REVERIES OF A SCHOOLMASTER
BY
FRANCIS B. PEARSON
STATE SUPERINTENDENT OF PUBLIC INSTRUCTION FOR OHIO
AUTHOR OF "THE EVOLUTION OF THE TEACHER," "THE HIGH-SCHOOL
PROBLEM," "THE VITALIZED SCHOOL."
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
NEW YORK CHICAGO BOSTON
COPYRIGHT, 1917, BY
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
I. IN MEDIAS RES
II. RETROSPECT
III. BROWN
IV. PSYCHOLOGICAL
V. BALKING
VI. LANTERNS
VII. COMPLETE LIVING
VIII. MY SPEECH
IX. SCHOOL-TEACHING
X. BEEFSTEAK
XI. FREEDOM
XII. THINGS
XIII. TARGETS
XIV. SINNERS
XV. HOEING POTATOES
XVI. CHANGING THE MIND
XVII. THE POINT OF VIEW
XVIII. PICNICS
XIX. MAKE-BELIEVE
XX. BEHAVIOR
XXI. FOREFINGERS
XXII. STORY-TELLING
XXIII. GRANDMOTHER
XXIV. MY WORLD
XXV. THIS OR THAT
XXVI. RABBIT PEDAGOGY
XXVII. PERSPECTIVE
XXVIII. PURELY PEDAGOGICAL
XXIX. LONGEVITY
XXX. FOUR-LEAF CLOVER
XXXI. MOUNTAIN-CLIMBING
REVERIES OF A SCHOOLMASTER
CHAPTER I
IN MEDIAS RES
I am rather glad now that I took a little dip (one could scarce call
it a baptism) into the Latin, and especially into Horace, for that
good soul gave me the expression _in medias res_. That is a forceful
expression, right to the heart of things, and applies equally well to
the writing of a composition or the eating of a watermelon. Those
who have crossed the Channel, from Folkstone to Boulogne, know that
the stanch little ship _Invicta_ had scarcely left dock when they
were _in medias res_. They were conscious of it, too, if indeed they
were conscious of anything not strictly personal to themselves. This
expression admits us at once to the light and warmth (if such there
be) of the inner temple nor keeps us shivering out in the vestibule.
Writers of biography are wont to keep us waiting too long for
happenings that are really worth our while. They tell us that some
one was born at such a time, as if that were really important. Why,
anybody can be born, but it requires some years to determine whether
his being born was a matter of importance either to himself or to
others. When I write my biographical sketch of William Shakespeare I
shall say that in a certain year he wrote "Hamlet," which fact
clearly justified his being born so many years earlier.
The good old lady said of her pastor: "He enters the pulpit, takes
his text, and then the dear man just goes everywhere preaching the
Gospel." That man had a special aptitude for the _in medias res_
method of procedure. Many children in school who are not versed in
Latin would be glad to have their teachers endowed with this
aptitude. They are impatient of preliminaries, both in the school
and at the dinner-table. And it is pretty difficult to discover just
where childhood leaves off in this respect.
So I am grateful to Horace for the expression. Having started right
in the midst of things, one can never get off the subject, and that
is a great comfort. Sometimes college graduates confess (or perhaps
boast) that they have forgotten their Latin. I fear to follow their
example lest my neighbor, who often drops in for a friendly chat,
might get to wondering whether I have not also forgotten much of the
English I am supposed to have acquired in college. He might regard
my English as quite as feeble when compared with Shakespeare or
Milton as my Latin when compared with Cicero or Virgil. So I take
counsel with prudence and keep silent on the subject of Latin.
When I am taking a stroll in the woods, as I delight to do in the
autumn-time, laundering my soul with the gorgeous colors, the music
of the rustling leaves, the majestic silences, and the sounds that
are less and more than sounds, I often wonder, when I take one
bypath, what experiences I might have had if I had taken the other.
I'll never know, of course, but I keep on wondering. So it is with
this Latin. I wonder how much worse matters could or would have been
if I had never studied it at all. As the old man said to the young
fellow who consulted him as to getting married: "You'll be sorry if
you do, and sorry if you don't." I used to feel a sort of pity for
my pupils to think how they would have had no education at all if
they had not had me as their teacher; now I am beginning to wonder
how much further along they might have been if they had had some
other teacher. But probably most of the misfits in life are in the
imagination, after all. We all think the huckleberries are more
abundant on the other bush.
