School interests and duties

Contents

PAGE

Introdtjction 5

I. Duties of Parents 11

Introduction

In education as in government, in literature, in science, and in every phase of human experience, we profit by looking backward as well as forward.

In every age there are men who stand forth in bold relief among their contemporaries, and leave their impress upon succeeding generations ; there are occasions which, though perhaps little known at the time, become historic because of their influence upon the future ; there are words of wisdom fitly spoken, which the people will not suffer, to die, but to which they will often- turn in succeeding years for suggestion, inspiration, and guidance. Such a man and such words are the inspiration of this volume.

In 1838, the ninth meeting of the American Institute of Instruction was held at Newburyport, Massachusetts. The Institute was the precursor of the National Educational Association. It was made up, for the most part, of men from the New England States. In these days of easy and quick travel, thousands of men and women of the rank and file of the army of teachers gather each year at the National meetings ; at that time, only leaders undertook the journey to the place of conference. This meeting in Newburyport was attended by many men whose broad thinking and active efforts produced results of which we are gathering the

6 INTBODUCTION

fruits to-day in better schools and better citizensMp. Among them Avere Horace Mann and David Perkins Page.

Mr. Page was at this time in his twenty-eighth year, and was Principal of the English High School at ISTewburyport. He was already attracting attention by his ability as a teacher, and by his interest in his profession, and at this meeting he was honored with a prominent place on the programme of exercises.

His theme, which grew out of the experiences of his own teaching, was The Mutual Duties of Parents and Teachers. His address was a manly plea for cooperation. He placed matters in a new light. There is an old saying, " As is the teacher, so is the school." True as this is, there is another equally true: "As is the community, so is the school." The school is a safe index to the s]3irit and advancement of the people. It had been customary, and too often still is customary, to throw upon the teacher the entire responsibility for the shortcomings of the school. Mr. Page revealed to parents the fact that the teacher also has a side to present, and even insisted that parents might be called upon for explanations and apologies. He said that there was nowhere, at that time, the cooperation between citizens and teachers which is necessary to the life of the good school. The speaker called the attention of parents for the first time publicly to their duties toward the teachers, and enumerated what he conceived to be the mutual duties of each.

The address was heard with the greatest interest and enthusiasm. At its close, Horace Mann arose to commend it. He called it the greatest educational document ever read before the American Institute of Instruction. He went further, and declared it the greatest address on practical educational matters ever delivered before any body of educators. He measured it by its probable influence in bringing about the cooperation that was so much desired. He admired it for its insistent boldness. To-day it would not be remarka-

INTBODUCTION 7

ble for that quality, but in 1838 it was a remarkable address.

Its influence has fulfilled Mr. Mann's prediction. It has been a powerful agent in the advancement of the schools to their present position; and so long as there is need of cooperation in school work, the address should continue to live and exert its influence.

Mr. Mann recognized the value of giving it widespread attention, and moved, at the close of his remarks, that 5000 copies (a large number for those days) be printed and distributed by the Institute. The motion prevailed; and in the same year Ticknor, of Boston, published it. Only a few copies of the original pamphlet are now in existence. The copy from which extracts have been made for this book belongs to the daughter of Mr. Page.

Since the time of the Newburyport meeting, a new factor has come into prominence in school affairs. In nearly all the States, the educational affairs are administered by school boards, trustees, directors, or committeemen, as they are variously named. In the early times, the school affairs were governed directly by the citizens, acting in town meeting or in some other way, or the management of the school was the minor duty of another oflicer; but it is now almost universally the custom to give its care to ofiicers chosen mainly for that purpose. Instead of its being a matter of cooperation between two parties, there are now three who must work together harmoniously and enthusiastically for the good of citizenship. To secure this cooperation where it does not exist, it is only necessary to point out its need and to suggest duties which may not be clear at first sight.

If the parties to this mutual understanding have been increased in so important a measure, the subjects with which they have to deal have been vastly extended, as well. The common purpose, common understanding, and cordial cooperation must be applied in our day to many phases of educational development which were unknown or little

8 INTRODUCTION

considered in the time of Page. To present these to the consideration of teachers, school officers, and parents is but to carry out to their logical conclusion the all-important suggestions of Page's remarkable address.

