must stand outside and win what comfort they can from their wealth, their social status, or whatever else they would fain substitute for the training that would admit them. All these things are parts of life, and those who cannot gain admission to these conservatories of knowledge cannot know life in its completeness.

Achievements of trained minds.—In order to know life in the large, the mind must be able to leap from the multiplication table to the stars; must become intimate with the movements of the tides, the glacier, and the planets; must translate the bubbling fountain and the eruption of Vesuvius; must be able to interpret the whisper of the zephyr and the diapason of the forest; must be able to hear music in the chirp of the cricket as well as in the oratorios; must be able to delve into the recesses of the mine and scale the mountain tops; must know the heart throbs of Little Nell as well as of Cicero and Demosthenes; must be able to see the processions of history from the cradle of the race to the latest proclamation; and must sit in the councils of the poets, the statesmen, the orators, the artists, the scientists, and the historians of all time. A mind thus trained can enter into the very heart of life and know it by experience.

Things of the spirit.—But education is a spiritual process, as we have been told; and, therefore, education is without value unless it touches the spirit. Indeed, it is only by the spirit that we may test the quality of education. It is spirit that sets metes and bounds and points the way to the fine things of life. A man may live in the back alley of life or on the boulevard, according to the dictates of the spirit. If his spirit cannot react to the finer things, his way will lie among the coarse and bizarre. If he cannot appreciate the glory that is revealed upon the mountain, he will gravitate to the lower levels. If his spirit is not attuned to majestic harmonies, he will drift down to association with his own kind. If he cannot thrill with pleasure at the beauty and fragrance of the lily of the valley, he will seek out the gaudy sunflower. If his spirit cannot rise to the plane of Shakespeare and Victor Hugo, he will roam into fields that are less fruitful. The spirit that is rightly attuned lifts him away from the sordid into the realms of the chaste and the glorified; away from the coarse and ugly into the realm of things that are fine and beautiful; and away from the things that are mean and petty into the zone of the big, the true, the noble, and the good. And so with body, mind, and spirit thus doing their perfect work, he can, at least, look over into the promised land of complete living.

Altruism.—We are commanded to let our light shine, and this command is a noble and an inspiring one. A man who by such training as has been depicted approximates complete living is prepared to let his light shine primarily because he has light, and in the next place because his training has made him generous in spirit and altruistic; and his greatest joy comes from letting his light so shine that others may catch his spirit and move up to higher planes of living.

QUESTIONS AND EXERCISES

1. Why is education not satisfactorily defined by saying that it is a preparation for complete living? Who first stated this definition?

2. What is the relation of the school to complete living?

3. What further training should the school give in better living than to teach the pupils what it is?

4. Give an idea of what is meant by incomplete living so far as the body is concerned.

5. Show that soundness of body is necessary to realize one's best.

6. What are some reasons for the scarcity of physically perfect men and women?

7. Have we been able to eliminate physical defects and develop physical merits in people to the same extent that we have in domestic animals?

8. What are some of the things that have been done to improve physical man? Which of these have to do primarily with heredity and which with rearing or training?

9. Why is the possession of healthy bodies a matter of national concern?

10. Wherein does physical training seem to have failed to attain its ends?

11. What are the arguments, from the standpoint of the physically efficient life, for the regulation or prohibition by the government of the sale of injurious products?

12. What are the benefits of such a type of training as military training?

13. Show how the lack of proper training of the mind may result in a less efficient body.

14. In our present civilization what conditions may give rise to mental thralldom? Upon what is mental freedom conditioned?

15. How can the trained mind get the most out of life and contribute the most to it?

16. Explain how the spirit is the dominant element in complete living.

17. Why is one who is living the complete life sure to be altruistic?



CHAPTER XII

THE TIME ELEMENT

The question stated.—There are many, doubtless, who will deny, if not actually resent, the statement that some do more real teaching in ten minutes than others do in thirty minutes. But, in spite of denials, the statement can be verified by the testimony of a host of expert observers and supervisors. Indeed, stenographic reports have been made of many class exercises by way of testing the truth of this statement, and these reports are a matter of record. Assuming the validity of the statement, therefore, it is pertinent to inquire into the causes that underlie the disparity in the teaching ability of the ten-minute teacher and the thirty-minute teacher. The efficiency expert would be quick to seize upon this disparity in the rate of progress as the starting point in his critical examination. In a factory a like disparity would lead to unpleasant consequences. The workman who consumes thirty minutes in accomplishing a piece of work that another does in ten minutes would be admonished to accelerate his progress or else give way to a more efficient man. If we had instruments of sufficient delicacy to test the results of teaching, we should probably discover that the output of the ten-minute teacher is superior in quality to that of the thirty-minute teacher. For we must all have observed in our own experience that the clarity of our thinking depends upon its intensity.