Hoeing potatoes is a calm, serene, dignified, and philosophical
enterprise. But at bottom it is much the same in principle as
teaching school. In my potato-patch I am merely trying to create
situations that are favorable to growth, and in the school I can do
neither more nor better. I cannot cause either boys or potatoes to
grow. If I could, I'd certainly have the process patented. I know
no more about how potatoes grow than I do about the fourth dimension
or the unearned increment. But they grow in spite of my ignorance,
and I know that there are certain conditions in which they flourish.
So the best I can do is to make conditions favorable. Nor do I
bother about the weeds. I just centre my attention and my hoe upon
loosening the soil and let the weeds look out for themselves. Hoeing
potatoes is a synthetic process, but cutting weeds is analytic, and
synthesis is better, both for potatoes and for boys. In good time,
if the boy is kept growing, he will have outgrown his stone-bruises,
his chapped hands, his freckles, his warts, and his physical and
spiritual awkwardness. The weeds will have disappeared.
The potato-patch is your true pedagogical laboratory and
conservatory. If one cannot learn pedagogy there it is no fault of
the potato-patch. Horace must have thought of _in medias res_ while
hoeing potatoes. There is no other way to do it, and that is
bed-rock pedagogy. Just to get right at the work and do it, that's
the very thing the teacher is striving toward. Here among my
potatoes I am actuated by motives, I invest the subject with human
interest, I experience motor activities, I react, I function, and I
go so far as to evaluate. Indeed, I run the entire gamut. And then,
when I am lying beneath the canopy of the wide-spreading tree, I do a
bit of research work in trying to locate the sorest muscle. And, as
to efficiency, well, I give myself a high grade in that and shall
pass _cum laude_ it the matter is left to me. If our grading were
based upon effort rather than achievement, I could bring my aching
back into court, if not my potatoes. But our system of grading in
the schools demands potatoes, no matter much how obtained, with scant
credit for backaches.
We have farm ballads and farm arithmetics, but as yet no one has
written for us a book on farm pedagogy. I'd do it myself but for the
feeling that some Strayer, or McMurry, or O'Shea will get right at it
as soon as he has come upon this suggestion. That's my one great
trouble. The other fellow has the thing done before I can get around
to it. I would have written "The Message to Garcia," but Mr. Hubbard
anticipated me. Then, I was just ready to write a luminous
description of Yellowstone Falls when I happened upon the one that
DeWitt Talmage wrote, and I could see no reason for writing another.
So it is. I seem always to be just too late. I wish now that I had
written "Recessional" before Kipling got to it. No doubt, the same
thing will happen with my farm pedagogy. If one could only stake a
claim in all this matter of writing as they do in the mining regions,
the whole thing would be simplified. I'd stake my claim on farm
pedagogy and then go on hoeing my potatoes while thinking out what to
say on the subject.
Whoever writes the book will do well to show how catching a boy is
analogous to catching a colt out in the pasture. Both feats require
tact and, at the very least, horse-sense. The other day I wanted to
catch my colt and went out to the pasture for that purpose. There is
a hill in the pasture, and I went to the top of this and saw the colt
at the far side of the pasture in what we call the swale--low, wet
ground, where weeds abound. I didn't want to get my shoes soiled, so
I stood on the hill and called and called. The colt looked up now
and then and then went on with his own affairs. In my chagrin I was
just about ready to get angry when it occurred to me that the colt
wasn't angry, and that I ought to show as good sense as a mere horse.
That reflection relieved the tension somewhat, and I thought it wise
to meditate a bit. Here am I; yonder is the colt. I want him; he
doesn't want me. He will not come to me; so I must go to him. Then,
what? Oh, yes, native interests--that's it, native interests. I'm
much obliged to Professor James for reminding me. Now, just what are
the native interests of a colt? Why, oats, of course. So, I must
return to the barn and get a pail of oats. An empty pail might do
once, but never again. So I must have oats in my pail. Either a
colt or a boy becomes shy after he has once been deceived. The boy
who fails to get oats in the classroom to-day, will shy off from the
teacher to-morrow. He will not even accept her statement that there
is oats in the pail, for yesterday the pail was empty--nothing but
sound.
But even with pail and oats I had to go to the colt, getting my shoes
soiled and my clothes torn, but there was no other way. I must begin
where the colt (or boy) is, as the book on pedagogy says. I wanted
to stay on the hill where everything was agreeable, but that wouldn't
get the colt. Now, if Mr. Charles H. Judd cares to elaborate this
outline, I urge no objection and shall not claim the protection of
copyright. I shall be only too glad to have him make clear to all of
us the pedagogical recipe for catching colts and boys.