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Southern Branch of the
University of California
Los Angeles
Form L 1
Education Library
This book is DUE on the last date stamped below
JUL 8 193! AUG 31 1942
oeri 1343
AUG -2
19*8
JUN7 JU!
mi 1
IftY
JIAY 1 3 1352 JUS 2 7 1952
Form L-9-15m-8,'24
SCHOOL DAYS IN THE FIFTIES.
School Days in the Fifties
A TRUE STORY WITH SOME UNTRUE NAMES OF PERSONS AND PLACES
BY
WILLIAM M. GIFFIN, A.M., PD. D.
WITH AN APPENDIX
Containing an Autobiographical Sketch o) FRANCIS IV AY LAND PARKER
CHICAGO A. FLANAGAN COMPANY
COPYRIGHT 1906
BY WM. M. GIFFIN.
Education Library
LB
\
So
MY WIFE
AND
CHILDREN
(CLEON MILFORD AND EMMA LOU) THIS LITTLE BOOK IS AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED.
CONTENTS
PAGE
CHAPTER 1 7
The Old Stone School House; Voice Culture; The Two Rooms; Mothers, Mothers; Visit the School.
CHAPTER II ii
Arithmetic; Ethics; Patience; Good Mixers; Brotherly Love ; Superintendents ; Arithmetic Creed.
CHAPTER III 17
A Teacher vs. Hearer of Lessons; Bill Fools the Teacher ; The Teacher Fools Bill ; Who Was to Blame ?
CHAPTER IV 21
English Grammar; The Flag; Language Work; Dick Gets Us to Laugh With Him; Dick Gets Us to Laugh at Him.
CHAPTER V 27
Miss Composite ; Prepared Lessons ; Natural Voice ; Please; Heard Both Sides; Not Changeable; Marks; Never Called Names ; " Cute Baby."
CHAPTER VI 35
Daddy W. ; Prison ; Saved ; Let the Children Help.
CHAPTER VII 39
Examinations in 1861 ; Examinations in 1888.
CHAPTER VIII 43
" Geogafy " ; Point North ; Three Images ; Busybodies ; Teachers, Don't, Please Don't.
vj CONTENTS.
PAGE
CHAPTER IX 49
Mr. H. and His Whip ; Rules ; Order ; Assigning Les- sons ; Professional Teachers ; The Per cent No Test.
CHAPTER X 59
Mr. H. and His Hobbies; Spelling Down; The Dull Boy ; The Daffy Girl ; Sayings of Great Men.
CHAPTER XI 65
Mary M. and Her Influence; Did Not Repeat Answers; Two Language Lessons.
CHAPTER XII 73
Professional Reading ; Bible ; Page ; Leonard and Ger- trude ; White ; Payne ; Parker ; Hailman ; Quick ; Commit- tee of Ten ; Currie ; Sulley ; Murray.
CHAPTER XIII 79
Examinations; What is Geography? Big Live Nanny- Goat; Bite Wouldn't It?
CHAPTER XIV 85
Light ; No " Plebes " ; The Condition ; Born Short Op- portunity.
CHAPTER XV 89
The Will; More Than Book Knowledge; Johnny's Pie; Her Competency.
CHAPTER XVI 93
A Chapter From Real Life; A Hero; Not a Hero; Fred.
CHAPTER XVII 97
Sylvanus Reported By Prof. Richards.
CHAPTER XVIII 103
The Teachers' Alphabet.
APPENDIX 109
Frances Wayland Parker, Autobiographical Sketch of.
CHAPTER I.
/^'•fff
THE OLD STONE SCHOOL HOUSE.
WHEN a boy I attended school in the old stone school-house in northern New York, near the banks of the beautiful St. Lawrence. Those were days never to be forgotten. How I live them over and over calling up event after event till I almost feel that I am a boy again! I can see the old wooden benches each with the names of many pupils carved on it; the old painted blackboard hanging on the wall and behind it the long, crooked beech switch with which the master often tickled our flesh, thus developing our organs of speech in a wonderful man- ^ ner. I venture to say that the most celebrated prima j^ donna with all her modern training never reached higher notes than we attained by this antique method, ^j How we did learn in those days ! Why, it was no more trouble for a ten-year-old to rattle off such numbers as 889,654,328,896 than it is to-day for a boy of half that age to tell the cost of a peck of potatoes at fifty cents a bushel; but a boy of ten was never asked such questions as the latter, for that was an example in COMPOUND DENOMINATE NUMBERS ! " Them questions were way over in the middle of the 'rithmetic and were for the big fel- lers in the big room."
7
8 SCHOOL DAYS.
Yes, there were two rooms, the big room for the big fellows and the little room for the " trundle bed trash " as they were called by the boys in the big room. It was in the big room where the big fellows read in the big books, did their sums, and learned more definitions without knowing the meaning of one half of the words, than it is possible to do now- a-days. I recall one now, " English grammar is the art of speaking, reading, and writing the English language correctly. It is divided into four parts, namely, (That namely always sounded so refined to me) Orthography, Etymology, Syntax, and Pros- ody." A wag once thinking a lad did hot know what he was talking about asked when he had recited it for him, "What kind of an animal is a prosody?" "I am not quite sure," was the answer, " but I think it is something like a frog!"
I remember the day when it was announced that I had outgrown the little room and was to be pro- moted to the big room. I had gotten into some trouble with the woman teacher, as had others of my mates, and we were having a sort of go as you please time, when, before we knew it, the door between the rooms opened and the man who taught the big room had me by the nape of the neck, and without any for- mal examination landed me in one of the seats of the big room, where I remained the rest of the term by right of possession. Needless to say I did not report my promotion at home. Had I done so with the cause thereof I, no doubt, would have asked to be excused from sitting down in the afternoon. Moth-
IN THE FIFTIES. 9
ers were so different in those days. We loved them just the same and they made good men of the most of us too.
Mothers, mothers, don't fight every little battle of your children. Don't go to the school and make an exhibition of yourself by abusing the teacher. Don't you know that nine hundred and ninety teachers of every thousand are the best kind of friends to the children? Can't you understand that a teacher never " gets down " on a child who is half trying to do his duty? Will you never learn that your conduct to- ward the teacher will do more to get her down on the child than anything the child can do? I once heard a teacher say he could get along with the children all right if the foolish mothers would stay at home. I have sometimes thought the marriage laws should be amended by stating that no marriage license should be granted to a young woman who had not taken either a kindergarten or normal school course.
On the other hand, while I would not have fathers and mothers (fathers seldom do) fight the petty battles for their children, parents should never allow their children to be tantalized, pestered, and abused by a set of ignoramuses, old or young, who can see no difference between the human mind and the instinct of a dog, and who think it as good a joke to pester and tease a quick tempered child till they get him in a frenzy as to tease a dog. I would favor a law giv- ing a public horsewhipping to any person eighteen years old or over, guilty of hectoring or pestering a child just for the fun of seeing him in a temper.
10 SCHOOL DAYS.
A wise mother visits the school often; watches the progress of her child ; gets acquainted with the princi- pal and the class teacher and she is always welcome. A good teacher encourages inquiry into his motives and methods and a good mother never judges a teacher before having heard his side of the story. Too often the cry of fads is made by those who have never been inside of the school building on a regular school day. " Many a parent," says Page, " upon the first an- nouncement of a measure in school, has stoutly opposed it, who upon a little explanatory conversation with the teacher, or principal, entertain a very different opin- ion and ever after are the most ready to countenance and support it."
CHAPTER II. ARITHMETIC.
ARITHMETIC, yes, we studied arithmetic in the Fif- ties. There is stuff enough taught now in its name, goodness knows; but, teachers, what do you think of the following being added to your work? It was found in all the arithmetics of those days and the teacher was expected to inflict every bit of it during the year. Viz.: Simple Interest by -Decimals, Barter, Policies of Insurance, Compound Interest, Discount by Compound Interest, Annuities, Pensions, &c., Alli- gation Medial, Alligation Alternate, Position, Per- mutations and Combinations, Progressions, Arithmet- ical Progressions, Geometrical Progressions, Annuities and Equation of Payments. By going back a little farther, but to keep in the Nineteenth Century we may add the following taken from the table of contents of an arithmetic published in New York in 1816, which, by the way, was a revised edition ! " Practice, Tare and Tret." ("Tare," says the author, 'is an allow- ance made to the buyer, for the weight of a box, bag, or barrel, etc. While Tret is an allowance of 4lb. in every 104 Ib. for waste, dust, etc. Then comes Cloff, being an allowance of 2lb. upon every 3cwt.) Table of Powers and the Biquadratic Root ! " The poor
ii
12 SCHOOL DAYS.
teachers who went through all this are dead and gone, but I heave a sigh for them nevertheless.
The pedagogy of to-day says that a teacher should have a motive back of her work. I have often won- dered what the motive of the author could have been when he wrote the problems given below. They are taken from the book mentioned above. Perhaps to teach a lesson in ethics. Judge for yourself.
" A and B having found a purse of money, dis- puted who should have it: A said that 1-5, i-io, and i -20 of it amounted to £35, and if B could tell him how much was in it he should have the whole, otherwise he should have nothing: How much did the purse contain?" This was taken from under the head, Position. Now comes one from Alligation.
" Suppose I have four sorts of currants, at 3d. I2d. i8d. and 22d. per Ib. The worst will not sell, and the best are too dear ; f therefore conclude to mix I2olb. and so much of each sort as to sell them at i6d. per Ib. : How much of each must I take?" Is it any wonder that we have our pure food conven- tions when our forefathers had such suggestions given them?
The motive for the following was no doubt to teach patience, as a pupil must have learned patience to have found the answer:
" Suppose one farthing had been put out at 6 per cent per annum, compound interest, at the commence- ment of the Christian era : what would it have amount- ed to in 1734 years; and suppose the amount to be in standard gold, allowing a cubic inch to be worth
IN THE FIFTIES. 13
£53 2s. 8d., how large would the mass have been?" And here is the answer:
"27,980,859,722,121,260,415,979,512,332,933,594,- 210,766 cubic inches of gold."
About ten years later came a revised book. This also contains its rules for Permutations of Quanti- ties, Rule of Three Direct, do. Inverse, Double Rule of Three and a rule showing how to reduce the cur- rencies of the different States to Federal Money.
They were still good mixers as the following will show : " How much water at o per gallon, must be mixed with wine at 90 cents per gallon, so as to fill a vessel of 100 gallons, which may be offered at 60 cents per gallon ? "
One more, the motive no doubt being to teach brotherly love : " Three jealous husbands with their wives, being ready to pass bv night over a river, do find at the water side a boat^hich can carry but two persons at once, and for want of a waterman they are necessitated to row themselves over the river at sev- eral times: The question is, how those six persons shall pass two and two, so that none of the three wives may be found in the company of one or two men, unless her husband be present?"
Others might be added to these every one of which has been taken from text books used within the mem- ory of the father and brothers of the writer.
