Pedagogical ideals as portrayed by leading, living educators. Being a compilation of the best thoughts of many of the leading educators of the day upon living educational issues and actual school-room life

Preface

The excuse offered by the author for presenting such a book as this to the public is a desire to save to the teaching- profession the many gems or crystallized thoughts, relating to the teacher and his labors— but which, valuable as they appear— otherwise must have been lost.

These thoughts emanated from the minds of leading educators of the present day and have nearly all been uttered or written during the past four years ; and while some matter presented may not appear to come up to the "ideal," yet, in the main, it approximates the ideal sufficiently to justify the title of the book.

Much that is written upon the various interesting topics of the times in which we live reaches us through the columns of popular magazines and periodicals of the day, is read with or without comment, is then, in most cases, carelessly cast aside, and in a few short months almost wholly relegated to oblivion.

Even though the theme be of momentous import, the author of world-wide fame, and the language of classic merit, its common fate is that of one of our meanest daily newspapers.

The author, while reading the leading educational journals of the United States during the past four years, has been enabled to collect and preserve the material for this little volume — collected and arranged at first for his own reference and pleasure. But he has concluded, at last, that the collection merits publication and that other teachers should share the riches of this little store.

This necessitates a very considerable second culling, and though the elimination brings it down to the present limits, yet there may be some superfluous matter left. However, it is well to remember that the book as a whole represents the thoughts of many persons, and that any apparent superfluity is but a preservation of individuality.

Again, it may contain some apparent or real contradictions upon a given theme. But it should be considered " all the more " a broadgauge view.

' Tis hoped that some of the great army of teachers will find in it something to commend, something that will inspire them to higher aims and greater effort ; and that if there be a faltering one who is down-cast and discouraged, he will read and catch the inspiration, resolve, and re-resolve.

In the preparation of this work the author acknowledges his indebtedness to the New York School Journal, New England Journal of Education, American Teacher, Tennessee Journal of Education, Intelligence, Education, and other professional journals; and for the original thought give credit to the following leading educators, most of whom are Americans and most of whom are living:

A. D. Mayo.

B. W. Boyd.

G. E. Gorden.

A. B. Sabin.

S. H. Lockett.

Aaron Gove.

Julia A. Pickard.

Prof. John Ogden.

Anna C. Brackett.

T. W. Bicknell.

Ex-Supt. Doty.

Supt. Edgerly.

Prof. J. T. Hand.

Prof. Sacket.

C. E. Meleney.

N. E. Leach.

G. W. Hoenshel.

Eva M. Tappan.

Miss Bancroft.

E. M. Harriman.

Lillian M. Munger.

H. S. Jones.

Geo. A. Littlefield.

Martinsville, 111., Dec. 24, 1887.

Joseph Payne.

Joseph Lukens.

Prof. Huxley.

G. Stanly Hall.

O. B. Bruce.

David W. Hoyt.

W. H Payne.

Adolf Deisterweg.

Hiram Orcutt.

Ida A. A.hlborn.

Gen. John Eaton.

Bev. Mr. Frisbie.

Dr. Tingley.

Dr. J. H. Kellogg.

Jacob Barhite.

W. N. Barringer.

W. H. Venable.

E. D. Brinkerhoff.

S. P. Bobbins.

Solomon Sias.

Prof. Baab.

Williard Brown.

H. S. Tarbell.

Miss Wadleigh.

Jas. A. Garfield.

Charity Snow.

J. H. Seelye.

E. E. White.

Pres. Noah Porter.

A. E. Winship.

B, E. Patterson.

E. F. Mead.

John W. Dickinson.

M. A. Newell.

Miss M. V. Gillin.

M. Jules Ferry.

J. L. Pickard.

George H. Cook.

Wm. M. Giffln.

Wm. F. Fox.

George D. Shultz.

Edward Brooks.

J. S. Babcock.

Amanda J. Young.

Marion Talbot.

