For some cause or other Miss Stone and "Dodd" did not get on well
together as their acquaintance progressed. The boy was impulsive,
saucy, rude, and generally outrageous, in more ways than can be told or
even dreamed of by any one but a primary teacher who has become
familiar with the species.
Miss Stone had no natural tact as a teacher, no gift of God in this
direction, no intuition, which is worth more than all precepts and
maxims combined. She knew how to work by rule, as so many teachers do,
but beyond this she had little ability. This to her credit, however:
she did, ultimately, labor hard with the boy, and tried her best to do
something with him, or for him, or by him, but all to little purpose.
It seemed to be "Dodd's" special mission to knock in the head the pet
theories of this hand-made school-ma'am. She had him up to read on the
afternoon of the first day of his attendance at school. Being but six
years of age, and having just entered school, it was proper, according
to the regulations, that he should enter the Chart Class. So to the
Chart Class he went.
The word for the class that day was "girl," and the lesson proceeded
after the usual manner of those who hold to this method of teaching
children to read.
A little girl was placed upon the platform (the prettiest little girl
in the class, to be sure), and the pupils were asked to tell what they
saw. They all answered in concert, "a girl;" and it is to be hoped
that this answer, thus given, was duly evolved from their inner
consciousness by a method fully in harmony with the principles of
thought-development, as laid down in the books, and by Miss Stone's
preceptors. A picture girl was then displayed upon a card-board which
hung against the wall. There were many of these card-boards in the
room, all made by a book-concern that had some faith and a good deal of
money invested in this particular way of teaching reading--all of
which, I am sure, is well enough, but the fact, probably, ought to be
mentioned just here, as it is.
The pupils were asked if the girl on the platform was the same as the
one on the card-board, and there was a unanimous opinion that they were
not identical. The analysis of differences was not pursued to any
great length, but enough questions were asked the children, by Miss
Stone, to develop in them the thought that "structurally and
functionally the two objects, designated by the common term, were not
the same!" When this diagnosis had been thoroughly mastered by the
children, a third member was added for their serious consideration,
Miss Stone having duly explained to the class that "there is still
another way to make us think girl."
"You know," she said, "we always think girl when we see 'Lollie'"--the
little girl on the platform--"and we always think girl when we see the
picture; but now you all watch me, and I will show you one other way in
which we may always be made to think girl."
Then, with much flourish of chalk, Miss Stone printed "GIRL" upon the
board, and proceeded to elucidate, as follows:
"Now, this that I have written upon the board is not 'Lollie,' for she
is on the platform yet; nor is it the picture, for that is on the
card-board, but it is the word 'girl,' and whenever I see it, it makes
me think girl. Now, 'Lollie' is the real girl, on the card-board is
the picture girl, and on the blackboard is the word girl. Now, who
thinks he can take the pointer and point to the kind of girl I ask for?"
Several little hands went up, but "Dodd's" was not among them. Miss
Stone noticed this and was "riled" a little, for she had tried doubly
hard to do well, just because this tow-head was in the class, and now
to have the little scamp repudiate it all was too bad.
She called on one and another of the children to point, now to the real
girl, now to the picture girl, now to the word girl, and all went very
nicely, till finally she asked "Dodd" to take the pointer and see what
he could do. But the boy made no motion to obey. Gently she urged him
to try, but he hung his head and would not budge.
"Why don't you want to try, 'Dodd?'" asked the lady, bending down over
the child.
O fatal question! Quick as thought the lad replied, as he raised his
head:
"Coz, I've knowed that always!"
It is not the intention of this chronicle to pass judgment upon any
system of teaching children to read. This record does not concern
itself with one system nor another. But in the evolution of "Dodd,"
Miss Stone used the word-method of the charts, as before stated, and
using it just as she did, she failed to reach the boy as she hoped to,
and her failure was very unfortunate for the child. She was aware of
this, but she had not strength enough, in her own right, to change the
result.
So it was that day after day went by, and the antagonism between
teacher and pupil grew.
The boy presently discovered that he could annoy Miss Stone mightily,
and he lost no opportunity to do what he could in this direction. It
was contrary to the creed taught this good woman to inflict corporal
punishment upon any child, and though "Dodd" aggravated her almost to
desperation, and was malicious in his persecutions, yet she kept her
hands off him. Once or twice she tried some slight punishment, such as
making him sit on the platform at her feet, or stand with his face in
the corner, but these light afflictions the boy counted as joyous
rather than grievous, and did as he chose more than ever. He slyly
unfastened one of Miss Stone's shoestrings one day, when seated at her
feet for penalty, and laughed when she tripped in it as she got up; and
somehow or other, he would always put the whole room in a turmoil
whenever placed with his face to the wall.
"Dodd" learned to read quite rapidly, however, having mastered his
letters before he went to school, and having spelled a good many words
on signs and in newspapers. Before the end of the third week he had
read his first reader through, one way or another, though he was still
in the Chart Class, and having once been through the book, it lost
many, if not most, of its charms for him thereafter.
But if his reader was so soon crippled for him, what shall be said of
the work of the Chart Class, over which he went again and again, always
in substantially the same way?
