all her skill, and the full measure of her altruism. Nor was he the
proverbial mass of plastic clay to be molded into some preconceived form.
Her wisdom and modernity interdicted such a conception of childhood as
that. Rather, he was a growing plant, waiting for her skill to nurture him
into blossom and fruitage. Some of his qualities she found good; others
not. The good ones she made the objects of her special care; the others
she allowed to perish from neglect. Her experience in gardening had taught
her that, if we cultivate the potatoes assiduously, the weeds will
disappear and need not concern us. She discerned in him a tender shoot of
imagination and this she nurtured as a priceless thing. She fertilized it
with legend, story, song, and myth, and enveloped it in an atmosphere of
warmth and joyousness. She led him into nature's realm, that his
imagination might plume its wings for greater flights by its efforts to
interpret the heart of things that live. Thus his imagination learned to
traverse space, to explore sights and sounds his senses could not reach,
and to construct for him another world of beauty and delight.
So, too, with the other spiritual qualities. Upon these goals her gaze was
fixed and she gently led him toward them. She taught the arithmetic with
zest, with large understanding, and in a masterly way, for she was causing
it to serve a high purpose. Whatever study she found helpful, this she
used as a means with gratitude and gladness. If she found the book ill
adapted to her purpose, she sought or wrote another. If pictures proved
more potent than books, the galleries obeyed the magic of her skill and
yielded forth their treasures. She yearned to have her pupil win the goals
before him; everything was grist that came to her mill if only it would
serve her purpose. She disdained nothing that could afford nourishment to
the spirit of the child and give him zeal, courage, and strength for the
upward journey. If more arithmetic was needful, she found it; if more
history, she gave it; and if the book on geography was inadequate, she
supplemented from libraries or from her own abundant storehouse of
knowledge. She dared to deviate from the course of study, if thereby the
child might more certainly win the goals toward which she ever looked and
worked.
In the boy, she saw a poet, a philosopher, a prophet, an artist, a
musician, a statesman, or a philanthropist, and she worked and prayed that
the artist in the child might not die but that he might grow to stalwart
manhood to glorify the work of her school. In each girl she saw another
Ruth, or Esther, or Cordelia, or Clara Barton, or Frances Willard, or
Florence Nightingale, or Rosa Bonheur, or Mrs. Stowe, or Mrs. Browning.
And her heart yearned over each one of these and strove with power to
nourish them into vigorous life that they might become jewels in her crown
of rejoicing. She must not allow one to perish through her ignorance or
malpractice, for she would keep her soul free from the charge of murder.
And in the fullness of manhood and womanhood her pupils achieved the full
symphony of life. They had won the goals toward which their teacher had
been leading. Their spiritual qualities had converged and become life, and
they had attained the super-goal. In the joy of their achievement their
teacher repeated the words of her own Teacher, "I am come that they might
have life, and that they might have it more abundantly."
INDEX
[Transcriber's Note: Page numbers converted to Chapter numbers.]
Altruism, 12
American civilization, 2
Apple tree, 9
Arithmetic, 3
as means, never as end, 3
Aspiration, 5, 7
Bible, 11
Body, mind, spirit, 11
Bogtrup, 6
Browning, 6
Cant, 7
Children, let alone when, 7
Citizenship, concept of, 1
Civilization, 1
Clean living, 2
Columbus, 6
Concept of life, 14
Cooley, 6
Course of study, 3
Culture, 8
David, 11
Democracy, 1, 12
spiritual attitude, 12
Democratic ideal, 12
Destination, 3
Dickens, 8
Draft board, 2
Dynamic teacher, 4
Edison, 6
Education, newer import of, 1
definition of, 5
a spiritual process, 13
Esther, 11
Excelsior, 6
Farmers, 8
Field, 6
Froebel, 6
Future as related to present, 3
Galileo, 8
Geography, 5
Grandchildren, 2
Great Stone Face, 1
Hand, 9
Harvey's Grammar, 10
Henderson, C. Hanford, 8
Hercules, 10
History, 6
Hodge, 9
Hugo, Victor, 9
Hungry pupils, 6
Ideals, 8
Imagination, 8
"Impart instruction," 39 5
Incompleteness, 4
Incorrigibility, 4
Initiative, 7
Integrity, 4
meaning of, 4
Inventions, 8
Job, 9
Jove, 3
Keats, 5
Kipling, 12
Knowledge and wisdom, 3
Life, 14
Lincoln, 4
Loyalty, 11
Madonna of the Chair, 11
Major ends, 3
Man-made course of study, 4
Manual training, 7
Minerva, 3
Minor ends, 3
Model man, 10
Model woman, 10
Mother, 11
Napoleon, 5
North Star, 9
Objects of teaching, 3
Old age, 5
Old Glory, 11
Olympus, 2
Parker, 6
Past as related to the present, 2
Paternalism, 7
Pestalozzi, 6
Physical training, 4
Physician, 10
Preliminary survey of task before reconstructed school, 1
Present, as related to the past, 2
as related to the future, 3
Process of reconstruction, 2
Question and answer method, 5
Reactions, 11
Reconstructed school, survey of, 1
Relation of past to present, 2
Reserve-power, 13
Respect, 9
Responsibility, 10
Revelation, 11
Reverence, 9
Ruth, 11
Samson, 10
Sandow, 10
School is cross-section of life, 7
Serenity, 13
defined, 13
Shakespeare, 5
Sin, 14
Sluggard, 5
Socrates, 13
Spiritual attitude, 10
Spiritual coward, 10
Spiritual hysteria, 13
Standardized children, 4
Statistics, 13
Stimuli, 11
Stuart, Ruth McEnery, 6
Survey of task before reconstructed school, 1
Swift, Edgar James, 7, 8
Teachers, kinds of, 1
test of, 13
Teaching, objects of, 3
Thoroughness, 3
Tractor, 7
Tradition, 3
Traditional teacher, 4
Truth, 9
Unity, dawn of, 1
Van Dyke, Henry, 7, 12
Wall Street, 2
War gardens, 12
Wells, H.G., 12
Words, 9
World-minded superintendents and teachers, 1
World war, 2
* * * * *
World Book Company
The House of Applied Knowledge
Established, 1905, by Caspar W. Hodgson
Yonkers-on-Hudson, New York
2126 Prairie Avenue, Chicago
Publishers of the following professional works: School Efficiency Series,
edited by Paul H. Hanus, complete in thirteen volumes; Educational Survey
Series, seven volumes already issued and others projected; School
Efficiency Monographs, eleven numbers now ready, others in active
preparation.
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Problems in State High School Finance
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Commercial Tests and How to Use Them
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Record Forms for Vocational Schools
McAndrew
The Public and Its School
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Standards in English
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An Experiment in the Fundamentals
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The Reconstructed School
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Newsboy Service
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Making a High School Program
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