J. W. Dowd.

J. B.

CHAPTER I. Page

Public Schools and What is Expected of Them. — Skilled Industry — The New Education — Ignorance of Voters — Universal Education — Free Education — Education in Language — What Ought to be Expected of Our Schools — What Should be Taught in Our Schools — Courses of Study — Application of Knowledge — Reforms in Education — Functions of the American Schools — Overloading of the Schools — Industrial Schools - 9-35

Chapter II

The Teacher. — Fitness for Teaching — The Teacher's Culture— The Etiquette of Teaching— Model School — Characteristics of the Teacher — Hints for the School-room — The Successful Teacher — Hints to Young Teachers — Be Ye Kind to One Another — Teachers Temper — Knowledge by Hard Efforts — Baby Study — Elements in Teaching — Love for Your Pupils — Usefulness of the Teacher — Appearance of the Teacher — Why We Migrate — Elementary Teaching — Visit the Homes of the Pupils — Individual Instruction — Paramont Pedagogical Prerequisites. - - - 36-61

6 Contents.

OHAPTEK III.

Page

Teacher's Follies. — Talking Too Much — Teachers Don't Bead Enough — Hobby Horse Systems — Comparisons — Too Many Things — "What Should be Memorized — How to Improve One's Methods — Valuable Teaching — Pupils Can't Remember Everything — Teachers Are Not Faultless — Losing Control of School— Wasting Time — On Fussiness — Driving — Don'ts. - - - 62-74

Chapter IV

Morals and the Instruction Thereof. — Outside Influences — Religious Teaching — Moral Instruction — -Moral Education — Morality Taught by Influence. .... 75_88

Chapter V

General Hints and Directions. — Text Books — Brief Hints — The Elements of a Good Teacher — Questioning — Public Sentiment — Children Know Something — On Spelling— School Boards — Interruptions — Beginning a New School— On Recitations — The Teacher's Conduct — General Hints — With Regard to the Pupil — Rules for Teachers —The New Education. - - 89-107

Chapter VI

Discipline. — True Objects of Discipline — About Fretting and Talking — Cast Iron Rules — Some

Contents. 7

Page

Further Hints on Discipline — On Suspension — Liberal Discipline — Eestraint and Freedom — Keeping In — Love and Discipline — The Bright Mischievous Boy — Questions on Discipline — How can Whispering be Prevented. - 108-124

CHAPTEK VH.

The Eecitation and How to Secure Attention. — The Objects of a Eecitation — Recitations in Yale College — Every Pupil Should Eecite — How to Secure Attention — Make the Recitation Cheery — Objectionable Practices in the Eecitation — The Art of Questioning. - - - 125-135

CHAPTEE VIII.

Teachers and Parents. — Parents Visiting Schools — ' Teachers Visiting Parents — Parental Visitation — Visit the Pupils — Home Influence. - 136-145

CHAPTER IX.

Examinations. — Many Pointed Remarks — The System is Bad — Examinations by Essays — Ranking by Exact Per Cent. — Results are the Tests — Can't Discard Examinations Yet. - - 146-154

CHAPTER X.

Sanitation. — Steam Heating — Hygienic Questions — Means of Promoting Health — Depriving Pupils of Recess. - - - S - 155-158

8 Contents.

CHAPTER XI.

Page Pedagogical Questions. — On Little Things — Questions by A Superintendent — Questions I Should Ask Myself — As to Studies — Questions by the Author. .... 159-165

CHAPTER XII.

Miscellany. — The Teacher's Office — Do You Do All the Talking — Early Risers — Some Things that • Our Schools Need — Make the Same Mistake but Once — Letting Things Slide Along — System in School Work — Lessons in Patriotism — The Dull Pupil — Little Things — The Beginning of the School Year. .... 166-180

PEDAGOGICAL IDEALS.

PUBLIC SCHOOLS. AND WHAT IS EXPECTED OF THEM.

