at hand, our young people have achieved the endowment of appreciation,
life will be for them a fuller and richer experience and they will be
better fitted to play their parts as intelligent, cultivated men and
women. The gateways will stand wide open through which they can enter into
the palace of life to revel in all its beauteous splendor. They will
receive a welcome into the friendship of the worthy good and great of all
ages. When they have gained an appreciation of the real meaning of
literature, children who have become immortal will cluster about them and
nestle close in their thoughts and affections,--Tiny Tim, Little Jo,
Little Nell, Little Boy Blue, and Eppie. A visitor in Turner's studio once
said to the artist, "Really, Mr. Turner, I can't see in nature the colors
you portray on canvas." Whereupon the artist replied, "Don't you wish you
could?" When our pupils gain the ability to read and enjoy the message of
the artist they will be able to hold communion with Raphael, Michael
Angelo, Murillo, Rembrandt, Rosa Bonheur, Titian, Corot, Andrea del Sarto,
Correggio, Fra Angelico, and Ghiberti. In the realms of poetry they will
be able to hold agreeable converse with Shelley, Keats, Southey, Mrs.
Browning, Milton, Victor Hugo, Hawthorne, Poe, and Shakespeare. And when
the great procession of artists, poets, scientists, historians,
dramatists, statesmen, and philanthropists file by to greet their gaze,
entranced they will be able to applaud.
CHAPTER SIX
ASPIRATION
Browning says, "'Tis not what man Does which exalts him, but what man
Would do." The boy who has acquired the habit of wishing ardently in right
directions is well on the way toward becoming educated. For earnest
wishing precedes and conditions every achievement that is worthy the name.
The man who does not wish does not achieve, and the man who does wish with
persistency and consistency does not fail of achievement. Had Columbus not
wished with consuming ardor to circumnavigate the globe, he would never
have encountered America. The Atlantic cable figured in the dreams and
wishes of Cyrus W. Field long before even the preliminaries became
realities. The wish evermore precedes the blueprint. It required forty-two
years for Ghiberti to translate his dream into the reality that we know as
the bronze doors of the Baptistry. But had there been no dreams there had
been no bronze doors, and the world of art would have been the poorer.
Every tunnel that pierces a mountain; every bridge that spans a river;
every building whose turrets pierce the sky; every invention that lifts a
burden from the shoulders of humanity; every reform that gilds the world
with the glow of hope, was preceded by a wish whose gossamer strands were
woven in a human brain. The Red Cross of today is but a dream of Henri
Dunant realized and grown large.
The student who scans the records of historical achievements and of the
triumphs of art, music, science, literature, and philanthropy must realize
that ardent wishing is the condition precedent to further extension in any
of these lines, and he must be aware, too, that the ranks of wishers must
be recruited from among the children of our schools. The yearning to
achieve is the urge of the divine part of each one of us, and it naturally
follows that whoever does not have this yearning has been reduced to the
plane of abnormality in that the divine part of him has been subordinated,
submerged, stifled. Every fervent wish is a prayer that emanates from this
divine part of us, and, in all reverence, it may be said that we help to
answer our own prayers. When we wish ardently we work earnestly to cause
our dreams to come true. We are told that every wish comes true if we only
wish hard enough, and this statement finds abundant confirmation in the
experiences of those who have achieved.
The child's wishes have their origin and abode in his native interests and
when we have determined what his wishes are, we have in hand the clue that
will lead us to the inmost shrine of his native tendencies. This, as has
been so frequently said, is the point of attack for all our teaching, this
the particular point that is most sensitive to educational inoculation. If
we find that the boy is eager to have a wireless outfit and is working
with supreme intensity to crystallize his wish into tangible and workable
form, quite heedless of clock hours, it were unkind to the point of
cruelty and altogether unpedagogical to force him away from this congenial
task into some other work that he will do only in a heartless and
perfunctory way. If we yearn to have him study Latin, we shall do well to
carry the wireless outfit over into the Latin field, for the boy will
surely follow wherever this outfit leads. But if we destroy the wireless
apparatus, in the hope that we shall thus stimulate his interest in Latin,
the scar that we shall leave upon his spirit will rise in judgment against
us to the end of life. The Latin may be desirable and necessary for the
boy, but the wireless comes first in his wishes and we must go to the
Latin by way of the wireless.