Examples.—A young man who won distinction as a college student had a wide shelf fitted up on one side of his room at which he stood in the preparation of all his lessons. His theory was that the attitude of the body conditions the attitude of the mind. Professor James gives assent to this theory and avers that an attitude of mind may be generated by placing the body in such an attitude as would naturally accompany this mental attitude. This theory proclaims that, if the body is slouching, the mind will slouch; but that, if the body is alert, the mind will be equally so. Another college student always walked to and fro in his room when preparing his history lesson. A fine old lady, in a work of fiction, explained her mental acumen by the single statement, "I never slouch." Every person must have observed many exemplifications of this theory in his own experience even if he has not reduced it to a working formula.

Basic considerations.—Any consideration of the time element, in school work, must take into account, therefore, not only the number of minutes involved in a given piece of work, but also the intensity of effort during those minutes. Two minds, of equal natural strength, may be fully employed during a given period and yet show a wide difference in the quality and quantity of the results. The one may be busy all the while but slouch through the minutes. The other may be taut and intensive, working at white heat, and the output will be more extensive and of better quality. The mind that ambles through the period shows forth results that are both meager and mediocre; but the mind whose impact is both forceful and incisive produces results that serve to magnify the work of the school. Thus we have placed before us two basic considerations, one of which is the time itself, in actual minutes, and the other is the character of the reactions to external stimuli during those minutes.

Two teachers compared.—In order to consider these factors of the teaching process with some degree of definiteness it will be well to have the ten-minute teacher and the thirty-minute teacher placed in juxtaposition in our thinking. We shall thus be able to compare and contrast and so arrive at some clear judgments that may be used as a basis for generalizations. We may assume, for convenience and for concreteness, that the lesson is division of fractions. There will be substantial agreement that the principle involved in this subject can be taught in one recitation period. The reasons for some of the steps in the process may come later, but the child should be able to find his way to the correct answer in a single period. Now if one teacher can achieve this result in thirty minutes and the other in ten minutes, there is a disparity in the effectiveness of the work of these teachers which is worthy of serious consideration. The ten-minute teacher proves that the thirty-minute teacher has consumed twenty minutes of somebody's time unnecessarily. If the salary of this thirty-minute teacher should be reduced to one third its present amount, she would inveigh against the reduction.

School and factory compared.—If she were one of the operators in a factory, she would not escape with the mere penalization of a salary reduction. The owner would argue that he needed some one who could operate the machine up to its full capacity, and that, even if she should work without salary, her presence in the factory would entail a loss in that the output of her machine was so meager. If one operator can produce a shoe in ten minutes and the other requires thirty minutes for the same work, the money that is invested in the one machine pays dividends, while the other machine imposes a continuous tax upon the owner. This, of course, will be recognized as the line of argument of the efficiency expert, but it certainly is not out of place to call attention to the matter in connection with school work. The subject of efficiency is quite within the province of the school, and it would seem to be wholly within reason for the school to exemplify its own teachings.

Appraisal of teaching expertness.—The teacher who requires thirty minutes for division of fractions which the other teacher compasses in ten minutes consumes twenty minutes unnecessarily in each recitation period, or two hundred minutes in the course of the day. The efficiency expert would ask her to account for these two hundred minutes. In order to account for them satisfactorily she would be compelled to take an inventory of her acquired habits, her predilections, her attitude toward her pupils and her subjects, and any shortcomings she may have in regard to methods of teaching. She would, at first, resent the implication that the other teacher's method of teaching division of fractions is better than her own and would cite the many years during which her method has been used. When all else fails, tradition always proves a convenient refuge. We can always prove to-day by yesterday; only, by so doing, we deny the possibility of progress.

