SCHEMING.
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Some of the best teachers in our country, or, rather, of those who might
be the best, lose a great deal of their time, and endanger, or perhaps
entirely destroy, their hopes of success by a scheming spirit, which is
always reaching forward to something new. One has in his mind some new
school-book by which Arithmetic, Grammar, or Geography are to be taught
with unexampled rapidity, and his own purse to be filled in a much more
easy way than by waiting for the rewards of patient industry. Another
has the plan of a school, bringing into operation new principles of
management or instruction, which he is to establish on some favored
spot, and which is to become, in a few years, a second Hofwyl. Another
has some royal road to learning, and, though he is trammeled and held
down by what he calls the ignorance and stupidity of his trustees or his
school committee, yet, if he could fairly put his principles and methods
to the test, he is certain of advancing the science of education half a
century at least at a single leap.
Ingenuity in devising new ways, and enterprise in following them, are
among the happiest characteristics of a new country rapidly filling with
a thriving population. Without these qualities there could be no
advance; society must be stationary; and from a stationary to a
retrograde condition, the progress is inevitable. The disposition to
make improvements and changes may, however, be too great. If so, it must
be checked. On the other hand, a slavish attachment to old established
practices may prevail. Then the spirit of enterprise and experiment must
be awakened and encouraged. Which of these two is to be the duty of a
writer at any time will of course depend upon the situation of the
community at the time when he writes, and of the class of readers for
which he takes his pen. Now, at the present time, it is undoubtedly
true, that while among the great mass of teachers there may be too
little originality and enterprise, there is still among many a spirit of
innovation and change to which a caution ought to be addressed. But,
before I proceed, let me protect myself from misconception by one or two
remarks.
1. There are a few individuals in various parts of our country who, by
ingenuity and enterprise, have made real and important improvements in
many departments of our science, and are still making them. The science
is to be carried forward by such men. Let them not, therefore,
understand that any thing which I shall say applies at all to those real
improvements which are from time to time brought before the public. As
examples of this, there might easily be mentioned, were it necessary,
several new modes of study, and new text-books, and literary
institutions on new plans, which have been brought forward within a few
years, and have proved, on actual trial, to be of real and permanent
value.
These are, or rather they were, when first conceived by the original
projectors, new schemes, and the result has proved that they were good
ones. Every teacher, too, must hope that such improvements will continue
to be made. Let nothing, therefore, which shall be said on the subject
of scheming in this chapter be interpreted as intended to condemn real
improvements of this kind, or to check those which may now be in
progress by men of age or experience, or of sound judgment, who are
capable of distinguishing between a real improvement and a whimsical
innovation which can never live any longer than it is sustained by the
enthusiasm of the original inventor.
2. There are a great many teachers in our country who make their
business a mere dull and formal routine, through which they plod on,
month after month, and year after year, without variety or change, and
who are inclined to stigmatize with the appellation of idle scheming all
plans, of whatever kind, to give variety or interest to the exercises of
the school. Now whatever may be said in this chapter against unnecessary
innovation and change does not apply to efforts to secure variety in the
details of daily study, while the great leading objects are steadily
pursued. This subject has already been discussed in the chapter on
Instruction, where it has been shown that every wise teacher, while he
pursues the same great object, and adopts in substance the same leading
measures at all times, will exercise all the ingenuity he possesses, and
bring all his inventive powers into requisition to give variety and
interest to the minute details.
To explain now what is meant by such scheming as is to be condemned, let
us suppose a case which is riot very uncommon. A young man, while
preparing for college, takes a school. When he first enters upon the
duties of his office, he is diffident and timid, and walks cautiously in
the steps which precedent has marked out for him. Distrusting himself,
he seeks guidance in the example which others have set for him, and,
very probably, he imitates precisely, though it may be insensibly and
involuntarily, the manners and the plans of his own last teacher. This
servitude soon, however, if he is a man of natural abilities, passes
away; he learns to try one experiment after another, until he insensibly
finds that a plan may succeed, even if it was not pursued by his former
teacher. So far it is well. He throws greater interest into his school,
and into all its exercises, by the spirit with which he conducts them.
He is successful. After the period of his services has expired, he
returns to the pursuit of his studies, encouraged by his success, and
anticipating farther triumphs in his subsequent attempts.