It is the high privilege of the teacher to make and keep her pupils
hungry, to stimulate in them an incessant ardent longing and yearning.
This is her chief function. If she does this she will have great occasion
to congratulate herself upon her own progress as well as theirs. If they
are kept hungry, the sources of supply will not be able to elude them, for
children have great facility and resourcefulness in the art of foraging.
They readily discover the lurking places of the substantials as well as of
the tid-bits and the sweets. They easily scent the trail of the food for
which their spiritual or bodily hunger calls. The boy who yearns for the
wireless need not be told where he may find screws, bolts, and hammer. The
girl who yearns to paint will somehow achieve pigments, brushes, palette,
and teachers. Appetite is the principal thing; the rest comes easy. The
hungry child lays the whole world under tribute and cheerfully
appropriates whatever fits into his wishes. If his neighbor a mile distant
has a book for which he feels a craving, the two-mile walk in quest of
that book is invested with supreme charm, no matter what the weather. The
apple may be hanging on the topmost bough, but the boy who is apple-hungry
recks not of height nor of the labyrinth of hostile branches. He gets the
apple. As some one has said, "The soul reaches out for the cloak that fits
it."
There is nothing more pathetic in the whole realm of school procedure than
the frantic efforts of some teachers to feed their pupils instead of
striving to create spiritual hunger. They require pupils to "take" so many
problems, con so many words of spelling, turn so many pages of a book on
history, and then have them try to repeat in an agony of effort words from
a book that they neither understand nor feel an interest in. The teacher
would feed them whether they have any craving for food or not. Such
teachers seem to be immune to the teachings of psychology and pedagogy;
they continue to travel the way their grandparents trod, spurning the
practices of Pestalozzi, Froebel, and Francis Parker. They seem not to
know that their pupils are predatory beings who are quite capable of
ransacking creation to get the food for which they feel a craving. Not
appreciating the nature of their pupils, they continue the process of
feeding and stuffing them and thus fall into the fatal blunder of
mistaking distention for education.
Ruth McEnery Stuart has set out this whole matter most lucidly and
cogently in her volume entitled _Sonny_. In this story the boy had four
teachers who took no account of his aspirations and natural tendencies,
but insisted upon feeding him traditional food by traditional methods. To
them it mattered not that he was unlike other boys. What was suitable for
them must be equally suitable for him. The story goes that a certain
school-master was expounding the passage "Be ye pure in heart." Turning to
the boys he exclaimed, "Are you pure in heart? If you're not, I'll flog
you till you are." So with Sonny's four teachers. If he had no appetite
for their kind of food, they'd feed it to him till he had. But when the
appetite failed to come as the result of their much feeding, they banished
him to outer darkness with epithets expressive of their disappointment and
disgust. They washed their hands of him and were glad to be rid of him.
His next teacher, however, was different. She sensed his unlikeness to
other boys and knew, instinctively, that his case demanded and deserved
special treatment. She consulted his aspirations and appraised his native
tendencies. In doing so, she discovered an embryo naturalist and thus
became aware of the task to which she must address herself. So she spread
her nets for all living and creeping things, for the beasts of the forest,
the birds of the air, for plants, and flowers, and stones,--in short, for
all the works of nature. In name she was his teacher, but in reality she
was his pupil, and his other four teachers might have become members of
the class with rich profit to themselves. In his examination for
graduation the boy utterly confounded and routed the members of the
examining committee by the profundity and breadth of his knowledge and
they were glad to check his onslaught upon the ramparts of their ignorance
by awarding him a diploma.