Chapter I. Skilled Industry

In an article written by the Rev. A. D. Mayo, a few years ago, the following expressive language was used : The best friend of every youth should now tell that youth, that character and trained power are the only assurance of success in this country. Every church in America should be warned, betimes, that without intelligence and practical holiness no sect of religionists will be found worthy to greet the Lord when He comes in His new Kingdom. The aspiring young politician should get on the school committee, study the resources of his state, and preach the gospel of skilled industry from the "furrow vp to the Senate' or he will not carry the election twenty years hence, at the crisis of his career. The American girl, however gifted or highly born, who can not fashion a home with her own brain, will always be a dependent upon society aud a hanger-on in the social paradise that is to be. In this law there is no exception of race, or class, or profession, section, party, or creed. If the people of Louisiana, down in its cypress swamps, put more brains into their heads for the next halfcentury than the people of New England, the Creole will go up and the Yankee go down. The gospel of educated labor, the expert in every profession, the man fitly trained always in the right place, is the one impartial message of the hour to all men, women, and children on American soil. Many there will be who will not heed it ; and they will go the way of all second-rate people in all ages and lands. But they who hear and do, will be saved, and lead the Kepublic along the line drawn by the finger of Providence toward the America that is to come.

THE NEW EDUCATION.

That same writer, two years later, said of "The New Education" and its aims: It is first a revival of faith in human nature itself, as that nature reveals itself in childhood. Instead of imposing a theory on the child to mold and fashion him into a given shape on the one hand, or concentrating all his powers on the work of making himself a practical success in life on the other, it proposes to develop the child into the most complete manhood or womanhood possible for his order of ability and natural endowment. It believes in child nature, and studies it with the hope of finding out the beautiful, divine ways by which the child shall become the woman or man. And it believes that the child, thus trained for character and such ability as belongs to it, will in the end be a far more valuable member of society than if molded into the imitation of any other man, or fashioned to a machine for any special work.

Further on he says of "The New Education," It holds that the thing taught is of less importance than the spirit and the method in which everything is taught; the object being not to cram the mind with knowledge, but to implant the love of truth, and to train the faculties to find it by vital contact with nature, humanity, literature and life. In character- training the New Education accepts without question, the Christian method of love, in the noblest

Christian meaning of that mighty word. It believes that labor can be raised above drudgery into a region of joy and hope, and does not despair at once, of obtaining accurate knowledge and dutiful conduct, and making the life of a child joyous and beautiful, with the beauty of courage, faith, and boundless hope, and trust in God."

IGNORANCE OF VOTERS.

In his first and only inaugural, the lamented Garfield gave utterance to the following: But the danger which arises from ignorance in the voter cannot be denied . It covers a field far wider than that of negro suffrage and the present condition of that race. It is a danger that lurks and hides in the courses and fountains of power in every State. We have no standard to measure the disaster that may be brought upon us by ignorance and vice in citizens, when joined to corruption and fraud in suffrage. The voters of the Union who make and unmake constitutions, and upon whose will hangs the destiny of our government, can transmit their supreme authority to no successor save the coming generation of voters, who are sole heirs of our sovereign power. If that generation comes to its inheritance blinded by ignorance and corrupted by vice, the fall of the Eepublic will be certain and remediless. The census has already sounded the alarm in appalling figures, which mark how dangerously high the tide of illiteracy has risen among our voters and their children."

UNIVERSAL EDUCATION.

In an address before the State Teachers' Association of South Carolina, in 1886, the Hon. R. W. Boyd made use of the following language: It is for universal education, if it can, to change the temper of the people, re-awaken the patriotic spirit, recall the old pride in the Republic, inspire to the loving and intelligent discharge of civic duties, and make the people feel that with all draw-backs they have a great country, and the best government under the sun.

Let education undertake and accomplish its highest work; let universal education, furnished with bountiful hand by the State, supply proper training for citizenship, and then with virtuous and intelligent mothers, with a press in the hands of culture and patriotism, and with churches full of zeal and good works, we might hope to see the old pride and faith return. We could hope to see political life and methods purified and elevated, honesty and capacity fill the public offices, and each new political question easily and happily met and answered.

