Story of a boy.—A seven-year-old boy who was lying on his back on the floor asked his father the question, "How long since the world was born?" The father replied, "Oh, about four thousand years." In a few moments the child said in a tone of finality, "That isn't very long." Then after another interval, he asked, "What was there before the world was born?" To this the father replied, "Nothing." After a lapse of two or three minutes the child gave vent to uncontrollable laughter which resounded throughout the house. When, at length, the father asked him what he was laughing at, he could scarcely control his laughter to answer. But at last he managed to reply, "I was laughing to see how funny it was when there wasn't anything."

The child's imagination.—The philosopher could well afford to give the half of his kingdom to be able to see what that child saw. Out of the gossamer threads of fancy his imagination had wrought a pattern that transcends philosophy. The picture that his imagination painted was so extraordinary that it produced a paroxysm of laughter. That picture is far beyond the ken of the philosopher and he will look for it in vain because he has grown away from the child in power of imagination and has lost the child's sense of humor. What that child saw will never be known, for the pictures of fancy are ephemeral, but certain it is that the power of imagination and a keen sense of humor are two of the attributes of childhood whose loss should give both his father and his teacher poignant regrets.

The little girl and her elders.—The little girl upon the beach invests the tiny wavelets not only with life and intelligence, but, also, with a sense of humor as she eludes their sly advances to engulf her feet. She laughs in glee at their watery pranks as they twinkle and sparkle, now advancing, now receding, trying to take her by surprise. She chides them for their duplicity, then extols them for their prankish playfulness. She makes them her companions, and they laugh in chorus. If she knows of sprites, and gnomes, and nymphs, and fairies, she finds them all dancing in glee at her feet in the form of rippling wavelets. And while she is thus refreshing her spirit from the brimming cup of life, her matter-of-fact elders are reproaching her for getting her dress soiled. To the parent or the teacher who lacks a sense of humor and cannot enter into the little girl's conception of life, a dress is of more importance than the spirit of the child. But the teacher or the parent who has the "aptitude for vicariousness" that enables her to enter into the child's life in her fun and frolic with the playful water, and can feel the presence of the nymphs among the wavelets,—such a teacher or parent will adorn the school or the home and endear herself to the child.

Lincoln's humor.—The life of Abraham Lincoln affords a notable illustration of the saving power of humor. Reared in conditions of hardship, his early life was essentially drab and prosaic. In temperament he was serious, with an inclination toward the morbid, but his sense of humor redeemed the situation. When clouds of gloom and discouragement lowered in his mental sky, his keen sense of humor penetrated the darkness and illumined his pathway. He was sometimes the object of derision because men could not comprehend the depth and bigness of his nature, and his humor was often accounted a weakness. But the Gettysburg speech rendered further derision impossible and the wondrous alchemy of that address transmuted criticism into willing praise.

Humor betokens deep feeling.—Laughter and tears issue from the same source, we are told, and the Gettysburg speech revealed a depth and a quality of tenderness that men had not, before, been able to recognize or appreciate. The absence of a sense of humor betokens shallowness in that it reveals an inability to feel deeply. People who feel deeply often laugh in order to forestall tears. Lincoln was a great soul and his sense of humor was one element of his greatness. His apt stories and his humorous personal experiences often carried off a situation where cold logic would have failed. Whether his sense of humor was a gift or an acquisition, it certainly served the nation well and gave to us all an example that is worthy of emulation.

The teacher of English.—Many teachers could, with profit to themselves and their schools, sit at the feet of Abraham Lincoln, not only to learn English but also to imbibe his sense of humor. Nothing is more pathetic than the efforts of a teacher who lacks a sense of humor to teach a bit of English that abounds in humor, by means of the textual notes. The notes are bad enough, in all conscience, but the teacher's lack of humor piles Ossa upon Pelion. The solemnity that pervades such mechanical teaching would be farcical were it not so pathetic. The teacher who cannot indulge in a hearty, honest, ringing laugh with her pupils in situations that are really humorous is certain to be laughed at by her pupils. In her work, as in Lincoln's, a sense of humor will often save the day.

Mark Twain as philosopher.—Mark Twain will ever be accounted a very prince of humorists, and so he was. But he was more than that. Upon the current of his humor were carried precious cargoes of the philosophy of life. His humor is often so subtle that the superficial reader fails to appreciate its fine quality and misses the philosophy altogether. To extract the full meaning from his writing one must be able to read not only between the lines but also beneath the lines. The subtle quality of his humor defies both analysis and explanation. If it fails to tell its own story, so much the worse for the reader. To such humor as his, explanation amounts to an impertinence. People can either appreciate it or else they cannot, and there's the end of the matter.

In the good time to come when the school teaches reading for the purpose of pleasure and not for examination purposes, we shall have Mark Twain as one of our authors; and it is to be hoped that we shall have editions devoid of notes. The notes may serve to give the name of the editor a place on the title page, but the notes cannot add to the enjoyment of the author's genial humor. Mark Twain reigns supreme, and the editor does well to stand uncovered in his presence and to withhold his pen.

A Twain story.—One of Mark Twain's stories is said to be one of the most humorous stories extant. The story relates how a soldier was rushing off the battlefield in retreat when a companion, whose leg was shattered, begged to be carried off the field. The appeal met a willing response and soon the soldier was bearing his companion away on his shoulder, his head hanging down the soldier's back. Unknown to the soldier a cannon ball carried away the head of his companion. Accosted by another soldier, he was asked why he was carrying a man whose head had been shot away. He stoutly denied the allegation and, at length, dropped the headless body to prove the other's hallucination. Seeing that the man's head was, in truth, gone, he exclaimed, "Why, the durn fool told me it was his leg."

Humor defies explanation.—The humor of this story is cumulative. We may not parse it, we may not analyze it, we may not annotate it. We can simply enjoy it. And, if we cannot enjoy it, we may pray for a spiritual awakening, for such an endowment of the sense of humor as will enable us to enjoy, that we may no longer lead lives that are spiritually blind. Bill Nye wrote:

"The autumn leaves are falling, They are falling everywhere; They are falling through the atmosphere And likewise through the air."

Woe betide the teacher who tries to explain! There is no explanation—there is just the humor. If that eludes the reader, an explanation will not avail.

A teacher of Latin read to his pupils "The House-Boat on the Styx" in connection with their reading of the "AEneid." It was good fun for them all, and never was Virgil more highly honored than in the assiduous study which those young people gave to his lines. They were eager to complete the study of the lesson in order to have more time for the "House-Boat." The humor of the book opened wide the gates of their spirits through which the truths of the regular lesson passed blithely in.

QUESTIONS AND EXERCISES

1. What is the source of humor in a humorous story?

2. When should the teacher laugh with the school? When should she not do so?

3. How does the response of the school to a laughable incident reflect the leadership of the teacher?

4. What can be done to bring more or better humor into the school?

5. Compare as companions those whom you know who exhibit a sense of humor with those who do not.

6. Compare their influence on others.

7. What can be done to bring humor into essays written by the students?

8. Distinguish between wit and humor. Does wit or humor cause most of the laughter in school?

9. What is meant by an "aptitude for vicariousness"?

10. How did Lincoln make use of humor? Is there any humor in the Gettysburg speech? Why?

11. What is the relation of pathos to humor?

12. Give an example from the writings of Mark Twain that shows him a philosopher as well as a humorist.

13. What books could you read to the pupils to enliven some of the subjects that you teach?



CHAPTER XX

The Element of Human Interest

Yearning toward betterment.—Much has been said and written in recent times touching the matter and manner of vitalizing and humanizing the studies and work of the school. The discussions have been nation-wide in their scope and most fertile in plans and practical suggestions. No subject of greater importance or of more far-reaching import now engages the interest of educational leaders. They are quite aware that something needs to be done, but no one has announced the sovereign remedy. The critics have made much of the fact that there is something lacking or wrong in our school procedure, but they can neither diagnose the case nor suggest the remedy. They can merely criticize. We are having many surveys, but the results have been meager and inadequate. We have been working at the circumference of the circle rather than at the center. We have been striving to reform our educational training, hoping for a reflex that would be sufficient to modify the entire school regime. We have added domestic science, hoping thereby to reconstruct the school by inoculation. We have looked to agriculture and other vocational studies as the magnetic influences of our dreams. Something has been accomplished, to be sure, but we are still far distant from the goal. The best that writers can do in their books or educational conferences can do in their meetings, is to report progress.

