The Teacher

Such are the means to which I resort in endeavoring to lead my pupils to God and to duty. And you will observe that the whole design of them is to win and to allure, not to compel. The regular devotional exercises of school, are all which you will necessarily witness. These are very short, occupying much less time than many of the pupils think desirable. The rest is all private and voluntary. I never make any effort to urge any one to attend the Saturday meeting, nor do I, except in a few rare and peculiar cases, ever address any one personally, unless she desires to be so addressed. You will be left therefore in this school unmolested,—to choose your own way. If you should choose to neglect religious duty, and to wander away from God, I shall still do all in my power to make you happy in school, and to secure for you in future life, such a measure of enjoyment, as can fall to the share of one, over whose prospects in another world there hangs so gloomy a cloud. I shall never reproach you, and perhaps may not even know what your choice is. Should you on the other hand prefer the peace and happiness of piety, and be willing to begin to walk in its paths, you will find many both among the teachers and pupils of the Mt. Vernon School to sympathize with you, and to encourage and help you on your way.

CHAPTER VII.

SCHEMING

The best teachers in our country, or rather those who might be the best, lose a great deal of their time, and endanger, or perhaps entirely destroy their hopes of success, by a scheming spirit, which is always reaching forward to something new. One has in his mind some new school book, by which Arithmetic, Grammar, or Geography are to be taught with unexampled rapidity, and his own purse to be filled, in a much more easy way, than by waiting for the rewards of patient industry. Another has the plan of a school, bringing into operation new principles of management or instruction, which he is to establish on some favored spot, and which is to become in a few years a second Hofwyl. Another has some royal road to learning, and though he is trammeled and held down by what he calls the ignorance and stupidity of his Trustees or his School Committee, yet if he could fairly put his principles and methods to the test, he is certain of advancing the science of Education half a century at least, at a single leap.

Ingenuity in devising new ways, and enterprise in following them, are among the happiest characteristics of a new country rapidly filling with a thriving population. Without these qualities there could be no advance; society must be stationary; and from a stationary to a retrograde condition, the progress is inevitable. The disposition to make improvements and changes may however be too great. If so, it must he checked. On the other hand a slavish attachment to old established practices may prevail. Then the spirit of enterprise and experiment must be awakened and encouraged. Which of these two is to be the duty of a writer at any time, will of course depend upon the situation of the community at the time he writes, and of the class of readers for which he takes his pen. Now at the present time, it is undoubtedly true, that, while among the great mass of teachers there may be too little originality and enterprise, there is still among many a spirit of innovation and change, to which a caution ought to be addressed. But before I proceed, let me protect myself from misconception by one or two remarks.

1. There are a few individuals in various parts of our country, who by ingenuity and enterprise, have made real and important improvements in many departments of our science, and are still making them. The science is to be carried forward by such men. Let them not therefore understand that any thing which I shall say, applies at all to those real improvements which are from time to time, brought before the public. As examples of this there might easily be mentioned, were it necessary, several new modes of study, and new text books, and literary institutions on new plans, which have been brought forward within a few years, and proved, on actual trial, to be of real and permanent value.

These are, or rather they were, when first conceived by the original projectors, new schemes; and the result has proved that they were good ones. Every teacher too must hope that such improvements will continue to be made. Let nothing therefore which shall be said on the subject of scheming in this chapter, be interpreted as intended to condemn real improvements of this kind, or to check those which may now be in progress, by men of age or experience, or of sound judgment, who are capable of distinguishing between a real improvement and a whimsical innovation, which can never live any longer than it is sustained by the enthusiasm of the original inventor.

2. There are a great many teachers in our country, who make their business a mere dull and formal routine, through which they plod on, month after month, and year after year, without variety or change, and who are inclined to stigmatize with the appellation of idle scheming, all plans, of whatever kind, to give variety or interest to the exercises of the school. Now whatever may be said in this chapter against unnecessary innovation and change, does not apply to efforts to secure variety in the details of daily study, while the great leading objects are steadily pursued. This subject has already been discussed in the chapter on Instruction, where it has been shown that every wise teacher, while he pursues the same great object, and adopts in substance the same leading measures at all times, will exercise all the ingenuity he possesses, and bring all his inventive powers into requisition to give variety and interest to the minute details.