FREE EDUCATION.

The Rev. G. E. Gordon, of Milwaukee, Wis., a few years ago, while criticizing Richard Grant White's paper published in the North American Review, December, 1881, expressed the following opinion of the American idea as to purpose of free education. .... "The

uncultivated masses of Americans simply think of the public schools as means of giving their children a chance to get a better living. Cultivated people, whether poor or rich, think of the schools as at least providing a certain mental furniture for children's minds, whereby they may make use of the advantages which a free social competition offers them. Thoughtful people believe that whatever amount of education can raise a person in the social scale, tends to make that person respect both his own opinion and that of others. But neither class of people would be foolish enough to believe that book-learning and thrift, or book-learning and good citizenship are so directly connected as to be always found together. Mr. White's statement that the onlv justification for sustaining the public schools at the public expense is that, but for them, life, liberty, and property would be unsafe, is very weak. The most that is advanced under this head, in favor of schools, is the general truth that they make life more worth living by increasing its horizon, and liberty more enchanting by enlarging its possibilities, and property more desirable by developing the advantages of its possession. Knowledge introduces us into a world full of chances which are denied to the illiterate. .... However we may lament a defective method in education, or lament the defective material upon which it has to act, the thing itself is, beyond question, one of the most potent agencies in the advancement of modern society. Education supplies its possessor with efficient help to satisfy physical wants. Education sees wants, in the person of its happy possessor, which lead him to rise into a more virtuous position in society. And in both ways men are removed from the temptation to ordinary crimes, and society saved from corruption. Education is the mightiest machine we have for the civilization of the world. Americans already believe this, and are not asking shall the people be educated? But, How best can we reach all classes with our schools, especially the lowest and poorest? And as we answer this question with a practical mind we shall best satisfy the demands of the age.

EDUCATION IN LANGUAGE.

At a public meeting of educators, but recently, Pres. J. H. Seel ye, of Amherst College, advanced the following thoughts :

The education which we need is, largely, an education in language. Language is not only the form of thought, but it represents the very body of thought itself. All possible achievement of thought, therefore, in science, nor art, nor study, can possibly furnish so copious a discipline of thought, a discipline so rich, so varied, so comprehensive, so complete, as language itself. The child's development of thought will be found to proceed, step by step, with his development of language; and as in every vital process, so here, the product of life is also the reproducer and strengthener of life. A very large proportion of time and effort spent in education should be given to language. — Almost the largest proportion, — certainty it is not easy to make tin's too large The only way in which the child can be taught to know the real mind of the people among which he is born, is by the study of their language, and the only way in which he can grow up to be a living and influential member of the nation or race of which he is to form a part, is, by first becoming facile in the language wherein alone the true life and inner spirit of the nation or race is expressed. The true heart of a people is uttered only in its speech, and the only way in which we can get access to the heart, to move and mold it, is by its speech. Teach the child language, then. Teach him his mother tongue. Give more room for writing, reading, and spelling in our schools. We need not disparage scientific and practical education ; but this comes later, and belongs properly to the grade of the professional school. Common schools are not professional schools, and we shall make a great mistake if we start the professional- training too soon."

WHAT OUGHT TO BE EXPECTED OF OUR SCHOOLS.

Prof. A. K. Sabin, Principal of Franklin School, Chicago, in stating what he thinks "Ought to be expected of the public schools," begins with a quotation from the constitution of Illinois : The General Assembly shall provide a thorough and efficient system of free schools, where-

Publio Schools. 15

by all the children of the State may receive a good common school education.

He then continues : If these State Constitutions be further inquired of it will be found that nearly all of them set forth in a Bill of Rights that religion, morality, and knowledge are the necessary conditions for permanently securing to society the inalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

To meet these three necessary conditions we recognize three agencies — the church, the home, and the school. The church and the home have their existence in society, and are not called into existence by the State; their existence antedates that of the State. Their function, therefore, is not prescribed by the State. What is the function of each ?

