THE TEACHER-POLITICIAN
=The politician defined.=--The politician has been defined as one who
makes a careful study of the wants of his community and is diligent in
his efforts to supply these wants. This definition has, at the very
least, the merit of mitigating, if not removing, the stigma that
attaches to politicians in the popular thought. Conceding the
correctness of this definition, it must be evident that society is the
beneficiary of the work of the politician, and would be the gainer if
the number of politicians were multiplied. The motive of self-interest
lies back of all human activities, and education is constantly striving
to stimulate and accentuate this motive. Even in altruism we may find an
admixture of self-interest. The merchant who arranges his goods
artistically may hope by this means to win more patronage, but, aside
from this, he wins a feeling of gratification. His self-interest may
look either toward a greater volume of business or to a better class of
patrons, or both. While he is enlarging the scope of his business, he
may be elevating the taste of his customers. In either case his
self-interest is commendable. A successful merchant is better for the
community than an unsuccessful one.
=Self-interest.=--The physician is actuated by the motive of
self-interest, also. His years of training are but a preparation for the
competition that is certain to fall to his lot. He is gratified at the
increase of his popularity as a successful practitioner. But he
prescribes modes of living as well as remedies, and so tries to
forestall and prevent disease, while he is exercising his curative
skill. He tries not only to restore health, but also to promote good
health in the community by his recommendations of pure food, pure water,
fresh air, and exercise. His motives are altruistic even while he is
consulting self-interest. None but the censorious will criticize the
minister for accepting a larger parish even with a larger salary
attached. The larger parish will afford him a wider field for
usefulness, and the larger salary will enable him to execute more of his
laudable plans.
=The methods of the politician.=--Hence it will be seen that, in the
right sense, merchants, physicians, and ministers are all politicians in
that they seek to expand the sphere of their activities. Like the
politician they study the wants of the people in order to win a starting
point for leadership. True, there are quacks, charlatans, hypocrites,
and demagogues, but none of these, nor all combined, avail to disprove
the validity of the principle. It has often been said that the churches
would do well to study and use the art of advertising that is so well
understood by the saloons. This is another way of saying that the
methods of the politician will avail in promoting right activities as
well as wrong ones. The politician, whether he is a business man or a
professional man, proceeds from the known to the related unknown, and
thus shows himself a conscious or unconscious student of psychology. He
studies that which is in order to promote that which should be.
=Leadership.=--The politician aspires to leadership, and that is
praiseworthy, provided his cause is a worthy one. If the cause is
unworthy, the cloven foot will soon appear and repudiation will ensue,
which will mark him unsuccessful as a politician. He may be actuated by
the motive of self-interest, in common with all others, but this
interest may focus in the amelioration of conditions as they are or in
the advancement of his friends. The satisfaction of leadership is the
sole reward of many a politician, with the added pleasure of seeing his
friends profit by this leadership. A statesman is a politician grown
large--large in respect to motives, to plans and purposes, and to
methods. The fundamental principle, however, remains constant.
=The politician worthy of imitation.=--The successful politician must
know people and their wants. He must know conditions in order to direct
the course of his activities. Otherwise, he will find himself moving at
random, and this may prove disastrous to his purposes. Much misdirected
effort has been expended in disparaging the politician and his methods.
If the man and his methods were better understood, they would often be
found worthy of close imitation in the home, in the school, in the
church, in the professions, and in business.
=Education and substitution.=--Education, in the large, is the process
of making substitutions. Evermore, in school work, we are striving to
substitute something better for something not so good. In brief, we are
striving to substitute needs for wants. But before we can do this we
must determine, by careful study and close observation, what the wants
are. Ability to substitute needs for wants betokens a high type of
leadership. The boy wants to read Henty, but needs to read Dickens or
Shakespeare. How shall the teacher proceed in order to make the
substitution? Certainly it cannot be done by any mere fiat or ukase.
Those who are incredulous as to the wisdom of establishing colleges of
education and normal schools to generate and promote methods of teaching
have here a concrete and pertinent question: Can a college of education
or normal school give to an embryo teacher any method by which she may
effectively substitute Shakespeare for Henty?
=Methods contrasted.=--Some teachers have attempted to make this
substitution by means of ridicule and sarcasm and then called the boy
stupid because he continued to read his Henty. Others have indulged in
rhapsodies on Shakespeare, hoping to inoculate the boy with the
Shakespearean virus, and then called the boy stolid because he failed to
share their apparent rapture. The politician would have pursued neither
of these plans. His inherent or acquired psychology would have
admonished him to begin where the boy is. He would have gone to Henty to
find the boy. Having found him, he would have sat down beside him and
entered into his interest in the book. In time he would have found
something in the book to remind him of a passage in Shakespeare. This
passage he would have read in his best style and then resumed the
reading of Henty. Thus, by degrees, he would have effected the
substitution, permitting the boy to think that this had been done on his
own initiative.
=The principle illustrated.=--The vitalized teacher observes, profits
by, and initiates into her work the method of the politician and so
makes her school work vital. Beginning with what the boy wants, she
lures him along, by easy stages, until she has brought him within the
circle of her own wants, which are, in reality, the needs of the boy.
The boy walks along in paces, let us say, of eighteen inches. The
teacher moderates her gait to harmonize with his, but gradually
lengthens her paces to two feet. At first, she kept step with him; now
he is keeping step with her and finds the enterprise an exhilarating
adventure. She is teaching the boy to walk in strides two feet in
length, and begins with his native tendency to step eighteen inches.