The potency of right methods.—A teacher of Latin once used twenty minutes in a violent attempt to explain the difference between the gerund construction and the gerundive construction. At the end of the time she had the pupils so completely muddled that, for months, the appearance of either of these constructions threw them into a condition of panic. To another class, later, this teacher explained these constructions clearly and convincingly in three minutes. In the meantime she had studied methods in connection with subject matter. Another teacher resigned her position and explained her action by confessing that she had become so accustomed to the traditional methods of teaching a certain phase of arithmetic that it was impossible for her to learn the newer one. Such a teacher must be given credit for honesty even while she illustrates tragedy.

The waste of time.—In explaining the loss of two hundred minutes a day the teacher will inevitably come upon the subject of methods of teaching, and she may be put to it to justify her method in view of its results. The more diligently she tries to justify her method, the more certainly she proclaims her responsibility for a wrong use of the method. Those twenty minutes point at her the accusing finger, and she can neither blink nor escape the facts. The other teacher led her pupils into a knowledge of the subject in ten minutes, and this one may neither abrogate nor amend the record. As an operative in the factory she holds in her hand one shoe as the result of her thirty minutes while the other holds three. Conceding that results in the school are not so tangible as the results in the factory, still we have developed methods of estimating results in the school that have convincing weight with the efficiency expert. We can estimate results in school work with sufficient accuracy to enable us to assess teaching values with a goodly degree of discrimination.

Possibilities.—It would be a comparatively simple matter to compute in days and weeks the time lost during the year by the thirty-minute teacher, and then estimate the many things that the pupils could accomplish in that time. If the thirty-minute teacher could be transformed into a ten-minute teacher, the children could have three more hours each day for play, and that would be far better for them than the ordeal of sitting there in the class, the unwilling witnesses, or victims, of the time-wasting process. Or they might read a book in the two hundred minutes and that would be more enjoyable, and the number of books thus read in the course of a year would aggregate quite a library. Or, again, they might take some additional studies and so make great gains in mental achievements in their twelve years of school life. Or they might learn to work with their hands and so achieve self-reliance, self-support, and self-respect.

Conservation.—In a word, there is no higher type of conservation than the conservation of childhood, in terms of time and interest. The two hundred minutes a day are a vital factor in the life of the child and must be regarded as highly valuable. The teacher, therefore, who subtracts this time from the child's life is assuming a responsibility not to be lightly esteemed. She takes from him his most valuable possession and one which she can never return, try as she may. Worst of all, she purloins this element of time clandestinely, albeit seductively, in the guise of friendship. The child does not know that he is the victim of unfair treatment until it is too late to set up any defense. He is made to think that that is the natural and, therefore, only way of school, and that he must take things as they come if he is to prove himself a good soldier. So he musters what heroism he can and tries to smile while the teacher despoils him of the minutes he might better be employing in play, in reading, or in work.

The teacher's complacency.—This would seem a severe indictment if it were incapable of proof, but having been proved by incontrovertible evidence its severity cannot be mitigated. We can only grieve that the facts are as they are and ardently hope for a speedy change. The chief obstacle in the way of improvement is the complacency of the teacher. Habits tend to persist, and if she has contracted the habit of much speaking, she thinks her volubility should be accounted a virtue and wonders that the children do not applaud the bromidic platitudes which have been uttered in the same form and in the same tones a hundred times. She is so intoxicated with her own verbosity that she can neither listen to the sounds of her own voice nor analyze her own utterances. While her neighbor is teaching she is talking, and then with sublime nonchalance she ascribes the retardation of her pupils to their own dullness and never, in any least degree, to her own unprofitable use of their time.

The voluble teacher.—And while she rambles on in her aimless talking the children are bored, inexpressibly bored. It is axiomatic that the learning process does not flourish in a state of boredom. Under the ordeal of verbal inundation the children wriggle and squirm about in their seats and this affords her a new point of attack. She calls them ill-bred and unmannerly and wonders at the homes that can produce such children. She does not realize that if these children were grown-ups they would leave the room regardless of consequences. When they yawn, she reminds them of the utter futility of casting pearls before swine. All the while the twenty minutes are going and the pupils have not yet learned how to divide fractions. Over in the next room the pupils know full well how to divide fractions and the teacher is rewarding their diligence with a cookie in the form of a story, while they wait for the bell to ring. Out of the room of the thirty-minute teacher come the children glowering and resentful; out of the other room the children come buoyant and happy.