It is the function of the church to teach religion.

It is the function of the home to provide for, to care for, and to secure the physical, moral, and intellectual well-being of every child born into it. The mission of the church is a divine one, ordained of God. So the Christian church holds, and so I believe.

It is the function of the school to impart knowledge. Called into being by the State, the schools can claim no diviner origin than that of human wisdom, fore-sight, and prudence. From their origin and function they may be properly termed secular. Such they are and such they ought to be.

Human foresight has seen that without the free schools not all the children of the State will have the means of obtaining a good common school education.

Human prudence has established the school for the training of children in useful knowledge.

Distinct as are these three agencies, the church, the home, and the school in their origin and function, they are closdy interwoven in our Christian civilization. They are all a part of it, are necessary to it, and have one common interest, viz. : the realization of the greatest good of all.

It is deemed important to this discussion that the relation of the school and the home he determined, to the end that the question of religion and morals be impartially considered, and certain responsibilities rightly placed. Many persons have claimed that religion should be taught in the schools. It is here claimed that the responsibility for direct religious teaching rests with the home and the church, but that both the church and the home have a right to demand that all such religious teaching be treated with respectful and sincere reverence by the schools. In reverence for things held sacred and divine the school should be the intelligent and sympathetic ally of the church.

While the relation of the school to the home is a very close one, yet the school is not the home, nor does the teacher stand in loco parentis to the child even while at school. Protection the school affords. It may be more moral than the home ; the teacher may be a kinder and more helpful friend than the home affords ; yet the school does not clothe nor feed the child, — does not minister to it in sickness, — does not bury the dead, — keeps no vacant seats.

In morals the school ought to aim at nothing less than what the best home realizes. The pure should be kept pure. The vicious should be shown the better way. And yet the school is not responsible for failures in the matter of morals. The school does not see the child during the first five years of its life. The home has had the twigbending all to itself during these first years.

The schools deserve credit for undoing a world of mischief, but they do not merit censure for failing to undo it all. . . . The home is responsible

and can not delegate its responsibility; nor does a good home wish to do so. As a patron of the public schools I desire that in matters of personal, vital religion, my child be let alone; that in the realm of morals, the instruction be so conducted that the right and the true be made always to sit on the right hand, the wrong and the false, on the left.

More than one respectable writer is charging failure upon the public schools because of alleged immoralities among school children. A boy swears. Is it more likely that he acquired the habit at school, where he is under control and supervision, than at home, on the street, or in the saloon? A boy tells lies. Let the decrier of the public schools acquaint himself with that boy's nursery before fixing the responsibility elsewhere. A boy is leprous with all that is unclean, impure and vicious. Will any honest man dare affirm that such a boy has a pure home or one that has followed his going out and his coming in ?

While Mr. Sabin did not state definitely all that ii expected of the public schools, his statement of the case is so replete with "good things" that the author finds ample excuse for giving it a place in this chapter.

WHAT SHALL BE TAUGHT IN OUR SCHOOLS.

But, following it under the head "What shall be taught in our common schools" an article written for the "Tennessee Journal of Education 1 in 1883 by Prof. S. H. Lockett, of Tenn., the line of demarkation is much more definitely drawn as to what should be admitted into the common school curriculum. Omitting some preliminaries, the thread runs thus:

My present purpose, however, is to answer the question 'What should be taught in our American schools to the great masses of youths and children of both sexes, who attend them; who have neither time nor means for mere culture ; who, on the contrary, can scarcely afford to acquire the rudimentary equipment for the stern battle of life, into which they are drawn before the period of adolescence is passed?' Some parts of the answer to this question are so patent, that it needs nothing but the bare statement of them to command the assent of every one.