This book has been prepared with a view to bringing down to the present date the doctrine of cooperation in school interests, with all that it implies of enlightened, harmonious, and effective work in the interests of popular education. This being its plan and purpose, the writer has drawn freely from all sources which have presented themselves. The progress of the cause of popular education is nowhere more clearly shown than in the discussions of our leading teachers and in the various special reports and manuals issued from time to time by school officials and State departments of education. The extracts from the works of Longfellow, Whittier, Lowell, Emerson, Holmes, Aldrich, Lucy Larcom, and Bryant are used by permission of and special arrangement with the publishers, Messrs. Houghton, Mifflin & Co., and D. Appleton & Co.

Acknowledgments are due to Chancellor Payne of the University of Nashville for permission to use extracts from his works in the chapter on Teachers' Institutes ; and to Commissioner Harris of the National Bureau of Education for the privilege of using material from the bulletins of the Bureau, especially in the chapters on School Architecture and School Hygiene.

As the work has been compiled with a special view to the needs of Teachers' Reading Circles, it is divided into parts corresponding to the months of the Eeading Circle year and provided with Outlines of Keading Circle work.

E. M. K.

Indianapolis, March, 1895.

CHAPTER I DUTIES OF PARENTS 1 Need of Sympathy between Teachers and Parents. — The

profession of the teacher is certainly an important one. It should be a happy one. Adverse influences ought to be removed, and the teacher left free to devise his own plans and to find his enjoyment in witnessing the success attendant on their execution.

We would not ask for greater emolument — though, when we consider that the teacher's best years are spent in his duties, and after his best years are passed away an enlightened community usually judges him not only unfit for school-keeping but also unfit for anything else, we are constrained to believe that the matter of compensation has been little enough considered. We would not ask for greater respect and attention. We believe that the instructor has received his share of these in proportion to his merits. But we would ask for sympathy — for soul-cheering sympathy — on the part of parents of those whom we are called to instruct. We would plead for their aid as far as they can assist us. With that, we could go to the work with at least some gleamings of encouragement.

It is not our purpose to enter into a detailed enumeration of the difficulties of the teacher. It is sufficient for us to allege that a large part of them have their origin in the want of cooperation, or the misdirected influence of the parents.

1 David P. Page (see Introd,, p, 5). 11

12 SCHOOL IJSfTEBESTS AND DUTIES

Nor shall we labor on this occasion to arrange proofs of this position. It is a remark among teachers, as common as household words, that " teaching might be a delightful employment if one could take his pupils entirely out of the reach of their parents." The experience of those who have had charge of academies in the country, where the pupils chiefly were away from their own homes, goes to establish the same point ; and any one who has attentively watched the course of events in one of those important communities which we call a school district cannot have failed to draw the conclusion to which we have come.

We would not advocate, however, the removal of the young from their parents for the purposes of education. We believe that the Creator has wisely established the family relation, and that it is our duty to draw out and render available its uses, rather than, by extinction of the relar tion, to destroy its abuses. We believe that the child can be best educated among those of his own kindred, provided parents and teachers can by any means be made to understand one another's relative duties and obligations.

Between parties who are so often brought into collision, it is highly desirable that there shall exist some well-defined, mutual understanding. In many of our public schools the usefulness of one teacher after another is effectually destroyed ; the youth suffering not only from the interruption of their studies, but also from the angry looks and harsh words witnessed at home, and the parents, meantime, working themselves up into the exercise of bad feeling, where nothing is designed but good.

They are often parents who feel sufficiently the importance of education, whose impulses are sufficiently powerful, if only moved in the right direction, to carry them into the performance of every good word and work. They make, it may be, liberal provision for the support of their schools ; but, after all, the atmosphere is unhealthy. One sun after another rises upon them, only to raise the vapor and the mildew. Shorn of their beams, and robbed of their warmth, they go down in clouds and tempests, while the district over which they have passed is left in still greater darkness, and the chill and gloom of a winter's midnight yet hang over them. Why all this waste of strength, of money, and of talent ? Why so often must the teacher on the one hand and the parent on the other row in opposite directions ? Let us, for a few moments, inquire into the causes of the diflB.culty, and then we may hope better to adopt a prevention or devise a remedy. What, then, are some of the causes of misunderstanding between parents and teachers ?