The obstacle of conservatism.—One of the greatest obstacles we have to surmount in this whole matter of vitalizing school work is the habitual conservatism of the school people themselves. The methods of teaching that obtained in the school when we were pupils have grooved themselves into habits of thinking that smile defiance at the theories that we have more recently acquired. When we venture out from the shore we want to feel a rope in our hands. The superintendent speaks fervently to patrons or teachers on the subject of modern methods in teaching, then retires to his office and takes intimate and friendly counsel with tradition. In sailing the educational seas he must needs keep in sight the buoys of tradition. This matter of conservatism is cited merely to show that our progress, in the very nature of the case, will be slow.

Schools of education.—Another obstacle in the way of progress toward the vitalized school is the attitude and teaching of many who are connected with colleges of education and normal schools. We have a right to look to them for leadership, but we find, instead, that their practices lag far in the rear of their theories. They teach according to such devitalized methods and in such an unvitalized way as to discredit the subjects they teach. It is only from such of their students as are proof against their style of teaching that we may hope for aid. One such teacher in a college of education in a course of eight weeks on the subject of School Administration had his students copy figures from statistical reports for several days in succession and for four and five hours each day. The students confessed that their only objective was the gaining of credits, and had no intimation that the work they were doing was to function anywhere.

The machine teacher.—Such work is deadening and disheartening. It has in it no inspiration, no life, nothing, in short, that connects with real life. Such a teacher could not maintain himself in a wide-awake high school for a half year. The boys and girls would desert him even if they had to desert the school. And yet teachers and prospective teachers must endure and not complain. Those who submit supinely will attempt to repeat in their schools the sort of teaching that obtains in his classes, and their schools will suffer accordingly. His sort of teaching proclaims him either more or less than a human being in the estimation of normal people. Such a teacher drones forth weary platitudes as if his utterances were oracular. The only prerequisite for a position in some schools of education seems to be a degree of a certain altitude without any reference to real teaching ability.

Statistics versus children.—Such teaching palliates educational situations without affording a solution. It is so steeped in tradition that it resorts to statistics as it would consult an oracle. We look to see it establishing precedents only to find it following precedents. When we would find in it a leader we find merely a follower. To such teaching statistical numbers mean far more than living children. Indeed, children are but objects that become useful as a means of proving theories. It lacks vitality, and that is sad; but, worst of all, it strives unceasingly to perpetuate itself in the schools. Real teaching power receives looks askance in some of these colleges as if it bore the mark of Cain in not being up to standard on the academic side. And yet these colleges are teaching the teachers of our schools.

Teaching power.—Hence, the work of vitalizing the school must begin in our colleges of education and normal schools, and this beginning will be made only when we place the emphasis upon teaching power. The human qualities of the teachers must be so pronounced that they become their most distinguished characteristics. It is a sad commentary upon our educational processes if a man must point to the letters of his degree to prove that he is a teacher. His teaching should be of such a nature as to justify and glorify his degree. As the preacher receives his degree because he can preach, so the teacher should receive his degree because he can teach, even if we must create a new degree by which to designate the real teacher.

Degrees and human qualities.—There is no disparagement of the academic degree in the statement that it proves absolutely nothing touching the ability to teach. It proclaims its possessor a student but not a teacher. Yet, in our practices, we proceed upon the assumption that teacher and student are synonymous. We hold examinations for teachers in our schools, but not for teachers in our colleges of education. His degree is the magic talisman that causes the doors to swing wide open for him. Besides, his very presence inside seems to be prima facie evidence that he is a success, and all his students are supposed to join in the general chorus of praise.

Life the great human interest.—The books are eloquent and persistent in their admonitions that we should attach all school work to the native interests of the child. To this dictum there seems to be universal and hearty assent. But we do not seem to realize fully, as yet, that the big native interest of the child is life itself. We have not, as yet, found the way to enmesh the activities of the school in the life processes of the child so that these school activities are as much a part of his life as his food, his games, his breathing, and his sleep. We have been interpreting some of the manifestations of life as his native interests but have failed thus to interpret his life as a whole. The child is but the aggregate of all his inherent interests, and we must know these interests if we would find the child so as to attach school work to the child himself.

The child as a whole.—Here is the crux of the entire matter, here the big problem for the vitalized school. We have been taking his pulse, testing his eyes, taking his temperature, and making examinations for defects—and these things are excellent. But all these things combined do not reveal the child to us. We need to go beyond all these in order to find him. We must know what he thinks, how he feels as to people and things, what his aspirations are, what motives impel him to action, what are his intuitions, what things he does involuntarily and what through volition or compulsion. With such data clearly before us we can proceed to attach school work to his native interests. We have been striving to bend him to our preconceived notion instead of finding out who and what he is as a condition precedent to intelligent teaching.

Three types of teachers.—The three types of teachers that have been much exploited in the books are the teacher who conceives it to be her work to teach the book, the one who teaches the subject, and the one who teaches the child. The number of the first type is still very large in spite of all the books that inveigh against this conception. It were easy to find a teacher whose practice indicates that she thinks that all the arithmetic there is or ought to be is to be found in the book that lies on her desk. It seems not to occur to her that a score of books might be written that would be equal in merit to the one she is using, some of which might be far better adapted to the children in her particular school. If she were asked to teach arithmetic without the aid of a book, she would shed copious tears, if, indeed, she did not resign.

The first type.—To such a teacher the book is the Ultima Thule of all her endeavors, and when the pupils can pass the examination she feels that her work is a success. If the problem in the book does not fit the child, so much the worse for the child, and she proceeds to try to make him fit the problem. It does not occur to her to construct problems that will fit the child. When she comes to the solution of the right triangle, the baseball diamond does not come to her mind. She has the boy learn a rule and try to apply it instead of having him find the distance from first base to third in a direct line. In her thinking such a proceeding would be banal because it would violate the sanctity of the book. She must adhere to the book though the heavens fall, and the boy with them.

The book supreme.—She seems quite unable to draw upon the farm, the grocery, the store, or the playground for suitable problems. These things seem to be obscured by her supreme devotion to the book. She lacks fertility of resources, nor does she realize this lack, because her eyes are fastened upon the book rather than upon the child. Were she as intent upon the child as she is upon the book, his interests would direct attention to the things toward which his inclinations yearn and toward which his aptitudes lure him. In such a case, her ingenuity and resourcefulness would roam over wide fields in quest of the objects of his native interests and she would return to him laden with material that would fit the needs of the child far better than the material of the book.

The child supreme.—The teacher whose primary consideration is the child and who sees in the child the object and focus of all her activities, never makes a fetish of the book. It has its use, to be sure, but it is subordinate in the scheme of education. It is not a necessity, but a mere convenience. She could dispense with it entirely and not do violence to the child's interests. No book is large enough to compass all that she teaches, for she forages in every field to obtain proper and palatable food for the child. She teaches with the grain of the child and not against the grain. If the book contains what she requires in her work, she uses it and is glad to have it; but, if it does not contain what she needs, she seeks it elsewhere and does not return empty-handed.

Illustrations.—She places the truth she hopes to teach in the path of the child's inclination, and this is taken into his life processes. Life does not stop at way-stations to take on supplies, but absorbs the supplies that it encounters as it moves along. This teacher does not stop the ball game to teach the right triangle, but manages to have the problem solved in connection with or as a part of the game. She does not taboo the morning paper in order to have a lesson in history, but begins with the paper as a favorable starting point toward the lesson. She does not confiscate the contents of the boy's pocket as contraband, but is glad to avail herself of all these as indices of the boy's interests, and, therefore, guides for her teaching.

Attitude toward teaching materials.—When the boy carries a toad to school, she does not shudder, but rather rejoices, because she sees in him a possible Agassiz. When he displays an interest in plant life, she sees in him another Burbank. When she finds him drawing pictures at his desk, she smiles approval, for she sees in him another Raphael. She does not disdain the lowliest insect, reptile, or plant when she finds it within the circle of the child's interests. She is willing, nay eager, to ransack the universe if only she may come upon elements of nutrition for her pupils. From every flower that blooms she gathers honey that she may distill it into the life of the child. She does not coddle the child; she gives him nourishment.