He goes on through college, we will suppose, teaching from time to time
in the vacations, as opportunity occurs, taking more and more interest
in the employment, and meeting with greater and greater success. This
success is owing in a very great degree to the _freedom_ of his
practice, that is, to his escape from the thraldom of imitation. So long
as he leaves the great objects of the school untouched, and the great
features of its organization unchanged, his many plans for accomplishing
these objects in new and various ways awaken interest and spirit both in
himself and in his scholars, and all goes on well.
Now in such a case as this, a young teacher, philosophizing upon his
success and the causes of it, will almost invariably make this mistake,
namely, he will attribute to something essentially excellent in his
plans the success which, in fact, results from the novelty of them.
When he proposes something new to a class, they all take an interest in
it because it is _new_. He takes, too, a special interest in it because
it is an experiment which he is trying, and he feels a sort of pride and
pleasure in securing its success. The new method which he adopts may not
be, _in itself,_ in the least degree better than old methods, yet it may
succeed vastly better in his hands than any old method he had tried
before. And why? Why, because it is new. It awakens interest in his
class, because it offers them variety; and it awakens interest in him,
because it is a plan which he has devised, and for whose success,
therefore, he feels that his credit is at stake. Either of these
circumstances is abundantly sufficient to account for its success.
Either of these would secure success, unless the plan was a very bad one
indeed.
This may easily be illustrated by supposing a particular case. The
teacher has, we will imagine, been accustomed to teach spelling in the
usual way, by assigning a lesson in the spelling-book, which the
scholars, after studying it in their seats, recite by having the words
put to them individually in the class. After some time, he finds that
one class has lost its interest in this study. He can compel them to
study the lesson, it is true, but he perceives, perhaps, that it is a
weary task to them. Of course, they proceed with less alacrity, and
consequently with less rapidity and success. He thinks, very justly,
that it is highly desirable to secure cheerful, not forced, reluctant
efforts from his pupils, and he thinks of trying some new plan.
Accordingly, he says to them,
"Boys, I am going to try a new plan for this class."
The mere annunciation of a new plan awakens universal attention. The
boys all look up, wondering what it is to be.
"Instead of having you study your lessons in your seats, as heretofore,
I am going to let you all go together into one corner of the room, and
choose some one to read the lesson to you, spelling all the words aloud.
You will all listen, and endeavor to remember how the difficult ones are
spelled.
Do you think you can remember?"
"Yes, sir," say the boys. Children always think they _can_ do every
thing which is proposed to them as a new plan or experiment, though they
are very often inclined to think they _can not_ do what is required of
them as a task.
"You may have," continues the teacher, "the words read to you once or
twice, just as you please. Only, if you have them read but once, you
must take a shorter lesson."
He pauses and looks round upon the class. Some say "Once," some "Twice."
"I am willing that you should decide this question. How many are in
favor of having shorter lessons, and having them read but once? How many
prefer longer lessons, and having them read twice?"
After comparing the numbers, it is decided according to the majority,
and the teacher assigns or allows them to assign a lesson.
"Now," he proceeds, "I am not only going to have you study in a
different way, but recite in a different way too. You may take your
slates with you, and after you have had time to hear the lesson read
slowly and carefully twice, I shall come and dictate to you the words
aloud, and you will all write them from my dictation. Then I shall
examine your slates, and see how many mistakes are made."
Any class of boys, now, would be exceedingly interested in such a
proposal as this, especially if the master's ordinary principles of
government and instruction had been such as to interest the pupils in
the welfare of the school and in their own progress in study. They will
come together in the place assigned, and listen to the one who is
appointed to read the words to them, with every faculty aroused, and
their whole souls engrossed in the new duties assigned them. The
teacher, too, feels a special interest in his experiment. Whatever else
he may be employed about, his eye turns instinctively to this group with
an intensity of interest which an experienced teacher who has long been
in the field, and who has tried experiments of this sort a hundred
times, can scarcely conceive; for let it be remembered that I am
describing the acts and feelings of a new beginner, of one who is
commencing his work with a feeble and trembling step, and perhaps this
is his first step away from the beaten path in which he has been
accustomed to walk.
This new plan is continued, we will suppose, for a week, during which
time the interest of the pupils continues. They get longer lessons and
make fewer mistakes than they did by the old method. Now, in
speculating on this subject, the teacher reasons very justly that it is
of no consequence whether the pupil receives his knowledge through the
eye or through the ear; whether they study in solitude or in company.