To explain now what is meant by such scheming as is to be condemned, let us suppose a case, which is not very uncommon. A young man, while preparing for college, takes a school. When he first enters upon the duties of his office, he is diffident and timid, and walks cautiously in the steps which precedent has marked out for him. Distrusting himself, he seeks guidance in the example which others have set for him, and very probably he imitates precisely, though it may be insensibly and involuntarily, the manners and the plans of his own last teacher. This servitude soon however, if he is a man of natural abilities, passes away: he learns to try one experiment after another, until he insensibly finds that a plan may succeed, even if it was not pursued by his former teacher. So far it is well. He throws greater interest into his school, and into all its exercises by the spirit with which he conducts them. He is successful. After the period of his services has expired, he returns to the pursuit of his studies, encouraged by his success, and anticipating further triumphs in his subsequent attempts.

He goes on through college we will suppose, teaching from time to time in the vacations, as opportunity occurs, taking more and more interest in the employment, and meeting with greater and greater success. This success is owing in a very great degree to the freedom of his practice, that is to his escape from the thraldom of imitation. So long as he leaves the great objects of the school untouched, and the great features of its organization unchanged, his many plans for accomplishing these objects in new and various ways, awaken interest and spirit both in himself and in his scholars, and all goes on well.

Now in such a case as this, a young teacher philosophizing upon his success and the causes of it, will almost invariably make this mistake; viz., he will attribute to something essentially excellent in his plans, the success which, in fact results from the novelty of them.

When he proposes something new to a class, they all take an interest in it, because it is new. He takes, too, a special interest in it because it is an experiment which he is trying, and he feels a sort of pride and pleasure in securing its success. The new method which he adopts, may not be, in itself, in the least degree better than old methods. Yet it may succeed vastly better in his hands, than any old method he had tried before. And why? Why because it is new. It awakens interest in his class, because it offers them variety, and it awakens interest in him, because it is a plan which he has devised, and for whose success therefore he feels that his credit is at stake. Either of these circumstances is abundantly sufficient to account for its success. Either of these would secure success, unless the plan was a very bad one indeed.

This may easily be illustrated by supposing a particular case. The teacher has, we will imagine, been accustomed to teach spelling in the usual way, by assigning a lesson in the spelling book, which the scholars have studied in their seats, and then they have recited by having the words put to them individually in the class. After sometime, he finds that one class has lost its interest in this study. He can make them get the lesson it is true, but he perceives perhaps that it is a weary task to them. Of course they proceed with less alacrity, and consequently with less rapidity and success. He thinks, very justly, that it is highly desirable to secure cheerful, not forced, reluctant efforts from his pupils, and he thinks of trying some new plan. Accordingly he says to them,

"Boys, I am going to try a new plan for this class."

The mere annunciation of a new plan awakens universal attention. The boys all look up, wondering what it is to be.

"Instead of having you study your lessons in your seats, as heretofore, I am going to let you all go together into one corner of the room, and choose some one to read the lesson to you, spelling all the words aloud. You will all listen and endeavor to remember how the difficult ones are spelled. Do you think you can remember?"

"Yes, sir," say the boys. Children always think they can do every thing which is proposed to them as a new plan or experiment, though they are very often inclined to think they cannot do what is required of them as a task.

"You may have," continues the teacher, "the words read to you once, or twice, just as you please. Only if you have them read but once, you must take a shorter lesson."

He pauses and looks round upon the class. Some say, "Once," some, "Twice."

"I am willing that you should decide this question. How many are in favor of having shorter lessons, and having them read but once?–How many prefer longer lessons, and having them read twice?"

After comparing the numbers, it is decided according to the majority, and the teacher assigns, or allows them to assign a lesson.

"Now," he proceeds, "I am not only going to have you study in a different way, but recite in a different way too. You may take your slates with you, and after you have had time to hear the lesson read slowly and carefully twice, I shall come and dictate to you the words aloud, and you will all write them from my dictation. Then I shall examine your slates, and see how many mistakes are made."

Any class of boys now would be exceedingly interested in such a proposal as this, especially if the master's ordinary principles of government and instruction had been such, as to interest the pupils in the welfare of the school, and in their own progress in study. They will come together in the place assigned, and listen to the one who is appointed to read the words to them, with every faculty aroused, and their whole souls engrossed in the new duties assigned them. The teacher, too, feels a special interest in his experiment. Whatever else be may be employed about, his eye turns instinctively to this group, with an intensity of interest, which an experienced teacher who has long been in the field, and who has tried experiments of this sort a hundred times, can scarcely conceive. For let it be remembered that I am describing the acts and feelings of a new beginner; of one who is commencing his work, with a feeble and trembling step, and perhaps this is his first step from the beaten path in which he has been accustomed to walk.