It may be said, and truthfully, that there were some pupils in the
class who, even after going over and over the same lesson, for days and
days, still did not master it, and so the class was not ready to move
on; but it does not follow that therefore "Dodd" was not ready to move
on. This did follow, however, according to Miss Stone's teaching, and
according to the system adopted by multitudes of teachers East, West,
North, and South.
I am well aware that there are teachers, plenty of them, whose spirits
will rebel against the above insinuation, so, a word with you, ladies
and gentlemen.
The system used by Miss Stone may have worked well enough in some other
hands, but it should be remembered that it is not a system that can
educate our children. Nor is it a system--any set of rules and
formularies--that can make our schools, any more than it is forms and
ceremonies that make our churches. These may all be well enough in
their proper places, but there is nothing, absolutely nothing, in them,
per se. It is the righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees in the
one case, and the dry bones of pedagogy in the other,
The evil arises, in the schools as in the churches, from believing and
acting as if there were something in the system itself.
If human nature were a fixed quantity, if any two children were alike,
or anywhere nearly alike, if a certain act done for a child always
brought forth the same result, then it might be possible to form an
absolute system of pedagogy, as, with fixed elements, there is formed
the science of chemistry. But the quick atoms of spirit that manifest
their affinities under the eye of that alchemist, the teacher, are far
more subtle than the elements that go into the crucible in any other of
Nature's laboratories.
A chemist will distill for you the odor of a blown rose, or catch and
hold captive the breath of the morning meadow, and do it always just
the same, and ever with like results. But there is no art by which
anything analogous can be wrought in human life. Here a new element
comes in that entirely changes the economy of nature in this regard.
The individuality of every human soul is this new factor, and because
of it, of its infinite variability--because no two atoms that are cast
into the crucible of life are ever the same, or can be wrought into
character by the same means--because of this, no fixed rules can ever
be laid down for evolving a definite result, in the realm of soul, by
never-varying means.
And this is where Miss Stone was at fault. She had put her faith in a
system, a mill through which all children should be run, and in passing
through which each child should receive the same treatment, and from
which they should all emerge, stamped with the seal of the institution,
"uniformity."
This was the prime idea that lay at the foundation of Miss Stone's
system of training--to make children uniform. This very thing that God
and Nature have set themselves against--no two faces, or forms, or
statures; no two minds, or hearts, or souls being alike, as designed by
the Creator, and as fashioned by Nature's hand--to make all these alike
was the aim of the system under which "Dodd" began to be evolved, and
with which he began to clash at once.
The boy was much brighter than most of the class in which he was
placed. The peculiarity of his own nature, and his surroundings before
entering school, made him a subject for some special notice, something
more than the "regular thing" prescribed by the rules. Yet this he did
not get, and by so much as he did not, by so much he failed to receive
his proper due at this period of his life.
And this is a fault in any system, or in any teacher who works
exclusively by any card other than his or her own good sense, as
applied to each individual case.
It was not so much the means that Miss Stone tried upon "Dodd" that
were at fault, as it was the way in which she applied them and the end
she strove to reach by their use. And for you, my dear, who are
walking over the same road as the one just reported as traversed by
Miss Stone, look the way over and see how it is with you in these
matters. And do not content yourself, either, by merely saying, "But
what are we going to do about it?" Bless your dear life, that is the
very thing that is set for you to find out, and as you hope for success
here and a reward hereafter, don't give up till you have answered the
question.
Neither can any one but yourself answer this question. The experience
of others may be of some help to you, but the problem--and you have a
new problem every time you have a new pupil--is only to be solved by
yourself. Look over the history of the Chart Class, over whose silly
mumblings this boy was dragged till disgust took the place of
expectancy, then think of like cases that you have known, and ask
yourself what you are going to do about it.
It is true that classes are large, that rooms are full, that some
pupils are severely dull, and that it is a very hard thing to know what
it is best to do; but these things, all of them, do not excuse you from
doing your best, and from making that best, in large measure, meet the
absolute needs of the child. "Hic labor, hoc opus est."
And for you, who send your six-year-olds to school with a single book,
and grumble because you have to buy even so much of an outfit, what are
you going to do about it when your boy drains all the life out of the
little volume, in a couple of weeks or a month? He knows the stories
by heart, and after that says them over, day by day, because he must,
and not in the least because he cares to.
What are you going to do about this? It is largely your business. You
cannot shirk it and say that you send the boy to school, and it is the
teacher's business to take care of him. That will not answer the
question. Look the facts in the face, and then do as well by your boy
as you do by your hogs! When they get cloyed on corn, then you change
their feed, and so keep them growing, even if it does cost twice as
much to make the change; and yet, the chances are that when your boy is
tired to death of the old, old stories in his reader, tales worn
threadbare, as they are drawled over and over in his hearing by the
dullards of his class, till his soul is sick of them, even then you
force him to go again and again over the hated pages, till he will
resort to rank rebellion to be rid of them!
And what are you going to do about it?
Miss Stone knew none of these things. They were of little interest to
her, and she bothered her head but little about them. But they were of
interest to "Dodd" Weaver. In the evolution of this young hopeful they
played an important part. They were hindrances to the boy at the very
outset of his course in the public schools. They begot in him habits
and dislikes which it took years to efface, and from which it is
doubtful if he ever did fully recover. There are multitudes in like
case, and what are we going to do about it?