The point is to secure their progress in learning to spell the words of
the English language, and as this point is secured far more rapidly and
effectually by his new method, the inference is to his mind very
obvious, that he has made a great improvement--one of real and permanent
value. Perhaps he will consider it an extraordinary discovery.
But the truth is, that in almost all such cases as this, the secret of
the success is not that the teacher has discovered a _better_ method
than the ordinary ones, but that he has discovered a _new_ one. The
experiment will succeed in producing more successful results just as
long as the novelty of it continues to excite unusual interest and
attention in the class, or the thought that it is a plan of the
teacher's own invention leads him to take a peculiar interest in it. And
this may be a month, or perhaps a quarter; and precisely the same
effects would have been produced if the whole had been reversed, that
is, if the plan of dictation had been the old one, which in process of
time had, in this supposed school, lost its interest, and the teacher,
by his ingenuity and enterprise, had discovered and introduced what is
now the common mode.
"Very well," perhaps my reader will reply, "it is surely something
gained to awaken and continue interest in a dull study for a quarter, or
even a month. The experiment is worth something as a pleasant and useful
change, even if it is not permanently superior to the other."
It is indeed worth something. It is worth a great deal; and the teacher
who can devise and execute such plans, _understanding their real place
and value, and adhering steadily through them all to the great object
which ought to engage his attention,_ is in the almost certain road to
success as an instructor. What I wish is not to discourage such efforts;
they ought to be encouraged to the utmost; but to have their real
nature and design, and the real secret of their success fully
understood, and to have the teacher, above all, take good care that all
his new plans are made, not the substitutes for the great objects which
he ought to keep steadily in view, but only the means by which he may
carry them into more full and complete effect.
In the case we are supposing, however, we will imagine that the teacher
does not do this. He fancies that he has made an important discovery,
and begins to inquire whether _the principle,_ as he calls it, can not
be applied to some other studies. He goes to philosophizing upon it, and
can find many reasons why knowledge received through the ear makes a
more ready and lasting impression than when it comes through the eye. He
attempts to apply the method to Arithmetic and Geography, and in a short
time is forming plans for the complete metamorphosis of his school. When
engaged in hearing a recitation, his mind is distracted with his schemes
and plans, and instead of devoting his attention fully to the work he
may have in hand, his thoughts are wandering continually to new schemes
and fancied improvements, which agitate and perplex him, and which elude
his efforts to give them a distinct and definite form. He thinks he
must, however, carry out his _principle_. He thinks of its applicability
to a thousand other cases. He revolves over and over again in his mind
plans for changing the whole arrangement of his school. He is again and
again lost in perplexity, his mind is engrossed and distracted, and his
present duties are performed with no interest, and consequently with
little spirit or success.
Now his error is in allowing a new idea, which ought only to have
suggested to him an agreeable change for a time in one of his classes,
to swell itself into undue and exaggerated importance, and to draw off
his mind from what ought to be the objects of his steady pursuit.
Perhaps some teacher of steady intellectual habits and a well-balanced
mind may think that this picture is fanciful, and that there is little
danger that such consequences will ever actually result from such a
cause. But, far from having exasperated the results. I am of opinion
that I might have gone much farther. There is no doubt that a great many
instances have occurred in which some simple idea like the one I have
alluded to has led the unlucky conceiver of it, in his eager pursuit,
far deeper into the difficulty than I have here supposed. He gets into a
contention with the school committee, that formidable foe to the
projects of all scheming teachers; and it would not be very difficult to
find many actual cases where the individual has, in consequence of some
such idea, quietly planned and taken measures to establish some new
institution, where he can carry on unmolested his plans, and let the
world see the full results of his wonderful discoveries.