The test of teaching.—Not alone did the former teacher use the time of her pupils for her own ends, but, even more, she dulled their interest, and the damage thus inflicted cannot be estimated. Many a child has deserted the school because the teacher made school life disagreeable. She was the wet blanket upon his enthusiasm and chilled him to the marrow when he failed to go forward upon her traditional track. The teacher who can generate in the minds of her pupils a spiritual ignition by her every movement and word will not be humiliated by desertions. Indeed, the test of the teacher is the mental attitude of her pupils. The child who drags and drawls through the lesson convicts the teacher of a want of expertness. On the other hand, when the pupils are all wide-awake, alert, animated, eager to respond, and dynamic, we know that the teacher has brought this condition to pass and that she is a ten-minute teacher.

Meaningless formalities.—One of the influences that tends to deaden the interest of children is the ponderous formality that sometimes obtains. The teacher solemnly calls the roll, although she can see at a glance that there are no absentees. This is exceedingly irksome to wide-awake boys and girls who are avid for variety. The same monotonous calling of the roll day after day with no semblance of variation induces in them a sort of mental dyspepsia for which they seek an antidote in what the teacher denominates disorder. This so-called disorder betokens good health on their part and is a revelation of the fact that they have a keen appreciation of the fitness of things. They cannot brook monotony and it irks them to dawdle about in the anteroom of action. They are eager to do their work if only the teacher will get right at it. But they are impatient of meaningless preliminaries. They see no sense in calling the roll when everybody is present and discredit the teacher who persists in the practice.

Repeating answers.—Still another characteristic of the thirty-minute teacher is her habit of repeating the answers that pupils give, with the addition of some inane comment. Whether this repeating of answers is merely a bad habit or an effort on the part of the teacher to appropriate to herself the credit that should otherwise accrue to the pupils, it is not easy to say. Certain it is that school inspectors inveigh against the practice mightily as militating against the effectiveness of the teaching. Teachers who have been challenged on this point make a weak confession that they repeat the answers unconsciously. They thus make the fatal admission that for a part of the time of the class exercise they do not know what they are doing, and admitting so much we can readily classify them as belonging among the thirty-minute teachers.

Meanderings.—Another characteristic is her tendency to wander away from the direct line and ramble about among irrelevant and inconsequential trifles. Sometimes these rambles are altogether entertaining and enable her pupils to pass the time pleasantly, but they lack "terminal facilities." They lead from nowhere to nowhere in the most fascinating and fruitless meanderings. Such expeditions bring back no emoluments. They leave a pleasant taste in the mouth but afford no nourishment. They use the time but exact no dividends. Like sheet lightning they are beautiful but never strike anything. They are soothing sedatives that never impel to action. They lull to repose but never vitalize.

The ten-minute teacher.—It is evident, therefore, that only the ten-minute teacher is worthy of a place in the vitalized school. She alone is able and willing to conserve, with religious zeal, the time and interest of the pupils. To her their time and interest are sacred and she deems it a sacrilege to trifle with them. She knows the market value of her own time but does not know the value of the time of the possible Edison who sits in her class. She gives to every child the benefit of the doubt and respects both herself and her pupils too much to take chances by pitting herself against them and using their time for her own purposes. Moreover, she never permits their interest to flag, but knows how to keep their minds tense. Their reactions are never less than incisive, and, therefore, the truths of the lesson groove themselves deep in their consciousness.

QUESTIONS AND EXERCISES

1. What is meant by the time element in teaching?

2. How is an operation in a factory timed? For what purpose? What are some of the results that have accrued from the timing of work by efficiency experts?

3. How can teaching be timed approximately? Is it probable that more of this will be done in the future by supervisors and investigators? Would you resent the timing of your work? Would you appreciate it? Why?

4. What may be done, in the matter of bodily positions, to improve mental time-reactions of the student? Of the teacher?

5. The literature of a typewriter manufacturer carries the precept "Sit erect." What are the reasons?

6. What two factors must be considered in estimating mental work with a view to time considerations?

7. If the attainment of school results by the teacher were treated as the attainment of factory results by the operator, what would happen if a large per cent of the time spent on a process were unnecessary?