Thus she begins where the boy is, by acquainting herself with his wants,
attaches her teaching to his native tendencies, and then proceeds from
the known to the related unknown. Libraries abound in books that explain
lucidly this simple elementary principle of teaching, but many teachers
still seem to find it difficult of application.
=Substitution illustrated.=--This method of substitution becomes the
rule of the school through the skill of the vitalized teacher. The lily
of the valley is substituted for the sunflower, in the children's
esteem, and there is generated a taste for the exquisite. The copy of
the masterpiece of art supplants the bizarre chromo; correct forms of
speech take the place of incorrect forms; the elegant usurps the place
of the inelegant; and the inartistic gives place to the artistic. The
circle of their wants is extended until it includes their needs, and
these, in turn, are transformed into wants. Thus all the pupils ascend
to a higher level of appreciation of the things that make for a more
comfortable and agreeable civilization. They work under the spell of
leadership, for real leadership always inspires confidence.
=Society and the school.=--At its best, society is but an enlarged copy
of the vitalized school. Or, to put it in another way, the vitalized
school is society in miniature. As the school is engaged in the work of
making substitutions, so, in fact, is society. Legislative bodies are
striving to substitute wise laws for the laws that have fallen behind
the needs of the times, that the interests of society may be fully
conserved. The church is substituting better methods of work in all its
activities for the methods that have become antiquated or ineffective.
This it does in the hope that its influence may be broadened and
deepened. Ministers and officials are constantly pondering the question
of substitutions. The farmer is substituting better methods of tilling
the soil for the methods that were in vogue in a former time before
science had invaded the realms of agriculture, to the end that he may
increase the yield of his fields, make larger contributions to commerce,
increase his profits, and so be better able to gratify some of the
higher desires of his nature.
=The automobile factory.=--Each successive model in an automobile
factory is a concrete illustration of the process of making
substitutions, and each substituted part bears witness to a close
scrutiny of past experiences as well as of the wants of prospective
purchasers. The self-starter was a want at first; but now it is a need,
and, therefore, a necessity. If the school would but make as careful
study of the boy's experiences and his wants as the manufacturer does in
the case of automobiles, and then would attach the substitutions to
these experiences and wants, the boy would very soon find himself in
happy possession of a self-starter which would prove to be the very
crown of school work. The automobile manufacturer is both a psychologist
and a politician.
=Results of substitutions.=--As a result of substitutions we have better
roads, better houses, better laws, cleaner streets, better fences,
better machinery, more sanitary conditions, and a higher type of
conduct. We step to a higher level upon the experiences of the past and
make substitutions as we move upward. The progress of civilization is
measured by the character of these substitutions and the rapidity with
which they are made. The people on the Isle of Marken make but few
substitutions, and these only at long intervals, and so they are looked
upon as curiosities among humans. In all our missionary enterprises we
are endeavoring to persuade the peoples among whom we are working to
make substitutions. Instead of their own, we would have them accept our
books, our styles of clothing, our plans of government, our modes of
living, our means of transportation, and, in short, our standards of
life. But, first of all, we must learn their standards of life;
otherwise we cannot proceed intelligently or effectively in the line of
substitutions. We must know their language before we can teach them
ours, and we must translate our books into their language before we can
hope to substitute our books for theirs. All the substitutions we hope
to make presuppose a knowledge of their wants. Hence the methods of the
missionary bear a close analogy to the methods of the politician.
=The Idealist.=--This is equally true of the vitalized teacher. She is a
practical idealist. In the words of the poet, her reach is beyond her
grasp, and this proclaims her an idealist. In her capacity as a
politician she makes a close study of the wants of her constituents,
both pupils and parents, and so learns how best to articulate school
work with the interests of the community. She does not hold aloof from
her pupils or their homes, but studies them at close range, as do the
missionary and the politician. She lives among them and so learns their
language and their modes of thinking and living. Only so can she come
into sympathetic relations with them and be of greatest service to them
in promoting right substitutions. She finds one boy surcharged with the
instinct of pugnacity. This tendency manifests itself both in school and
at home. Her own conclusions are ratified by the parents. He wants to
fight. His whole nature cries aloud for battle. In such a case, neither
repression nor suppression will avail. So she attaches a phase of school
work to this native disposition and gives his pugnacious instinct a fair
field.
=An example.=--Enlisting him as her champion in a tournament, she pits
against him a doughty antagonist in the form of a problem in arithmetic.
In tones of encouragement she gives the signal and the fight is on. The
boy pummels that problem as he would belabor a schoolmate on the
playground. His whole being is focused upon the adventure. And when he
has won his meed of praise, he feels himself a real champion. The
teacher merely substituted mind for hands in the contest and so fell in
with his notion that fighting is quite right if only the cause is a
worthy one. He is quick to see the distinction and so makes the
substitution with alacrity and with no loss of self-respect. Ever after
he disdains the vulgar brawl and does not lose the fighting instinct.
Thus the vitalized teacher by knowing how to make substitutions wins for
society a valiant champion. If we multiply this example, we shall
readily see how such a teacher-politician deserves the distinction of
being termed a practical idealist.
QUESTIONS AND EXERCISES
1. Distinguish the following terms: demagogue; politician; statesman;
and practical idealist.
2. Subject to what limitations should a successful teacher be a
politician?
3. Enumerate the qualities of a successful politician that teachers
should possess.
4. How does the author define education? Criticize this definition.
5. What resemblances has the process of education to the evolution of
machinery? to the evolution of biological species?
6. Describe methods by which the tactful teacher may secure helpful
substitutions in the child's life.
7. In what respects does society resemble a vitalized school?
8. Illustrate how teachers may utilize for the education of the child
seemingly harmful instincts.