Causes of Misunderstanding. — 1. Parents do not suflB.- ciently feel the importance of schools. After all that has been said in our halls of legislation, in our political assemblies, in our public journals, and in our pulpits, upon the importance to a free and independent people of a good education, there are many, very many, who have no adequate notion of its value. This lack of appreciation will show itself in many ways to make the duties of the teacher more arduous. One man keeps his son from the school on the slightest occasion ; another, in the same spirit, refuses to furnish the various facilities which the teacher may deem necessary for the prosecution of study. Now, while such is the state of feeling in the parent's mind, the business of instructing his child, who will most assuredly partake of his father's spirit, will be more arduous than the making of bricks and furnishing straw under the taskmasters of the Egyptian monarch.

2. A false standard of excellence and attainment for our schools sometimes exists in the minds of parents. The standard of their own attainments and of the schools of their boyhood is put by many parents for the youth and schools of the present day. They seem not to reflect that a child, in order to maintain his comparative standing in society now, must know more than if he had lived fifty years ago. The progress in education — without claiming much for the "march of intellect" — having kept pace in some ratio with other things, the whole body of the people are more advanced. Having in view a standard so low, the parent grudgingly furnishes the books and apparatus which may be needed to carry his son beyond his own level. He sees no beauty or fitness in the plans and measures of the teacher, so unlike those of the instructor of his own early years. He has serious objection to all classification in the school, because, as he says, Jie studied " single handed " ; and he is unwilling that his child should be compelled by any such " machinery " to go beyond the limits prescribed in his own mind.

3. There is often a suspicious spirit on the part of parents. So universally does this operate on the minds of some — induced, perhaps, by some failure or deception in a former teacher — that for weeks, in many districts, they seem to stand on the opposite side to watch for the appearance of some fault. It would seem to be their motto: "We will believe no good till we see it." The children, always ready imitators and quick of discernment, catch the same spirit, and watch for some imperfection, which they feel encouraged to report at home as soon as they see it or think they see it. Faults, and not excellences, make the first impression, both at school and at home; and the teacher, under such circumstances, must be a wonderful man and wonderfully fortunate if he can ever attain to a good degree of their confidence. If he does gain their confidence, it must be after long trial, patient effort, tried as by fire.

4. There is sometimes a disposition to dictate. In New England, men have often some adroitness in various kinds of business. The farmer, for instance, if he be a true Yankee, may at the same time be a carpenter, a wheelwright, a shoemaker, and a blacksmith — for all his own purposes. If he does not operate in all these departments, he feels perfectly at liberty to direct how the work shall be performed for him. So most parents feel disposed to give les-

DUTIES OFPABENTS 15

sons to the schoolmaster. If they call a physician, he may administer to his patient either calomel or lobelia, as he chooses. But the teacher must first hear their direction in his profession. And the most unfortunate part of it is, that the dictation usually comes to the teacher through the pupil, who, by the time he delivers his message, has pretty thoroughly imbibed the spirit of it. What part of it might be yielded by the parent is sure to be insisted on as a matter of right by the child.

5. There is a want of personal acquaintance between the parties. Teachers in many of our schools spend months, and in some instances years, with youths whose parents they have never known. The parents, during this time, have probably formed their opinions of the teacher, perhaps have expressed them freely either for or against him, and yet have never spoken a word with him, and very likely may not even know him by sight. They can understand but little of his character, of his temper, of his interest in his school. All they can know of him is derived through their children — a knowledge which, to say the most for it, may be right or may be wrong.

Let us not be understood to place all the causes of these evils at the door of the parents. We say it with sorrow — teachers have too often rendered themselves unworthy of the confidence and cooperation of parents. It must be admitted that the ofiice of the teacher has been filled not unfrequently with the personifications of indolence, selfishness, and imbecility. Men have sometimes entered upon the business of teaching from no higher motive than their incapacity to gain a livelihood in any other way. Through the supineness of school committees and the misdirected sympathy of some of their influential friends, there have been not a few men who have gained their situations by the paper qualifications which they carried in their pocketbooks, and who, so far as usefulness in their schools was concerned, might as well have been themselves paper men.

The regular (professional) teacher, too, may have his faults. He may have but little in his character which is attractive or conciliatory. He may be too self-sufficient, pedantic, or haughty. He may announce his plans without any apparent wish to explain them, should he be reasonably requested to do so. He may be an " off-side " man. If the people among whom he resides put the wheel in motion and excite the electric fluid, he may refuse to hold the conductor, and so no spark will be kindled. Should they bow in the street, he may set his face like flint and '^ let his course be right onward," and thus chill all their good feelings in the bud and seal up by a relentless frost all the fountains of mutual sociality.