The text used in the Fifties was but little better, in fact the Nineties had not much to its credit. How is this, taken from an examination for teachers held not many moons ago ? " How many gallons in a
14 SCHOOL DAYS.
cask 32 inches long with a mean diameter of 13 inches ? " Do you know what a teacher has to recall in order to solve this problem? Let me give it to yon. Take the square of the mean diameter in inches and multiply by the length of the cask in inches and that product by .0034 to find the capacity in gallons. When the cask is not full, multiply the square of one third of the sum of the head and mean and bung diameter in inches by the depth of the liquid in inches and this product by .0034 to find the amount of liquid in gallons.
If a teacher, to prove that she can teach, must be able to recall such a rule and to work such a problem, how much time do you expect her to give to the study of her profession or the little tots put under her charge ?
Here is another taken from the same test:
£ of 2\ .06 -f 3£ Add to
•5 + f 3i — 2i
My dear Superintendents, you must stop this sort of examinations if you expect to improve your coun- try schools. You must get at the fundamental prin- ciples of arithmetic rather than at its tricks ; you must treat it pedagogically in your examinations rather than academically. The question for a teachers' test should not be " Divide % by ft," but should be, " How will you teach a child to divide % by ^ ? " The answer to the first will show a previous knowl- edge of a rule conned at some time; the answer to the second will not only necessitate the remembering
IN THE FIFTIES. 15
of the rule, but will also test the teacher's competency as an instructor.
Marked improvements have been made, however, in the teaching of this subject as will be seen in the following " Arithmetic Creed " agreed upon by the Cook County Teachers' Association during the super- intendency of O. T. Bright :
ARTICLE I. — All operations which should be taught to children in Number can be performed with num- bers of things.
ARTICLE II. — The subjects to be taught in Arith- metic, the terms to be used, and the processes to be employed, shall be determined from the standpoint of the child — not from that of the educated adult.
ARTICLE III. — In determining what shall be taught in Arithmetic, we should be able to show that any topic is: (a) practical; that is, that it has to do with the affairs of life; or, (fr) disciplinary; that is, that it insures mental growth and mental strength.
ARTICLE IV. — We condemn the giving of work in Arithmetic under the name of " Examples," for which conditions stated in problems cannot be made. For instance, complicated examples in complex or compound fractions.
ARTICLE V. — Definition and rule should be re- quired only when the thing to be defined or the proc- ess under the rule is thoroughly understood. Hence, definitions and rules should close — not begin — a subject. They should be made by the student.
ARTICLE VI. — Lessons in Arithmetic should not be assigned for home study.
l6 SCHOOL DAYS.
ARTICLE VII. — Operations in Arithmetic which have become obsolete, or have never existed else- where in the world, should become obsolete in the schoolroom.
ARTICLE VIII. — Problems in Arithmetic should employ the best effort of the pupil, but should never go beyond it. He grows through what he does for himself. The skillful teacher secures and directs his best efforts.
ARTICLE IX. — All that need be taught to children in Arithmetic can be taught under the following sub- jects: Lines, Area, Volume, Bulk, Time, Weight, Values, and Single Things.
ARTICLE X. — Fundamental operations — four or five, according to your faith. Numbers used to be within the comprehension of pupils. First, correct- ness, then, rapidity in work. Use of federal money included in the foregoing.
CHAPTER III. A TEACHER VS. A HEARER OF LESSONS.
JAMES A. GARFIELD once said, " The student should first study what he needs most to know; the order of his needs should be the order of his work." Surely those teachers. who taught us little folks to read, write or count numbers from one to one billion, could never have supposed that the order of our work was the order of our needs. Had they stopped a mo- ment to think *hat if a man were to begin to count a billion and were to count one hundred a minute, eight hours a day, he would not complete his task in over sixty years they might have done better by us. The very children who learned to read and write these numbers could not possibly have told how many pounds of bran to give a man for $2.75 at 75 cents a hundred. Yet I do not know that the teachers were any more to blame than the authors of the text books, perhaps not so much. I am quite sure that all the arithmetics we ever used when I was a boy, had the teaching of such numbers in the first pages of the book. The teachers were simply following the sug- gestions of those whom they considered their supe- riors. In those days the teachers were not expected to ask any questions or offer any suggestions. Had
17
1 8 SCHOOL DAYS.
they had more to say the progress would have been more rapid. The reason that the Creed given in the last chapter is so full of good sense is because the teachers of the county were given an opportunity to help make it.
Some of the teachers, even in the Fifties were in advance of their age. It must have been hard work for the most of them, who taught in the old stone school house. It has been truly said, " There can hardly be conceived a life of more drudgery than that of a teacher who goes through a dull, monotonous routine every day, attempting to instruct, and not knowing how. But if the teacher will study the mind he is shaping, his calling must prove to him the most interesting and fascinating possible."
Too many children never accomplish anything be- cause they fear both their parents and teachers. Too many never succeed because they are made to feel that they never can. Many a child who is full of ani- mation and life and fun and happiness, is made to hate his school and school books, because his teacher does not take the time and trouble to study his dis- position and thus learn how to govern him.
I am here renvnded of an old schoolmate at the old stone school house. Bill would do the most cheeky things, and then put on that innocent look of his so quickly and perfectly that had a mirror been placed before him he would have himself been in doubt, for a moment, whether he was in earnest or not. Often when the teacher was " hearing " a class " say " a lesson, Bill would snap his fingers and say very
IN THE FIFTIES. 19
quickly, " Miss Jenks, you lie I think." Miss J. would place her finger on the line where she had left off, look up, and ask, " Who is talking? " Then Bill would put on that innocent look and say, " May / get a drink?" to which Miss J. would reply, "Yes, yes, get a drink."
One day we were in the school yard, and Bill, who had a snowball in his hand, said, " You dassent dare me to throw this snowball through the window." " I dassent, eh? " said I, " I'll double dare you to do it." The words were hardly out of my mouth when, smash ! dash ! went the ball through the window. Bill at once ran to the door and said, " Miss J., I had a snowball in my hand and threw it and it went right through the glass." The teacher only said, " Well, Willie, I'm glad you told me yourself; you are a good boy for telling me."
Bill tried it again the next term on a new teacher, who said when he went to report, " Well, well, that is too bad, but since you were so good as to report it yourself I tell you what I will do — you buy the glass and I will put it in." Ah! here was a teacher, not a hearer of lessons. What work we did that term. How we all respected him every one of us. And by the way, I think he was the first Normal school grad- uate that ever taught in the old stone school house. No fooling him, he made a study of every one and he knew us too. We were not long in learning that he knew and we soon got down to work.
He remembered how he felt as a child. He knew that he who has forgotten how he felt as a child lacks
20 SCHOOL DAYS.
an essential for a good disciplinarian. He knew that every teacher who succeeds in awakening a desire for better things in a young scapegrace, deserves more praise than a thousand " hearers of lessons." He was full of faith, love, courage, patience, sympathy, self-control, enthusiasm, and common sense, all of which are avenues that lead to children's hearts.
We boys of the old stone school house were like the average boys, full of fun and vim, always looking on the bright side of life, and seeing a joke the mo- ment it presented itself. We were by no means vicious, nor did we intend to do any real wrong. We took no interest in our arithmetic, because, as taught, it was beyond our comprehension. We had no liking for our grammar, because we never saw any practical use of it. We did not get our spelling lesson, be- cause it was utterly impossible for us to do so intel- ligently. All this, as a matter of course, led us into mischief and we did just what our teachers let us do. Let me repeat that, just what our teachers let us do — nothing more, nothing less.
Who was to blame? The teachers who let us? Or the trustees who hired such teachers? Or th-e people who elected such trustees?
CHAPTER IV. ENGLISH GRAMMAR.
LET ME again quote James A. Garfield who was talking not of the schools of to-day but of those of which I am writing : " One half of the time which is now almost wholly wasted in district schools on English grammar attempted at too early an age, would be sufficient to teach our children to love the Republic and to become its loyal and life long sup- porters." I seldom, if ever, read this quotation without recalling the correcting of false syntax, the conjugation of the verb " to love," the declension of the pronouns and nouns, and the diagramming of the extracts from Thanatopsis with which I was burdened when a boy. Oh! the time that has been wasted discussing whether President should be in the nominative or objective case in the following sentence : " He was elected President." Is it any wonder that Garfield said (remember he was talking of the schools of long ago), "To me it is a perpetual wonder that any child's love of knowledge survives the outrages of the school room " ?
We were all good at the declension of pronouns. Of course we had no idea that nominative I meant that we were to use I as a subject of a sentence; that had
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22 SCHOOL DAYS.
nothing to do with it. All we wanted was nomina- tive I, possessive my or mine and objective me, though in less than five minutes we would be saying, "Can John and me get a pail of water?" This would go by uncorrected. As was said at the begin- ning of the chapter we diagrammed extracts from Thanatopsis, but I was a young man before I knew that Thanatopsis had any reference to death.
Reader, which do you think is better, for a child to try to understand why " I would go if I could," should be parsed in the past tense when it is in answer to the question, "Are you going to the city to-morrow ? " or for him to be able to tell how the President of the United States is elected?
There is no excuse for sending into the world at this — the beginning of the twentieth century — any boy or girl without a knowledge of the fundamental principles of this government, while a course of study is required which is to teach him how to diagram sentences, correct false syntax, or parse nouns which could not possibly be misused though they were to be repeated a thousand times.
It is all right to hurrah for the flag, and to pass a law saying that it must be raised above our school houses every Monday morning. But we must not forget that it is not sufficient to hurrah for the flag. The seeing of the flag waving over the school houses is of very little use if the child does not understand the fundamental principles for which it stands.
Toward the last of the old stone school house days there came a teacher who, the first day asked all who
IN THE FIFTIES. 23
were to take grammar to come forward to the reci- tation seats. Three or four of the larger pupils re- mained in their seats. The teacher asked if they were not going to take the study. All said they were not and at recess talked it over, giving as their reason that they thought it would be so much lost time. During the first recitation they sat listening to the lesson and, though they could not have expressed it as here given, they realized that this teacher was get- ting at the subject from the standpoint of the child and not from the standpoint of the educated adult. No error went by without being corrected. This teacher seemed to know, too, when a child had arrived at an age when he must either know the why or the correction would mean nothing to him.
" Children," she would say, " I notice that many of you say, ' he don't ' when talking among yourselves. It is not good English for you to use don't in that way. Let me tell you how to remember. Don't is not to be used with any of the three pronouns that I now write on the blackboard." Then stepping to the board she wrote in large writing, " HE, SHE, IT." ;* You may use don't with any other pronoun, but don't forget these three." At the class she would dis- cuss the reason why, and you may be sure the large pupils who had not taken the subject were all ears and did but little studying during the recitation, and more than once regretted that they had not joined the class.
