The teacher and his work

Preface

THIS book is the outgrowth of almost a lifetime of school work in nearly every grade of schools, from the district school in the country to the city superintendency.

Much of the matter contained has done duty, in other forms, at teachers' institutes in Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Illinois; and a considerable part has appeared in an educational magazine. The whole has been carefully revised — much of it rewritten.

I have not been ambitious to make a large book, but rather to condense within moderate limits as much as possible of helpfulness and inspiration to those who are bearing the burden and heat of the day. Nor have I striven after novelty or display of learning, but I have striven to make simple and plain some of the most vital things in school education.

The life of an earnest teacher is of necessity laborious and pains-taking, but it has its compensations. Though at times painfully conscious of weakness and short-coming, I find in the retrospect of the years much more of satisfaction than regret. I rejoice that I have had, and still have, some part in a work so good.

A hearty God-speed to every worker into whose hands this book may come.

SAMUEL FINDLEY.

Akron, Ohio.

July, 1899.

Contents

I. Character and Equipment of the

Teacher.

II. The Teacher's Spirit.

II. The Teacher's Spirit

IN my experience as a school supervisor, I have not always found it easy to discover the secret of the success or failure of teachers. Some of those from whom I have expetced little have proven very capable and successful. There comes to mind the case of one who was rejected on her examination, but was afterwards employed in an emergency. Her success was very marked. She not only governed and taught well, but she attached her pupils to her strongly, and her influence over them was healthful and inspiring. Many teachers could be named, highly esteemed and successful, now holding principalships and other important positions, who were at first licensed reluctantly and employed with a good many misgivings.

On the other hand, some possessed of good character, good scholarship, and, to all appearances, a fair measure of all the other requirements, and concerning whom there were high expectations, have failed utterly, or have ranked only as mediocres. A striking example is the case of one of the best scholars I have known — one who seemed to know almost everything and betrayed no lack in other directions. She was certificated and employed with-

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out the least hesitation, but proved her incompetency before the close of the first day. Her pupils, with keen insight, quickly saw in her something which the school officials had failed to discover. With her advent there seemed to come into the school troops of the imps of mischief, and before the first day was over the school was hopelessly demoralized.

Another example comes to mind — that of one who had shown good ability and great industry as a student, besides great energy and force of character in pushing her way through high school and college, without means and without home aid or even home sympathy. The interest with which friends and acquaintances watched her career as a student amounted almost to enthusiasm. With high school and college diploma fairly won, she had no difficulty in securing employment as a teacher. Places awaited her. Disappointment, too, awaited her and her friends. 'In point of real teaching power, she scarcely ranked as a mediocre. Inspiration seemed to be wanting. She repelled rather than attracted her pupils.

These and other similar cases have made a deep impression on my mind. They have made me think that the signs of a good teacher do not always appear on the surface. The teacher's inner life and spirit determine his real worth. Persons of shallow nature, without depth and richness of soul, can never enter into the higher realm of instruction and influence. Being themselves superficial, they cannot see beneath the surface of things. They are not born

THE TEACHER'S SPIRIT.

again ; they have no newness of life. Their eyes have not been opened ; they have no inner vision. They do not understand their own life, or the life about them, and are never able to put themselves in right relations to their work or their surroundings.

It was said of an eminent character of old that he was preferred above presidents and princes because an excellent spirit was in him. It is always the excellent spirit in a man that gives him desirable and lasting pre-eminence. What but the excellent spirit in our own Lincoln and Garfield placed them so high in the esteem and affection of a great people, and gave them a fame that will last as long as history is read ? It is the excellent spirit in the teacher that gives him his greatest power, that fits him for the best work of a teacher.

It is in dealing with such a subject as this that one feels most keenly the poverty of human speech. Bacon has said that the finest part of beauty is that which a picture cannot express. So it may be said that the finest and best in the spirit of a true teacher cannot be expressed in words. Perhaps no one has better expressed the inadequacy of language to embody deepest thought and finest feeling than Bishop Huntington, in his inimitable classic, " Unconscious Tuition." "All true wisdom, " he says," involves a certain something that is inexpressible. After all you have said about it, you feel that there is something more which you never can say, and there is a frequent sensation of pain at the inadequacy of