We have in our country a very complete system of literary institutions,
so far as external organization will go, and the prospect of success is
far more favorable in efforts to carry these institutions into more
complete and prosperous operation, than in plans for changing them, or
substituting others in their stead. Were it not that such a course would
be unjust to individuals, a long and melancholy catalogue might easily
be made out of abortive plans which have sprung up in the minds of young
men in the manner I have described, and which, after perhaps temporary
success, have resulted in partial or total failure. These failures are
of every kind. Some are school-books on a new plan, which succeeds in
the inventor's hand chiefly on account of the spirit which carried it
into effect, but which in ordinary hands, and under ordinary
circumstances, and especially after long-continued use, have failed of
exhibiting any superiority. Others are institutions, commenced with
great zeal by the projectors, and which prosper just as long as that
zeal continues. Zeal will make any thing succeed for a time. Others are
new plans of instruction or government, generally founded on some good
principle carried to an extreme, or made to grow into exaggerated and
disproportionate importance. Examples almost innumerable of these things
might be particularized, if it were proper, and it would be found, upon
examination, that the amount of ingenuity and labor wasted upon such
attempts would have been sufficient, if properly expended, to have
elevated very considerably the standard of education, and to have placed
existing institutions in a far more prosperous and thriving state than
they now exhibit.
The reader will perhaps ask, Shall we make no efforts at improvement?
Must every thing in education go on in a uniform and monotonous manner,
and, while all else is advancing, shall our cause alone stand still? By
no means. It must advance; but let it advance mainly by the industry and
fidelity of those who are employed in it; by changes slowly and
cautiously made; not by great efforts to reach forward to brilliant
discoveries, which will draw off the attention from essential duties,
and, after leading the projector through perplexities and difficulties
without number, end in mortification and failure.
Were I to give a few concise and summary directions in regard to this
subject to a young teacher, they would be the following:
1. Examine thoroughly the system of public and private schools as now
constituted in most of the states of this Union, until you fully
understand it and appreciate its excellences and its completeness; see
how fully it provides for the wants of the various classes of our
population.
By this I mean to refer only to the completeness of the _system_ as a
system of organization. I do not refer at all to the internal management
of these institutions; this last is, of course, a field for immediate
and universal effort at progress and improvement.
2. If, after fully understanding this system as it now exists, you are
of opinion that something more is necessary; if you think some classes
of the community are not fully provided for, or that some of our
institutions may be advantageously exchanged for others, the plan of
which you have in mind, consider whether your age, and experience, and
standing as an instructor are such as to enable you to place confidence
in your opinion.
I do not mean by this that a young man may not make a useful discovery,
but only that he may be led away by the ardor of early life to fancy
that essential and important which is really not so. It is important
that each one should determine whether this is not the case with
himself, if his mind is revolving some new plan.
3. Perhaps you are contemplating only a single new institution, which is
to depend for its success on yourself and some coadjutors whom you have
in mind and whom you well know. If this is the case, consider whether
the establishment you are contemplating can be carried on, after you
shall have left it, by such men as can ordinarily be obtained. If the
plan is founded on some peculiar notions of your own, which would enable
you to succeed in it when others, who might also be interested in such a
scheme, would probably fail, consider whether there may not be danger
that your plan may be imitated by others who can not carry it into
successful operation, so that it may be the indirect means of doing
injury. A man is, in some degree, responsible for his example and for
the consequences which may indirectly flow from his course, as well as
for the immediate results which he produces. The Fellenberg school at
Hofwyl was perhaps, by its direct results, as successful for a time as
any other institution in the world; but there is a great offset to the
good which it has thus done to be found in the history of the thousand
wretched imitations of it which have been started only to linger a
little while and die, and in which a vast amount of time, and talent,
and money have been wasted.
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4. Consider the influence you may have upon the other institutions of
our country, by attaching yourself to some one under the existing
organization. If you take an academy or a private school, constituted
and organized like other similar institutions, success in your own will
give you influence over others. A successful teacher of an academy
raises the general standard of academic instruction. A college
professor, if he brings extraordinary talents to bear upon the regular
duties of that office, throws light, universally, upon the whole science
of college discipline and instruction, and thus aids in infusing a
continually renewed life and vigor into those venerable seats of
learning that might otherwise sink into decrepitude and decay. By going,
however, to some new field, establishing some new and fanciful
institution, you take yourself from such a sphere; you exert no
influence over others, except upon feeble imitators, who fail in their
attempts, and bring discredit upon your plans by the awkwardness with
which they attempt to adopt them. How much more service, then, to the
cause of education will a man of genius render, by falling in with the
regularly organized institutions of the country and elevating them, than
if in early life he were to devote his powers to some magnificent
project of an establishment to which his talents would unquestionably
have given temporary success, but which would have taken him away from
the community of teachers, and confined the results of his labors to the
more immediate effects which his daily duties might produce.