History.—Her history is as wide as human thought and as high as human aspiration. It includes the Rosetta stone and the morning paper. It travels back from the clothing of the child to the cotton gin. The stitch in the little girl's dress is the index finger that points to the page that depicts the invention of the sewing machine. Every engine leads her back to Watt, and she takes the children with her. Every foreign message in the daily paper revives the story of Field and the laying of the Atlantic cable. Every mention of the President's cabinet gives occasion for reviewing the cabinets of other Presidents with comparisons and contrasts. At her magic touch the libraries and galleries yield forth rich treasures for her classroom. Life is the textbook of her study, and the life of the child is the goal of her endeavors.

The child's native interests.—In brief, she is teaching children and not books or subjects, and the interests of the children take emphatic precedence over her own. She enters into the life of the child and makes excursions into all life according to the dictates of his interests. The child is the big native interest to which she attaches the work of the school. The program is elastic enough to encompass every child in her school. Her program is a garden in which something is growing for each child, and she cultivates every plant with sympathetic care. She considers it no hardship to learn the plant, the animal, the place, or the fact in which the child finds interest. Because of the child and for the sake of the child she invests all these things with the quality of human interest.

The school and the home.—Arithmetic, language, history, and geography touch life at a thousand points, and we have but to select the points of contact with the life of each pupil to render any or all of these a vital part of the day's work and the day's life. They are not things that are detached from the child's life. The child's errand to the shop involves arithmetic, and the vitalized teacher makes this fact a part of the working capital of the school. The dinner table abounds in geography, and the teacher is quick to turn this fact to account in the school. Her fertility of resources, coupled with her vital interest in human beings and human affairs, soon establishes a reciprocal relation between the home and the school. Similarly, she causes the language of the school to flow out into the home, the factory, and the office.

The skill of the teacher.—History is not a school affair merely. It is a life affair, and through all the currents of life it may be made to flow. The languages, Latin, German, French, Spanish, are expressions and interpretations of life, and they may be made to appear what they really are if the teacher is resourceful enough and skillful enough to attach them to the life of the pupil by the human ligaments that are ever at hand. Chemistry, physics, botany, and physiology all throb with life if only the teacher can place the fingers of the pupils on their pulses. Given the human teacher, the human child, and the humanized teaching, the vitalized school is inevitable.

QUESTIONS AND EXERCISES

1. What agencies have been employed with the expectation that they would improve the school?

2. What are the reasons why some of these have not accomplished more?

3. Give instances in which the conservatism of teachers seems to have stood in the way of utilizing the element of human interest.

4. What do you think of a teacher who asserts that no important advance has been made in educational theory and practice since, say, 1910?

5. Make an outline of what you think a college of education should do for the school.

6. What would you expect to gain from a course in school administration?

7. The president of at least one Ohio college personally inspects and checks up the work of the professors from the standpoint of proper teaching standards, and has them visit one another's classes for friendly criticism and observation. He reports improvement in the standard of teaching. How is his plan applicable in your school?

8. A city high school principal states that it is not his custom to visit his teachers' classes; that he knows what is going on and that he interferes only if something is wrong. What do you think of his practice? How is the principle applicable in your school?

9. Do the duties of a superintendent have to do only with curriculum and discipline, or have they to do also with teaching power?

10. What are some of the ways in which you have known superintendents successfully to increase the teaching power of the teachers?

11. What things do we need to know about a child in order to utilize his interests?

12. Distinguish three types of teachers.

13. What are the objections to teaching the book?

14. What are the objections to teaching the subject?

15. What are some items of school work upon which some teachers spend time that they should devote to finding materials suited to the child's interests?

16. Can one teacher utilize all of the interests of a child within a nine-month term? What is the measure of how far she should be expected to do so?



CHAPTER XXI

BEHAVIOR

Behavior in retrospect.—The caption of this chapter implies the behavior of human beings, as a matter of course, and the study of this subject is, at once, both alluring and illusive. No sooner has the student arrived at deductions that seem conclusive than exceptions begin to loom up on his speculative horizon that disintegrate his theories and cause him to retrace the steps of his reasoning. Such a study affords large scope for introspection, but too few people incline to examine their own behavior in any mental attitude that approaches the scientific. The others seem to think that things just happen, and that their own behavior is fortuitous. They seem not to be able to reason from effect back to cause, or to realize that there may be any possible connection between what they are doing at the present moment and what they were doing twenty years ago.

Environment.—In what measure is a man the product of his environment? To what extent is a man able to influence his environment? These questions start us on a line of inquiry that leads toward the realm of, at least, a hypothetical solution of the problem of behavior. After we have reached the conclusion, by means of concrete examples, that many men have influenced their environment, it becomes pertinent, at once, to inquire still further whence these men derived the power thus to modify their environment. We may not be able to reach final or satisfactory answers to these questions, but it will, none the less, prove a profitable exercise. We need not trench upon the theological doctrine of predestination, but we may, with impunity, speculate upon the possibility of a doctrine of educational predestination.

Queries.—Was Mr. George Goethals predestined to become the engineer of the Panama Canal from the foundation of the world, or might he have become a farmer, a physician, or a poet? Could Julius Caesar have turned back from the Rubicon and refrained from saying, "The die is cast"? Could Abraham Lincoln have withheld his pen from the Emancipation Proclamation and permitted the negro race to continue in slavery? Could any influence have deterred Walter Scott from writing "Kenilworth"? Was Robert Fulton's invention of the steamboat inevitable? Could Christopher Columbus possibly have done otherwise than discover America? Does education have anything whatever to do in determining what a man will or will not do?

Antecedent causes.—Here sits a man, let us say, who is writing a musical selection. He works in a veritable frenzy, and all else seems negligible for the time. He well-nigh disdains food and sleep in the intensity of his interest. Is this particular episode in his life merely happening, or does some causative influence lie back of this event somewhere in the years? Did some influence of home, or school, or playground give him an impulse and an impetus toward this event? Or, in other words, are the activities of his earlier life functioning on the bit of paper before him? If this is an effect, what and where was the cause? In the case of any type of human behavior can we postulate antecedent causes? If a hundred musicians were writing musical compositions at the same moment, would they offer similar explanations of their behavior?

Leadership.—As a working hypothesis, it may be averred that ability to influence environment betokens leadership. With such a measuring-rod in hand we may go out into the community and determine, with some degree of accuracy, who are leaders and who are mere followers. Then we should need to go further and discover degrees of leadership, whether small or large, and, also, the quality of the leadership, whether good or bad, wise or foolish, selfish or altruistic, noisy or serene, and all the many other variations. Having done all this, we are still only on the threshold of our study, for we must reason back from our accumulated facts to their antecedent causes. If we score one man's leadership fifty and another's eighty, have we any possible warrant for concluding that the influences in their early life that tend to generate leadership were approximately as five to eight?

Restricted concepts.—This question is certain to encounter incredulity, just as it is certain to raise other questions. Both results will be gratifying as showing an awakening of interest, which is the most and the best that the present discussion can possibly hope to accomplish. Very many, perhaps most, teachers in the traditional school do their teaching with reference to the next examination. They remind their pupils daily of the on-coming examination and remind them of the dire consequences following their failure to attain the passing grade of seventy. They ask what answer the pupil would give to a certain question if it should appear in the examination. If they can somehow get their pupils to surmount that barrier of seventy at promotion time, they seem quite willing to turn their backs upon them and let the teacher in the next grade make what she can of such unprofitable baggage.

Each lesson a prophecy.—And we still call this education. It isn't education at all, but the merest hack work, and the tragedy of it is that the child is the one to suffer. The teacher goes on her complacent way happy in the consciousness that her pupils were promoted and, therefore, she will retain her place on the pay roll. It were more logical to have the same teacher continue with the pupil during his entire school life of twelve years, for, in that case, her interest in him would be continuous rather than temporary and spasmodic. But the present plan of changing teachers would be even better than that if only every teacher's work could be made to project itself not only to graduation day, but to the days of mature manhood and womanhood. If only every teacher were able to make each lesson a vital prophecy of what the pupil is to be and to do twenty years hence, then that lesson would become a condition precedent to the pupil's future behavior.

Outlook.—Groping about in the twilight of possibilities we speculate in a mild and superficial way as to the extent to which heredity, environment, and education either singly or in combination are determining factors in human behavior. But when no definite answer is forthcoming we lose interest in the subject and have recourse to the traditional methods of our grandfathers. We lose sight of the fact that in our quest for the solution of this problem we are coming nearer and nearer to the answer to the perennial question, What is education? Hence, neither the time nor the effort is wasted that we devote to this study. We may not understand heredity; we may find ourselves bewildered by environment; we may not apprehend what education is; but by keeping all these closely associated with behavior in our thinking we shall be the gainers.