This new plan is continued, we will suppose, a week, during which time the interest of the pupils continues. They get longer lessons, and make fewer mistakes than they did by the old method. Now in speculating on this subject, the teacher reasons very justly, that it is of no consequence whether the pupil receives his knowledge through the eye, or through the ear; whether they study in solitude or in company. The point is to secure their progress in learning to spell the words of the English language, and as this point is secured far more rapidly and effectually by his new method, the inference is to his mind very obvious, that he has made a great improvement,—one of real and permanent value. Perhaps he will consider it an extraordinary discovery.

But the truth is, that in almost all such cases as this, the secret of the success is, not that the teacher has discovered a better method than the ordinary ones, but that he has discovered a new one. The experiment will succeed in producing more successful results, just as long as the novelty of it continues to excite unusual interest and attention in the class, or the thought that it is a plan of the teacher's own invention, leads him to take a peculiar interest in it. And this may be a month, or perhaps a quarter, and precisely the same effects would have been produced, if the whole had been reversed, that is, if the plan of dictation had been the old one, which in process of time had, in this supposed school, lost its interest, and the teacher by his ingenuity and enterprise had discovered and introduced what is now the common mode.

"Very well," perhaps my reader will reply, "it is surely something gained to awaken and continue interest in a dull study, for a quarter, or even a month. The experiment is worth something as a pleasant and useful change, even if it is not permanently superior to the other."

It is indeed worth something. It is worth a great deal; and the teacher who can devise and execute such plans, understanding their real place and value, and adhering steadily through them all, to the great object which ought to engage his attention, is in the almost certain road to success as an instructer. What I wish is, not to discourage such efforts; they ought to be encouraged to the utmost, but to have their real nature and design, and the real secret of their success fully understood, and to have the teacher, above all, take good care that all his new plans are made, not the substitutes for the great objects which he ought to keep steadily in view, but only the means by which he may carry them into more full and complete effect.

In the case we are supposing however, we will imagine that the teacher does not do this. He fancies that he has made an important discovery, and begins to inquire whether the principle, as he calls it, cannot be applied to some other studies. He goes to philosophizing upon it, and can find many reasons why knowledge received through the ear makes a more ready and lasting impression, than when it comes through the eye. He tries to apply the method to Arithmetic and Geography, and in a short time is forming plans for the complete metamorphosis of his school. When engaged in hearing a recitation, his mind is distracted with his schemes and plans; and instead of devoting his attention fully to the work he may have in hand, his thoughts are wandering continually to new schemes and fancied improvements, which agitate and perplex him, and which elude his efforts to give them a distinct and definite form. He thinks he must however, carry out his principle. He thinks of its applicability to a thousand other cases. He revolves, over and over again in his mind, plans for changing the whole arrangement of his school. He is again and again lost in perplexity, his mind is engrossed and distracted, and his present duties are performed with no interest, and consequently with little spirit or success.

Now his error is in allowing a new idea, which ought only to have suggested to him an agreeable change for a time, in one of his classes, to swell itself into undue and exaggerated importance, and to draw off his mind from what ought to be the objects of his steady pursuit.

Perhaps some teacher of steady intellectual habits and a well balanced mind may think that this picture is fanciful, and that there is little danger that such consequences will ever actually result from such a cause. But far from having exaggerated the results, I am of opinion that I might have gone much farther. There is no doubt that a great many instances have occurred, in which some simple idea like the one I have alluded to, has led the unlucky conceiver of it, in his eager pursuit far deeper into the difficulty, than I have here supposed. He gets into a contention with the school committee, that formidable foe to the projects of all scheming teachers; and it would not be very difficult to find many actual cases, where the individual has, in consequence of some such idea, quietly planned and taken measures to establish some new institution, where he can carry on, unmolested, his plans, and let the world see the full results of his wonderful discoveries.

We have in our country a very complete system of literary institutions, so far as external organization will go, and the prospect of success is far more favorable in efforts to carry these institutions into more complete and prosperous operation, than in plans for changing them, or substituting others in their stead. Were it not that such a course would be unjust to individuals, a long and melancholy catalogue might easily be made out, of abortive plans which have sprung up in the minds of young men, in the manner I have described, and which after perhaps temporary success, have resulted in partial or total failure. These failures are of every kind. Some are school-books on a new plan, which succeed in the inventor's hand, chiefly on account of the spirit which carried it into effect; but which in ordinary hands, and under ordinary circumstances, and especially after long continued use, have failed of exhibiting any superiority. Others are institutions, commenced with great zeal by the projectors, and which succeed just as long as that zeal continues. Zeal will make any thing succeed for a time. Others are new plans of instruction or government, generally founded on some good principle carried to an extreme, or made to grow into exaggerated and disproportionate importance. Examples almost innumerable, of these things might be particularized, if it were proper, and it would be found upon examination, that the amount of ingenuity and labor wasted upon such attempts, would have been sufficient, if properly expended, to have elevated very considerably the standard of education, and to have placed existing institutions in a far more prosperous and thriving state than they now exhibit.