I recall another lesson. " Children," she said, " I am going to talk to you to-day about some great little words. I call them this because they are so small in
24 SCHOOL DAYS.
size and so great in importance. I say, the book is the table. I do not tell what is true; that is, I do not show the proper relation between the book and the table. I must add a little word, to show the true relation; that is I must say the book is ON the table. What a difference in the meaning of our sentence is given by simply adding the small word ' ON.' These words that show the relation between their object and some other word are called prepositions. (Here the new word was written on the board and the class were asked to copy it, thus were all new words presented by this teacher.) There are quite a number of them but the most important for us to take now are the fol- lowing: on, at, by, for, in, with, under, over, between and from. We must remember an important truth here, viz. : object pronouns are to follow prepositions and not subject pronouns/) So many people forget this I desire to impress it orfyour minds so that you will not join the army of for getters. If I were to say what I now write on the board, viz. : ' I heard him say so between you and — .' We should fill in the dash with an object pronoun, as, I heard him say so between you and ME. Where people make the mis- take most often is when there is a noun between the preposition and the pronoun as, He called for Jennie and me. People too often say in such sentences, He called for Jennie and I. If they would stop to think a moment they would know that they would never say, ' He called for I ! ' The fact that the noun is there makes no difference as to the relation between the preposition and the pronoun."
IN THE FIFTIES. 25
How it opened our eyes to grammar and how we, who had not joined the class wished we had, but child like, were ashamed to admit it to the teacher.
Miss Composite, for that is what we shall call her. knew how to discipline as well as to teach graittfnar, as will be shown. Dick, one of the boys, the term before, when Miss K. was teaching, brought an ugly picture of a woman's head which he had cut out of a comic paper, and fitted it around the neck of Miss K.'s cape. When she went to get the cape she saw what had been done and turning to the school began to show her temper in a frightful manner, saying, " I've been insulted. I'll not stand for any such thing. If I find out who did this I'll turn him out of school; do you hear, turn him out of school" How red she got. How the little fellows trembled! How the older ones smothered their delight till we got out of doors and what fun we had talking it over. It worked so well that Dick tried it on with Miss Com- posite the very first week (he would not have thought of such a thing after that time, as she had too many friends by the end of the first week). When Miss C. got her cape she at once glanced around the room, knowing that most of the eyes would center on the guilty one. Then turning towards Dick she looked him right in the eye and with a smile said, " Richard, don't you know that you should not bring your pho- tographs to school ? "
Poor Dick. You should have seen him. He seemed to turn red, blue and yellow. And the chil- dren; how they did laugh at him. Miss C. made a
26 SCHOOL DAYS.
friend of every one in the room then and there. Even Dick became one of her best. I recall other things that impressed us that term, but I shall devote the whole of the next chapter to them.
" He who has the God-given light of hope in his breast, can help on many others in this world's darkness, not to his own loss, but to his precious gain."
Henry Ward Beecher.
CHAPTER V. MISS COMPOSITE.
Miss C. would not allow a word to be mispro- nounced, or an error in grammar to be made, without correcting it at once. Always in such an indirect way as not to offend. She felt that this was a part of her work. Never for a moment thinking that she had no time to do it.
She did not call on the bright pupils more fre- quently than on the dull ones. She knew that the diamond will always be in the rough, unless it is pol- ished. She knew the dull pupils would not learn if the bright ones did all the talking. She also knew that bright pupils, as a rule, are attentive while dull pupils are inclined to be inattentive.
She never became tired of correcting faults of pupils, or of telling them what to do and how to do it. She felt that children have rights, and so long as they do not understand a subject they have a right to ask and receive explanations.
She never did for a pupil what the pupil could with reasonable effort do for himself. She knew that the mind can become vigorous only by vigorous exercise; that a class that is helped too much will soon learn to wait for the teacher to do its work and answer its
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28 SCHOOL DAYS.
questions. That children should be trained to ob- serve, to do, and to tell.
She never began a recitation until she had prepared it herself, and decided how much of the work the class could do for itself. Feeling that a teacher who does not prepare herself will unconsciously do for her class what they might do for themselves.
She never allowed a pupil to ask a question, give an opinion, or leave his seat, without first obtaining permission. She knew that laxity in this respect would lead to frequent interruptions, and that in a short time it would be hard to tell who was teacher and who pupil.
She never spoke in a loud or unnatural tone of voice when teaching. She was always herself, and did not overtax her organs of speech. Knowing that if she did, the whole class would soon adopt the same tone, and tumult and disorder would result.
She never called the answer to a question wrong, merely because it was not in the exact words of the text book. This was a new departure in the old stone school house. But she knew there is more than one way to express the same thought. If the answer were faulty she corrected it; but commended the pupil for his effort, if it were in the right direction, and, hence did not dampen his ardor.
She never used a commanding tone of voice when asking a favor, or when giving a direction. She knew that no one enjoys being commanded ; that one would rather be asked to do a thing, than commanded
IN THE FIFTIES. 29
to do it. She knew that "please" is an easy word to say, and that its use never harmed a teacher.
She never asked a pupil if he had been out of order when she knew that he had been. She felt that if she did the pupil would be tempted to say " No," thus adding a falsehood to his other offense. When she knew that a pupil had been out of order she dealt with him accordingly, as a rule just as she dealt with Dick.
She never hesitated to ask the pardon of a pupil or class when she found that she had accused them wrongfully. She felt that morally speaking, it was her duty to apologize in such a case. The pupils honored and respected her for doing it, and when their turn came, they did not hesitate to follow her good example.
She never refused to hear a pupil's side of a story. She gave him a hearing after, if not in school hours. She felt that every person is entitled to a fair trial, no matter what his offense may be. She thought there should be no absolute monarchy in a republican form of government.
She did not look always at the faults, and refuse to see the good in her pupils. Her motto was, " What- soever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them."
She never allowed a pupil to sit in the class with untidy head, or dirty hands and face. She felt that inattention to such things could not fail to have a demoralizing effect on the class.
She never found fault with a child for doing what
30 SCHOOL DAYS.
she herself was guilty of doing. If the act was one that her age permitted she would reason with the child trying to show why it was worse for him than for her.
She was never satisfied with the careless or noisy performance of a duty, and never neglected to repeat her request until it was properly obeyed. She felt that habits formed when one is young are not easily broken when one is old; that there was no better way to show the class that she was not satisfied, than to repeat the direction until they did properly what was required of them. She was careful never to show any temper; she would simply repeat the request in a calm, though positive manner, until her direction was followed.
She never neglected an opportunity to show her ap- preciation of pupils' efforts to do right, or to instill into the minds of pupils a sense of the nobleness of do- ing right because it was right. She knew many of the children in the school never went to church or Sab- bath school. Their only model of manhood or wom- anhood was their teacher. She felt how important it was that the model be a perfect one.
She never took the time of the class to do her own work. She felt that she had no more right to take their time than she had to take their money. She knew that she could not write letters, make out re- ports, etc., and teach at the same time. She felt that her duty during school hours was to teach.
She was not changeable in her discipline. She was every day alike. Steady, uniform, even, regular dis-
IN THE FIFTIES. 3 1
cipline was maintained. " Never a tyrant — always a governor," was her rule.
She never tried to startle a class into being orderly or attentive. She knew that the class would learn to wait for the " thunder clap " before giving attention. She felt that a low, but steady, firm tone of voice would do the work much better. She thought the desk was not made to pound upon, nor the floor to stamp upon; and that neither pounding nor stamping was of the least use in obtaining order. The desk in the old stone school house gave evidence that this had not always been the rule.
She never ordered a thing done, when a suggestion would do as well. She would say, " Boys, I would not do that." We never heard her say, " Boys, turn this way and mind your own business, or I will give every one of you a mark." We had " markers " in the old stone school house, now and then. " Chil- dren, what are you studying for?" asked a visitor one day and the whole school with one voice yelled, " Marks ! " Which was " as true as preaching " that term.
Miss C.'s dress was always neat and clean, not costly but neat. How the girls did copy her. What respect they had for her. A class that respects a teacher is not hard to discipline.
She never called a pupil a sneak, or liar or dunce, or fool, nor did she ever make use of any other epi- thet of the kind, she was too much of a lady to do so. She knew that such language was unbecoming and would cause the pupils to think ill of her. She knew
32 SCHOOL DAYS.
that it hurts a boy's feelings, arouses his resentment, and makes him surly and unmanageable to be so treated.
She greeted us every morning with, " Good morn- ing, children," or " Good morning, boys and girls." She taught us how to be polite to her and to one an- other.
She never allowed the pupils to wear their wrap- pings, overcoats, or overshoes in school and never neglected the proper ventilation of her room, feeling that inattention to these matters might endanger the health of the children. They were not old enough to have good judgment, and if they were to err, she felt that it would be her fault, as she was older and ought to know better.
Do you wonder that we loved her? Is it at all surprising that we learned that term? Take our country over and there are hundreds upon hundreds of just such teachers, hard-working, untiring, con- scientious, enthusiastic, who never have received, and who must never hope to receive their full reward in this world. Such teachers are worth their weight in gold. And yet there are trustees that will stand and quibble over five dollars a month as between such a
teacher and a " Daddy " W . as we boys called
him.
Miss C. was one day teaching a class of little chil- dren the different kinds of angles, as, right, obtuse, and acute. Drawing a right angle on the board she called their attention to it and then named it. Next she drew an acute angle and called their attention
IN THE FIFTIES. 33
to the difference between them. Just at this point one little fellow began shaking his hand in the air, as children will when very much in earnest. " What is it, my boy ? " said Miss C. When the little fellow, who by his earnestness had caused all to look in his direction, exclaimed with a beaming face, " We have a ' cute ' baby home, too." We were all on the point of shouting with laughter when Miss C. quickly raised her hands to her lips and then ex- cusing the little class, telling them to go out doors and play, turned as she closed the door after them, and burst into a hearty laugh in which we all joined. She would not for the world have hurt that little boy's feelings or have done anything to encourage him to become the school clown.
" Many arguments might be adduced to show that the princi- ple, that the main business of the teacher is to get the pupil to teach himself, lies at the basis of the entire art of Instruction. The teacher who, by whatever means, secures this object, is an efficient artist; he who fails in this point fails altogether; and the various grades of efficiency are defined by the degrees of approx- imation to this standard."
Joseph Payne. i
CHAPTER VI. " DADDY W."
IN THE last chapter I mentioned a " Daddy " W — . One of the boys who was in his school is now a man pronounced by all who know him a gentleman. He is a quiet, unassuming, dignified man. He has a rich, thoughtful mind. He is one with whom I de- light to converse because I always learn. Sympa- thetic as a child, kind hearted and true. He now has a very responsible position, is in fact, the principal of one of the largest schools in one of the largest cities of the Union. When a boy he went to school and he remembers just how he felt as a child, a grand good thing, by the way, inasmuch as he has chosen the profession of teaching for a life's work. For he who cannot remember how he felt and thought as a child, is hardly calculated to be the disciplinarian of children.
He was not always good in school. I was out walking with him one day when we met an old school- mate, they shook hands and for ten or fifteen min- utes talked of old times. When we started on our walk, my friend said, " I wonder how that man re- members me, he was one of the goody-goody boys in school, and I, well, well, I fear he recalls things about
35
36 SCHOOL DAYS.
me that I have forgotten myself." Then after a mo- ment, I looked at him and saw an expression on his face I had never seen there before. Stopping he turned to me and said, " We had one teacher who was not fit to teach a cat. I was in his class for three years, and I honestly believe that had I been in his class three years longer I would have ended my days in State Prison. Let us not talk about it."