Long division ramified.—We are admonished so to organize the activities of the school that they may function in behavior. That is an admonition of stupendous import as we discover when we attempt to compass the content of behavior. One of the activities of the school is Long Division. This is relatively simple, but the possible behavior in which it may function is far less simple. In the past, this same Long Division has functioned in the Brooklyn Bridge, in the Hoosac Tunnel, and Washington Monument, in the Simplon Pass, and in Eiffel Tower. It has helped us to travel up the mountain side on funicular railways, underneath rivers and cities by means of subways, under the ocean in submarines, and in the air by means of aircraft, and over the tops of cities on elevated railways. Only the prophet would have the temerity to predict what further achievements the future holds in store. But all that has been done and all that will yet be done are only a part of the behavior in which this activity functions.

Behavior amplified.—Human behavior runs the entire gamut, from the bestial to the sublime, with all the gradations between. It has to do with the mean thief who pilfers the petty treasures of the little child, and with the high-minded philanthropist who walks and works in obedience to the behests of altruism. It includes the frowzy slattern who offends the sight and also the high-born lady of quality whose presence exhales and, therefore, inspires to, refinement and grace. It has to do with the coarse boor who defiles with his person and his speech and the courtly, cultured gentleman who becomes the exemplar of those who come under his influence. It touches the depraved gamin of the alley and the celebrated scholar whose pen and voice shed light and comfort. It concerns itself with the dark lurking places of the prowlers of the night who prey upon innocence, virtue, and prosperity and with the cultured home whose members make and glorify civilization.

Its scope.—It swings through the mighty arc, from the anarchist plotting devastation and death up to Socrates inciting his friends to good courage as he drinks the hemlock. It takes cognizance of the slave in his cabin no less than of Lincoln in his act of setting the slaves free. It touches the extremes in Mrs. Grundy and Clara Barton. It concerns itself with Medea scattering the limbs of her murdered brother along the way to delay her pursuers and with Antigone performing the rites of burial over the body of her brother that his soul might live forever. It has to do with Circe, who transformed men into pigs, and with Frances Willard, who sought to restore lost manhood. It includes all that pertains to Lucrezia Borgia and Mary Magdalene; Nero and Phillips Brooks; John Wilkes Booth and Nathan Hale; Becky Sharp and Evangeline; Goneril and Cordelia; and Benedict Arnold and George Washington.

Behavior in history.—Before the teacher can win a starting-point in her efforts to organize the activities of her school in such a manner that they may function in behavior, she must have a pretty clear notion as to what behavior really is. To gain this comprehensive notion she must review in her thinking the events that make up history. In the presence of each one of these events she must realize that this is the behavior in which antecedent activities functioned. Then she will be free to speculate upon the character of those activities, what modifications, accretions, or abrasions they experienced in passing from the place of their origin to the event before her, and whether like activities in another place or another age would function in a similar event. She need not be discouraged if she finds no adequate answer, for she will be the better teacher because of the speculation, even lacking a definite answer.

Machinery.—She must challenge every piece of machinery that meets her gaze with the question "Whence camest thou?" She knows, in a vague way, that it is the product of mind, but she needs to know more. She needs to know that the machine upon which she is looking did not merely happen, but that it has a history as fascinating as any romance if only she cause it to give forth a revelation of itself. She may find in tracing the evolution of the plow that the original was the forefinger of some cave man, in the remote past. For a certainty, she will find, lurking in some machine, in some form, the multiplication table, and this fact will form an interesting nexus between behavior in the form of the machine and the activities of the school. She will be delighted to learn that no machine was ever constructed without the aid of the multiplication table, and when she is teaching this table thereafter she does the work with keener zest, knowing that it may function in another machine.

Art.—When she looks at the "Captive Andromache" by Leighton she is involved in a network of speculations. She wonders by what devious ways the mind of the artist had traveled in reaching this type and example of behavior. She wonders whether the artistic impulse was born in him or whether it was acquired. She sees that he knew his Homer and she would be glad to know just how his reading of the "Iliad" had come to function in this particular picture. She further wonders what lessons in drawing and painting the artist had had in the schools that finally culminated in this masterpiece, and whether any of his classmates ever achieved distinction as artists. She wonders, too, whether there is an embryo artist in her class and what she ought to do in the face of that possibility. Again she wonders how geography, grammar, and spelling can be made to function in such a painting as Rosa Bonheur's "The Plough Oxen," and her wonder serves to invest these subjects with new meaning and power.

Shakespeare.—In the school at Stratford they pointed out to her the desk at which Shakespeare sat as a lad, with all its boyish hieroglyphics, and her thought instinctively leaped across the years to "The Tempest," "King Lear," and "Hamlet." She pondered deeply the relation between the activities of the lad and the behavior of the man, wondering how much the school had to do with the plays that stand alone in literature, and whether he imbibed the power from associations, from books, from people, or from his ancestors. She wondered what magic ingredient had been dropped into the activities of his life that had proven the determining factor in the plays that set him apart among men. She realizes that his behavior was distinctive, and she fain would discover the talisman whose potent influence determined the bent and power of his mind. And she wonders, again, whether any pupil in her school may ever exemplify such behavior.

History.—When she reads her history she has a keener, deeper, and wider interest than ever before, for she now realizes that every event of history is an effect, whose inciting causes lie back in the years, and is not fortuitous as she once imagined. She realizes that the historical event may have been the convergence of many lines of thinking emanating from widely divergent sources, and this conception serves to make her interest more acute. In thus reasoning from effect back to cause she gains the ability to reason from cause to effect and, therefore, her teaching of history becomes far more vital. She is studying the philosophy of history and not a mere catalogue of isolated and unrelated facts. History is a great web, and in the events she sees the pattern that minds have worked. She is more concerned now with the reactions of her pupils to this pattern than she is with mere names and dates, for these reactions give her a clew to tendencies on the part of her pupils that may lead to results of vast import.

Poetry.—In every poem she reads she finds an illustration of mental and spiritual behavior, and she fain would find the key that will discover the mental operations that conditioned the form of the poem. She would hark back to the primal impulse of each bit of imagery, and she analyzes and appraises each word and line with the zeal and skill of a connoisseur. She would estimate justly and accurately the activities that functioned in this sort of behavior. She seeks for the influences of landscapes, of sky, of birds, of sunsets, of clouds,—in short, of all nature, as well as of the manifestations of the human soul. Thus the teacher gains access into the very heart of nature and life and can thus cause the poem to become a living thing to her pupils. In all literature she is ever seeking for the inciting causes; for only so can she prove an inspiring guide and counselor in pointing to them the way toward worthy achievements.

Attitude of teacher.—In conclusion, then, we may readily distinguish the vitalized teacher from the traditional teacher by her attitude toward the facts set down in the books. The traditional teacher looks upon them as mere facts to be noted, connoted, memorized, reproduced, and graded, whereas the vitalized teacher regards them as types of behavior, as ultimate effects of mental and spiritual activities. The traditional teacher knows that seven times nine are sixty-three, and that is quite enough for her purpose. If the pupil recites the fact correctly, she gives him a perfect grade and recommends him for promotion. For the vitalized teacher the bare fact is not enough. She does not disdain or neglect the mechanics of her work, but she sees beyond the present. She sees this same fact merging into the operations of algebra, geometry, trigonometry, calculus, physics, and engineering, until it finally functions in some enterprise that redounds to the well-being of humanity.

Conclusion.—To her every event of history, every fact of mathematics and science, every line of poetry, every passage of literature is pregnant with meaning, dynamic, vibrant, dramatic, and prophetic. Nothing can be dull or prosaic to her electric touch. All the facts of the books, all the emotions of life, and all the beauties of nature she weaves into the fabric of her dreams for her pupils. The goal of her aspirations is far ahead, and around this goal she sees clustered those who were her pupils. In every recitation this goal looms large in her vision. She can envisage the viewpoint of her pupils, and thus strives to have them envisage hers. She yearns to have them join with her in looking down through the years when the activities of the school will be functioning in worthy behavior.