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language to shape and convey — perhaps, also, the inadequacy of the conceptions to define — the secret and nameless thought, which is the delicious charm and crown of the subject, as it hangs in robes of glory before your mind. Any cultivated person, who has never been oppressed by this experience, must be subject, I should say, to dogmatism, pragmatism, conceit, or some other comfortable chronic infirmity. Where the nature is rich and the emotions are generous, there will always be a reverential perception that ideas only partly condescend to be embodied in words. So it is always found that the truest effects of eloquence are where the expression suggests a region of thought, a dim vista of imagery, an oceanic depth of feeling, beyond what is actually contained in the sentences. You have to judge an orator as much by what he leaves out as by what he puts in. He uses words with the true mastery of genius who not only knows how to say exactly and lucidly, and with the fewest sounds, the thing he thinks, but how to make what he does say indicate that diviner part of wisdom which must remain forever unsaid. The cleanest rhetorical directness is united with the strongest sense of mystery. You hear thoughts perfectly within the range of the understanding sublimely uttered, and you are made aware of the nearness of a world whose thoughts are more sublimely unuttered. ' '

Without attempting an exhaustive analysis, I present a few of the more obvious elements of the

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excellent spirit which the teacher should seek with whole heart and soul and mind.

At the head stands child-likeness. To be child-like is not to be childish. There is nothing in the child-like spirit inconsistent with the sturdiest manliness or the most mature womanliness. When the disciples of Jesus strove among themselves for pre-eminence in the new kingdom, He took a little child, and having set him in the midst He said: "Whosoever shall humble himself as this little child, the same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven." These words must always impress us with the excellence of child-likeness. It is the passport to the better life. One cannot contemplate without desiring not only to understand it but to possess it. But it is a very high attainment — the highest and best the soul reaches in this life. No greater task can a strong man set for himself than to become child-like in the fullest sense. When he has accomplished it he is ready to enter another sphere.

But what is it to be child-like ? One writer answers well in these words: " To be child-like is to be harmless and void of offense ; to be so pure as not to understand the suggestions of impurity ; to be unselfish and unworldly ; to ' take no anxious thought for the morrow' , fully believing and trusting that 'our Father knoweth that we have need of these things'; and to be willing to follow wherever he leads the way. ' ' Only a true, pure, loving soul can be child-like.

THE TEACHKR AND HIS WORK.

The chief elements of child-likeness are three : i. Humility. To be truly humble is not to think meanly of one's self, or to underestimate one's own abilities. Humility is a noble grace. ' ' Before honor is humility, ' 'and ' 'with the lowly is wisdom. ' ' It is the opposite of the proud and haughty spirit that ' ' goeth before a fall. ' ' Pride is always unseemly. Few things are more disgusting to right minded people than to see any human being strut before his fellows. Whenever anyone shows that he is satisfied with himself everybody else becomes dissatisfied with him ; whenever a person thinks much of himself, he is lightly esteemed by other people. Humility is the appropriate attitude of mortals. It is the root of all the graces, the spring of all that is lovely in human character. Wordsworth tells us out of his own experience that wisdom is nearer to us when we stoop than when we soar. Paradoxical as it may seem, humility is true exaltation. Some special reasons may be given why we as teachers should be humble. Because, in the first place, we know so little. I refer not alone to the small attainments of the novice and the ignorance of the incompetent and unfaithful. The attainments of the wisest are small compared with the whole realm of knowledge, to say nothing of the domain of mystery. This life is too short to know fairly well more than a few subjects, and no man knows any subject to its utmost limits. The man who is proud of his knowledge gives evidence that

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his circle of vision is small. We readily sympathize with the feeling of the scholarly Newton, when, near the close of his life, referring to his own attainments, he said, ' ' I feel like a little child that has picked up a few pebbles along the shore, while the great ocean of knowledge lies out beyond. ' '

But again, we have reason to be humble because ' we see so dimly and are so often mistaken. We often think we know, and afterwards find we were mistaken. What we hold as truth to-day is often different from what we held yesterday. Even great ecclesiastical bodies, supposed to be almost infallible, find it necessary to revise their creeds. It would be good for anyone imbued with the correctness of his own opinions, or with the certainty of human knowledge in general, to read attentively the works of any half dozen modern writers on psychology or geology.

Yet again, we have reason to be humble because of our inefficiency. What the average teacher accomplishes for and with his pupils is insignificant in comparison with what is possible. The possibilities of young minds in the direction of development and culture are very great, under proper stimulation and skillful guidance. But the average results attained in schools are meager. It is fair to say that what is done in schools throughout the land, both in the production of scholarship and in the formation of character, is less than half of what might be accomplished, with the whole body of teachers fully qualified and thoroughly in earnest.