Think you my readers, this teacher ever did any- thing for the good of the profession he had dared to assume? Oh! the influence of such a man, where will it end? What think you that teacher was work- ing for? For the good he could do? Had he any spirit in his work? Did he give his pupils a thought outside of his school? Which, think you, he cared for the most, their average per cent to show company, or their everlasting good? He certainly made grave mistakes. His excuse might be that he did it through ignorance of child nature. But I charge him that is no excuse, for he, when he took his position, assumed all of its responsibilities. Rather than to have had an influence over this one boy for bad, let him seek a livelihood anywhere else, or as David Page expresses it, " Failing to gain it by other means, let starvation seize his body, and send the soul back to its Maker as it is, rather than he should incur the fearful guilt of poisoning youthful minds and drag them down to his pitiable level."
" Oh ! let not then unskillful hands attempt To play the harp, whose tones, whose living tones, Are left forever on the strings. Better far
IN THE FIFTIES. 37
That heaven's lightnings blast this very soul, And sink it back to Chaos' lowest depths, Than knowingly, by word or deed, he send A blight upon the trusting mind of youth. n
" But, how did you get where you are ? " I could not help asking. " Ah," he answered, " that is an- other story. When I left ' Daddy's ' school I went to the school under Mr. H — , who changed my whole life. God bless his memory." " How did he reach you ? " I asked. " Well, first, he trusted me, and sec- ond he let me help him." He let him help him! Ah, teachers, here was the secret. How often have par- ents spoiled their children by not letting the little children help them. Mother is sweeping and Tot comes and says, " Mama, let me help you sweep with my little broom ? " What is the reply ? " No, no, go away,, you will make more work. Now, stop, or I will have to send you in the other room. You had better go there right away, as I am in a hurry." Papa is just as bad, and in a few years when the child is a little older the parents say, " Willie is never will- ing to do anything. I would rather do it myself than ask him to do it for me." Little dreaming that they have driven him away so often in the past that they have robbed the child of all the ardor he once had for helping mama and papa.
When the trusting child comes to you
Asking that he do his part, Do not give a hasty answer.
Do not wound his little heart.
38 SCHOOL DAYS.
If refusals come too often,
There will surely be a day When you long to have him help you,
He will turn the other way.
Oftentimes the thoughtful teacher Gives the thoughtless boy a start,
When she simply lets him help her, She has won his little heart.
Ah! I hope that I may never Put a blight on trusting youth,
That I never dampen ardor, That I always stand for truth ;
For I love these little children, With their hearts so frank and free,
And it is a mighty tribute When they — so fresh from God — love me.
CHAPTER VII. EXAMINATION — 1861-1888.
PERHAPS nothing will better show the advance made by the public schools since the Fifties than to quote from an article written by Charles F. King, who at one time was Manager of the National School of Methods. He says, " We have a very distinct recol- lection of the first examination in 1861, for the pur- pose of testing our fitness to teach a district school. The questions propounded were as follows :
1. What is a conjunction?
2. How many vowels in the alphabet?
3. What is a neuter verb? Give one.
4. Define he; conjugate hear.
5. Give the opposite gender of duck, earl, nun, wizard, duke.
6. Why do you in dividing one fraction by an- other invert the divisor?
7. Give the table for apothecaries' weight.
8. What is true discount?
9. How do you explain the rule of three?
10. Where is Cape Fear?
11. Bound Michigan.
12. What is the capital of Beloochistan ?
13. Name the principal islands of Malaysia.
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40 SCHOOL DAYS.
14. Read this extract from Webster. (Peroration at Bunker Hill.)
15. Spell the following words: Chameleon, eligible, querulous, dyspepsia; pinnacle, elixir, cylinder, mea- sles, caterpillar, venerate.
Next comes the list for 1888.
1. Which would yob develop first in a child, the power of reasoning or that of observation? Why? How?
2. What place has the kindergarten in education?
3. Do you favor manual training? If so, why?
4. What studies should be taught topically?
5. Who was Pestalozzi? Comenius?
6. Name five other eminent educators in the past; five of the present day.
7. How many of the following books do you own ? viz. : Page's Theory and Practice, Quincy Methods. Johonnot's Principles and Practice of Teaching. Fitch's Lectures on Teaching, Parker's Talks on Teaching, Payne's Lectures on the Science and Art of Teaching, Bain's Education as a Science, Sully's Psy- chology, Compayre's History of Pedagogy. Quick's Educational Reformers. How many have you read?
8. Write a review of some educational book.
9. How would you improve the conversational form of your pupils?
10. What is the best way of getting pupils to read books?
11. What is the best method of teaching reading to beginners ? Why ?
12. Describe some well chosen busy-work.
IN THE FIFTIES. 41
13. How can the attention of pupils be best secured ?
14. How much time would you devote to commer- cial geography?
15. Name four good educational papers or maga- zines.
1 6. State the means and proper appliances necessary for the proper performance of the work of the teacher and students in history.
" The geography of the infant school should be pictorial and descriptive. Commencing with the elements of natural scenery that fall under the child's observation, and carefully noting their distance and relative direction from the school and from each other — the hill, the mountain, the brook, the river, the plain, the forest, the moor, the rich mould, the island, the sea, the cliff, the cape, the village, the city, that may be seen in prospect from the school ; the productions of his own land — its animals, trees and flowers — the men of his own land, their occupations, customs, habits, food, clothing ; it should seek to make the child realize the corresponding features of other lands by comparison with what it has observed in its own."
From Early Education by James Currie, Scotland.
CHAPTER VIII. " GEOGAFY."
WE STUDIED "geogafy" in the old stone school house, too; both in the big room and the little room. The only difference between the book used in the little room and that used in the big room was in thickness. Each had the same text and had the same maps. Ask, " What is an island ? " and all would yell, " An island is a body of land surrounded by water." Then had we been asked what is the meaning of surrounded, there would have been no yelling, as it is doubtful if any of us knew. I shall never forget the day a visitor, a teacher, by the way, up in pedagogy as I now know, sat listening to us recite definition after defini- tion with a smile on his face. At last the teacher asked him if he would like to ask some questions. At first he declined but afterward changed his mind. His first question was, " Name the Middle Atlantic States." We named them. His next, " Who ever saw any of or any part of the Middle Atlantic States? Hands up." No hands. " Well, who never saw any of the Middle Atlantic States? Hands up." Up went all of the hands ! Then, " Does the St. Lawrence river flow up hill or down hill?" "Up hill," with one voice. We knew by the way the teacher looked that something was wrong, but did not know what. We
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44 SCHOOL DAYS.
were sure we were right because we had seen it on the map. Now came, " Which is higher, Lake Erie or Lake Ontario? " " Lake Ontario," again from the whole class. Now came the last but not least, " You may all point to the north," and every index finger of our right hand pointed to the ceiling of the room. The teacher was heard to say, " Thank you very much. I have learned a lesson." Somehow, after that day the geography lessons became more interesting.
How wise we had been as to the Danube, Euphrates, Amazon, and all of the other rivers and cities of Eu- rope, Asia, Africa and South America. As to local geography, we could not have bounded our native county, nor so much as told the points of the compass in our own town, had the master's switch been ten times as long, wonderful as were its powers of per- suasion. I have often wondered, yet have never un- derstood, why that switch could so often bring out the right answer to a question from us boys, w^ho fpr the life of us, could not tell how we ever knew it.
I cannot resist here telling a good joke on Bill, whom I have mentioned before. Bill had neglected to get his lesson and bargained with Dick to tell him the answers when he might be called upon to recite. His first question was, " In what direction is Texas from New York ? " Bill knew nothing about it, and Dick much less, but whispered, " Easty-westy," which Bill bawled out loud enough to be heard in all parts of the room to the delight of the whole school. The next minute Bill was having an introduction to Dr. " Beech " as we used to say. When the class went to
IN THE FIFTIES. 45
their seats Bill gave Dick to understand, by signs well known to boy life, that he might expect a settlement after school.
" Lull'd in the countless chambers of the brain, Our thoughts are linked by many a hidden chain; Awake but one, and lo, what myriads rise ! Each stamps its image as the other flies."
How true the above ; as I sit here writing of the old days, there come to me the images of three of my old teachers. That of Mr. B. because of a great wrong he did, that of Mary M., because of her great kind- ness and that of Mr. H., because of his six feet of avoirdupois, and his carriage whip, warranted whale- bone!
Before these teachers there had been Mr. X., who showed no more evidence of knowing how to govern children than a snail does of rapid transit. What a term that was! I mention this because of what is to follow. Soon after X. left it was reported that Mr. B. was coming to teach. I chanced to meet a chum on the village green, when he asked me if I had heard there was to be a new teacher. I had and told him so. Then we began to talk things over ; all about X's school ; how bad we had been and how much better we ought to do. Think of it, teachers, two boys twelve and thirteen years old talking all by themselves in this way. Did you ever think boys got together and had such talks? My chum said he had made up his mind to be a good boy in school and try to please Mr. B. I promised that I would try, too. We shook hands on
46 SCHOOL DAYS.
it and parted. When the day for opening school came, we started for school rilled with good resolu- tions. Everything passed off nicely the first day until our class was called to the recitation. The teacher had called upon me to recite, it seems, though I had not heard him. Stepping up to me he said, " Well, sir, why don't you answer me? See here, young man, I want you to understand that I have heard all about you. (The busy-bodies had been to work. How many there are in the world.) You may just make up your mind that if you come to school, you have got to mind me, and with no fooling about it either. I've been told how you cut up, and — " I may as well stop here as to give the whole harangue. How I hated that man, and I fear that I was the means of his sin- ning more than once during that term. All good resolutions went for naught. I am indignant, even now, when I think of his abuse that day. More so, however, toward those who felt it their duty to give him his information. Teachers, don't, please don't, say to the teacher who is to have your class next term, " Wait till you get so and so. He will make it warm for you." How do you know but that the bad boy of today is to be the best boy in school tomorrow? How do you know but that he may have met his chum and talked it over? Let the one who gets the class find out who are the bad boys and then, when she comes to you talk it over with her. In this way you will have given them a chance, the least you can do.
I know of a boy who went to a new school with his card marked in deportment, " Very Poor." The
IN THE FIFTIES. 47
principal said to him, " Well, well, that is a bad record to bring, but perhaps you are going to try to do better. Anyhow, I am not going to judge you by what you have done for others. I shall see what you do for me. I tell you what I will do ; I'll throw this card away and take you to the teacher myself." This he did, saying nothing to the teacher as to his past. In about two months he asked the teacher how the boy was doing and she said, " O, he is one of the good boys, — never does anything bad, and always has his lessons."
THE CHILD.
"He who checks a child with terror, Stops its play or stills its song, Not alone commits an error; But a great and grievous wrong.
"Give it play and never fear it, Active life is no defect, Never, never, break its spirit, Curb it only to direct.
"Would you stop the flowing river, Thinking it would cease to flow? Onward it must flow forever, Better teach it where to go."
CHAPTER IX. MR. H. AND HIS WHIP.