It devolves upon the superintendent and teachers, therefore, to determine
what studies already in the schools or what others that may be introduced
will best serve the purpose of fostering aspiration. They cannot deny that
this quality is an essential element in the spiritual composition of every
well-conditioned child as well as of every rightly constituted man and
woman. For aspiration means life, and the lack of aspiration means death.
The man who lacks aspiration is static, dormant, lifeless, inert; the man
who has aspiration is dynamic, forceful, potent, regnant. Aspiration is
the animating power that gives wings to the forces of life. It is the
motive power that induces the currents of life. The man who has aspiration
yearns to climb to higher levels, to make excursions into the realms that
lie beyond his present horizon, and to traverse the region that lies
between what he now is and what he may become. It is the dove that goes
forth from the ark to make discovery of the new lands that beckon.
In a former book the author tried to set forth the influence of the poet
in generating aspiration, and in this attempt used the following words:
"When he would teach men to aspire he writes _Excelsior_ and so causes
them to know that only he who aspires really lives. They see the
groundling, the boor, the drudge, and the clown content to dwell in the
valley amid the loaves and fishes of animal desires, while the man who
aspires is struggling toward the heights whence he may gain an outlook
upon the glories that are, know the throb and thrill of new life, and
experience the swing and sweep of spiritual impulses. He makes them to
know that the man who aspires recks not of cold, of storm, or of snow, if
only he may reach the summit and lave his soul in the glory that crowns
the marriage of earth and sky. They feel that the aspirant is but yielding
obedience to the behests of his better self to scale the heights where
sublimity dwells."
It were useless for teachers to pooh-pooh this matter as visionary and
inconsequential or to disregard aspiration as a vital factor in the scheme
of education. This quality is fundamental and may not, therefore, be
either disregarded or slurred. Fundamental qualities must engage the
thoughtful attention of all true educators, for these fundamentals must
constitute the ground-work of every reform in our school procedure. There
can be life without arithmetic, but there can be no real life without
aspiration. It points to higher and fairer levels of life and impels its
possessor onward and upward. This needs to be fully recognized by the
schools that would perform their high functions worthily, and no teacher
can with impunity evade this responsibility. Somehow, we must contrive to
instill the quality of aspiration into the lives of our pupils if we would
acquit ourselves of this obligation. To do less than this is to convict
ourselves of stolidity or impotence.
Chief among the agencies that may be made to contribute generously in this
high enterprise is history, or more specifically, biography, which is
quintessential history. A boy proceeds upon the assumption that what has
been done may be done again and, possibly, done even better. When he reads
of the beneficent achievements of Edison he becomes fired with zeal to
equal if not surpass these achievements. Obstacles do not daunt the boy
who aspires. Everything becomes possible in the light and heat of his
zeal. Since Edison did it, he can do it, and no amount of discouragement
can dissuade him from his lofty purpose. He sets his goal high and marches
toward it with dauntless courage. If a wireless outfit is his goal, bells
may ring and clocks may strike, but he hears or heeds them not.
To be effective the teaching of history must be far more than the mere
droning over the pages of a book. It must be so vital that it will set the
currents of life in motion. In his illuminating report upon the schools of
Denmark, Mr. Edwin G. Cooley quotes Bogtrup on the teaching of history as
follows: "History does not mean books and maps; it is not to be divided
into lessons and gone through with a pointer like any other paltry school
subject. History lies before our eyes like a mighty and turbulent ocean,
into which the ages run like rivers. Its rushing waves bring to our
listening ears the sound of a thousand voices from the olden time. With
our pupils we stand on the edge of a cliff and gaze over this great sea;
we strive to open their eyes to its power and beauty; we point out the
laws of the rise and fall of the waves, and of the strong under-currents.
We strive by poetic speech to open their ears to the voices of the sea
which in our very blood run through the veins from generation to
generation, and, humming and singing, echo in our innermost being."