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"Why should the spirit of mortal be proud?" Humility is the only fitting attitude of beings so short-sighted, so imperfect, so dependent. " Be clothed with humility ; for God resisteth the proud, and giveth grace to the humble."

2. Teachableness. The unperverted little child is not only willing to be taught, it is anxious to learn. It is an embodied interrogation. What is it ? What for ? Why ? are some of the familiar forms in which the teachable attitude of the little child is manifest. Teachableness implies obedience ; it also implies an acknowledgment of ignorance. The futile efforts of grown people to conceal their ignorance is sometimes ludicrous. Like the silly ostrich which thinks itself concealed from its pursuers when only its head is buried in the sand, many foolish people imagine themselves secure behind a mask which all the world sees through. The multitude is slow to learn that there can be no successful seeming without being. If people generally made as much effort to learn as they make to conceal their ignorance, the sum of intelligence in the world would be considerably increased. What a gulf there is between a soul that is affected, self -conceited and full of pretense, and one that is simple, unassuming, and docile. Before the one is a self-constructed and almost impassable barrier; before the other is an open and inviting highway.

Young teachers are often unduly impressed with

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a false sense of the dignity of their position. It has been gravely maintained that a teacher cannot afford to say, in the hearing of his pupils, I do not know — as if it were possible for him to know everything. The best attitude of a teacher in this regard is that of a learner a little in advance of his pupils. Of course, teachers ought to know a good deal, and they ought to be very familiar with what they undertake to teach. But to pretend or assume attainments not possessed is never justifiable, and he that does it is sure to come to grief sooner or later. It may be noted in passing that the broader and more thorough one's knowledge, the easier it is to say, I do not know.

The teachable spirit will lead a teacher to see, acknowledge, and profit bj^ his mistakes. Never stick to a wrong because you have spoken it ; never do a wrong because your word is out. If you have unwisely promised or threatened punishment which you afterwards conclude to be undeserved or improper, be frank to confess your mistake to all concerned, even though it include the whole school, and refrain from inflicting the punishment. Such a course will not weaken your authority, but will give you a stronger hold upon the school.

The teachable spirit will make a teacher ready to receive counsel from the parents of his pupils as well as from those above him in authority. A teacher ought to be reasonably jealous of any intermeddling or interference with his own prerogative.

THE TEACHER AND HIS WORK.

He must control and teach his school, and in many things he must be a law unto himself. He should moderately but firmly resist all such interference on the part of superintendent, board, or parents, as tends to weaken his authority and influence, or to hinder in any way the fullest exercise of his appropriate function as a teacher. Yet he should keep an open mind to the suggestions of all who are concerned in his pupils' well-being. Even when suggestions are prompted by over-officiousness, he should weigh them well, and adopt, as far as practicable, all that is good in them. No self-conceit or self-will should prevent the teacher from profiting by suggestions of good, from whatever source they may come.

3. Trustfulness. The affectionate, trustful spirit with which the little child clings to its natural protectors is the symbol and ideal of true faith in the human soul. Credulity and superstition are but the semblance and counterfeit of true faith. Genuine faith is the soul's inner sense whereby it sees the invisible. The soul without faith is blind to all beyond the realm of external sense. Some one has said that faith is certitude without proof. Faith has proofs of its own which are incommunicable — proofs addressed more to the heart and conscience than to the rational faculty. For one without faith to deny the existence of the objects of faith, is like a blind man denying the existence of light and color.

THE TEACHER'S SPIRIT.

Faith is the hand of the soul which holds on when sense and reason are unable to point the way.

Faith is something nobler and better than mere belief in human creed and dogma. It is the vital principle of the soul which links it to the divine, and gives strength in weakness and peace in adversity. It makes the soul hopeful and buoyant, and gives courage to undertake and persevere. Men of high purpose and action have ever been men of great faith. There can be no high ideal of life without it.

Faith in the teacher gives him high ideals and expectations for his pupils, and enables him to inspire them with like high ideals. No heartless skeptic should be permitted to instil the insidious and blighting poison of his own unbelief into the minds and hearts of youth.

There are doubtless other elements of the child-like spirit, but these three are chief. Let them suffice.

Next after child-likeness may be named a spirit of earnestness. The world owes far more to earnest men and women than it does to genius. It is not by strokes of genius but by earnest plodding that the world's work is done. Few are highly gifted ; great talent is scarce ; but all may be in earnest. One man thoroughly in earnest is worth a regiment of dawdlers. If the present membership of all branches of the christian church were to become at once thoroughly in earnest, the world would be christianized within a decade.

the; teacher and his work.