MR. H. and his whip warranted whalebone. Here was order for you ! How still his school was ! How quickly we obeyed when he gave the signal ! Yes, and how quickly we moved if we did not obey at once! What do you suppose we care for the memory of Mr. H. today ? I do not recall anything he ever taught us, and only think of him to laugh at him. To this day when any of the old boys meet, we talk of him as " old H." Mister never seems to fit. When we talk of him it is to recall some one he pounded. No doubt the Board of Education thought Mr. H. was a great success because he had such good (?) order. Let me give some explanations that may be useful to any young teachers who may read this chapter :
H. let us see that we could vex him, — the worst thing he could do. Two little fellows, in the first grade, were one day heard talking at recess time about a substitute teacher they were having that day. One said to the other, " Say, didn't we make her mad ? Wasn't it fun?" The other answered, "Yes, let's do it again when we go in, will ye?" Remember they were only seven years old, but they had " caught on."
He whipped only when he was angry, — the next
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50 SCHOOL DAYS.
worse thing he could do. He was changeable in his discipline, excusing a rank offence today and punish- ing a slight offence tomorrow, — a serious fault in a teacher. He would threaten us, — we accepted the threats as a challenge. He began the first day to read off the rules of the school. The rules, many of them, suggested to us what to do. Read a rule to a school as follows : " The rule of this school is that no one must write on the side of the building." The chances are ten to one that there will be a dozen marks within twenty-four hours. No one had thought of marking the building till the rule was read. H. had hobbies. One was " Order." Another, Spelling. A third, showing off for Company.
Yes, we had spelling that term. I can see the line we used to toe as we stood in a row reaching nearly the whole length of the school room. It was as important to toe the line squarely as to spell correctly. I think, perhaps, more so, as my image of the line is much sharper, while I write, than is that of the words we spelled.
When assigning a lesson the teacher would hold up the spelling book in one hand, and draw three fingers of the other hand over the three lines extend- ing from the top to the bottom of the page, and say without a smile, " Class will take the next three lines for tomorrow's lesson; and any one who misses two words will have to stay after school and spell the whole lesson. Sometimes we did and then again we did not, so we were inclined to run the risk that the
IN THE FIFTIES. 51
teacher had a date, knowing if he had, we would not have to stay, miss or no miss.
The lesson would not only contain from forty to sixty words, but one-half of them were such as we had never seen anywhere but in the spelling book and many of them we have never seen since. Why did no one see how absurd it was to cram the children's heads with eight thousand words when the teaching of four thousand of these words was as senseless as the words were useless?
The reason is plain to me now. They did not real- ize that teaching is a profession and that to succeed they must keep up a continuous study of the best writers in the profession. As well might a lawyer endeavor to practice law with no knowledge of the statute laws of his state, or a doctor to practice medi- cine with no knowledge of physiology, as for a -teacher to teach with no knowledge of the mind he is trying to develop.
" O, woe to those who trample on the mind, That deathless thing! They know not what they do, Nor what they deal with. Man, perchance may bind The flower his step hath bruised ; or light anew The torch he quenches ; or to music wind Again the lyre-string from his touch that flew ; But for the soul, O, tremble and beware To lay rude hands upon God's mysteries there ! "
A non-professional teacher — that is one who has no scientific knowledge of the human being's mind, — has no right to be the disciplinarian of children. Such
5^ SCHOOL DAYS.
teachers are too impatient, too thoughtless, too unsym- pathetic to deal with children.
If they have to do with none but bright goody- goody boys and girls they will do very well. If a child comes under their care who has any physical de- formity, they are kind enough and will not admit of any ridicule; perhaps they will even be patient with a lame boy because of his limping; and if his arm be broken will not scold because he cannot do his writing les- son. Yet, on the other hand, a poor little fellow who has a deformity of mind receives no help or sym- pathy from them ; they only know that he is dull, hard to teach, difficult to interest in his work.
It may be the child inherits a bad temper, or per- haps a nervousness that causes him to be at all times in motion. He may have inherited a suspicious na- ture, selfishness, in fact, many of the things that are bad and may be inherited. Now, how does the non- professional teacher look at such children? He looks upon them as being in his way for several reasons; first perhaps — they will keep the class average down on examination day or mar the order when company is present. Such teachers never stop to think that if it were not for just such boys and girls there would be no need of them as teachers; that it is just this class of pupils that gives us our positions. Any old quack of a doctor can prescribe for a case of tempo- rary indigestion, but where a genuine case of dys- pepsia takes hold of the patient, the quack hacks away at him till he (the patient) is ready to end his life to get rid of his sufferings. When, on the other hand,
IN THE FIFTIES. 53
the professional doctor takes hold of him, studies his symptoms, reads up on the disease and soon has his patient well. So with the quack teacher when dealing with mental dyspepsia. He hacks away at the child, calls him a dunce, tells him he is bad, finds fault with him, pesters him, in short makes his school life too warm for him until finally " school " and " prison " become synonymous terms to him. The professional teacher, on the other hand, studies such children, reads up on them, realizes he has a chronic case on his hands which will not yield at once to his skill, works away day after day knowing that the educating of this child does not mean the learning of rules in grammar, or of descriptions of rivers, or in the working of prob- lems. These are all right in their places but the pa- tient must first be made ready for them ; and, though at the end of the term, the child may not know " A " from " X " he has been far more benefited and more highly educated than others who have mastered the whole alphabet, and when the dull or bad boy once begins convalescing he will out-strip the others so rapidly and leave them so far behind as to cause them to forget they were ever in the same class with him ; and best of all is, he owes his growth to his patient teacher.
And now, dear reader, to which class of teachers do you wish to belong? To which class, do you think, Prof. James B. Richards belonged? * Think you, my friends, that Prof. Richards had a knowledge of So-
*See chapter XVI.
54 SCHOOL DAYS.
crates, Plato, Aristotle, Lock, Seneca and Pestalozzi? Did he go at his work blindly ? Had he not a definite purpose in his teachings? Could he by trusting to chance have accomplished his grand, noble work? And is it not fair to conclude that any who fail or do but fairly good work may trace their failure back to the want of a knowledge of the principles as laid down by the old Greek and Roman philosophers ? Are they not all, if not independent students inclined to do the same thing, viz. : Confine themselves mainly to the imitating of their teachers?
Why did your teacher and your teacher's teacher call out some twenty or thirty pupils at a time and have them toe the mark while they pronounced some fifty or sixty words for the pupils to spell orally? Was it not because they had not the opportunity, or had failed to embrace it, of becoming acquainted with principles and methods of teaching? Is it any wonder that their teaching was mechanical, soulless, devoid of high aims? Is it at all surprising that they exercised very little if any influence upon the development of intelligence and character in pupils? There was no individuality in their work and hence they could not develop any individuality in their pupils. And inas- much as they were unable to contribute to the growth of correct principles in the profession, they were rather an impediment to the progress of the profession. Per- haps they had not the time for the study of the pro- fession. Now stop a moment and think how very weak, how absurd such a reason is. They had the
IN THE FIFTIES. 55
assurance to ask for a position to do a work which they had not the time to learn.
Think, ladies, of your paying a dressmaker two dollars a day to experiment on your new dress till she learn to make one. I say paying a dressmaker whose only preparation to make herself a dressmaker is to present herself and ask for a position as such; or who may have been through a dressmaking train- ing class, and trod the sewing machine while some one stood by to help her guide the work and who claimed in this way to have become an expert in the art and to need no more study but practice only; how many will hire her?
" Well," you say, " what about such men as Wash- ington, Jefferson, Webster, Clay and hundreds of oth- ers, who became so great and were pupils in the old-time school ? " The teachers of such pupils de- serve but little credit. Such boys will learn if shut up in a room by themselves; though you should bind them hand and foot yet will they gain knowledge. The teacher who deserves credit is he who awakens the sleepy mind ; he who reaches that which all others have failed to reach. He it is that, like the sculptor who had finished his masterpiece, may clasp his hands and with joy exclaim, " This is my handiwork ! "
"Well," says another, " I know of teachers who do not study their profession and do a grand, good work." How do you know ? let me ask. " Why ! look at their results." What are they ? "A class average of over go% ! ! " Ah ! yes, but I saw an answer to that in the " New York School Journal." " Examinations, as or-
56 SCHOOL DAYS.
dinarily conducted, do not give the result of good teaching, because they are based upon the supposition that knowledge is everything. A cross, selfish, and even brutal teacher may make a good text-book scholar. They may know a wonderful number of facts in history and geography; they may be quick in mathematical calculations, and excellent in the lan- guages, and yet with all this they may send their pupils out into the world fit only to become Wall Street sharpers, boodlers, vicious and tricky politicians. They will probably get money, live in palaces, drive fast horses, and be among the " successful " men of the world. But are these things the measures of their success? By no means. Just such men pulled Rome down, and just such men will cause the ruin of our country if it falls. The imparting of knowledge is of minor importance. We are running wild over strength of body and mind, and neglecting the culture of the soul.
There are some who will say this is " nonsense," '" preaching," and all that. It is not nonsense, and if it is preaching, the more of it the better. We want some earthquake that will shake a few of these funda- mental truths into the inner consciousness of thou- sands of teachers who are wild over facts. They are everlastingly asking "Who?" "What?' "When?" " How ? " This is the beginning, middle, and end of all their teaching. If they find a pupil who can tell the name of Queen Victoria's great grandmother, or conjugate the Greek irregular verbs, and give Cicero's idiomatic expressions, they at once pronounce him
IN THE FIFTIES. 57
" excellent." Special results stand at the end of all their ideas of school work."
Of course there always have been and always will be hundreds and hundreds of hardworking, untiring, conscientious, progressive, enthusiastic teachers at work. But, oh ! how our honorable profession has been made to suffer by the thoughtless, incompetent, money-loving, one-sided, narrow-minded, covetous old sinners who have passed themselves off as representa- tive members of it. One of the worst things that can happen to a school, is to have teachers who can do what passes for good work but who are either too lazy to read or too stingy to pay for professional books.
" Why," say they, " I do not find anything new in them."
No, of course you do not, and why? Because that noble, God-loving, high-minded teacher, who taught you, years ago, was a reader; and put into practice, what you learned of her, without knowing it. But you will not impress your pupils as she impressed you, for her success came from the heart, while yours comes only from the head.
The great trouble with teachers who do not study their profession and the laws of the mind is, that they make tugboats of themselves, and pull and puff and tug away at their pupils, pulling them through the waves against the tide ; whereas had they known more of the laws of the mind, were they in love with the work, they would have seen how unnecessary all this was ; and instead of taking the place of the tug, would have taken the place of the rudder, and simply guided
58 SCHOOL DAYS.
their pupils in the right direction, to help themselves through.
We sometimes complain that we are too poorly com- pensated for our work. If there are hundreds and hundreds of teachers who are underpaid there are hundreds and hundreds who are overpaid. Many a teacher is receiving good pay this very moment who is not worth his salt as a teacher. Whose fault is it? Yours, my reader, and mine and every teacher's in the country, if we do nothing to raise the standard of the profession.
CHAPTER X. MR. H. AND HIS HOBBIES.