8. Apply the factory manager's argument in detail to the teacher's efficiency. If you can, show wherein it fails to apply.

9. What result besides waste of time may come of a cumbersome method of teaching?

10. How can one acquire a clear-cut method?

11. A professor of physics was asked by a former student who was beginning to teach for suggestions on the teaching of physics. His only reply was "Know your subject thoroughly." Was this a satisfactory response? Give reasons for your opinion.

12. If the teacher can have lessons finished with greater rapidity, what can be done with the time thus remaining?

13. Show that the teacher must attend to the conservation of time in order to protect the child.

14. In what way besides the direct waste of the minutes is the expenditure of undue time unfortunate?

15. In what particular way do many teachers lose much of the recitation-lesson or study-lesson period?

16. What are the results of an undue expenditure of time in this way?

17. What is the relation between the waste of time in school and the exodus of children from the upper grades?

18. What do you think of a teacher who persists in "meaningless formalities"?

19. How does the repeating of answers by the teacher affect the pupils?

20. A teacher says she repeats answers often because pupils speak low and indistinctly. What are the proper remedies for this?

21. What should be the teacher's rule in regard to digressions?

22. Why should every teacher strive to be a "ten-minute" teacher, and why should every supervisor strive to recommend no others?

23. What corollary can be drawn on the advisability of the employment of no teachers except those recommended by competent supervisors?



CHAPTER XIII

THE ARTIST TEACHER

Teaching as a fine art.—Teaching is an art. This fact has universal recognition. But it may be made a fine art, a fact that is not so generally recognized. The difference between the traditional school and the vitalized school lies in the fact, to a large degree, that, in the former, teaching is regarded merely as an art, while in the latter it becomes a fine art. In the former, the teacher is an artisan; in the latter the teacher is an artist. The difference is broadly significant. The artisan, in his work, follows directions, plans, specifications, and blue-prints that have been devised and designed by others; the artist imbues his work with imagination. The artisan works by the day—so much money for so many hours' work with pay day as his large objective; the artist does not disdain pay day, but he has an objective beyond this and has other sources of pleasure besides the pay envelope. The artisan thinks and talks of pay day; the artist thinks and talks of his work. The artisan drops his work when the bell rings; the artist is so engrossed in his work that he does not hear the bell. The artisan plods at his task with a grudging mien; the artist works in a fine frenzy.

Characteristic qualities.—It is not easy to find the exact words by which to differentiate the traditional teacher from the artist teacher. There is an elusive quality in the artist teacher which is not easily reduced to or described by formal words. We know that the one is an artist teacher and that the other is not. The formal examination may not be able to discover the artist teacher, but there is a sort of knowledge that transcends the findings of an examination, that makes her identity known. She is a real flesh and blood person and yet she has a distinctive quality that cannot be mistaken even though it eludes description. She exhales a certain exquisiteness that reveals itself in the delicacy and daintiness of her contact with people and the objective world. Her impact upon the consciousness is no more violent than the fragrance of the rose, but, all at once, she is there and there to stay, modest, serene, and masterful.

She is as gentle as the dawn but as staunch as the oak. She has knowledge and wisdom, and, better still, she has understanding; she needs no diagram. Her gaze penetrates the very heart of a situation but is never less than kindly, and her eyes are never shifty. Her aplomb, her pose, and her poise belong to her quite as evidently as her hands. She is genuine and altogether free from affectation. Her presence stimulates without intoxicating, and she accepts the respect of people with the same naturalness and grace as would accompany her acceptance of a glass of water. Both the giver and the recipient of this respect are ennobled by the giving. Indeed she would far rather have the respect of people, her pupils included, than mere admiration, for she knows full well that respect is far more deeply rooted in the spirit and bears fruit that is more worth while. Her nature knows not inertia, but it abounds in enterprise, endeavor, and courage that are born of a high purpose.

Joy in her work.—Her teaching and her life do not occupy separate compartments but are identical in time and space; only her teaching is but one phase or manifestation of her life. She fitly exemplifies the statement that "Art is the expression of man's joy in his work." She has great joy in her work and, therefore, it is done as any other artist does his work. She enjoys all life, including her work. Indeed, she has contracted the habit of happiness and is so engrossed in the big elemental things of life that she can laugh at the incidental pin-pricks that others call troubles. She differentiates major from minor and never permits a minor to usurp the throne. Being an integral part of her life, her work takes on all the hues of her life. For her, culture is not something added; rather it is a something that permeates her whole nature and her whole life. She does not read poetry and other forms of literature, study the great masterpieces of music and art, and seek communion with the great, either in person or through their works—she does not do these things that she may acquire culture, but does them because she has culture.