Real earnestness in the teacher does not manifest itself in fussiness or noise. Shallow water ripples and bubbles ; the deep stream runs still. Earnest souls are deep and calm, but they move on with irrisistible force. Something of earnestness is due to the blood in the arteries, to the secretions of the liver and stomach, and to natural temperament, but more to heart and conscience. It is not wanting where there are a high sense of duty and clear and right views of life.

Another word of kindred meaning is enthusiasm. This word of noble origin is sometimes put to base uses. It is not unfrequently used synonymously with fanaticism, whereas in its original signification it means God within. An enthusiast is inspired or God-filled. A truly earnest soul is an enthusiast in the good sense. There is always about him a glow of warmth, a fervor, that keeps all his powers in working condition and makes it good and pleasant to be near him. How different the atmosphere of a school room which has in it a teacher with glowing fervency of spirit from that of one having in it a shallow, languid, indifferent teacher — the one a continual benediction and inspiration, the other a weariness and pain to behold.

The earnest teacher takes interest in his pupils and puts heart into his work. Teachers are sometimes advised to lock their school cares in the school room at the close of each day. If by this is meant the leaving behind of wearing and fruitless worry

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about trifles, or about things which thoughtfuluess cannot remedy, the advice is good. The more of this the better. Blessed the teacher who can do it. But I cannot always avoid the suspicion that it is taken to mean the giving as little thought as possible to the school and its well-being. School duties and responsibilities do sit lightly on the shoulders of some teachers ; but an earnest teacher will give much earnest thought to his school out of school hours. He will carry his school on his heart somewhat as a good mother her children. President Garfield has told, concerning his experience as a teacher, that he was wont, on waking in the morning, to lie in his bed and draw in imagination the plan of his school room on his pillow, so as to get each pupil as vividly as possible before his mind. Then he would study each in turn, his tendencies and peculiarities, that he might determine what he should do for each that had not yet been done. In my own first years of teaching I often taught all night long ; and in later years I have spent sleepless nights over troublesome school problems ; and I do not think my success has been less for so doing.

Another excellent trait, which might properly have been included in the child-like spirit, is ingenuousness. It is the opposite of craftiness or sly cunning. An ingenuous person is open, frank, candid, and free from equivocation. He is "actuated by a native simplicity and artlesness, which

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make him willing to confess his faults, and make known his sentiments without reserve. ' ' Ingenuousness is not inconsistent with a reasonable prudence, or a proper sense of propriety as to when to speak and when to keep silence. "A fool uttereth all his mind • but a wise man keepeth it in till afterwards. ' ' Craftiness and disguise usually accompany a sense of ill-desert or ill-design, but find no place in a truly noble soul.

The Scotch poet utters only worldly wisdom when he advises,

More like other-world wisdom are these words from Kmerson : ' ' Speak what you think now in hard words, and to-morrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict everything you said to-day . ' '

And these from Bacon : ' ' Simulation and dissimulation commonly carry with them a show of fearfulness, which in any business doth spoil the feathers of round flying up to the mark. Round dealing is the honor of man's nature. The ablest men that ever were had all an openness and frankness of dealing, and a name of certainty and veracity. ' '

The ingenuous teacher readily gains the confidence of his pupils, and they unconsciously grow into his likeness.

the teacher's spirit.

Still another element of the excellent spirit is magnanimity. A magnanimous person is literallygreat of mind — magnus, great, animus, mind. He takes a broad, generous view of all things, and is disposed to look on the good in life and conduct. Magnanimity is often in common phrase called largeheartedness. It is that dignity or elevation of soul ' ' which enables one to encounter danger or trouble with tranquility and firmness, to disdain injustice, meanness and revenge, and to act and sacrifice for noble objects."

The magnanimous spirit in the teacher lifts him above the petty annoyances of the school room, and keeps him from magnifying the weaknesses and faults of his pupils. How often is the whole work and influence of the teacher marred and hindered by a narrow self-seeking ! A teacher should never allow himself to become a party in any case involving the conduct of a pupil. No misdemeanor of a pupil should be treated as a personal offense, or an insult to the teacher, but rather as an offense against good order and propriety. The teacher should never be either plaintiff or defendant, with a pupil as the party of the other part. His correct attitude is that of counsellor and friend — sometimes that of judge and executor.

