SCHOOL-TEACHING
The first school that I ever tried to teach was, indeed, fearfully
and wonderfully taught. The teaching was of the sort that might well
be called elemental. If there was any pedagogy connected with the
work, it was purely accidental. I was not conscious either of its
presence or its absence, and so deserve neither praise nor censure.
I had one pupil who was nine years my senior, and I did not even know
that he was retarded. I recall quite distinctly that he had a
luxuriant crop of chin-whiskers but even these did not disturb the
procedure of that school. We accepted him as he was, whiskers
included, and went on our complacent way. He was blind in one eye
and somewhat deaf, but no one ever thought of him as abnormal or
subnormal. Even if we had known these words we should have been too
polite to apply them to him. In fact, we had no black-list, of any
sort, in that school. I have never been able to determine whether
the absence of such a list was due to ignorance, or innocence, or
both. So long as he found the school an agreeable place in which to
spend the winter, and did not interfere with the work of others, I
could see no good reason why he should not be there and get what he
could from the lessons in spelling, geography, and arithmetic. I do
not mention grammar for that was quite beyond him. The agreement of
subject and verb was one of life's great mysteries to him. So I
permitted him to browse around in such pastures as seemed finite to
him, and let the infinite grammar go by default so far as he was
concerned.
I have but the most meagre acquaintance with the pedagogical dicta of
the books--a mere bowing acquaintance--but, at that time, I had not
even been introduced to any of these. But, as the saying goes, "The
Lord takes care of fools and children," and, so, somehow, by sheer
blind luck, I instinctively veered away from the Procrustean bed
idea, and found some work for my bewhiskered disciple that connected
with his native dispositions. Had any one told me I was doing any
such things I think I should, probably, have asked him how to spell
the words he was using. I only knew that this man-child was there
yearning for knowledge, and I was glad to share my meagre store of
crumbs with him. His gratitude for my small gifts was really
pathetic, and right there I learned the joys of the teacher. That
man sought me out on our way home from school and asked questions
that would have puzzled Socrates, but forgot my ignorance of hard
questions in his joy at my answers of easy ones. When some light
would break in upon him he cavorted about me like a glad dog, and
became a second Columbus, discovering a new world.
I almost lose patience with myself, at times, when I catch myself
preening my feathers before some pedagogical mirror, as if I were
getting ready to appear in public as an accredited schoolmaster. At
such a time, I long to go back to the country road and saunter along
beside some pupil, either with or without whiskers, and give him of
my little store without rules or frills and with no pomp or parade.
In that little school at the crossroads we never made any preparation
for some possible visitor who might come in to survey us or apply
some efficiency test, or give us a rating either as individuals or as
a school. We were too busy and happy for that. We kept right on at
our work with our doors and our hearts wide open for every good thing
that came our way, whether knowledge or people. As I have said, our
work was elemental.
I am glad I came across this little book of William James, "On Some
of Life's Ideals," for it takes me back, inferentially, to that
elemental school, especially in this paragraph which says: "Life is
always worth living, if one have such responsive sensibilities. But
we of the highly educated classes (so-called) have most of us got
far, far away from Nature. We are trained to seek the choice, the
rare, the exquisite exclusively and to overlook the common. We are
stuffed with abstract conceptions, and glib with verbalities and
verbosities; and in the culture of these higher functions the
peculiar sources of joy connected with our simpler functions often
dry up, and we grow stone-blind and insensible to life's more
elementary and general goods and joys."
I wish I might go home from school one evening by way of the top of
Mt. Vesuvius, another by way of Mt. Rigi, and, another, by way of
Lauterbrunnen. Then the next evening I should like to spend an hour
or two along the borders of Yellowstone Canyon, and the next, watch
an eruption or two of Old Faithful geyser. Then, on still another
evening, I'd like to ride for two hours on top of a bus in London.
