TARGETS
In my work as a schoolmaster I find it well to keep my mind open and
not get to thinking that my way is the only way, or even the best
way. I think I learn more from my boys and girls than they learn
from me, and so long as I can keep an open mind I am certain to get
some valuable lessons from them. I got to telling the college chap
about a hen that taught me a good lesson, and the first thing I knew
I was going to school to this college youth, and he was enlightening
me on the subject of animal psychology, and especially upon the
trial-and-error theory. That set me wondering how many trials and
errors that hen made before she finally succeeded in surmounting that
fence. At any rate, the hen taught me another lesson besides the
lesson of perseverance.
I have a high wire fence enclosing the chicken-yard, and in order to
make steady the posts to which the gate is attached, I joined them at
the top by nailing a board across. The hen that taught me the lesson
must be both ambitious and athletic, for time after time have I found
her outside the chicken-yard. I searched diligently for the place of
exit, but could not find it. So, in desperation, I determined one
morning to discover how that hen gained her freedom if it took all
day. So I found a comfortable seat and waited. In an hour or so the
hen came out into the open and took a survey of the situation. Then,
presently, with skill born of experience, she sidled this way and
that, advanced a little and then retreated until she found the exact
location she sought, poised herself for a moment, and went sailing
right over the board that connected the posts. Having made this
discovery, I removed the board and used wire instead, and thus
reduced the hen to the plane of obedience.
Just as soon as the hen lacked something to aim at, she could not get
over the wire barrier, and she taught me the importance of giving my
pupils something to aim at. I like my boys and girls, and believe
they are just as smart as any hen that ever was, and that, if I'll
only supply things for them to aim at, they will go high and far.
Every time I see that hen I am the subject of diverse emotions. I
feel half angry at myself for being so dull that a mere hen can teach
me, and then I feel glad that she taught me such a useful lesson.
Before learning this lesson I seemed to expect my pupils to take all
their school work on faith, to do it because I told them it would be
good for them. But I now see there is a better way. In my boyhood
days we always went to the county fair, and that was one of the real
events of the year. On the morning of that day there was no occasion
for any one to call me a second time. I was out of bed in a trice,
at the first call, and soon had my chores done ready for the start.
I had money in my pocket, too, for visions of pink lemonade, peanuts,
ice-cream, candy, and colored balloons had lured me on from
achievement to achievement through the preceding weeks, and thrift
had claimed me for its own. So I had money because, all the while, I
had been aiming at the county fair.
We used to lay out corn ground with a single-shovel plough, and took
great pride in marking out a straight furrow across the field. There
was one man in the neighborhood who was the champion in this art, and
I wondered how he could do it. So I set about watching him to try to
learn his art. At either end of the field he had a stake several
feet high, bedecked at the top with a white rag. This he planted at
the proper distance from the preceding furrow and, in going across
the field, kept his gaze fixed upon the white rag that topped the
stake. With a firm grip upon the plough, and his eyes riveted upon
the white signal, he moved across the field in a perfectly straight
line. I had thought it the right way to keep my eyes fixed upon the
plough until his practice showed me that I had pursued the wrong
course. My furrows were crooked and zigzag, while his were straight.
I now see that his skill came from his having something to aim at.
I am trying to profit by the example of that farmer in my teaching.
I'm all the while in quest of stakes and white rags to place at the
other side of the field to direct the progress of the lads and lasses
in a straight course, and raise their eyes away from the plough that
they happen to be using. I want to keep them thinking of things that
are bigger and further along than grades. The grades will come as a
matter of course, if they can keep their eyes on the object across
the field. I want them to be too big to work for mere grades. We
never give prizes in our school, especially money prizes. It would
seem rather a cheap enterprise to my fine boys and girls to get a
piece of money for committing to memory the "Gettysburg Speech." We
respect ourselves and Lincoln too much for that. It would grieve me
to know that one of my girls could be hired to read a book for an
hour in the evening to a sick neighbor. I want her to have her pay
in a better and more enduring medium than that. I'd hope she would
aim at something higher than that.
If I can arrange the white rag, I know the pupils will do the work.
There was Jim, for example, who said to his father that he just
couldn't do his arithmetic, and wished he'd never have to go to
school another day. When his father told me about it I began at once
to hunt for a white rag. And I found it, too. We can generally find
what we are looking for, if we look in dead earnest. Well, the next
morning there was Jim in the arithmetic class along with Tom and
Charley. I explained the absence of Harry by telling them about his
falling on the ice the night before and breaking his right arm. I
told them how he could get on well enough with his other studies, but
would have trouble with his arithmetic because he couldn't use his
arm. Now, Tom and Charley are quick in arithmetic, and I asked Tom
to go over to Harry's after school and help with the arithmetic, and
Charley to go over the next day, and Jim the third day. Now, anybody
can see that white rag fluttering at the top of the stake across the
field two days ahead. So, my work was done, and I went on with my
daily duties. Tom reported the next day, and his report made our
mouths water as he told of the good things that Harry's mother had
set out for them to eat. The report of Charley the next day was
equally alluring. Then Jim reported, and on his day that good mother
had evidently reached the climax in culinary affairs. Jim's eyes and
face shone as if he had been communing with the supernals.
That was the last I ever heard of Jim's trouble with arithmetic. His
father was eager to know how the change had been brought about, and I
explained on the score of the angel-food cake and ice-cream he had
had over at Harry's, with no slight mention of my glorious white rag.
The books, I believe, call this social co-operation, or something
like that, but I care little what they call it so long as Jim's all
right. And he is all right. Why, there isn't money enough in the
bank to have brought that look to Jim's face when he reported that
morning, and any offer to pay him for his help to Harry, either in
money or school credits, would have seemed an insult. My neighbor
John tells me many things about sheep and the way to drive them. He
says when he is driving twenty sheep along the road he doesn't bother
about the two who frisk back to the rear of the flock so long as he
keeps the other eighteen going along. He says those two will join
the others, all in good time. That helped me with those three boys.
I knew that Tom and Charley would go along all right, so asked them
to go over to Harry's before I mentioned the matter to Jim. When I
did ask him he came leaping and frisking into the flock as if he were
afraid we might overlook him. What a beautiful straight furrow he
ploughed, too. His arithmetic work now must make the angels smile.
I shall certainly mention sheep, the hen, and the white rag in my
book on farm pedagogy.