Where the foregoing causes exist, they must always produce a most unhappy state of things ; and the teacher who attempts to go forward while they operate will most certainly rue the day when he first set out to teach.

How to Avoid these Evils. — It is desirable that all should understand the means of avoiding these evils if they do not exist, or of removing them where they have gained a place. In education, as in all other things, prevention is better than cure. The teacher will therefore spare himself many pangs and secure the foundation of much usefulness if he can so conduct matters as to prevent the existence of any cause of difficulty between himself and the parents of his pupils. This business of prevention lies partly with the teacher and partly with the parents themselves.

He should study faithfully and feelingly the relations he sustains to his pupils and to their friends ; he should carefully perform every known duty in its time and after its manner, according to the dictates of his own conscience. Let him do this, and he can be happy in his own mind. Yet when he has done all he can do, the question of his success will depend very much upon the parents of his pupils. They must come forward and crown the work, or very much will be wanting after all.

Let uSj tlien, devote a few pages to the consideration of the duties of parents. On entering this part of the subject, we feel an impulse to speak plainly and feelingly. It will be difficult to define all the duties of parents. It will be our object to speak of those which most strongly suggest themselves.

Duties of Parents. — 1. Parents should reciprocate the attempts of the teacher toward a mutual understanding. It will discourage the most faithful instructor if, at the outset, he meets with coldness and unconcern. The parents should never forget that the teacher is their appointed coadjutor, for the time being, to educate their children. As they love their children and desire their advantage, so should they be ready to encourage all the advances which he may make towards the better understanding of their wishes and intentions, and the explanation of his plans.

2. Parents should listen candidly to the plans of the teacher and, unless they are manifestly wrong, should do all in their power to aid him in the execution of them. We say, unless they are manifestly wrong. Many parents suppose that if a teacher's modes and plans are not the best — in their opinion the very best — they are under no obligation to help them forward. But we say that every teacher may not have the wisdom to devise abstractly the best plans, yet most likely such as he will devise will be the best for Mm. He has taken much time and, after long solicitude and many desires to be useful, he has fixed upon a course — one which, under all the circumstances, may seem to him the best.

Now, suppose this course shall chance to strike the parents' minds unfavorably ; shall they at once abandon the teacher, give up all hopes of benefit from the school, and withdraw their cooperation? Is it not rather their duty either to suggest " a more excellent way " — which they may ever do if they have a right spirit — or to give their cooperation in carrying out his plans, such as they are ? The teacher, be it remembered, is appointed to conduct the school for a

SCH. INT. & BUT. — 2 time ; and unless his services and his plans, however inferior they may be, are rendered useful, the youths are, for the time, losers.

Parents may be as particular as they please in the choice of their teacher, and in requiring the highest rate of qualifications ; but after they have accepted him as teacher they cannot, without a breach of contract, withhold from him their cooperation. If they have been imposed upon — if the incumbent is found to be absolutely incompetent — they may decently secure his dismissal and the appointment of another; but to continue in office a teacher in whom they have no confidence and whom they refuse to aid is a breach of good faith. It is an illustration of the maxim that " two wrongs can never make a right."

As a general rule (we repeat it), the teacher's own plans will be found decidedly the best for him, and it is not good policy for parents upon slight cause to attempt an obtrusive interference. The right of adopting his own measures, as a general thing, should be conceded to the teacher, and all parents will find their own interests promoted and their children's advancement accelerated in cheerfully aiding him,

3. Parents should thankfully listen to the teacher's faithful account of their children, even if that account be not a flattering one. We have before said that the teacher should be frank, always telling the parents the whole truth and nothing but the truth. This must sometimes be of itself an unpleasant duty. It is self-denying enough for the teacher to make an unfavorable statement demanded by his duty under the best circumstances, and the trial is peculiarly severe when the parent receives it with expressions of displeasure or of undisguised reproach. Nothing should deter the teacher, however, from the faithful discharge of this duty ; and he has a just right to expect cordiality and gratitude on the part of the parent for his faithfulness, whether his report be bright or dark. The good and wise parent will always exhibit them.