Dynamic qualities.—Her character is the sum of all her habits of thinking, feeling, and action and, therefore, is herself. Since she is an artist, her habits are all pitched in a high key and she is culture personified. Her immaculateness of body and spirit is not a superficial acquisition but a fundamental expression of her real self. Just as the electric bulb diffuses light, so she diffuses an atmosphere of culture. She gives the artistic touch to every detail of her work because she is an artist, a genuine, sincere artist in all that makes up life. She has the heart of an artist, the eyes of an artist, the touch of an artist. Whether these qualities are inherent or acquired is beside the point, at present, but it may be remarked, in passing, that unless they were capable of cultivation, the world would be at a standstill. There is no place in her exuberant vitality for a jaundiced view, and hence her world does not become "stale, flat, and unprofitable."

Aspiration and worship.—Every sincere, noble aspiration is a prayer; hence, she prays without ceasing in obedience to the admonition of the Apostle. And, let it be said in reverence, she helps to answer her own prayers. Her spirit yearns out toward higher and wider attainments every hour of the day, not morbidly but exultantly. And while she aspires she worships. The starry sky holds her in rapt attention and admiration, and the modest flower does no less. She is thankful for the rain, and revels in the beauty and abundance of the snow. The heat may enervate, but she is grateful, none the less, because of its beneficent influence upon the farmer's work. Like food and sleep, her attitude of worship conserves her powers and preserves her balance. When physical weariness comes, she sends her spirit out to the star, or the sea, or the mountain, and so forgets her burden in the contemplation of majesty and beauty. In short, her spirit is attuned to all beauty and sublimity and truth, and so she is inherently an artist.

Professor Phelps quoted.—In his very delightful book, "Teaching in School and College," the author, Professor William Lyon Phelps, says: "I do not know that I could make entirely clear to an outsider the pleasure I have in teaching. I had rather earn my living by teaching than in any other way. In my mind, teaching is not merely a life work, a profession, an occupation, a struggle; it is a passion. I love to teach. I love to teach as a painter loves to paint, as a musician loves to play, as a singer loves to sing, as a strong man rejoices to run a race. Teaching is an art—an art so great and so difficult to master that a man or a woman can spend a long life at it, without realizing much more than his limitations and mistakes, and his distance from the ideal. But the main aim of my happy days has been to become a good teacher, just as every architect wishes to be a good architect, and every professional poet strives toward perfection. For the chief difference between the ambition of the artist and the ambition of a money-maker—both natural and honorable ambitions—is that the money-maker is after the practical reward of his toil, while the artist wants the inner satisfaction that accompanies mastery."

Attitude toward work.—To these sentiments the artist teacher subscribes whole-heartedly, if not in words, certainly by her attitude and practices. She regards her work not as a task but as a privilege, and thinking it a privilege she appreciates it as she would any other privilege. She would esteem it a privilege to attend a concert by high-class artists, or to visit an art gallery, or to witness a presentation of a great drama, or to see the Jungfrau; and she feels the same exaltation as she anticipates her work as a teacher. She sings on her way to school because of the privileges that await her. She experiences a fine flow of sentiment without becoming sentimental. Teaching, to her, is a serious business, but not, in the least, somber. Painting is a serious business, but the artist's zeal and joy in his work give wings to the hours. Laying the Atlantic cable was a serious business, but the vision of success was both inspiring and inspiriting, and temporary mishaps only served to stimulate to greater effort.

The element of enthusiasm.—To this teacher, each class exercise is an enterprise that is big with possibilities; and, in preparation for the event, she feels something of the thrill that must have animated Columbus as he faced the sea. She estimates results more by the faces of her pupils than by the marks in a grade book, for the field of her endeavors is the spirit of the child, and the face of the child telegraphs to her the awakening of the spirit. Like the sculptor, she is striving to bring the angel of her dream into the face of the child; and when this hope is realized, the privilege of being a teacher seems the very acme of human aspirations. The animated face and the flashing eye betoken the sort of life that her teaching aims to stimulate; and when she sees these unmistakable manifestations, she knows that her big enterprise is a success and rejoices accordingly. If, for any reason, her enthusiasm is running low, she takes herself in hand and soon generates the enthusiasm that she knows is indispensable to the success of her enterprise.