Such teaching of history as is here portrayed will never fall upon dull
ears or unresponsive spirits. It will thrill the youth with a consuming
desire to be up and doing. He will ignite at touch of the living fire. His
soul will become incandescent and the glow will warm him into noble
action. He yearns to emulate the triumphs of those who have preceded him
on the stage of endeavor. If he reads "The Message to Garcia" he feels
himself pulsating with the zeal to do deeds of valor and heroism. Whether
the records deal with Clara Barton, Nathan Hale, Frances Willard, Mrs.
Stowe, Columbus, Lincoln, William the Silent, Erasmus, or Raphael, if
these people are present as vital entities the young people will thrill
under the spell of the entrancing stories. Then will history and biography
come into their own as means to a great end, and then will aspiration take
its rightful place as one of the large goals in the scheme of education.
As Browning says, "A man's reach should exceed his grasp, or what's a
heaven for?" and again:
What I aspired to be
And was not, comforts me.
CHAPTER SEVEN
INITIATIVE
No one who gives the matter thoughtful consideration will ever deprecate
or disparage the possession of the virtue of obedience; but, on the other
hand, no such thoughtful person will attempt to deny that this virtue,
desirable as it is, may be fostered and emphasized to such a degree that
its possessor will become a mere automaton. And this is bad; indeed, very
bad. We extol obedience, to be sure, but not the sort of blind, unthinking
obedience that will reduce its possessor to the status of the mechanical
toy which needs only to be wound up and set going. The factory
superintendent is glad to have men about him who are able to work
efficiently from blueprints; but he is glad, also, to have men about him
who can dispense with blueprints altogether or can make their own. The
difference between these two types of operatives spells the difference
between leadership and mere blind, automatic following. Were all the
workers in the factory mere followers, the work would be stereotyped and
the factory would be unable to compete with the other factory, where
initiative and leadership obtain.
One psychologist avers that ninety per cent of our education comes through
imitation; but, even so, it is quite pertinent to inquire into the
remaining ten per cent. Conceding that we adopt our styles of wearing
apparel at the behest of society; that we fashion and furnish our homes in
conformity to prevailing customs; that we permit press and pulpit to
formulate for us our opinions and beliefs; in short, that we are imitators
up to the full ninety per cent limit, it still must seem obvious to the
close observer that the remaining ten per cent has afforded us a vast
number and variety of improvements that tend to make life more agreeable.
This ten per cent has substituted the modern harvester for the sickle and
cradle with which our ancestors harvested their grain; it has brought us
the tractor for the turning of the soil in place of the primitive plow; it
has enabled us to use the auto-truck in marketing our products instead of
the ox-teams of the olden times; it has brought us the telegraph and
telephone with which to send the message of our desires across far spaces;
and it has supplied us with conveniences and luxuries that our
grandparents could not imagine even in their wildest fancies.
A close scrutiny will convince even the most incredulous that many
teachers and schools arc doing their utmost, in actual practice if not in
theory, to eliminate the ten per cent margin and render their pupils
imitators to the full one hundred per cent limit. We force the children to
travel our standard pedagogical tracks and strive to fashion and fix them
in our standard pedagogical molds. And woe betide the pupil who jumps the
track or shows an inclination to travel a route not of the teacher's
choosing! He is haled into court forthwith and enjoined to render a strict
accounting for his misdoing; for anything that is either less or more than
a strict conformity to type is accounted a defection. We demand absolute
obedience to the oracular edicts of the school as a passport to favor.
Conformity spells salvation for the child and, in the interests of peace,
he yields, albeit grudgingly, to the inevitable.