QUESTIONS AND EXERCISES

1. Discuss the relative importance of environment as a factor in the behavior of plants; animals; children; men.

2. How may an understanding of the mutual reaction of the child and his environment assist the teacher in planning for character building in pupils?

3. Make specific suggestions by which children may influence their environment.

4. Discuss the vitalized teacher's contribution to the environment of the child.

5. After reading this chapter give your definition of "behavior."

6. Discuss the author's idea of leadership.

7. Define education in terms of behavior, environment, and heredity.

8. Account for the difference in behavior of some of the characters mentioned in the chapter.

9. How may the vitalized teacher be distinguished from the traditional teacher in her attitude toward facts?

10. Discuss the doctrine of educational predestination.



CHAPTER XXII

BOND AND FREE

Spiritual freedom.—There is no slavery more abject than the bondage of ignorance. John Bunyan was not greatly inconvenienced by being incarcerated in jail. His spirit could not be imprisoned, but the imprisonment of his body gave his mind and spirit freedom and opportunity to do work that, otherwise, might not have been done. If he had lived a mere physical life and had had no resources of the mind upon which to draw, his experience in the jail would have been most irksome. But, being equipped with mental and spiritual resources, he could smile disdain at prison bars, and proceed with his work in spiritual freedom. Had he been dependent solely, or even mainly, upon food, sleep, drink, and other contributions to his physical being for his definition of life, then his whole life would have been restricted to the limits of his cell; but the more extensive and expansive resources of his life rendered the jail virtually nonexistent.

Illustrations.—It is possible, therefore, so to furnish the mind that it can enjoy freedom in spite of any bondage to which the body may be subjected. Indeed, the whole process of education has as its large objective the freedom of the mind and spirit. Knowledge of truth gives freedom; ignorance of truth is bondage. A man's knowledge may be measured by the extent of his freedom; his ignorance, by the extent of his bondage. In the presence of truth the man who knows stands free and unabashed, while the man who does not know stands baffled and embarrassed. In a chemical laboratory the man who knows chemistry moves about with ease and freedom, while the man who does not know chemistry stands fixed in one spot, fearing to move lest he may cause an explosion. To the man who knows astronomy the sky at night presents a marvelous panorama full of interest and inspiration, to the man who is ignorant of astronomy the same sky is merely a dome studded with dots of light.

Rome.—The man who lacks knowledge of history is utterly bewildered and ill at ease in the Capitoline Museum at Rome. All about him are busts that represent the men who made Roman history, but they have no meaning for him. Nero and Julius Caesar are mere names to him and, as such, bear no relation to life. Cicero and Caligula might exchange places and it would be all one to him. He takes a fleeting glance at the statue of the Dying Gaul, but it conveys no meaning to him. He has neither read nor heard of Byron's poem which this statue inspired. He sees near by the celebrated Marble Faun, but he has not read Hawthorne's romance and therefore the statue evokes no interest. In short, he is bored and uncomfortable, and importunes his companions to go elsewhere.

When he looks out upon the Forum he says it looks the same to him as any other stone quarry, and he roundly berates the shiftlessness of the Romans in permitting the Coliseum to remain when the stone could be used for building purposes, for bridges, and for paving. The Tiber impresses him not at all for, as he says, he has seen much larger rivers and, certainly, many whose water is more clear. In the Sistine Chapel he cannot be persuaded to give more than a passing glance at the ceiling because it makes his neck ache to look up. The Laocooen and Apollo Belvedere he will not see, giving as a reason that he is more than tired of looking at silly statuary. He feels it an imposition that he should be dragged around to such places when he cares nothing for them. His evident boredom is pathetic, and he repeatedly says that he'd far rather be visiting in the corner grocery back home, than to be spending his time in the Vatican.

Contrasts.—In this, he speaks but the simple truth. In the grocery he has comfort while, in the Vatican, he is in bondage. His ignorance of art, architecture, history, and literature reduces him to thralldom in any place that exemplifies these. In the grocery he has comfort because he can have a share in the small talk and gossip that obtain there. His companions speak his language and he feels himself to be one of them. Were they, by any chance, to begin a discussion of history he would feel himself ostracized and would leave them to their own devices. If they would retain him as a companion they must keep within his range of interests and thinking. To go outside his small circle is to offer an affront. He cannot speak the language of history, or science, or art, and so experiences a feeling of discomfort in any presence where this language is spoken.

History.—In this concrete illustration we find ample justification for the teaching of history in the schools. History is one of the large strands in the web of life, and to neglect this study is to deny to the pupil one of the elements of freedom. It is not easy to conceive a situation that lacks the element of history in one or another of its phases or manifestations. Whether the pupil travels, or embarks upon a professional life, or associates, in any relation, with cultivated people, he will find a knowledge of history not only a convenience but a real necessity, if he is to escape the feeling of thralldom. The utilitarian value of school studies has been much exploited, and that phase is not to be neglected; but we need to go further in estimating the influence of any study. We need to inquire not only how a knowledge of the study will aid the pupil in his work, but also how it will contribute to his life.

Restricted concepts.—We lustily proclaim our country to be the land of the free, but our notion of freedom is much restricted. In the popular conception freedom has reference to the body. A man can walk the streets without molestation and can vote his sentiments at the polls, but he may not be able to take a day's ride about Concord and Lexington with any appreciable sense of freedom. He may walk about the Congressional Library and feel himself in prison. He may desert a lecture for the saloon in the interests of his own comfort. He may find the livery stable more congenial than the drawing-room. His body may experience a sort of freedom while his mind and spirit are held fast in the shackles of ignorance. A Burroughs, an Edison, a Thoreau, might have his feet in the stocks and still have more freedom than such a man as this. He walks about amid historic scenes with his spiritual eyes blindfolded, and that condition of mind precludes freedom.

Real freedom.—We shall not attain our high privileges as a free people until freedom comes to mean more than the absence of physical restraint. Our conception of freedom must reach out into the world of mind and spirit, and our educational processes must esteem it their chief function to set mental and spiritual prisoners free. We have only to read history, science, and literature to realize what sublime heights mind can attain in its explorations of the realms of truth, and, since the boys and girls of our schools are to pass this way but once, every effort possible should be made to accord to them full freedom to emulate the mental achievements of those who have gone before. They have a right to become the equals of their predecessors, and only freedom of mind and spirit can make them such. Every man should be larger than his task, and only freedom of mind and spirit can make him so. The man who works in the ditch can revel among the sublime manifestations of truth if only his mind is rightly furnished.

Spelling.—The man who is deficient in spelling inevitably confines his vocabulary to narrow limits and so lacks facility of expression and nicety of diction. Accordingly, he suffers by comparison with others whose vocabulary is more extensive and whose diction is, therefore, more elegant. The consciousness of his shortcomings restricts the exuberance of his life, and he fails of that sense of large freedom that a knowledge of spelling would certainly give. So that even in such an elementary study as spelling the school has an opportunity to generate in the pupils a feeling of freedom, and this feeling is quite as important in the scheme of life as the ability to spell correctly. In this statement, there is no straining for effects. On the contrary, many illustrations might be adduced to prove that it is but a plain statement of fact. A cultured lady confesses that she is thrown into a panic whenever she has occasion to use the word Tuesday because she is never certain of the spelling.

The switchboard.—Life may be likened to an extensive electric switchboard, and only that man or woman has complete freedom who can press the right button without hesitation or trepidation. The ignorant man stands paralyzed in the presence of this mystery and knows not how to proceed to evoke the correct response to his desires. It has been said that everything is infinitely high that we cannot see over. Hence, to the man who does not know, cube root is infinitely high and, as such, is as far away from his comprehension as the fourth dimension or the precession of the equinoxes. In the presence of even such a simple truth as cube root he stands helpless and enthralled. He lives in a small circle and cannot know the joy of the man whose mind forgathers with the big truths of life.

Comparisons.—The ignorant man cannot accompany this man upon his mighty excursions, but must remain behind to make what he can of his feeble resources. The one can penetrate the mysteries of the planets and bring back their secrets; the other must confine his thinking to the weather and the crops. The one can find entertainment in the Bible and Shakespeare; the other seeks companionship among the cowboys and Indians of the picture-films. The one sits in rapt delight through an evening of grand opera, reveling on the sunlit summits of harmony; the other can rise no higher in the scale of music than the raucous hand organ. The one finds keen delight among the masterpieces of art; the other finds his definition of art in the colored supplement. The one experiences the acme of pleasure in communing with historians, musicians, artists, scientists, and philologists; the other finds such associations the very acme of boredom. The one finds freedom among the big things of life; the other finds galling bondage.