Redemption of common from commonplace.—She has the supreme gift of being able to redeem the common from the plane of the commonplace. Indeed, she never permits any fact of the books to become commonplace to her pupils. They all know that Columbus discovered America in 1492, but when the recitation touches this fact she invests it with life and meaning and so makes it glow as a factor in the class exercise. The humdrum traditional teacher asks the question; and when the pupil drones forth the answer, "Columbus discovered America in 1492," she dismisses the whole matter with the phonographic response, "Very good." What a farce! What a travesty upon the work of the teacher! Instead of being very good, it is bad, yea, inexpressibly bad. The artist teacher does it far better. By the magic of her touch she causes the imagination of her pupils to be fired and their interest to thrill with the mighty significance of the great event. They feel, vicariously, the poverty of Columbus in his appeals for aid and wish they might have been there to assist. They find themselves standing beside the intrepid mariner, watching the angry waves striving to beat him back. They watch him peering into space, day after day, and feel a thousand pities for him in his suspense. And when he steps out upon the new land, they want to shout out their salvos and proclaim him a victor.

The voyage of Columbus.—They have yearned, and striven, and prayed with Columbus, and so have lived all the events of his great achievements. Hence, it can never be commonplace in their thinking. The teacher lifted it far away from that plane and made it loom high and large in their consciousness. A dramatic critic avers that the action of the play occurs, not upon the stage, but in the imagination of the auditors; that the players merely cause the imagination to produce the action; and that if nothing were occurring in the imagination of the people in the seats beyond what is occurring on the stage, the audience would leave the theater by way of protest. The artist teacher acts upon this very principle in every class exercise. Neither the teacher nor the book can possibly depict even a moiety of all that she hopes to produce in the imagination of the pupils. She is ever striving to find the one word or sentence that will evoke a whole train of events in their minds. Just here is where her superb art is shown. A whole volume could not portray all that the imagination of the pupils saw in connection with the voyage of Columbus, and yet the teacher caused all these things to happen by the use of comparatively few words. This is high art; this proclaims the artist teacher.

Resourcefulness.—In her work there is a fineness and a delicacy of touch that baffles a satisfactory analysis. She has the power to call forth Columbus from the past to reenact his great discovery in the imagination of her pupils—all without noise, or bombast, or gesticulation. She does what she does because she is what she is; and she needs neither copyright nor patent for protection. Her work is suffused with a rare sort of enthusiasm that carries conviction by reason of its genuineness. This enthusiasm gives to her work a tone and a flavor that can neither be disguised nor counterfeited. Her work is distinctive, but not sensational or pyrotechnic. Least of all is it ever hackneyed. So resourceful is she in devising new plans and new ways of saying and doing things that her pupils are always animated by a wholesome expectancy. She is the dynamo, but the light and heat that she generates manifest themselves in the minds of her pupils, while she remains serene and quiet.

The thirteen colonies.—With the poet Keats she can sing:

Beauty is truth, truth beauty, that is all Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.

Animated by this sentiment, she disdains no form of truth, whether large or small, for in every form of truth she finds beauty; and her spirit reacts to it on the instant, and joy is the resultant. This is the basis for her superb enthusiasm in every detail of her work as well as the source of her joyous living. Her pupils may name the thirteen original colonies without a slip, but that is not enough for her. The establishing of these colonies formed a mighty epoch in history, and she must dwell upon the events until they throb through the life currents of her pupils. Names in books must mean people with all their hopes, their aspirations, their trials and hardships, their sorrows and their joys. The conditions of life, the food, the clothing, the houses, the modes of travel, and the dangers must all come into the mental picture. Hence it is that she prepares for the lesson on the colonies as she would make ready for a trip with the pupils around the world, and the mere giving of names is negligible in her inspiring enterprise.