I'd like to have these experiences as an antidote for emptiness. It
would prepare me far better for to-morrow work than pondering
Johnny's defections, or his grades, whether high or low, or marking
silly papers with marks that are still sillier. I like Walt Whitman
because he was such a sublime loafer. His loafing gave him time to
grow big inside, and so, he had big elemental thoughts that were good
for him and good for me when I think them over after him.
If I should ever get a position in a normal school I'd want to give a
course in William J. Locke's "The Beloved Vagabond," so as to give
the young folks a conception of big elemental teaching. If I were
giving a course in ethics, I'd probably select another book, but, in
pedagogy, I'd certainly include that one. I'd lose some students, to
be sure, for some of them would be shocked; but a person who is not
big enough to profit by reading that book never ought to teach
school--I mean for the school's sake. If we could only lose the
consciousness of the fact that we are schoolmasters for a few hours
each day, it would be a great help to us and to our boys and girls.
I am quite partial to the "Madonna of the Chair," and wish I might
visit the Pitti Gallery frequently just to gaze at her. She is so
wholesome and gives one the feeling that a big soul looks out through
her eyes. She would be a superb teacher. She would fill the school
with her presence and still do it all unconsciously. The centre of
the room would be where she happened to be. She would never be
mistaken for one of the pupils. Her pupils would learn arithmetic
but the arithmetic would be laden with her big spirit, and that would
be better for them than the arithmetic could possibly be. If I had
to be a woman I'd want to be such as this Madonna--serene, majestic,
and big-souled.
I have often wondered whether bigness of soul can be cultivated, and
my optimism inclines to a vote in the affirmative. I spent a part of
one summer in the pine woods far away from the haunts of men. When I
had to leave this sylvan retreat it required eleven hours by stage to
reach the railway-station. There for some weeks I lived in a log
cabin, accompanied by a cook and a professional woodsman. I was not
there to camp, to fish, or to loaf, and yet I did all these. There
were some duties and work connected with the enterprise and these
gave zest to the fishing and the loafing. Giant trees, space, and
sky were my most intimate associates, and they told me only of big
things. They had never a word to say of styles of clothing or
becoming shades of neckwear or hosiery. In all that time I was never
disturbed by the number and diversity of spoons and forks beside my
plate at the dinner-table. Many a noble meal I ate as I sat upon a
log supported in forked stakes, and many a big thought did I glean
from the talk of loggers about me in their picturesque costumes. In
the evening I sat upon a great log in front of the cabin or a
friendly stump, and forgot such things as hammocks and porch-swings.
Instead of gazing at street-lamps only a few yards away I was gazing
at stars millions of miles away, and, somehow, the soul seemed to
gain freedom.
And I had luxury, too. I had a room with bath. The bath was at the
stream some fifty yards away, but such discrepancies are minor
affairs in the midst of such big elemental things as were all about
me. My mattress was of young cherry shoots, and never did king have
a more royal bed, or ever such refreshing sleep. And, while I slept,
I grew inside, for the soft music of the pines lulled me to rest, and
the subdued rippling of my bath-stream seemed to wash my soul clean.
When I arose I had no bad taste in my mouth or in my soul, and each
morning had for me the glory of a resurrection. My trees were there
to bid me good morning, the big spaces spoke to me in their own
inspiriting language, and the big sun, playing hide-and-seek among
the great boles of the trees as he mounted from the horizon, gave me
a panorama unrivalled among the scenes of earth.
When I returned to what men called civilization, I experienced a
poignant longing for my big trees, my sky, and my spaces, and felt
that I had exchanged them for many things that are petty and futile.
If my school were only out in the heart of that big forest, I feel
that my work would be more effective and that I would not have to
potter about among little things to obey the whims of convention and
the dictates of technicalities, but that the soul would be free to
revel in the truth that sky and space proclaim. I do hope I may
never know so much about technical pedagogy that I shall not know
anything else. This may be what those people mean who speak of the
"revolt of the ego."