5. Perhaps, however, your plan is not the establishment of some new
institution, but the introduction of some new study or pursuit into the
one with which you are connected. Before, however, you interrupt the
regular arrangements of your school to make such a change, consider
carefully what is the real and appropriate object of your institution.
Every thing is not to be done in school. The principles of division of
labor apply with peculiar force to this employment; so that you must not
only consider whether the branch which you are now disposed to introduce
is important, but whether it is really such an one as it is on the whole
best to include among the objects to be pursued in such an institution.
Many teachers seem to imagine that if any thing is in itself important,
and especially if it is an important branch of education, the question
is settled of its being a proper object of attention in school. But this
is very far from being the case. The whole work of education can never
be intrusted to the teacher. Much must of course remain in the hands of
the parent; it ought so to remain. The object of a school is not to take
children out of the parental hands, substituting the watch and
guardianship of a stranger for the natural care of father and mother.
Far from it. It is only the association of the children for those
purposes which can be more successfully accomplished by association. It
is a union for few, specific, and limited objects, for the
accomplishment of that part (and it is comparatively a small part of
the general objects of education) which can be most successfully
effected by public institutions and in assemblies of the young.
6. If the branch which you are desiring to introduce appears to you to
be an important part of education, and if it seems to you that it can be
most successfully attended to in schools, then consider whether the
introduction of it, _and of all the other branches having equal claims_,
will or will not give to the common schools too great a complexity.
Consider whether it will succeed in the hands of ordinary teachers.
Consider whether it will require so much time and effort as will draw
off in any considerable degree, the attention of the teacher from the
more essential parts of his duty. All will admit that it is highly
important that every school should be simple in its plan--as simple as
its size and general circumstances will permit, and especially that the
public schools in every town and village of our country should never
lose sight of what is and must be, after all, their great
design--_teaching the whole population to ready write, and calculate._
7. If it is a school-book which you are wishing to introduce, consider
well before you waste your time in preparing it, and your spirits in the
vexatious work of getting it through the press; whether it is, _for
general use_, so superior to those already published as to induce
teachers to make a change in favor of yours. I have italicized the words
_for general use_, for no delusion is more common than for a teacher to
suppose that because a text-book which he has prepared and uses in
manuscript is better for _him_ than any other work which he can obtain,
it will therefore be better for _general circulation_. Every man, if he
has any originality of mind, has of course some peculiar method of his
own, and he can of course prepare a text-book which will be better
adapted to this method than those ordinarily in use. The history of a
vast number of text-books, Arithmetics, Geographies, and Grammars, is
this: A man of somewhat ingenious mind, adopts some peculiar mode of
instruction in one of these branches, and is quite successful, not
because the method has any very peculiar excellence, but simply because
he takes a greater interest in it, both on account of its novelty and
also from the fact that it is his own invention. He conceives the plan
of writing a text-book to develop and illustrate this method. He hurries
through the work. By some means or other he gets it printed. In due time
it is regularly advertised. The journals of education give notice of it;
the author sends a few copies to his friends, and that is the end of it.
Perhaps a few schools may make a trial of it, and if, for any reason,
the teachers who try it are interested in the work, probably in their
hands it succeeds. But it does not succeed so well as to attract general
attention, and consequently does not get into general circulation. The
author loses his time and his patience. The publisher, unless,
unfortunately, it was published on the author's account, loses his
paper, and in a few months scarcely any body knows that such a book ever
saw the light.
It is in this way that the great multitude of school-books which are now
constantly issuing from the press take their origin. Far be it from me
to discourage the preparation of good school-books. This department of
our literature offers a fine field for the efforts of learning and
genius. What I contend against is the endless multiplicity of useless
works, hastily conceived and carelessly executed, and which serve no
purpose but to employ uselessly talents which, if properly applied,
might greatly benefit both the community and the possessor.
8. If, however, after mature deliberation, you conclude that you have
the plan of a school-book which you ought to try to mature and execute,
be slow and cautious about it. Remember that so great is now the
competition in this branch, nothing but superior excellence or very
extraordinary exertions will secure the favorable reception of a work.
Examine all that your predecessors have done before you. Obtain,
whatever may be the trouble and expense, all other text-books on the
subject, and examine them thoroughly. If you see that you can make a
very decided advance on all that has been done, and that the public will
probably submit to the inconvenience and expense of a change to secure
the result of your labors, go forward slowly and carefully in your work,
no matter how much investigation, how much time and labor it may
require. The more difficulty you may find in gaining the eminence, the
less likely will you be to be followed by successful competitors.