As SAID in the last chapter one of the hobbies of Mr. H. was spelling. When a boy we were filled with admiration for Sir Isaac Newton, we admired Benja- min Franklin, we appreciated the plays of Shake- speare, the force of Webster, the statesmanship of Hamilton, and the generalship of Washington; but these did not awaken our indescribable wonder, our unbounded amazement, as did the performances of some of the boys and girls, in the old stone school house. It was beyond our comprehension how they could stand and spell the school down by rolling out letter after letter which, combined in regular or irregu- lar, wise or otherwise order, make up the words of our English language. Let company come and we were sure to have a spelling match. H. would rather go without his dinner than to have any one miss a word the first three or four times around.
After a hasty recitation in grammar, arithmetic, and geography, H. would say, " We will now choose sides for a spelling match." There came one day, shall I ever forget it, when we had company and as usual the sides were chosen. Poor Tim always dreaded the matches as well as some of the rest of us, but had to
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60 SCHOOL DAYS.
be chosen, as all were to take part. The spelling be- gan with such words as, Thames, Corsica, Sierra Madre, phthisic, until H. came to Tim, whom he gave bullet. Tim saw the point, and in a not very gracious manner mumbled, b-u-1-bul, 1-e-t, let, bullet. The next time around, Tim got baker. And as before, b-a-ba, k-e-r, ker, baker. The next for Tim was compel. The pupils were trying hard to hold in and even some of the company were inclined to smile. Tim sang out in a loud voice, c-o-m, com, p-e-11, pel, compel, go to
h 1, give me small words, will you ? And away he
ran out of the door never to return.
It was naughty in Tim and hard on H., but we have always felt it served him right, as he was hu- miliating the boy to build up his own reputation.
H. had this one method for teaching spelling and each child whether deaf, dumb or blind must learn to spell by this method. Heaven help the children who have a " Method " teacher over them.
" But," said the king, " are pupils all the same, Do various minds not various methods claim? Pearls are not always found upon the shore, And gold is oft extracted from the ore ; And he who gems from terra would procure, Must not expect to find them bright and pure. What different methods, too, the gold assay, And diamonds' luster to your gaze display ! Thus should the teacher on each different boy A different method patiently employ; Minds he should know, from various method choose That which is proper, and with patience use. Then might he see, and hail without surprise, The stupid boy becoming learned and wise.
IN THE FIFTIES. 6l
'Tis they whose 'art with all is just the same' More often than their pupils are to ' blame.' ,
Revolve this thought in your pedantic skull : ' The pupil, through the teacher, oft is dull.' "
R. W.
Very few teachers stop to think that the " dull boy " may be dull or slow because he is deaf, near-sighted or bashful. I recall a mother who one day brought her large overgrown boy to school and said to the principal, " I have brought my son to you because he has not made much progress where he has been. He is fifteen years old and only in the sixth grade." " What seems to be the trouble? " asked that dear old children's friend, Col. Parker, for it was he. " Is he hard of hearing ? " " Oh, no, he can hear well enough only he is hard to learn I guess." At this the principal took out his watch and stepping behind the boy, held it about 12 inches from the boy's ear asking, " Can you hear my watch tick ? " The boy shook his head. The watch was then placed near the other ear. " Do you hear it now ? " Once more the boy shook his head. The look on that mother's face! Could it be possible? The boy was placed in a room with a teacher. Miss G., who knew how to deal with such cases, and who in about a week reported to the princi- pal that she had discovered that the boy was also near sighted ! Was it any wonder he had not been getting along very fast? Was it not more of a wonder that he had reached even the sixth grade? The boy re- mained in school until he reached the high school. A year or so after he had left the school he called to
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see the writer, whom he told how cross his teachers had been until he met Miss G. Other things he said that were pathetic. How he had made up his mind before this that he was too dull ever to learn anything. How he had been kept after school for not having followed a direction he had never heard. How he had almost always sat in a back seat where he had not seen much of the work that had been written on the blackboard, etc. "How was it possible?" you ask. Ten years ago it was not only possible, but very com- mon. Not today, however, thanks to the Child Study movement that has swept the whole country.
One day a bright, young teacher went to visit a certain school and during the morning the teacher in charge pointed out a little girl, " who did the funniest things." " What seems to be the trouble with her? " asked the visitor. " Oh, I don't know," tapping her forehead, " I guess." The visitor passed down to the back of the room (these children always take back seats if choosing for themselves) and found the little thing writing everything inverted. She began talk- ing with her and found that she was very bright and unusually quick to take a suggestion. Returning to the teacher she said, " That child is bright enough, but there is some trouble with her eyes." " Oh, pshaw," was the reply, " you don't know her." " Yes I do, and if she was my pupil I would see her mother at once." So much was said that the teacher did see the mother, who took the child to see an oculist, who in turn, fitted her eyes with the proper eye glasses,
IN THE FIFTIES. 63
and lo ! no one did his work better after that than the little " daffy girl ! "
Oh, teachers, what a calling is yours. Read the opinions of some of the greatest school men that have ever engaged in your honorable calling :
From Col. Francis W. Parker, " Selfishness may be turned to benevolence, cruelty to love, deceit to honesty, sullenness to cheerfulness, conceit to humility, and obstinacy to compliance, by the careful leading of the child heart to the right emotion. But, in this work, the most responsible of all human undertakings, we cannot afford to experiment; there is one indis- pensable requirement, — the teacher must know the child, and its nature."
" Of all children born," says Rousseau, " only about half reach youth; and it is probable that your pupil may never attain to manhood. What, then, must be thought of that barbarous education which sacrifices the present to an uncertain future, loads the child with every description of fetters, and begins, by making him wretched, to prepare for him some far-away indefinite happiness he may never enjoy ! "
South says, " He that governs well, leads the blind, but he that teaches gives him eyes; and it is glorious to be a sub-worker to grace in freeing it from some of the inconveniences of original sin."
" What considerate man," says Edward Everett, " can enter a school and not reflect with awe, that it is a seminary where immortal minds are training for eternity.'
' The teacher has the consciousness of being en-
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gaged in a useful and honorable calling. My pen is too feeble to attempt to portray the usefulness of the faithful teacher " — is the language of David Page.
" The true teacher of today is not only moulding the lives of children who are to become the men and women of the immediate future but in doing this he is also influencing the intelligence, character and progress of generations yet unborn," are the closing words of Orcutt.
Said the late Mr. Fletcher, " The intellectual facul- ties can never be exercised thoroughly, but by men of sound logical training, — perfect in the art of teach- ing."
Says Charles Northend, " To take the child of today in all his ignorance, weakness, exposed to evil influ- ences and temptations on every hand, and lead him on through the devious and dangerous paths of child- hood and youth, and finally place him upon the battle- field of life, a true-hearted and intelligent being, richly furnished with those traits and qualities which will nerve and strengthen him to ' Act well his part in life ' — to do all this — is the high privilege and duty of the teacher; and is it not a noble and godlike work?"
The following are the words of the lamented Dr. Channing — " There is no office higher than that of a teacher of youth, for there is nothing on earth so precious as the mind, soul, and character of the child."
CHAPTER XI. MARY M. AND HER INFLUENCE.
Now what of the third teacher we recalled in Chap- ter VIII, Mary M.? Can we ever forget her? What an influence she had over us! What nice ways she had. The school was almost like home. When night came we longed for morning. What good times we had! No sitting up straight then like little sticks, to show off for company. Why, we even talked once in a while! No doubt we gave her a great deal of trou- ble at times. No boys could be as full of fun as we were and not give the teacher trouble. Notwithstand- ing all this we loved her dearly. We learned things, too, that we have never forgotten, — things that we feel have always been useful.
Yet, strange to say, ask us to name some of the things and we would hesitate, and ask just what they were, we answer, " Oh, we feel it. Do you under- stand, we feel the good she did. She made us look higher, to long to do something. Not by talking to us about it. If we were doing anything wrong, her eyes would tell us to stop. All she had to do was to look at us and we would feel ashamed that we had not been doing our duty." How wonderful the power of an influence. Let me quote a verse from a poem writ-
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ten by the man whom " Daddy " W. came so near sending to States Prison.
" For good or bad our lives and influence make ; Perchance to live and spread when we are dead. E'en as the pebbles thrown into the lake Will move the waves in widening circle spread, Each circle wid'ning, wid'ning till it break Upon the margin of its little sea, So every influence doth its journey take Perchance to break upon Eternity ! "
There is one point I recall that we all liked but could not then perhaps have told just what it was, viz. : She knew more of the subject than she had occasion to teach. She felt that if she knew no more than she had to teach her questions would be narrow in range and her explanations meager. Moreover, she knew that by being master of the subject she could get at it in a variety of ways, reproduce it in more than one shape and see it in more than one aspect.
She took care that all impressions made on the minds of the pupils were morally wholesome. She felt that impressions received in the school room go far to determine character, and are quite as truly a part of education as the direct teaching given there. If a child was tardy he was tardy whether he arrived ten minutes or one-fourth of one minute late. Nor did she ever let a pupil sneak in as if she did not see him. Much as she disliked to record a tardy mark every one was recorded. We soon learned to know this and, hence, ran no risks.
She lost no time in repeating the answers of the
IN THE FIFTIES. 67
pupils. We never heard her say, " What is a verb? " " A word that expresses action." " Yes, a word ex- pressing action." She knew that the repetitions took time and imparted no new information to the pupil.
She regularly read some standard educational paper or magazine; feeling that teaching was a science, one of the few in the Fifties, and therefore, like any other science demanded study.
When she saw that the class was becoming tired she changed the exercise or recitation. Let us here go a little more into detail:
There were once two bright young teachers, each having a class of equally bright young boys and girls. It so happened one day, that both of these teachers selected " The Famine," from Longfellow's " Hia- watha," for a language lesson. The story being a pretty one, each thought it would interest the children, hold their attention, and after being read, each pupil could be asked to reproduce the story in his own words. The story was read by both teachers. Both classes were attentive from beginning to end. Both teachers were satisfied. The stories were written by the pupils. Those of one class were fairly well told, while those of the other class were excellently well told. Why this difference? As said before, the classes were equally bright. There were excellent reasons, as will be shown, for the difference so plainly seen. One teacher had applied her pedagogy in a general way, while the other had applied hers scientifically. The first had chosen the story because she knew it would win the attention of her pupils. It certainly did and
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had the other class not been heard from, hers would have been called a good exercise. She failed, how- ever, as (i) She gave her class the exercise imme- diately after a long recitation in arithmetic. (2) The thermometer registered 78° when she began to read, and not one of the windows was open as it was a very cold day. (3) She told the pupils before reading they were to reproduce the story after she had finished the reading.
The second teacher had also been giving a long and difficult lesson in arithmetic just prior to her language lesson, but before taking up the language, she had ( i ) Opened the windows, and had given the pupils a few light calisthenics. (2) They sang a few songs. By these exercises both the mental and bodily fatigue were removed. The teacher well knowing it would be idle to try to enlist the close attention of the pupils while either their minds or bodies were fatigued. (3) She did not begin by telling them that the story was to be reproduced, and hence did not divide the atten- tion of the children, i. e., while listening they were not thinking of their reproduction. (4) Here she made her strongest point. This teacher not only told the class she had a pretty story to read, but gave them an outline of it as follows : " There was once a wonder- ful Indian chief. He married a pretty Indian girl. We shall see what her name was. It was you will find, an appropriate one. She one day had two strange visitors, two we none of us would care to have. Her husband one day, went on a long journey. Before he returned his beautiful wife died. The Indian's dear-
IN THE FIFTIES. 69
est friend was with her when she died. We will see how and why this beautiful girl died."