Every subject invested with life.—She finds in the circulation of the blood a subject of great import and makes ready for the lesson with enthusiastic anticipation. Her step is elastic as she takes her way to school on this particular day, and her face is beaming, for to-day comes to the children this stupendous revelation. She feels as did the college professor when he was just ready to begin an experiment in his laboratory and said to his students, "Gentlemen, please remove your hats; I am about to ask God a question." She approaches every truth reverently, albeit joyously, for she feels that she is the leader of the children over into the Promised Land. In the book already quoted, Professor Phelps says, "I read in a German play that the mathematician is like a man who lives in a glass room at the top of a mountain covered with eternal snow—he sees eternity and infinity all about him, but not much humanity." Not so in her teaching of mathematics; for every subject and every problem transports her to the Isle of Patmos, and the hour is crowded with revelations.

Human interest.—And wherever she is, there is humanity. There are no dry bones in her work, for she invests every subject with human interest and causes it to pulsate in the consciousness of her pupils. If there are dry bones when she arrives, she has but to touch them with the magic of her humanity, and they become things of life. Whether long division or calculus, it is to her a part of the living, palpitating truth of the world, and she causes it to live before the minds of the pupils. The so-called dead languages spring to life in her presence, and, like Aaron's rod, blossom and bring forth at her touch. Wherever she walks there are resurrections because life begets life. No science, no mathematics, no history, no language, can be dull or dry when touched by her art, but all become vital because she is vital. By the subtle alchemy of her artistic teaching all the subjects of her school are transmuted into the pure gold of truth and beauty.

QUESTIONS AND EXERCISES

1. What kinds of arts are there other than the fine arts?

2. How do the motives of the artisan differ from those of the artist?

3. What are some of the characteristics that gain one the distinction of being an "artist" teacher?

4. Show that to enjoy respect is more worth while than to attract admiration.

5. Under what conditions can one have joy in his work? Can one do his best without it?

6. What is the result on one's work of brooding over troubles?

7. Henry Ford employs trained sociologists who see that the home relations of his employees are satisfactory. Why?

8. Is one who reads good literature to acquire culture as yet an "artist" teacher?

9. What constitutes character?

10. What is the inference concerning one's culture if his clothes and body are not clean? If his property at the school is not in order?

11. How can one add to his culture? Is what one knows or what one does the more important part of it? Has a high degree of culture been attained by a person who must ever be on his guard?

12. Is feeling an important element of culture? Illustrate.

13. What is the teacher's chief reward?

14. Can a teacher lead pupils to regard work as a privilege rather than as a task, unless she has that attitude herself?

15. In what respects do you regard teaching as a privilege? In what respects is it drudgery to you?

16. Can enthusiasm result if there is a lack of joy in one's work? If there is a deficiency of physical strength? If there is a poor knowledge of the subject?

17. What causes historical facts to seem commonplace?

18. What elements should be emphasized in history to make it seem alive with meaning?

19. What principle of the drama comes into play in teaching, when a teacher desires to invest the subject with life?

20. What advantages are there in having variety in one's plans?

21. Why should one avoid the sensational in school work? What are the characteristics of sensationalism? Is the fact that a class is unusually aroused a reason for decrying a method as sensational?

22. With what spirit should a teacher prepare to teach about the thirteen colonies?

23. Why should a teacher have great joy in the teaching of science?

24. Is interest in a subject as an abstract science likely to be an adequate interest? If so, is it the best sort of interest? Why?

25. From what should interest start, and in what should it function?

26. Summarize the ways in which the artist teacher will show herself the artist.



CHAPTER XIV

THE TEACHER AS AN IDEAL

Responsibility of the exemplar.—If the teacher could be convinced that each of her pupils is to become a replica of herself, she would more fully appreciate the responsibilities of her position. At first flush, she might feel flattered; but when she came into a full realization of the magnitude of the responsibility, she would probably seek release. If she could know that each pupil is striving to copy her in every detail of her life, her habits of speech, her bodily movements, her tone of voice, her dress, her walk, and even her manner of thinking, this knowledge would appall her, and she would shrink from the responsibility of becoming the exemplar of the child. She cannot know, however, to what extent and in what respects the pupils imitate her. Nor, perhaps, could they themselves give definite information on these points, if they were put to the test. Children imitate their elders both consciously and unconsciously; so, whether the teacher wills it so or not, she must assume the functions of an exemplar as well as a teacher.