The reader will perhaps ask, shall we make no efforts at improvement? Must every thing in education go on in a uniform and monotonous manner; and while all else is advancing, shall our cause alone stand still? By no means. It must advance; but let it advance mainly by the industry and fidelity of those who are employed in it; by changes slowly and cautiously made; not by great efforts to reach forward to brilliant discoveries, which will draw off the attention from essential duties, and after leading the projector through perplexities and difficulties without number, end in mortification and failure.

Were I to give a few concise and summary directions in regard to this subject to a young teacher, they would be the following:

1. Examine thoroughly the system of public and private schools as now constituted in New England, until you fully understand it, and appreciate its excellences and its completeness; see how fully it provides for the wants of the various classes of our population.

By this I mean to refer only to the completeness of the system, as a system of organization. I do not refer at all to the internal management of these institutions: this last is, of course, a field for immediate and universal effort at progress and improvement.

2. If after fully understanding this system as it now exists, you are of opinion that something more is necessary; if you think some classes of the community are not fully provided for, or that some of our institutions may be advantageously exchanged for others, whose plan you have in mind; consider whether your age, and experience, and standing, as an instructer are such as to enable you to place confidence in your opinion.

I do not mean by this, that a young man may not make a useful discovery; but only that he may be led away by the ardor of early life, to fancy that essential and important, which is really not so. It is important that each one should determine whether this is not the case with himself, if his mind is revolving some new plan.

3. Perhaps you are contemplating only a single new institution, which is to depend for its success, on yourself and some coadjutors whom you have in mind, and whom you well know. If this is the case, consider whether the establishment you are contemplating can be carried on, after you shall have left it, by such men as can ordinarily be obtained. If the plan is founded on some peculiar notions of your own, which would enable you to succeed in it, when others, also interested in such a scheme, would probably fail, consider whether there may not be danger that your plan may be imitated by others, who cannot carry it into successful operation, so that it may be the indirect means of doing injury. A man is, in some degree, responsible for his example, and for the consequences which may indirectly flow from his course, as well as for the immediate results which he produces. The Fellenberg school at Hofwyl has perhaps, by its direct results, been as successful for a given time, as perhaps any other institution in the world; but there is a great offset to the good which it has thus done, to be found in the history of the thousand wretched imitations of it, which have been started only to linger a little while and die, and in which a vast amount of time, and talent, and money have been wasted.

Consider the influence you may have upon the other institutions of our country, by attaching yourself to some one under the existing organization. If you take an academy or a private school, constituted and organized like other similar institutions, success in your own, will give you influence over others. A successful teacher of an academy, raises the standard of academic instruction. A college professor, if he brings extraordinary talents to bear upon the regular duties of that office, throws light, universally, upon the whole science of college discipline and instruction. By going, however, to some new field, establishing some new and fanciful institution, you take yourself from such a sphere;—you exert no influence over others, except upon feeble imitators, who fail in their attempts, and bring discredit upon your plans by the awkwardness with which they attempt to adopt them. How much more service to the cause of education, have Professors Cleaveland and Silliman rendered by falling in with the regularly organized institutions of the country, and elevating them, than if in early life, they had given themselves to some magnificent project of an establishment, to which their talents would unquestionably have given temporary success, but which would have taken them away from the community of teachers, and confined the results of their labors to the more immediate effects which their daily duties might produce.

5. Perhaps, however, your plan is not the establishment of some new institution, but the introduction of some new study or pursuit into the one with which you are connected. Before, however, you interrupt the regular plans of your school to make such a change, consider carefully what is the real and appropriate object of your institution. Every thing is not to be done in school. The principles of division of labor apply with peculiar force to this employment; so that you must not only consider whether the branch, which you are now disposed to introduce, is important, but whether it is really such an one as it is, on the whole, best to include among the objects to be pursued in such an institution. Many teachers seem to imagine, that if any thing is in itself important, and especially if it is an important branch of education, the question is settled of its being a proper object of attention in school. But this is very far from being the case. The whole work of education can never be intrusted to the teacher. Much must of course remain in the hands of the parent; it ought so to remain. The object of a school is not to take children out of the parental hands, substituting the watch and guardianship of a stranger, for the natural care of father and mother. Far from it. It is only the association of the children for those purposes which can be more successfully accomplished by association. It is an union for few, specific, and limited objects, for the accomplishment of that part, (and it is comparatively a small part of the general objects of education) which can be most successfully affected by public institutions, and in assemblies of the young.