You have entered upon a new and untried path. As one having been often
over this way, and well acquainted with the features of the country
before you, its lights and shadows, its roses and its thorns, its safe
walks and its hidden pitfalls, I desire to talk with you a while before
you enter upon the untried scene.
1. First of all let me say to you, we give you a most hearty welcome. We
are glad to see you here, and we tender to you in advance a warm and
ready sympathy in the many little worries, annoyances, and
discouragements that surely await you. For myself I may truly say, that,
outside of my own home, I have no greater happiness than to be among my
pupils, and few things could pain me more than to believe that any one
who had been for any considerable time my pupil would not almost
unconsciously claim me as a friend; and it is an unceasing well-spring
of joy for me to know that among your companions are many who, in time
of trouble or difficulty or anxiety of any kind, would come to the
Principal of the School, as sure of sympathy as if going to their own
mother.
This freedom of intercourse between teachers and their pupils, this
mutual exchange of confidence on one side and of sympathy on the other,
is a source of good and a source of pleasure, which neither you nor we,
my young friend, can afford to forego; and if in the expression of this
thought I have indulged in a rather unseemly use of the first person
singular, it is not because I would claim for myself anything peculiar
in this matter, but because, from my years and my position, I can
perhaps, better than my associates, afford to speak out thus the inward
promptings of the heart. We _all_ give you the right hand of fellowship,
and trust it will not be many weeks, or days even, before you shall feel
that you have here a home as well as a school, friends as well as
teachers.
2. A very common feeling at the beginning of a course of study, is a
feeling of discouragement. Nearly all the studies are new, and you enter
upon each with fresh eagerness. Now, it is in the nature of every study
while it is new, to seem boundless. Under the guiding hand of a skilful
teacher, its limits and capabilities are stretched out in one direction
and another, interminable vistas spread out in the distance, and
portentous difficulties rise up before the imagination, until the mind
is bewildered.
There is not one, of the formidable lists of studies before you, that
might not of itself, so great are its capabilities, occupy your whole
time. When you find yourself called to grapple at once with four or five
such studies, to measure yourself with competitors, many of whom have
had opportunities of preparation greatly superior to your own, and in
the presence of teachers to whom the whole subject is as familiar and as
plain as the alphabet, and when, in addition, the methods of recitation
are for the most part new and strange, you are very apt to become
discouraged, to feel that you shall never learn to recite in the manner
required, that you can never master the difficulties before you. This
feeling arises most frequently in the best class of minds, those most
conscientious in regard to duty and most capable of comprehending the
full length and breadth and depth of a subject. The shallow and the
trifling are never troubled with the kind of difficulties now under
consideration.
I address myself to you, my young friend, because I know you have come
here with an earnest purpose, with a mind acute enough to see something
of the vast work before you, and I say to you, as one who has had large
experience in conducting other pilgrims over the same track, never lose
heart. Difficulties which now seem insurmountable, will gradually
disappear; subjects which now seem impenetrable, will soon lighten up.
Did you never enter a room in the dark? At first the apartment is a
universal blank. After a while, as your eyes become adjusted to the
place, one article after another of the furniture becomes outlined to
the vision, until at length, especially if approaching day lends some
additional rays of light, the whole scene stands out perfectly defined.
So it is in entering upon a new study. Many a passage in it will seem to
you at first a worse than Serbonian bog--a cave of impenetrable and
undistinguishable darkness. But draw not back. Look steadily on. Light
will come in time. Your power of seeing will, with every new trial,
receive adjustment and growth, and you will in the end see with full
and open vision where now you have only dim glimpses and guesses. Do not
be discouraged, therefore, if at first you fail, or seem to yourself to
fail, in almost every recitation you undertake. What seems impossible
to-day, will be only next to impossible to-morrow, and only very
difficult the day after. Your failures are often only the proofs that
you have a glimpse at least of something below the surface of things. A
discouraged pupil is never a source of anxiety to me. It is only the
self-confident and over-wearing that are hopeless.