Many of the minor faults of pupils should be seen by the teacher as though he saw them not. A story is told of a Scotch tutor, who had the right view of this matter. A friend,

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walking with him one day through the campus, observed a student at a little distance limping in imitation of the lame tutor, and expected to see the offender sharply reprimanded. Surprised that the tutor gave the matter no attention, the friend asked, ' 'Why do you not stop that impudent fellow?' ' "An' ye na' look at him, ye'll na' see him," replied the tutor. The magnanimous teacher will sometimes refrain from looking that he may not see.

The large-minded, large-hearted teacher will harbor no grudge against either pupils or their parents. This is a matter of much importance, and one to which teachers should give earnest heed. A very successful and much loved clergyman of my acquaintance, makes it a rule of his life never to entertain animosity or ill-will toward a fellow man. It is a good rule — one that will add greatly to the happiness and usefulness of all who observe it. How much of this world's good is destroyed, and how much of individual comfort is taken out of life, by the malevolent feelings and enmities indulged among men ! The teacher's highest success, as well as his own comfort, requires the ' ' laying aside all malice, and all guile, and hypocrisies, and envies, and all evil speaking. ' '

But the last and greatest and best is love. This it is that Prof. Drummond calls ' ' The Greatest Thing in the World. " It is the most enduring thing in the world. Prophecies shall fail, tongues shall cease, knowledge shall vanish, and even faith shall be lost in sight and hope in fruition ; but love is eternal and

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never fails. It is the most powerful thing in the world. It delivers souls from sin and death, and nothing else has ever done or can do that. ' ' Thou hast loved my soul out of the pit ' ' is the language of an ancient teacher.

Love in the teacher's heart is the mightiest force in the school room. Every teacher ought to have a great big heart full of it, and should be most ready to pour it out on those who need it most. The real test of love in a teacher's heart is its readiness to flow for the unlovely — the wayward and neglected. What a benediction, what a blessing, is a loving teacher to the heart-hungry waifs found in nearly every school !

One blessed thing about love is that the more of it one gives the more he has. ' ' To love abundantly is to live abundantly, and to love forever is to live forever. ' ' Truly love is the greatest thing in the world !

Love, like nearly all good things, has its counterfeits. A weak and sickly sentimentalism is not unfrequently put forward in its place. Many teachers use more of sentiment than sense in dealing with their pupils, shown by petting and fondling them, and by laxness in discipline and slackness in requiring the performance of school duties. Love does not always caress ; it sometimes smites. Truest love leads to greatest faithfulness, and this all teachers should ponder well. Those parents and teachers who, in good spirit and with painstaking, correct

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the faults of children and hold them rigorously to a high standard of excellence in all things, show greater love by far than those who languidly and weakly indulge them to their hurt.

If any discouraged teacher asks how he may attain the excellent spirit thus imperfectly set forth, I answer, Not in your own strength and not in a day. No one does or can purify his own life. "Apart from me ye can do nothing." "As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself except it abide in the vine, no more can ye except ye abide in me." The essential thing at the outset and always is a right attitude for receiving proffered help. A man can no more elevate and ennoble himself by his own unaided efforts than lift himself over the fence by pulling at the straps of his boots. All efforts at reformation and right living, without the soul's coming into right relation to the Divine, are futile and vain. But these natural and proper relations once fully restored and established — the soul once planted in its appropriate soil, it grows naturally and even luxuriantly, and brings forth, in time, rich and abundant fruit.

Professional Ethics.

. . . . " Whatsoever ye would that men should do to }'ou, do ye even so to them."

III. Professional Ethics

ETHICS and morals are synonymous terms, having reference to human conduct, behavior, duty. In professional ethics are included the mutual obligations and duties of members of the same profession, each to each and to the profession at large ; and these are no less binding than those of any other human relation. The teacher who disregards the rights and feelings of a fellow teacher, is as blameworthy as he is when he neglects or refuses to pay his grocery bill. He is debtor in both cases, and is in honor and in duty bound to discharge the debt.

A modern writer has said that the greatest of all arts for the mass of mankind is conduct, and that every art has its ideal, the standard of perfection, toward which the efforts of all who practice it are more or less consciously directed. The ideal of the fine art of conduct has its embodiment in the Golden Rule. To live by this rule in form and spirit is the perfection of conduct. One main source of our unrest, a chief obstacle in the way of our peace and happiness, is our failure to realize this ideal.