9. Consider, in forming your text-book, not merely the whole subject on
which you are to write, but also look extensively and thoroughly at the
institutions throughout the country, and consider carefully the
character of the teachers by whom you expect it to be used. Sometimes a
man publishes a text-book, and when it fails on trial, he says "it is
because they did not know how to use it. The book in itself was good.
The whole fault was in the awkwardness and ignorance of the teacher."
How absurd! As if, to make a good text-book, it was not as necessary to
adapt it to teachers as to scholars. A _good text-book, which the
teachers for whom it was intended did not know how to use!!_ In other
words, a good contrivance, but entirely unfit for the purpose for which
it was intended.
10. Lastly, in every new plan, consider carefully whether its success in
your hands, after you have tried it and found it successful, be owing to
its novelty and to your own special interest in it, or to its own innate
and intrinsic superiority. If the former, use it so long as it will
last, simply to give variety and interest to your plans. Recommend it in
conversation or in other ways to teachers with whom you are acquainted,
not as a wonderful discovery, which is going to change the whole science
of education, but as one method among others which may be introduced
from time to time to relieve the monotony of the teacher's labors.
In a word, do not go away from the established institutions of our
country, or deviate from the great objects which are at present, and
ought continually to be pursued by them, without great caution,
circumspection, and deliberate inquiry. But, within these limits,
exercise ingenuity and invention as much as you will. Pursue steadily
the great objects which demand the teacher's attention. They are simple
and few. Never lose sight of them, nor turn to the right or to the left
to follow any ignis fatuus which may arise to allure you away, but
exercise as much ingenuity and enterprise as you please in giving
variety and interest to the modes by which these objects are pursued.
If planning and scheming are confined within these limits, and conducted
on these principles, the teacher will save all the agitating perplexity
and care which will otherwise be his continual portion. He can go
forward peaceably and quietly, and while his own success is greatly
increased, he may be of essential service to the cause in which he is
engaged, by making known his various experiments and plans to others.
For this purpose, it seems to me highly desirable that every teacher
should KEEP A JOURNAL of all his plans. In these should be carefully
entered all his experiments; the new methods he adopts; the course he
takes in regard to difficulties which may arise, and any interesting
incidents which may occur which it would be useful for him to refer to
at some future time. These, or the most interesting of them, should be
made known to other teachers. This may be done in several ways:
(1.) By publishing them in periodicals devoted to education. Such
contributions, furnished by judicious men, would be among the most
valuable articles in such a work. They would be far more valuable than
any general speculations, however well conceived or expressed.
(2.) In newspapers intended for general circulation. There are very few
editors whose papers circulate in families who would not gladly receive
articles of this kind to fill a teacher's department in their columns.
If properly written, they would be read with interest and profit by
multitudes of parents, and would throw much light on family government
and instruction.
(3.) By reading them in teachers' meetings. If half a dozen teachers who
are associated in the same vicinity would meet once a fortnight, simply
to hear each other's journals, they would be amply repaid for their time
and labor. Teachers' meetings will be interesting and useful, when those
who come forward in them will give up the prevailing practice of
delivering orations, and come down at once to the scenes and to the
business of the school-room.
There is one topic connected with the subject of this chapter which
deserves a few paragraphs. I refer to the rights of the committee, or
the trustees, or patrons in the control of the school. The right to such
control, when claimed at all, is usually claimed in reference to the
teacher's new plans, which renders it proper to allude to the subject
here; and it ought not to be omitted, for a great many cases occur in
which teachers have difficulties with the trustees or committee of their
school. Sometimes these difficulties result at last in an open rupture;
at other times in only a slight and temporary misunderstanding, arising
from what the teacher calls an unwise and unwarrantable interference on
the part of the committee or the trustees in the arrangements of the
school. Difficulties of some sort very often arise. In fact, a right
understanding of this subject is, in most cases, absolutely essential to
the harmony and co-operation of the teacher and the representatives of
his patrons.