Three elements of freedom.—There are three elements of freedom that are worthy of emphasis. These are self-reliance, self-support, and self-respect. These elements are the trinity that constitute one of the major ultimate aims of the vitalized school. The school that inculcates these qualities must prove a vital force in the life of the pupil; and the pupil who wins these qualities is well equipped for the work of real living. These qualities are the golden gateways to freedom, nor can there be a full measure of freedom if either of these qualities be lacking. Moreover, these qualities are cumulative in their relations to one another. Self-reliance leads to and engenders self-support, and both these underlie and condition self-respect. Or, to put the case conversely, there cannot be self-respect in the absence of self-reliance and self-support.

Self-reliance.—It would not be easy to over-magnify the influence of the school that is rightly conducted in the way of inculcating the quality of self-reliance and in causing it to grow into a habit. Every problem that the boy solves by his own efforts, every obstacle that he surmounts, every failure that he transforms into a success, and every advance he makes towards mastery gives him a greater degree of self-reliance, greater confidence in his powers, and greater courage to persevere. It is the high privilege of the teacher to cause a boy to believe in himself, to have confidence in his ability to win through. To this end, she adds gradually to the difficulties of his work, always keeping inside the limits of discouragement, and never fails to give recognition to successful achievements. In this way the boy gains self-reliance and so plumes himself for still loftier flights. Day after day he moves upward and onward, until at length he exemplifies the sentiment of Virgil, "They can because they think they can."

This quality in practice.—The self-reliance that becomes ingrained in a boy's habits of life will not evaporate in the heat of the activities and competition of the after-school life. On the contrary, it will be reenforced and crystallized by the opportunities of business or professional life, and, in calm reliance upon his own powers, he will welcome competition as an opportunity to put himself to the test. He is no weakling, for in school he made his independent way in spite of the lions in his path, and so gained fiber and courage for the contests of daily life. And because he has industry, thrift, perseverance, and self-reliance the gates of success swing wide open and he enters into the heritage which he himself has won.

The sterling man.—His career offers an emphatic negation to the notion that obtains here and there to the effect that education makes a boy weak and ineffective, robbing him of the quality of sterling elemental manhood, and fitting him only for the dance-hall and inane social functions. The man who is rightly trained has resources that enable him to add dignity and character to social functions in that he exhales power and bigness. People recognize in him a real man, capable, alert, and potential, and gladly pay him the silent tribute that manhood never fails to win. He can hold his own among the best, and only the best appeal to him.

Self-respect.—And, just as he wins the respect of others, so he wins the respect of himself, and so the triumvirate of virtues is complete. Having achieved self-respect he disdains the cheap, the bizarre, the gaudy, and the superficial. He knows that there are real values in life that are worthy of his powers and best efforts, and these real values are the goal of his endeavors. Moreover, he has achieved freedom, and so is not fettered by precedent, convention, or fads. He is free to establish precedents, to violate the conventions when a great principle is at stake, and to ignore fads. He can stand unabashed in the presence of the learned of the earth, and can understand the heartbeats of life, because he has had experience both of learning and of life. And being a free man his life is fuller and richer, and he knows when and how to bestow the help that will give to others a sense of freedom and make life for them a greater boon.

QUESTIONS AND EXERCISES

1. Account for the production of some of our greatest religious literature in prison or in exile. Give other instances than the one mentioned by the author.

2. Give your idea of the author's concept of the terms "bondage" and "freedom."

3. Add to the instances noted in this chapter where ignorance has produced bondage.

4. Defend the assertion that the cost of ignorance in our country exceeds the cost of education. The total amount spent for public education in 1915 slightly exceeded $500,000,000.

5. How do the typical recitations of your school contribute to the happiness of your pupils? Be specific.

6. How may lack of thoroughness limit freedom? Illustrate.

7. How may education give rise to self-reliance? Self-respect?

8. Show that national and religious freedom depend upon education.



CHAPTER XXIII

EXAMINATIONS

Prelude.—When the vitalized school has finally been achieved there will result a radical departure from the present procedure in the matter of examinations. A teacher in the act of preparing a list of examination questions of the traditional type is not an edifying spectacle. He has a text-book open before him from which he extracts nuts for his pupils to crack. It is a purely mechanical process and only a mechanician could possibly debase intelligence and manhood to such unworthy uses. Were it not so pathetic it would excite laughter. But this teacher is the victim of tradition. He knows no other way. He made out examination questions in accordance with this plan fifteen years ago and the heavens didn't fall; then why, pray, change the method? Besides, men and women who were thus examined when they were children in school have achieved distinction in the world's affairs, and that, of itself, proves the validity of the method, according to his way of thinking.

Mental atrophy.—It seems never to occur to him that children have large powers of resistance and that some of his pupils may have won distinction in spite of his teaching and his methods of examination and not because of them. His trouble is mental and spiritual atrophy. He thinks and feels by rule of thumb, "without variableness or shadow of turning." In the matter of new methods he is quite immune. He settled things to his complete satisfaction years ago, and what was good enough for his father, in school methods, is quite good enough for him. His self-satisfaction would approach sublimity, were it not so extremely ludicrous. He has a supercilious sneer for innovations. How he can bring himself to make concessions to modernity to the extent of riding in an automobile is one of the mysteries.

Self-complacency.—His complacency would excite profound admiration did it not betoken deadline inaction. He became becalmed on the sea of life years ago, but does not know it. When the procession of life moves past him he thinks he is the one who is in motion, and takes great unction to himself for his progressiveness—"and not a wave of trouble rolls across his peaceful breast." So he proceeds to copy another question from the text-book, solemnly writing it on a bit of paper, and later copying on the blackboard with such a show of bravery and gusto as would indicate that some great truth had been revealed to him alone. In an orotund voice he declaims to his pupils the mighty revelations that he copied from the book. His examination regime is the old offer of a mess of pottage for a birthright.

Remembering and knowing.—In our school practices we have become so inured to the question-and-answer method of the recitation that we have made the examination its counterpart. As teachers we are constantly admonishing our pupils to remember, as if that were the basic principle in the educational process. In reality we do not want them to remember—we want them to know; and the distinction is all-important. The child does not remember which is his right hand; he knows. He does not remember the face of his mother; he knows her. He does not remember which is the sun and which is the moon; he knows. He does not remember snow, and rain, and ice, and mud; he knows.

Questions and answers.—But, none the less, we proceed upon the agreeable assumption that education is the process of memorizing, and so reduce our pupils to the plane of parrots; for a parrot has a prodigious memory. Hence, it comes to pass that, in the so-called preparation of their lessons, the pupils con the words of the book, again and again, and when they can repeat the words of the book we smile approval and give a perfect grade. It matters not at all that they display no intelligent understanding of the subject so long as they can repeat the statements of the book. It never seems to occur to the teacher that the pupil of the third grade might give the words of the binomial theorem without the slightest apprehension of its meaning. We grade for the repetition of words, not for intelligence.

Court procedure.—In our school practices we seem to take our cue from court procedure and make each pupil who recites feel that he is on the witness stand experiencing all its attendant discomforts, instead of being a cooeperating agent in an agreeable enterprise. We suspend the sword of Damocles above his head and demand from him such answers as will fill the measure of our preconceived notions. He may know more of the subject, in reality, than the teacher, but this will not avail. In fact, this may militate against him. She demands to know what the book says, with small concern for his own knowledge of the subject. We proclaim loudly that we must encourage the open mind, and then by our witness-stand ordeal forestall the possibility of open-mindedness.

Rational methods.—When we have learned wisdom enough, and humanity enough, and pedagogy enough to dispense with the quasi-inquisition type of recitation, the transition to a more rational method of examination will be well-nigh automatic. Let it not be inferred that to inveigh against the question-and-answer type of recitation is to advocate any abatement of thoroughness. On the contrary, the thought is to insure greater thoroughness, and to make evident the patent truth that thoroughness and agreeableness are not incompatible. Experience ought to teach us that we find it no hardship to work with supreme intensity at any task that lures us; and, in that respect, we are but grown-up children. We have only to generate a white-heat of interest in order to have our pupils work with intensity. But this sort of interest does not thrive under compulsion.