Reading, spelling, writing, and arithmetic, all will acknowledge as indispensable branches of study, no matter what sphere of life is to be occupied. But there is another important question to be answered concerning these fundamental and essential branches. How much of each of these should be taught to every child, and how much time should be devoted to them? In replying to these inquiries, I doubt if I shall do so to the satisfaction of any person but myself, but I hope to be able to give some good reasons for the faith that is in me.

Every child should commence to read as soon as it enters school, and its reading lessons should be continued uninterruptedly until it can read intelligently any ordinary composition in its own language. Whether it can read in accordance with the elaborate rules of the treatises on elocution or not, is a matter of utter insignificance. If it can read silently, without moving the lips, so as to understand thoroughly the meanin g of the printed or written matter before its eyes, that is the main point. For that is the kind of reading most of us are called upon to do in our actual li ves. Perhaps one in ten thousand may be called upon, occasionally, to read aloud; but it most generally happens that even that one is self-called, and is a great bore to the rest of the ten thousand.

Hoiv reading should be taught is not my purpose to discuss; nor, in fact, the methods of teaching any of the branches of study, except incidentally in this article.

Spelling, like reading, should be taught, during the child's entire school life, as it is of great importance, and unfortunately to an English speaking person, the most difficult of all things to learn well. But every person ought to learn how to write the ordinary colloquial and epistolary language of his native speech with fair correctness. Whether any one can stand head in a "spelling bee" or not is unimportant. Oral spelling is of no value, either as training or an accomplishment.

Writing should be taught during all of the school years, so that every child by practice shall acquire a plain, legible hand-writing, which it can execute with facility and without fatigue.

Every child should learn arithmetic, of course ; but when, how, and how much of it? These last are vital questions, and an unwise neglect of a due consideration of them has done more harm to the school-life of untold millions of children than could be by any possibility over-estimated.

A child should begin to learn arithmetic the very first day it enters school, no matter how young it is. It should be first taught to count correctly, if it has not already acquired that knowledge at home. . . From counting it should be led by easy steps to the writing and reading of numbers, and then to the performance of simple calculations in the four fundamental rules ; always without being wearied and overtasked. And through thefirst three or four years of school-life arithmetic should be taught gradually, easily, and pleasantly; and in this brief period all the arithmetic likely to be needed in after years can be acquired.

Yes, I honestly believe that a child of average intelligence can be taught between the ayes of seven and twelve years, all the arithmetic it will be called upon to use in any ordinary life. I know that from ten to twelve years is generally devoted to arithmetic in our common schools, but I consider it a fearful loss of precious time. A loss because so many other useful things could be learned in those years, when the mind is young and receptive — a loss of time because a great deal of the arithmetic learned is never applied in after life. I have no hesitancy in asserting that in all the city of Nashville, with its busy inhabitants, including men in all the trades, occupations, and professions, there can not be found one-half dozen men, who have been called in real business transactions to use one-half of the rules and operations given in the ordinary school arithmetic. Yet children are made to plod and worry through these useless rules with utter disregard of the time expended.

The addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division of simple numbers, of denominate numbers, of common and decimal fractions; the old rule of three or simple proportion; involution and evolution; the simplest cases of percentage and interest embrace about the amount of arithmetic needed in business life. My own life has necessarily made me deal largely in mathematical problems, but except in my capacity as a teacher, I never had to use more arithmetic than above enumerated. . . In all my life I have never known of a really difficult problem to arise in actual business transactions, and yet the arithmetics used in our schools are filled with involved and ambiguous examples which puzzle even experienced teachers to unravel. Away with such utterly useless, beclouding, and obscuring of the otherwise beautiful and simple science of quantity ! But, if arithmetic

is to be made so easy, some will ask, "from whence are you to get your mental training?" I answer. "By going ahead into new fields of intellectual development."

Let algebra and geometry take the place hitherto occupied by arithmetic during the last three or four years of school life (of many children). Both of these branches of mathematics are more easily mastered, than the latter part of most text-books on practical arithmetic, as many teachers will testify. And both of them are more