There are then, it must be recollected, three different parties
connected with every establishment for education: the parents of the
scholars, the teacher, and the pupils themselves. Sometimes, as, for
example, in a common private school, the parents are not organized, and
whatever influence they exert they must exert in their individual
capacity. At other times, as in a common district or town school, they
are by law organized, and the school committee chosen for this purpose
are their legal representatives. In other instances, a board of trustees
are constituted by the appointment of the founders of the institution,
or by the Legislature of a state, to whom is committed the oversight of
its concerns, and who are consequently the representatives of the
founders and patrons of the school.
There are differences between these various modes of organization which
I shall not now stop to examine, as it will be sufficiently correct for
my purpose to consider them all as only various ways of organizing the
_employers_ in the contract by which the teacher is employed. The
teacher is the agent; the patrons represented in these several ways are
the principals. When, therefore, in the following paragraphs I use the
word _employers_, I mean to be understood to speak of the committee, or
the trustees, or the visitors, or the parents themselves, as the case in
each particular institution may be; that is, the persons for whose
purpose and at whose expense the institution is maintained, or their
representatives.
Now there is a very reasonable and almost universally established rule,
which teachers are very frequently prone to forget, namely, _the
employed ought always to be responsible to the employers, and to be
under their direction._ So obviously reasonable is this rule, and, in
fact, so absolutely indispensable in the transaction of all the business
of life, that it would be idle to attempt to establish and illustrate it
here. It has, however, limitations, and it is applicable to a much
greater extent, in some departments of human labor than in others. It is
_applicable_ to the business of teaching, and though I confess that it
is somewhat less absolute and imperious here, still it is obligatory, I
believe, to a far greater extent than teachers have been generally
willing to admit.
A young lady, I will imagine, wishes to introduce the study of Botany
into her school. The parents or the committee object; they say that they
wish the children to confine their attention exclusively to the
elementary branches of education. "It will do them no good," says the
chairman of the committee, "to learn by heart some dozen or two of
learned names. We want them to read well, to write well, and to
calculate well, and not to waste their time in studying about pistils,
and stamens, and nonsense."
Now what is the duty of the teacher in such a case? Why, very plainly
her duty is the same as that of the governor of a state, where the
people, through their representatives, regularly chosen, negative a
proposal which he considers calculated to promote the public good. It is
his duty to submit to the public will; and, though he may properly do
all in his power to present the subject to his employers in such a light
as to lead them to regard it as he does, he must still, until they do so
regard it, bow to their authority; and every magistrate who takes an
enlarged and comprehensive view of his duties as the executive of a
republican community, will do this without any humiliating feelings of
submission to unauthorized interference with his plans. He will, on the
other hand, enjoy the satisfaction of feeling that he confines himself
to his proper sphere, and leave to others the full possession of rights
which properly pertain to them.
It is so with every case where the relation of employer and employed
subsists. You engage a carpenter to erect a house for you, and you
present your plan; instead of going to work and executing your orders
according to your wishes, he falls to criticising and condemning it; he
finds fault with this, and ridicules that, and tells you you ought to
make such and such an alteration in it. It is perfectly right for him to
give his opinion, in the tone and spirit of _recommendation or
suggestion_, with a distinct understanding that with his employer rests
the power and the right to decide. But how many teachers take
possession of their school-room as though it was an empire in which they
are supreme, who resist every interference of their employers as they
would an attack upon their personal freedom, and who feel that in regard
to every thing connected with school they have really no actual
responsibility.
In most cases, the employers, knowing how sensitive teachers very
frequently are on this point, acquiesce in it, and leave them to
themselves. Whenever, in any case, they think that the state of the
school requires their interference, they come cautiously and fearfully
to the teacher, as if they were encroaching upon his rights, instead of
advancing with the confidence and directness with which employers have
always a right to approach the employed; and the teacher, with the view
he has insensibly taken of the subject, being perhaps confirmed by the
tone and manner which his employers use, makes the conversation quite as
often an occasion of resentment and offense as of improvement. He is
silent, perhaps, but in his heart he accuses his committee or his
trustees of improper interference in _his_ concerns, as though it was no
part of _their_ business to look after work which is going forward for
their advantage, and for which they pay.