Analysis and synthesis.—The question-and-answer method evermore implies analysis. But children are inclined to synthesis, which shows at once that the analytic method runs counter to their natural bent. They like to make things, to put things together, to experiment along the lines of synthesis. Hence the industrial arts appeal to them. But constructing problems satisfies their inclination to synthesis quite as well as constructing coat-hangers or culinary compounds, if only the incitement is rational. The writers of our text-books are coming to recognize this fact, and it does them credit. In time, we may hope to have books that will take into account the child's natural inclinations, and the schools will be the beneficiaries.

Thinking.—In the process of synthesis the pupil is free to draw upon the entire stock of his accumulated resources, whereas in the question-and-answer method he is circumscribed. In the question-and-answer plan he is encouraged to remember; in the other he is encouraged to think. In our theories we exalt thinking to the highest pinnacle, but in our practice we repress thinking and exalt memory. We admonish our pupils to think, sometimes with a degree of emphasis that weakens our admonition, and then bestow our laurel wreaths upon those who think little but remember much. Our inconsistency in this respect would be amusing if the child's interests could be ignored. But seeing that the child pays the penalty, our inconsistency is inexcusable.

Penalizing.—The question-and-answer regime, in its full application, is not wholly unlike a punitive expedition, in that the teacher asks the question and sits with pencil poised in air ready to blacklist the unfortunate pupil whose memory fails him for the moment. The child is embarrassed, if not panic-stricken, and the teacher seems more like an avenging nemesis than a friend and helper. Just when he needs help he receives epithets and a condemning zero. He sinks into himself, disgusted and outraged, and becomes wholly indifferent to the subsequent phases of the lesson. He feels that he has been trapped and betrayed, and days are required for his redemption from discouragement.

Traditional method.—In the school where this method is in vogue the examination takes on the color and character of the recitation. At the close of the term, or semester, the teacher makes out the proverbial ten questions which very often reflect her own bias, or predilections, and in these ten questions are the issues of life and death. A hundred questions might be asked upon the subjects upon which the pupils are to be tested, but these ten are the only ones offered—with no options. Then the grading of the papers ensues, and, in this ordeal, the teacher thinks herself another Atlas carrying the world upon her shoulders. The boy who receives sixty-seven and the one who receives twenty-seven are both banished into outer darkness without recourse. The teacher may know that the former boy is able to do the work of the next grade, but the marks she has made on the paper are sacred things, and he has fallen below the requisite seventy. Hence, he is banished to the limbo of the lost, for she is the supreme arbiter of his fate.

No allowance is made for nervousness, illness, or temperamental conditions, but the same measuring-rod is applied to all with no discrimination, and she has the marks on the papers to prove her infallibility. If a pupil should dare to question the correctness of her grades, he would be punished or penalized for impertinence. Her grades are oracular, inviolable, and therefore not subject to review. She may have been quite able to grade the pupils justly without any such ordeal, but the school has the examination habit, and all the sacred rites must be observed. In that school there is but one way of salvation, and that way is not subject either to repeal or amendment. It is via sacra and must not be profaned. Time and long usage have set the seal of their approval upon it and woe betide the vandal who would dare tamper with it.

Testing for intelligence.—This emphatic, albeit true, representation of the type of examinations that still obtains in some schools has been set out thus in some detail that we may have a basis of comparison with the other type of examinations that tests for intelligence rather than for memory. For children, not unlike their elders, are glad to have people proceed upon the assumption that they are endowed with a modicum of intelligence. They will strive earnestly to meet the expectations of their parents and teachers. Many wise mothers and teachers have incited children to their best efforts by giving them to know that much is expected of them. It is always far better to expect rather than to demand. Coercion may be necessary at times, but coercion frowns while expectation smiles. Hence, in every school exercise the teacher does well to concede to the pupils a reasonable degree of intelligence and then let her expectations be commensurate with their intelligence.

Concessions.—It is an affront to the intelligence of a child not to concede that he knows that the days are longer in the summer than in winter. We may fully expect such a degree of intelligence, and base our teaching upon this assumption. In our examinations we pay a delicate compliment to the child by giving him occasion for thinking. We may ask him why the days are longer in summer than in winter and thus give him the feeling that we respect his intelligence. Our examinations may always assume observed facts. Even if he has never noted the fact that his shadow is shorter in summer than in winter, if we assume such knowledge on his part and ask him why such is the case, we shall stimulate his powers of observation along with his thinking. If the teacher asks a boy when and by whom America was discovered, he resents the implication of crass ignorance; but if she asks how Columbus came to discover America in 1492, he feels that it is conceded that there are some things he knows.

Illustrations.—If we ask for the width of the zones, we are placing the emphasis upon memory; but, if we ask them to account for the width of the zones, we are assuming some knowledge and are testing for intelligent thinking. If we ask why the sun rises in the east and sets in the west we are, once again, assuming a knowledge of the facts and testing for intelligence. If we ask for the location of the Suez, Kiel, and Welland canals, we are testing for mere memory; but, if we ask what useful purpose these canals serve, we are testing for intelligence. When we ask pupils to give the rule for division of fractions, we are testing again for mere memory; but when we ask why we invert the terms of the divisor, we are treating our pupils as rational beings. Our pedagogical sins bulk large in geography when we continually ask pupils to locate places that have no interest for them. Such teaching is a travesty on pedagogy and a sin against childhood.

Intelligence of teacher.—If the teacher is consulting her own ease and comfort, then she will conduct the examination as a test for memory. It requires but little work and less thinking to formulate a set of examination questions on this basis. She has only to turn the pages of the text-book and make a check-mark here and there till she has accumulated ten questions, and the trick is done. But if she is testing for intelligence, the matter is not so simple. To test for intelligence requires intelligence and a careful thinking over the whole scope of the subject under consideration. To do this effectively the teacher must keep within the range of the pupil's powers and still stimulate him to his best efforts.

Major and minor.—She must distinguish between major and minor, and this is no slight task. Her own bias may tend to elevate a minor into a major rank, and this disturbs the balance. Again, she must see things in their right relations and proportions, and this requires deliberate thinking. In "King Lear" she may regard the Fool as a negligible minor, but some pupil may have discovered that Shakespeare intended this character to serve a great dramatic purpose, and the teacher suffers humiliation before her class. If she were testing for memory, she would ask the class to name ten characters of the play and like hackneyed questions, so that her own intelligence would not be put to the test. Accurate scholarship and broad general intelligence may be combined in the same person and, certainly, we are striving to inculcate and foster these qualities in our pupils.

Books of questions and answers.—When the examinations for teachers shall become tests for intelligence and not for memory, we may fully expect to find the same principle filtering into our school practices. It is a sad travesty upon education that teachers, even in this enlightened age, still try to prepare for examinations by committing to memory questions and answers from some book or educational paper. But the fault lies not so much with the teachers themselves as with those who prepare the questions. The teachers have been led to believe that to be able to recall memorized facts is education. There are those, of course, who will commercialize this misconception of education by publishing books of questions and answers. Of course weak teachers will purchase these books, thinking them a passport into the promised land.

The reform must come at the source of the questions that constitute the examination. When examiners have grown broad enough in their conception of education to construct questions that will test for intelligence, we shall soon be rid of such an incubus upon educational progress as a book of questions and answers. The field is wide and alluring. History, literature, the sciences, and the languages are rich in material that can be used in testing for intelligence, and we need not resort to petty chit-chat in preparing for examinations.

The way of reform.—We must take this broader view of the whole subject of examinations before we can hope to emerge from our beclouded and restricted conceptions of education. And it can be done, as we know from the fact that it is being done. Here and there we find superintendents, principals, and teachers who are shuddering away from the question-and-answer method both in the recitation and in the examination. They have outgrown the swaddling-clothes and have risen to the estate of broad-minded, intelligent manhood and womanhood. They have enlarged their concept of education and have become too generous in their impulses to subject either teachers or pupils to an ordeal that is a drag upon their mental and spiritual freedom.

QUESTIONS AND EXERCISES

1. What purposes are actually achieved by examinations?

2. What evils necessarily accompany examinations? What evils usually accompany them?

3. Outline a plan by which these purposes may be achieved unaccompanied by the usual evils.

4. Is memory of facts the best test of knowledge? Suggest other tests by which the value of a pupil's knowledge may be judged.

5. Experts sometimes vary more than 70 per cent in grading the same manuscript. The same person often varies 20 per cent or more in grading the same manuscript at different times. An experiment with your own grading might prove interesting.