3. I have spoken of recitations. Let me urge you to form some definite
idea of what a recitation is, and what kind of a recitation you, as a
pupil of a Normal School, should aim to make. And first of all, on this
point, let me say, the mere answering of questions, and especially, the
mere response of yes and no to questions, is not reciting,--assuredly
not such reciting as is to fit you for the office of a teacher. And, in
the next place, let me say, that repeating verbatim the words of the
book, is not the method of recitation at which you should aim. I do not
agree with those who would dissuade you entirely from cultivating the
faculty and enriching the stores of memory. Not only memory, in its
general exercise, but a purely verbal memory, is important. In your
lessons, are many things, rules, definitions, and so forth, that should
be learned with the most literal exactness, and should be so fixed in
the memory that they will come at your bidding, in any place, at any
moment. There are, too, in some of your books, passages from noble
authors, which furnish food and nourishment to the soul, and which the
mind craves in the very form and lineaments of their birth--passages
which are like nuggets of virgin gold, or coins from the mint of some
great sovereign in the realms of thought. They form a part of your
wealth, and you want them, neither clipped, nor defaced, nor alloyed,
but with every word and point exactly as it came from the hand of the
master. These precious gems of thought, the garnered wealth of the ages,
will not be neglected by any one who is wise. Treasure up in your
intellectual storehouse as many of them as you can possibly compass,
only with this proviso, be careful to select for this purpose the very
best out of the great abundance that is before you, and make thorough
work in what you do attempt to commit to memory. The act of memorizing
will at once strengthen the faculty of memory itself, and will enrich
you otherwise. By all means, therefore, learn by heart the leading
definitions and rules of your text-books, and choice passages from all
famous authors. But do not attempt in this way to commit to memory, or
to recite verbatim, the pages of your history, geography, rhetoric, and
so forth. Such a practice would be a most unwise waste of your time, and
would cause a weakening, rather than a strengthening, of your faculties.
Let me tell you exactly what I mean by reciting. Your teacher goes to
the board and, chalk in hand, explains to the class some point which
they seem not to have apprehended. That is my idea of reciting. First
get thorough possession of the thoughts or facts of the lesson, and
then, imagining the class and the teacher to be ignorant of the subject,
explain it to them, just as you will expect to do when the time comes
that you will have a class of your own to instruct. It will aid you in
preparing thus to recite a lesson, if in your rooms you will go over it
aloud to each other, you and your room-mate, taking alternate portions.
Such a method of preparation will doubtless require some time. But one
lesson so prepared will be worth more to you than a whole week of study
conducted in the ordinary manner. Remember, that in a Normal School your
object is, not merely to get knowledge, but to learn how to communicate
what you have learned. First then go over a topic till you are sure you
understand it. Then go over it again and again until you can recite
readily and perfectly every part of it, in its order. Then practise
yourself in telling it in your own words, aloud, if possible, to
somebody else, until you can make the narration or explanation
continuously, from beginning to end, and without the possibility of
being thrown out or confused by any amount of interruptions. Then at
length are you prepared to recite.
Is this standard of recitation too high? Is it not what every one of
your teachers does daily, and what you yourself will have to do the very
first time you take your position as a teacher of others?
4. This leads me by a natural transition to the subject of _study_. You
need to learn how to study, as much as you need to learn how to recite.
Endeavor then to get some definite idea in your mind of what it is
really to study. Mere reading is not study. Muttering the words over in
a low, gurgling tone, or letting them glide in a soft, half-audible
ripple upon your lips, is not study. Going over the lesson in a
listless, dreamy way, one eye on the book and one eye ready for whatever
is going on in other parts of the room, is not study. Study is work.
Study is agony. The whole soul must be roused, its every energy put
forth, with a fixed, rapt attention, like that of a man struggling with
a giant. Study, worthy of the name, forgets for the time every thing
else, excludes every thing else, is incapable of being diverted by any
thing else, the whole internal and external man being bent upon making
just one thing its own. Such study of course soon exhausts the energies.
It cannot be long protracted, nor need it be protracted. Take rest in
the season of rest; but, when you study, study with all your might.
Throw your whole soul into it. One hour of such study accomplishes more
than whole days of listless poring over books. And, remember, you cannot
study in this manner by merely willing to do it. It is an art, requiring
training and practice, and thorough mental discipline. You might as
well, on seeing the Writing-Master executing those marvels of
penmanship, or the Drawing-Teacher with deft fingers limning with ease
forms of grace and beauty, resolve to go forthwith to the board and do
the same thing, as expect, by a mere _sic volo_, to become a student.
You are here to learn how to study, and the art will come to you only by
slow progress, and after many trials.
Give up the illusion that absolute seclusion and silence are necessary
to study. I do not say that they are not at times desirable. But they do
not of themselves generate earnest thought. The vacant mind, that has
not yet learned to think, is when thus left to solitude and stillness,
quite as likely to go a wool-gathering, or to fall asleep, as to wrestle
with some hard uninviting train of thought. The appliances and the
invitations to mental application, if we have really learned to study,
must be mainly in ourselves, not in our surroundings. Besides, the
greater part of the actual thinking and study, that has to be done by
those in professional life, that will have to be done by you, when you
enter upon the practice of your profession as a teacher, must be done in
circumstances not of your own choosing, just as time and opportunity may
offer, by snatches, and at odd intervals, and often in the midst of
distracting sights and sounds. I venture to say that three fourths of
the graduates of this school, who are now teaching, have no opportunity
for daily study and preparation for the duties of the school-room,
except that afforded by a seat in the evening in the common sitting-room
of the family, surrounded by children that are not always models of
behavior, and within sight and hearing of all the petty details of
household life. It is not therefore in itself undesirable that a part at
least of your study at school should be performed in a common room,
where there are some temptations to be resisted, some distractions to be
ignored. Acquiring the ability to study without distraction in the
presence of others and in the midst even of confusion and noise, is as
important to you as is the learning how to think aloud, in the presence
of a class, which I have defined to be the true nature of a recitation.