In world affairs we deem initiative a real asset, but one of the saddest
of our mistakes in ordering school activities consists in our fervid
attempts to prove that the school is detached from life and something
quite apart from the world. We would have our pupils believe that, when
they are in school, they are neither in nor of the world. At our
commencement exercises we tell the graduates that they are now passing
across a threshold out into the world; that they are now entering into the
realms of real life; and that on the morrow they will experience the
initial impact of practical life. These time-worn expressions pass
current, at face value, among enthusiastic relatives and friends, but
there are those in the audience who know them to be the veriest cant, with
no basis either in logic or in common sense. It is nothing short of
foolishness to assert that a young person must attain the age of eighteen
years before he enters real life. The child knows that his home is a part
of the world and an element in life, that the grocery is another part, the
post-office still another part, and so on through an almost endless list.
Equally well does he know that the school is a part of life, because it
enters into his daily experiences the same as the grocery and the
post-office. Full well does he know that he is not outside of life when he
is in school, and no amount of sophistry can convince him otherwise. If
the school is not an integral part of the world and of life, so much the
worse for the school and, by the same token, so much the worse for the
teacher. Either the school is a part of the world or else it is neither a
real nor a worthy school.
The hours which the child spends in school are quite as much a part of his
life as any other portion of the day, no matter what activities the school
provides, and we do violence to the facts when we assume or argue
otherwise. Here is a place for emphasis. Here is the rock on which many a
pedagogical bark has suffered shipwreck. We become so engrossed in the
mechanics of our task--grades, tests, examinations, and promotions--that
we lose sight of the fact that we are dealing with real life in a
situation that is a part of the real world. The best preparation for life
is to practice life aright, and this is the real function of the school.
If teachers only could or would give full recognition to this simple, open
truth, there would soon ensue a wide departure from some of our present
mechanized methods. But so long as we cling to the traditional notion that
school is detached from real life, so long shall we continue to pursue our
merry-go-round methods. If we could fully realize that we are teaching
life by the laboratory method, many a vague and misty phase of our work
would soon become clarified.
Seeing, then, that the school is a cross-section of life, it follows,
naturally, that it embodies the identical elements that constitute life as
a whole. We all know, by experience, that life abounds in vicissitudes,
discouragements, trials, and obstacles, and the school, being a part of
real life, must furnish forth the same elements even if of less magnitude.
There are obstacles, to be sure, and there should be. Abraham Lincoln once
said, "When you can't remove an obstacle, plow around it." But teachers
are prone to remove the obstacles from the pathway of their pupils when
they should be training them to surmount these obstacles or, failing that
for the time being, to plow around them. It is far easier, however, for
the teacher to solve the problem for the boy than to stimulate him to
solve it independently. If we would train the boy to leap over hurdles, we
must supply the hurdles and not remove them from his path. Still further,
we must elevate the hurdles, by easy gradations, if we would increase the
boy's powers and prowess.
Professor Edgar James Swift says, "Man expends just energy enough to
satisfy the demands of the situation in which he is placed." This
statement is big with meaning for all who have a true conception of
pedagogy and of life. In this sentence we see the finger-board that points
toward high achievements in teaching. If the hurdles are too low, the boy
becomes flaccid, flabby, sluggish, and lethargic. The hurdles should be
just high enough to engage his full strength, physical, mental, and moral.
They should ever be a challenge to his best efforts. But they should never
be so high that they will invite discouragement, disaster, and failure.
The teacher should guard against elevating hurdles as an exhibition of her
own reach. The gymnasium is not a stage for exhibitions. On the contrary,
it is a place for graduated, cumulative training.
Our inclination is to make life easy and agreeable to our pupils rather
than real. To this end we help them over the difficulties, answer
questions which they do not ask, and supply them with crutches when we
should be training them to walk without artificial aids. The passing mark
rather than real training seems to be made the goal of our endeavors even
if we enfeeble the child by so doing. We seem to measure our success by
the number of promotions and not by the quality of the training we give.
We seem to be content to produce weaklings if only we can push them
through the gateway of promotion. It matters not that they are unable to
find their way alone through the mazes of life; let them acquire that
ability later, after they have passed beyond our control. Again quoting
from Professor Swift, "Following a leader, even though that leader be the
teacher, tends to take from children whatever latent ability for
initiative they may have."