6. Do you and your pupils in actual practice regard examinations as an end or as a means to an end? As corroborating evidence or as a final proof of competence?

7. How may examinations test intelligence?

8. Suggest methods by which pupils may be led to distinguish major from minor and to see things in their right relations.

9. Is it more desirable to have the pupils develop these powers or to memorize facts? Why?

10. Why are "question and answer" publications antagonistic to modern educational practice? Why harmful to students?



CHAPTER XXIV

WORLD-BUILDING

An outline.—Education is the process of world-building. Every man builds his own world and is confined, throughout life, to the world which he himself builds. He cannot build for another, nor can another build for him. Neither can there be an exchange of worlds. Moreover, the process of building continues to the end of life. In building their respective worlds all men have access to the same materials, and the character of each man's world, then, is conditioned by his choice and use of these materials. If one man elects to build a small world for himself, he will find, at hand, an abundant supply of petty materials that he is free to use in its construction. But, if he elects to build a large world, the big things of life are his to use. If he chooses to spend his life in an ugly world, he will find ample materials for his purpose. If, however, he prefers a beautiful world, the materials will not be lacking, and he will have the joy and inspiration that come from spending a lifetime amid things that are fraught with beauty.

Exemplifications.—This conception of education is not a figment of fancy but a reality whose verification can be attested by a thousand examples. We have only to look about us to see people who are living among things that are unbeautiful and who might be living in beautiful worlds had they elected to do so. Others are spending their lives among things that are trivial and inconsequential, apparently blind to the great and significant things that lie all about them. Some build their worlds with the minor materials, while others select the majors. Some select the husks, while others choose the grain. Some build their worlds from the materials that others disdain and seem not to realize the inferiority of their worlds as compared with others. Their supreme complacency in the midst of the ugliness or pettiness of their worlds seems to accentuate the conclusion that they have not been able to see, or else have not been able to use, the other materials that are available.

Flowers.—To the man who would live in a beautiful world flowers will be a necessity. To such a man life would be robbed of some of its charm if his world should lack flowers. But unless he has subjective flowers he cannot have objective ones. He must have a sensory foundation that will react to flowers or there can be no flowers in his world. There may be flowers upon his breakfast table, but unless he has a sensory foundation that will react to them they will be nonexistent to him. He can react to the bacon, eggs, and potatoes, but not to the flowers, unless he has cultivated flowers in his spirit before coming to the table.

Lily-of-the-valley civilization.—All the flowers that grow may adorn his world if he so elects. He may be content with dandelions and sunflowers if he so wills, or he may reach forth and gather about him for his delight the entire gamut of roses from the Maryland to the American Beauty, the violet and its college-bred descendant the pansy, the heliotrope, the gladiolus, the carnation, the primrose, the chrysanthemum, the sweet pea, the aster, and the orchid. But, if he can reach the high plane of the lily-of-the-valley, in all its daintiness, delicacy, chastity, and fragrance, he will have achieved distinction. When society shall have attained to the lily-of-the-valley plane, life will be fine, fragrant, and beautiful. Intemperance will be no more, and profanity, vulgarity, and coarseness will disappear. Such things cannot thrive in a lily-of-the-valley world, but shrink away from the presence of beauty and purity.

Music.—Again, the man who is building such a world will elect to have music as one of the elements. But here, again, we find that he must have a sensory foundation or there will be no music for him. Moreover, the nature of this sensory foundation will determine the character of the music to be found in his world. He may be satisfied with "Tipperary" or he may yearn for Handel, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Melba, and Schumann-Heink. He may not be able to rise above the plane of ragtime, or he may attain to the sublime plane of "The Dead March in Saul." He has access to all the music from the discordant hand organ to the oratorio and grand opera. In his introduction of a concert company, the chairman said: "Ladies and gentlemen, the artists who are to favor us this evening will render nothing but high-grade selections. If any of you are inclined to be critical and to say that their music is above your heads, I beg to remind you that it will not be above the place where your heads ought to be." In substance he was saying that the nature of the music depended not so much upon the singers as upon the sensory foundation of the auditors.

Music and life.—Having a sensory foundation capable of reacting to the best music, this man opens wide the portals of his world for the reception of the orchestra, the concert, the opera, and the choir, and his spirit revels in the "concord of sweet sounds." Through the toil of the day he anticipates the music of the evening, and the next day he goes to his work buoyant and rejuvenated by reason of the musical refreshment. He has music in anticipation and music in retrospect, and thus his world is regaled with harmony. His world cannot be a dead level or a desert, for it is diversified by the alluring undulations of music and made fertile by the perennial fountains of inspiring harmony, and his world

"shall be filled with music And the cares that infest the day Shall fold their tents like the Arabs, And as silently steal away."

Children.—Again, this man elects to have children in his world, for he has come to know that there is no sweeter music on earth than the laughter of a child. Were he sojourning five hundred miles away from the abode of children he would soon be glad to walk the entire distance that he might again hear the prattle, the laughter, or even the crying of a child. Cowboys on the plains have been thrown into a frenzy of delight at the sight of a little child. Full well the man knows that, if he would have children in his world, he must find these children for himself; for this task may not be delegated. If he would bring Paul and Florence Dombey into his world, he must win them to himself by living with them throughout all the pages of the book. In order to lure Pollyanna into his world to imbue it with the spirit of gladness, he must establish a community of interests with her by imbibing her spirit as revealed in the book.

Characterizations.—He may not have Little Joe in his world unless his spirit becomes attuned to the pathos of Bleak House. And he both wants and needs Little Joe. Echoing and reechoing through his soul each day are the words of the little chap, "He wuz good to me, he wuz," and acting vicariously for the little fellow he touches the lives of other unfortunates as the hours go by and brings to them sunshine and hope and courage. And he must needs have Tiny Tim, also, to banish the cobwebs from his soul with his fervent "God bless us every one." The day cannot go far wrong with this simple prayer clinging in his memory. It permeates the perplexities of the day, gives resiliency to his spirit, and encourages and reenforces all the noble impulses that come into his consciousness. Wherever he goes and whatever he is doing he feels that Tiny Tim is present to bestow his childish benediction.

Lessons from childhood.—In Laddie he finds a whole family of children to his liking and feels that his world is the better for their presence. To Old Curiosity Shop and Silas Marner he goes and brings thence Little Nell and Eppie, feeling that in their boon companionship they will make his world more attractive to himself and others by their gentle graces of kindness and helpfulness. In his quest for children of the right sort he lingers long with Dickens, the apostle and benefactor of childhood, but passes by the colored supplement. For all the children in his world he would have the approval and blessing of the Master. He would know, when he hears the words "Except ye become as little children," that reference is made to such children as he has about him. At the feet of these children he sits and learns the lessons of sincerity, guilelessness, simplicity, and faith, and through their eyes he sees life glorified.

Stars.—Nor must his world lack stars. He needs these to draw his thoughts away from sordid things out into the far spaces. He would not spend a lifetime thinking of nothing beyond the weather, the ball-score, his clothes, and his ailments. He wants to think big thoughts, and he would have stars to guide him. He knows that a man is as high, as broad, and as deep as his thoughts, and that if he would grow big in his thinking he must have big objects to engage his thoughts. He would explore the infinite spaces, commune with the planets in their courses, attain the sublime heights where the masters have wrought, and discover, if possible, the sources of power, genius, and inspiration. He would find delight in the colors of the rainbow, the glory of the morning, and the iridescence of the dewdrop. He would train his thoughts to scan the spaces behind the clouds, to transcend the snow-capped mountain, and to penetrate the depths of the sea. He would visualize creation, evolution, and the intricate processes of life. So he must have stars in his world.

Books.—In addition to all these he must have books in his world, and he is cognizant of the fact that his neighbors judge both himself and his world by the character of the books he selects. He may select Mrs. Wiggs or Les Miserables. If he elects to have about him books of the cabbage patch variety, he condemns himself to that sort of reading for a whole lifetime. Nor is any redemption possible from such standards save by his own efforts. Neither men nor angels can draw him up to the plane of Victor Hugo if he elects to abide in the cabbage patch. If he prefers Graustark to Macbeth, all people, including his dearest friends, will go on their way and leave him to his choice. If he says he cannot read Shakespeare, Massinger, Milton, or Wordsworth, he does no violence to the reputation of these writers, but merely defines and classifies himself.