By this happy application of her professional study, she not only secured the children's attention, but she had aroused their expectant attention.
Their minds were able to look onward and antici- pate a coming impression. The consequence was, a shortening of the process of reception and recogni- tion. The pupils' minds had a continual satisfaction of nascent expectation. Laughing Water was recog- nized at once by the pupils; so was Minnehaha; so were Famine, (Bukadawin.) and Fever, (Ahkosewin) ; and poor Minnehaha's death by starvation made all the stronger impression because of their having been an- ticipating the kind of death. The teacher also dis- played great tact in taking this indirect method of im- pressing upon their minds the fact that one's mother is his best friend. The class were eagerly waiting to ascertain who could have been with the young wife at her death. When it proved to be old Nokomis, the grandmother of Hiawatha, they were at once willing to acknowledge her his best friend, though nothing was said. It is not surprising that the reproduction of this class was by far the better of the two.
Miss M. always had the attention of her pupils. " How did she get it ? " She knew that attention is a voluntary act of the mind. Therefore, she did not shout for it; she did not scold to get it; she did not demand it. She did what all teachers must do, who succeed in securing it. She won it. And better yet, when she had won it, she did not try to hold it too
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long. So must it always be when teaching young chil- dren.
She was enthusiastic over her work. She distin- guished between a demonstrative, and an animated or enthusiastic manner. She knew that to be noisy, flighty, or fussy was not being animated. Too many do not see the distinction.
She embraced all opportunities for showing sym- pathy with her pupils. A teacher may place a barrier life-lasting between her and a pupil by saying, " What, sick again, dear me, why didn't you stay home then ? "
She was always early in attendance at school, know- ing that, otherwise, she could not enforce her precept by example.
She manifested implicit confidence in her pupils' veracity, knowing that to suspect an innocent child of falsehood is to wound him almost beyond cure. " Sus- picion is the poison to true friendship."
She instantly checked any laughter when a diffident pupil was reciting. Nothing gives a diffident child more confidence than to know his rights are to be respected.
Miss M. was not one who would be inclined to say to her principal, every time he entered her room, " Mr.
what would you do with a boy who does so and
so? " or " Mr. what do you think of a boy that
will do so and so? " or perhaps, " Mr. I am glad
you came in. John, stand up. Would you think a boy like that would do so and so ? "
Miss M. would know that it is hard for a principal to do anything at such a time but look foolish. That
IN THE FIFTIES. 71
he will feel more like asking why the boy had been permitted to stay in the room at all if he had been guilty of doing such things as required a public charge. A private talk in the office after, or even during school hours will do a boy a thousand times more good. A boy soon learns to grow proud of his bad record if chastised too often publicly, and when nothing much is done to him as must be the case under the above con- ditions, (for it was only by chance the principal en- tered the room at that time, and had he not entered nothing would have been reported to him) the others inclined toward misconduct, are encouraged to become troublesome.
" There is a given order in which, and a given rate at which, the faculties unfold. If the course of education conforms itself to that order and rate, well. If not — if the higher faculties are early taxed by presenting an order of knowledge more complex and abstract than can be readily assimilated ; or if, by excess of culture, the intellect in general is developed to a degree beyond that which is natural to the age ; the abnormal result so produced will inevitably be accompanied by some equivalent, or more than equivalent, evil."
Herbert Spencer.
CHAPTER XII. PROFESSIONAL READING.
WHEN reading the autobiography of Col. Parker (see appendix) you will find the following: " When I went into Boston and could not find a single work on pedagogics I was surprised, etc." This was long after the old stone school house days, hence you will know there was no food for the teachers of those days. One of the first that the writer ever saw was written by David Page. It was not long after Col. Parker's work at Quincy, Mass., however, before the books be- gan to be published. Teachers' Reading Classes were formed all over the country. The writer has the honor of being one of the first to graduate from the New Jersey State Teachers' Reading Circle. He is proud of it and makes no excuses for mentioning it here. He was once asked about that time, " What is a good book for a teacher to read," and answered the question as follows : " That reminds me of the man who asked a doctor what was a good medicine for a patient. The doctor told him it all depended on what was the matter with the patient. So I answer your question. It all depends on what the teacher needs."
If he is a cool, matter of fact, worldly man, and is teaching for the money he can get out of it, with no
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regard for the influence he may have on his pupils, thinking his only duty is to put in five hours a day hearing lessons, I advise, by all means, that he make the Bible his principal book until he becomes aware of his awful mistake.
If he has to contend with trials and tribulations and to meet difficulties which he thinks have never fallen to the lot of any other man and hence that there is no encouragement for him, I advise him to read David Page, in whom he will find a kind, faithful, sympa- thetic friend, who will instil in him new hope and a de- termination to overcome all obstacles ; who will inspire him with a love for his profession and cause him to lose sight of the almighty dollar, to wait with patience till he passes to his final reward which will go with him through Eternity.
If he is one who thinks that children are to be treated like automatons to be wound up with the key of nonsensical definitions and run down at his will ; or if he has the idea that children can learn only when stuck up in their several seats like so many wooden posts, I advise that he read Pestalozzi's " Leonard and Gertrude," where he will find that children can learn just as much and be a thousand times happier if al- lowed to be what God intended them to be, simply little children who can be made to love their teacher, their school and their several tasks.
Is he inclined to be a skeptic and to scoff at the idea of teaching's being either an art or science, I advise him to read White's " Elements of Pedagogy," in which he will find well known and fixed principles in
IN THE FIFTIES. 75
teaching which, if he violate, will make his task a monotonous routine, that in turn will bring him to a premature grave and which will also do an injury to his pupils that can never be undone.
Is he one who stands before his class the personifi- cation of an Encyclopedia, airing himself from morn- ing till night, day after day, explaining every detail, I advise him to read Payne's " Lectures on Eudcation," where he will find, I think, to his satisfaction, that he is robbing the children of all development of mind.
Is he one who has been feeding his pupils on dry husks for the past ten years, I advise him to read Parker's " Talks on Teaching," where he will find ear after ear filled with the bright, sparkling, well-de- veloped and thoroughly digestible " Col.," which, after a few meals, will so change him, that his pupils will not recognize him as the old dry cob of a few weeks before.
Is he one who thinks there is no system to the Kin- dergarten and that it is only fooling away time, I ad- vise him to read Hailman's " Primary Methods and Kindergarten Instruction," where he will discover that there is a methodical, systematic, economical and efficient use of the occupations described therein which will successfully guard him against the evils of random, unsystematic and too common " busy work."
Is he one who has not read the history of his pro- fession, fearing it would prove dull and uninteresting, I advise him to read Quick, Fitch or Compayre's "History of Pedagogy," where he will find (if not too thoroughly steeped in cheap novels as to be lost
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to all decent reading), chapter after chapter that will hold him spellbound from beginning to end. If un- able to read but one of these let it by all means be Quick's " Educational Reformers," written by one whose whole soul was in the work and who has done much to raise the standard of our profession.
If he be fond of deserts and desire now and then a real relish, then I advise that he keep always be- fore him " The Report of the Committee of Ten," which he will find full to overflowing of good, sound common sense that will make him so happy he will go through his daily work as light-hearted as a child.
Is he one who wishes to know how to manage children in their early life, i. e., school life, and desires good sound psychological common sense for the reason given, let him read Currie's " Early Educa- tion," a book that is full of thought and wise sugges- tions for young teachers; a book that every teacher, and especially every primary teacher, should have, even though she borrow the money with which to buy it.
Is he one who has no faith in science teaching in the common schools and who thinks that it has no place in the educating of the young and does he desire to have proven to him how utterly wrong are his arguments, how absolutely necessary to the child's health, his good citizenship, in short to his complete being, is this science study, I advise that he read Herbert Spencer on Education, where he will find the question discussed in a logical, comprehensive, con- clusive manner, so much so that I doubt his being able
IN THE FIFTIES. 77
to lay down the book till every page has been read. Surely he cannot begin the chapter on Moral Educa- tion and stop till he has read every word. A chapter that should be read by every teacher as often as once a term.
Has he but a limited knowledge of the mind he is trying to develop and does he desire to realize how much easier, more attractive and scientific he can make his work with such knowledge, I advise him to read Sulley's " Outlines of Psychology," or " Murray's Hand-Book of Psychology," in either of which he will learn that there are well known and fixed principles which should govern all teaching and teachers in their work. The reading of these two books will not only make him a better teacher but a better man in every respect.
How the list has grown. Every year adds its new ones. No doubt my list will look like a " back number " to the young teachers who may read it, but I am quite sure that none on the list will harm them and the oldest on the list will do them good !
EXAMINATIONS.
The other night I went to bed, But not to sleep, for my poor head Was filled with a most awful dread.
Examinations !
I thought of this, and then of that; Of set and sit; which goes with sat? I fear my brain has run to fat.
Examinations !
Next came the base and rate, per cent, Of money to an agent sent, And with that word all wisdom went. Examinations !
Then my lessons I try to spell ;
Which words have two, and which, one L?
Oh, my poor brain ! I cannot tell.
Examinations !
Where is Cape Cod, and where Pekin? Where do the rivers all begin? A high per cent. I cannot win.
Examinations !
Who was John Smith? What did he do? And all the other fellows, too? You must tell me, I can't tell you.
Examinations !
Oh, Welcome sleep! at last it came; But not to rest, all the same; For in my dreams this was my bane — Examinations !
CHAPTER XIII. EXAMINATIONS.
WE HAD examinations in the Old Stone School House! I do not mean by that exclamation point that there is any harm -in the written examination when " supplementing it with the current work of the school, and used in the same spirit, and with equal common sense as the oral test," for when thus used, " the written test is a most valuable means of school training." But at the old school we had them to see if we were to " pass " at the end of the term, and oh, the lying, copying, cuff-defacing they caused! If we had been given our choice in knowing much and rank- ing low in our class, or knowing little and ranking high, we would have unhesitatingly chosen the latter.
These old annual, to decide all, farcical examina- tions caused the teachers to become machines for cramming, pouring into, and stuffing the minds of their pupils with words, words, words, causing them to give as much time to the G. C. D. and the L. C. M., and that old father of frauds, allegation, because they might happen to be in the tests, as they gave to the common sense practical principles of arithmetic.
I once knew a child to con by rote nearly all the chronological tables in his history so as to be up in all
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the dates, and it caused him to take a life-lasting dis- like for one of the grandest studies in the curricula of our public schools.
Such a system simply impressed upon the minds of the pupils that it is not our daily life that is of im- portance, but that all is to be summed up at the eleventh hour, when it will be determined, regardless of our every day life, whether we are to be rewarded or punished. Hence many a one of them would spend the whole year in acts of pure cussedness, idling away his time day after day, using up more of the teacher's nerve force than any other half-dozen pupils, and finally receive a promotion to a higher grade because he sat up nights during the last month learning the words of his text book by heart, and on examination day gave three-fourths of his answers correctly.