Perhaps some individuals who have had some collision with their trustees
or committee will ask me if I mean that a teacher ought to be entirely
and immediately under the supervision and control of the trustees, just
as a mechanic is when employed by another man. By no means. There are
various circumstances connected with the nature of this employment, such
as the impossibility of the employers fully understanding it in all its
details, and the character and the standing of the teacher himself,
which always will, in matter of fact, prevent this. The employers always
will, in a great many respects, place more confidence in the teacher and
in his views than they will in their own. But still, the ultimate power
is theirs. Even if they err, if they wish to have a course pursued
which is manifestly inexpedient and wrong, _they still have a right to
decide._ It is their work; it is going on at their instance and at their
expense, and the power of ultimate decision on all disputed questions
must, from the very nature of the case, rest with them. The teacher may,
it is true, have his option either to comply with their wishes or to
seek employment in another sphere; but while he remains in the employ of
any persons, whether in teaching or in any other service, he is bound to
yield to the wishes of his employers when they insist upon it, and to
submit good-humoredly to their direction when they shall claim their
undoubted right to direct.
This is to be done, it must be remembered, when they are wrong as well
as when they are right. The obligation of the teacher is not founded
upon _the superior wisdom_ of his employers in reference to the business
for which they have engaged him, for they are very probably his
inferiors in this respect, but _upon their right as employers_ to
determine _how their own work shall be done._ A gardener, we will
suppose, is engaged by a gentleman to lay out his grounds. The gardener
goes to work, and, after a few hours, the gentleman comes out to see how
he goes on and to give directions. He proposes something which the
gardener, who, to make the case stronger, we will suppose knows better
than the proprietor of the grounds, considers ridiculous and absurd;
nay, we will suppose _it is_ ridiculous and absurd. Now what can the
gardener do? There are obviously two courses. He can say to the
proprietor, after a vain attempt to convince him he is wrong, "Well,
sir, I will do just as you say. The grounds are yours: I have no
interest in it or responsibility, except to accomplish your wishes."
This would be right. Or he might say, "Sir, you have a right to direct
upon your own grounds, and I do not wish to interfere with your plans;
but I must ask you to obtain another gardener. I have a reputation at
stake, and this work, if I do it even at your direction, will be
considered as a specimen of my taste and of my planning, so that I must,
in justice to myself, decline remaining in your employment." This, too,
would be right, though probably, both in the business of gardening and
of teaching, the case ought to be a strong one to render it expedient.
But it would not be right for him, after his employer should have gone
away, to say to himself, with a feeling of resentment at the imaginary
_interference_, "I shall not follow any such directions; I understand my
own trade, and shall receive no instructions in it from him," and then,
disobeying all directions, go on and do the work contrary to the orders
of his employer, who alone has a right to decide.
And yet a great many teachers take a course as absurd and unjustifiable
as this would be. Whenever the parents, or the committee, or the
trustees express, however mildly and properly, their wishes in regard to
the manner in which they desire to have their own work performed, their
pride is at once aroused. They seem to feel it an indignity to act in
any other way than just in accordance with their own will and pleasure;
and they absolutely refuse to comply, resenting the interference as an
insult; or else, if they apparently yield, it is with mere cold
civility, and entirely without any honest desire to carry the wishes
thus expressed into actual effect.
Parents may, indeed, often misjudge. A good teacher will, however, soon
secure their confidence, and they may acquiesce in his opinion. But they
ought to be watchful, and the teacher ought to feel and acknowledge
their authority on all questions connected with the education of their
children. They have originally entire power in regard to the course
which is to be pursued with them. Providence has made the parents
responsible, and wholly responsible, for the manner in which their
children are prepared for the duties of this life, and it is interesting
to observe how very cautious the laws of society are about interfering
with the parent's wishes in regard to the education of the child. There
are many cases in which enlightened governments might make arrangements
which would be better than those made by the parents if they are left to
themselves. But they will not do it; they ought not to do it. God has
placed the responsibility in the hands of the father and mother, and
unless the manner in which it is exercised is calculated to endanger or
to injure the community, there can rightfully be no interference except
that of argument and persuasion.
It ought also to be considered that upon the parents will come the
consequences of the good or bad education of their children, and not
upon the teacher, and consequently it is right that they should direct.
The teacher remains, perhaps, a few months with his charge, and then
goes to other places, and perhaps hears of them no more. He has thus
very little at stake. The parent has every thing at stake; and it is
manifestly unjust to give one man the power of deciding, while he
escapes all the consequences of his mistakes, if he makes any, and to
take away all the _power_ from those upon whose heads all the suffering
which will follow an abuse of the power must descend.