4. Parents should visit tlie schools which their children attend. Without this they can have no very correct idea of the state of things in the schoolroom. Common report concerning the affairs of a school is not always correct. By visiting the school, parents can at once see, if the teacher is honest, the comparative standing of their children. They will become more interested in the objects and business of the school, and — what will be of infinite worth both to teacher and pupils — it will convince them all that the parents have some sense of the importance of the improvement made there. The pupils will be quickened to diligence and the teacher to activity and faithfulness. And is not the rate of purchase very low when the advantage is so great ?

5. Parents should promptly and cheerfully supply the required books and apparatus for the school. The teacher cannot work without tools ; the parent ought not to expect it. If a parent has any doubt about the propriety of a call for a new book, he should at once see the teacher. Never should he send an uncivil or angry message by the child. An interview of five minutes may put the matter peaceably at rest, and save both parties much unpleasant feeling.

Besides, schoolbooks are now less expensive than formerly. The parent in most cases can better afford to buy a book than to spend his time in talking about it. Often the pupil loses more by a delay of one week than the value of the book many times told, for there is no estimating improvement by dollars and cents. We grant that an oversupply and too frequent changes of schoolbooks are a great and sore evil; but this, at least, is not the fault of the instructor. No good can possibly come of disputing a question with him which has been settled already by the school authorities.

6. Parents should see that their children are decently clothed and cleanly in their persons. This duty belongs mainly to the mother, and her character may be very readily seen as reflected in the persons of her children. The teacher lias a right to expect of the parents the faithful performance of this duty. He ought not to be insulted with filthiness ; and surely he need not be, so long as soft water falls in rich abundance from the heavens, and a pair of scissors and a comb are possessed by every family. He can have no heart to come in contact with pupils who are sometimes so sadly neglected in this particular. This point, however, is so obvious that we need not waste words upon it.

7. Parents are bound to secure the constant attendance of their children. This is no trifling article of their duty. Perhaps there is no one thing to be named which contributes so largely to the perplexities of the teacher and to the injury of our public schools as irregular attendance. Eeal illness of the child is a good excuse for absence from school ; and perhaps we may add, in some instances, illness in the family. But beyond these, it seems to us, there can be no good reason for keeping a scholar from his school. It is discouraging to see for what trifling causes many of the children are kept away.

Prequently it happens that some errand as trifling — if we may be allowed to be specific — as the purchase of a cent's worth of yeast is made the occasion of a half day's absence from school, occasioning thereby an injury to the child's mind which cannot be estimated in dollars and cents. Who can compute the amount of idle habits of study having their foundation in that indifference to education which, for some trifling errand, permits the child to be away from his class and thus practically teaches him to consider his school a very cheap affair ?

Every school, if the teacher would lay out his strength to advantage, should be classified. The teacher's mind must act, as far as practicable, upon masses of mind. But irregularity of attendance is most ruinous to classification. A pupil absent one half the time is, to all intents and purposes of the school, absent all the time. One day he is absent, and, of course, loses all tliat clay's lessons; the next day lie is present, but is still deficient in his lessons, because, as lie says to his teaclier, " I was absent yesterday and, not knowing where to study, I have not studied at all ! " Again he is absent — again he is present. The same result follows, and at the week's end he has learned nothing as it should be learned. Such is the effect upon the pupil himself.

But the difficulty is not now half told. He is a member of the school — the teacher must consider him such; and as the parents of such pupils often make fair promises for the future, the teacher feefs bound to keep him, if possible, along with his class. To effect this, the class must be often put back on his account, which operates as a severe discouragement to them.

Sometimes the instructor is obliged to devote particular attention to this pupil singly, by which the other pupils are robbed of the proportion of his time which is their due. They are, moreover, obliged to suffer an injury the most unpleasant of all. For when pupils who are always at their posts have learned their lessons well, it is cruel in the last degree that they should be deprived of the pleasure of showing their faithfulness — the pleasure of a good, recitation.

ISTor is this all. The teacher, the unthought-of teacher, is not made of iron or brass. His patience being so frequently, so thoughtlessly, and so unnecessarily taxed and his best efforts being so ill-requited, he must, unless he is superhuman, relax his exertions. He will find it next to impossible for a series of weeks or months, after having labored faithfully without success, to maintain his interest and his efficiency under all the discouraging circumstances of the case. As soon as his spirits flag, the whole school will imperceptibly catch the feeling, and they are all sufferers. This is not an extreme case. It is not a fancy picture. It is not speculation. It is history ! And I am sorry to be obliged to add, it is the exact history of most of our public schools !