The ability to study and the ability to recite are intimately
correlated, and the symptoms of both are unmistakable to the practised
eye and ear. I know just as well, by a glance of the eye on entering a
study-room, what pupils are making intellectual growth, as I do on
entering the class-room and listening to the recitations. One might as
well feign to be in a fever, as to feign study. Nothing but the thing
itself can assume its appearance.
5. I approach my next subject of remark with some hesitation. Yet on no
point, in the whole theory of mental action, have I a more fixed and
assured conviction. Perhaps I may explain my meaning better, if I
introduce it with one or two comparisons.
Action of every kind, mental or material, is to be aided or accelerated,
if at all, by forces of the same kind with the primary force. If a
certain amount of weight avoirdupois will not make the scale kick the
beam, we may produce the effect by laying on the requisite number of
additional pounds,--by adding force of the same kind with the original.
If the flame of one candle does not produce the illumination required
for a particular effort, the addition of a second or a third will. If we
wish to increase the speed of a locomotive, we do not whistle to it, or
whip it, or say "get up;" we add steam. If on the other hand we wish our
horse to travel faster, we use a motive addressed to his nature. We
appeal to his generosity, his pride, or his fear. So mental action is
influenced and induced by forces of the same nature with itself. One
mind influences powerfully another mind, working upon us often, too, by
mysterious influences that elude analysis. The influence of mind upon
mind, other things being equal, is in proportion to the degree of
perfection in which these three conditions exist, to wit, the fulness
of accord and sympathy between the minds that are brought into contact,
the closeness of the contact, and the greatness and power of the
influencing and controlling mind. These three points hardly need
explanation or argument. Nothing is more obvious than that a mind fully
in sympathy with another, does by that very circumstance exercise an
increased mental power on that other. In like manner we all feel daily
how our minds are lifted up, enlarged, enlightened, strengthened, by
intercourse with one of powerful intellect. And how often have we felt,
when ourselves wishing to influence any one, particularly when wishing
to influence one much younger and weaker than ourselves, that we might
accomplish our ends the better, if we could only know certainly and
exactly what he was thinking, if we could as it were actually get into
the chamber of his soul. This indeed we can never do. We think sometimes
that we come very near to each other. But after all we never touch.
Between my mind and yours, between yours and that of the most intimate
friend you have in the world, there is a barrier, high as heaven, deep
as hell, impenetrable as adamant. Thus far can we come and no farther.
We can never enter into the soul of any human being. No human being can
ever enter into ours. Yet, my dear pupil, did it never occur to you,
that there is One Mind, and that a mind of infinitely great and
transcendent power, to which there is no such barrier, and that this
transcendent, all-knowing, all-powerful mind, is continually in direct
contact with the very essence of your mind? Can I influence your
thinking faculties, and cannot the infinite God, who made those
faculties? Can He who gave our bodies all their power of growth and
strength, not give growth and strength to our minds? I do not profess to
understand how the divine mind acts upon the human mind. I cannot always
understand even how one human mind acts upon another. But of the fact I
make no more question, than I do of the powers of flame, of steam, or of
gravitation. And, as one set here to guide you in your mental progress,
in all sober earnestness, I exhort you devoutly to invoke the aid of the
Holy Ghost in the promotion of your studies--not merely to help you to
use your acquisitions rightly, for his honor and the good of your kind,
but to help you in making those acquisitions. If you would rise superior
to discouragement, if you would acquire that mental discipline which is
to enable you to study, and to recite and to teach in the very best and
highest manner, pray. Call mightily upon God the Holy Ghost, who is
after all the great educator and teacher of the human race. Carry your
feeble lamp to the great fountain of light and radiance. Put your heart
into full accord and sympathy with that of your dear elder Brother.
Wrestle mightily with God in secret, as one that feels the burden of a
great want. Thus, my dear pupil, will you best fit yourself for the
duties of a student and of a teacher. For, believe me, there is sound
philosophy as well as religion, in the utterance of the wise man, "The
fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge." Surely that man is a
fool, who in cultivating mind, whether his own or that of another,
neglects to invoke the aid of the Infinite Mind.