These examinations were supposed to test the teacher's competency also. No matter how faithful she may have been, if the class ranked low she was held responsible. It might be that any other ten ques- tions would not have caught her. That made no dif- ference; this ten had caught her.
There was a young teacher when these term ex- aminations were at their height who had been trans- ferred from one school to another. In the past every- thing had depended on her class average. A few weeks before the term examinations began she became pale, nervous, and irritable ; her new principal noticing this, asked her the cause, when she expressed surprise at his having noticed anything unusual in her conduct.
She then frankly acknowledged that the forth-
IN THE FIFTIES.
8l
coming examination was worrying her greatly. She said that this being her first examination in this school, she was particularly anxious to have a high class average. The principal smiled and replied, " Should your class happen to have a low average, I presume you will have been a failure." " Yes," she answered, " I presume I shall have been." Her trembling voice and downcast eye spoke louder than her words.
The principal then said, " My dear child, go on with your work, and if you do as well in the future as you have been doing in the past, I shall be perfectly satis- fied with your results, and shall not care whether your class average is forty or twice forty per cent. By the way, do you know you might have a class average of ninety per cent, and be a failure, while on the other hand the average might be forty per cent, and you be a perfect success?" " Why, no! " she replied, " how can that be possible?" "I'll show you," said the principal, turning to the class of little second year pupils, " Children," said he, " I'm going to teach you a new lesson to-day. You may repeat after me, ' Geography is a description of the earth's surface.' ' Say it again.' ' Again.' ' Once more.' ' Now, who can tell me?' 'What is geography?' 'Willie may tell me.' ' May, tell me.' ' Class, tell me.' ' Johnny may tell.'
" There," said he, turning to the teacher, " they know that, don't they?" "Yes, there's no doubt they do." " Then, if I were to give them an exami nation, and the first question was, ' What is geog-
82 SCHOOL DAYS.
raphy ? ' you would admit that it was a fair ques- tion?" "Yes, certainly." " Very well. 'Children, an island is a body of land surrounded by water.' ' This was repeated and recited as before. " Now," said the principal, " the second question will be fair if asked as follows." ' What is an island ? ' " Yes, per- fectly fair." " And if the children answered as they have answered me now, you would give them perfect marks? " "I certainly should." " Very well, I shall now prove to you that they know absolutely nothing about the subject." He then began questioning them as to how many had ever seen a geography. Up went their hands. When asked about how it looked, they answered, " a description of the earth's surface." The question was then put, " What is a geography itself?" The definition was again repeated. When asked how large they thought a geography was, one thought it was as large as his fist, another as large as the desk, still another thought it was as large as the blackboard, when at that moment a little fellow in the back part of the room with the most intense earnest- ness pictured on his face, raised his hand and ex- claimed, " Oh ! I know, sir ; I know ! I know ! " " Well, my boy, what is it? " " It's a great, big, live nanny-goat."
Reader, that is as true as that you are reading this book. The writer was in the room and heard it himself.
There was not a smile upon the boy's face, nor did any members of the class laugh, evidently thinking his answer was right. The little fellow, no doubt, had at
IN THE FIFTIES 83
some time heard that goats were a destruction to the earth, hence his error. The exercise closed as fol- lows : The principal said, " Now, children, you may tell me what is an island?" and they all recited, "An island is a body of land surrounded by water." " It would bite you, wouldn't it? " he asked, when they all exclaimed, " Yes, sir ! "
That teacher afterwards became one of the best in that school.
Think of a child being promoted after such a test, with perhaps an average of 75.1 per cent, while the conscientious child who works faithfully during the year is left behind as he receives but 74.9 per cent.
" Such men — men deserving the glorious title of Teachers of Mankind — I have found, laboring conscientiously, though, per- haps, obscurely, in their blessed vocation, wherever I have gone. Among the indomitable, active French ; resolute, industrious Swiss ; the warm-hearted Germans ; the high-minded, but en- slaved Italians ; and in our own country, God be thanked, their number everywhere abound, and are every day increasing."
Henry Brougham (1779).
84
CHAPTER XIV. LIGHT.
THE TIME came when we parted from the old stone school house. I one day told my father I desired to go west. "Why?" he asked. "Because I never saw a young man live on his father till he was twenty- one who ever became good for anything." I was given a ticket and with twenty-five dollars in my pocket started to make my fortune. In a little over eighteen months I returned to my native village, a wiser if not a richer boy, though I have always boasted that I returned with more money than I had when I left. Money could not buy my experience. A thou- sand dollars would be no temptation, and yet I would not have my son go through the experience for many thousands.
That experience has helped me much as a teacher, in giving good, practical advice to boys who became uneasy, and who, tired of school, wished to get to work. My talks with them were not based on theories, but were given them from facts from " real life."
" Poverty," says Garfield, " is uncomfortable, as I can testify, but nine times out of ten the best thing that can happen to a young man is to be tossed over-
8s
86 SCHOOL DAYS.
board and compelled to sink or swim for himself."
Shortly after returning from the west, I entered the Albany State Normal School (Class '73). It was here I came under an influence that changed my whole life. How much I owe to the teachers of this school. How little I knew at the time what an influence they were having over me ! What an ambition I had to be somebody in the world! How I longed to be doing! How differently I looked upon life! There were those here for whom I had, when under them, un- bounded respect. Not until later years, however, did I realize how great was, or rather is, that respect.
How did these men and women reach us ? I do not remember that they ever gave us a lecture on morals. There was no sickly precept and moral suasion about them.
When we entered the school we were sent to our boarding houses and that ended it so far as we ever knew. There was no hazing there. The freshmen were not greeted as " plebes," but were taken by the hand and given a glad welcome.
I shall never forget the day we took our entrance examination. Had the " markers " of a few years later (not in this school, but throughout the country), given the examination I would have received about ten points. I was admitted, however, on two months' probation and at the end of that time in " due form."
What a perfect image I have of the room to which we went for our geography examination. We were told to go to the blackboard and draw any map we liked. I drew Massachusetts, and when Miss S.
IN THE HF'IiEj. °7
passed around the room to look them over she stopped at mine and asked, " Who drew this ? " I, thinking it must be very good to have such notice taken of it, raised my hand high in the air. " Yes," 'said she, " it looks like an enraged elephant." This in such a way as not to anger, but to bring a laugh, in which I joined with the others.
We hear of " born short " pupils now days. If there had been a class of born short in arithmetic in those days I'm sure I would have been at the head of it! I was conditioned in algebra in 1872, and in 1895 I sent a little algebra to my old teacher with a note,
saying, " To Prof. , in memory of the condition
of 1872, with the compliments of the author." In about six weeks I received a letter saying, " I have looked the little book over carefully and have come to the conclusion that the condition was a mistake ! "
But as to these born short are there so many of them after all? Is it not possible that now and then, not always, but now and then that the teacher is the one who is short? Whenever I feel that I have a born short I ask myself, " Have you looked into this pupil's past? Do you know his past teachers? Have you seen them teach the subject he is short in ? Tfien to give me new courage I do what I am going to ask you to do and that is to read the report of Prof. James R. Richard, Chapter XVII, read by him at the Twelfth Annual Session of the Conference of Char- ities and Correction, held in Washington, D. C, June 9, 1885, as to how he treated the boy, Sylvanus. Then ask yourself, " Dare I, who have all the senses
88 SCHOOL DAYS.
with which to work, admit there is a child under my charge whose mind I cannot reach ? "
OPPORTUNITY.
" Mkster of human destinies am I. Fame, love, and fortune on my footsteps wait, Cities and fields I walk; I penetrate Deserts and seas remote, and, passing by Hovel, and mart, and palace, soon or late I knock unbidden once at every gate! If sleeping, wake — if feasting, rise before I turn away. It is the hour of fate, And they who follow me reach every state Mortals desire, and conquer every foe Save death; but those who doubt or hesitate, Condemned to failure, penury, and woe, Seek me in vain and uselessly implore, I answer not, and I return no more."
John J. Ingalls.
CHAPTER XV THE WILL.
THE will is the mind willing. It is the self-active, self-determining power of the soul. An act of will involves a choice between alternate acts. How im- portant for a teacher to know these truths when he stops to think with White, that " It is possible, by the non-exercise of certain feelings, and the constant exer- cise of others, to create in man, in a certain sense, a new nature — to substitute for passions and lusts, that degrade the soul, those affections and desires that exalt and make beautiful the life." Teachers should not forget, however, that the soul may be filled to overflowing with emotions of pity and compassion; the heart may be ready to burst in sympathy for the sufferings of another, and yet if the feelings do not pass into a purpose, or out into an act of kindness, they will develop character but very little, if at all.
The above truth was thoroughly understood by that noble-minded teacher who, when she heard of an old lady who had recently lost her husband and whose only son had a few days later been brought home in a dying condition for his mother to care for, took occasion to tell her pupils of the sad case. The chil- dren listened attentively while their teacher described
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the old lady's home in which were found none of the luxuries of this world, and but few of the necessities. Long before the teacher had finished the story many of the children were in tears. Now was the all im- portant moment. So far the exercise had been a success; the teacher had displayed her power of description; the elocution had been faultless; she had moved the whole class. This, however, was not her purpose; she well knew the real test was yet to come. " How many would like to help this dear old lady? " was asked. Every one would, even little Johnny, whose fiery temper and cross, selfish nature had been a source of great anxiety to his teacher, was ready with the others. O, how the teacher's heart throbbed as she noticed this! She well knew that her work with Johnny was all " the powers that be " would ask for. Johnny was the brightest boy in the class, as far as his book-knowledge was concerned, yet this teacher felt that the public schools were not intended to teach the Young Americans a few facts from books. She felt that the millions of dollars annually expended were worse than wasted, if the children left the school with no character back of their book knowledge. She felt that it was not only her duty to teach a child how to read but what to read. Not only was she to teach him how to write but what to write ; yes, and what not to write, too. She knew that there were schools which have turned out into the world pupils for whom and for whose country it would have been better had they received no education; for that which they had received had only helped them to practice their dis-
IN THE FIFTIES. 91
honest tendencies all the more successfully; tendencies which by proper training might have been checked.
Here was Johnny, the selfish, then, raising his hand with the others. " How shall we help the old lady, Johnny?" is asked. Johnny says he will ask his father to give him some money to bring to the teacher for the old lady. The children were all ready to do this. " But," said the teacher, " I do not like this plan very well; I want you to do something your- selves. Ah, I have a plan. When you go home to dinner, notice what there is on the table that you desire the most, and then do not eat it. It will re- quire more or less will power for you to resist. When you come back to school, you may each tell me what you denied yourself, and I will put a price on it, and to-morrow morning you may bring me the amount I name."
In the afternoon the first few minutes were taken to determine how much money had been raised. One child had eaten no butter; another no meat, and an- other no potatoes. Last of all came Johnny. The teacher had hardly dared ask him. When asked, he brought a note to the teacher's desk. It was from his mother, and stated that for a week Johnny had been teasing her to make a custard pie for dinner. She had made one that day, and not a mouthful would Johnny take. He had tried to explain, but she could not understand. What did it mean? The class were told the contents of the note, and it was unanimously agreed that Johnnie's pie should be marked the highest of all. The next day the teacher was de-
92 SCHOOL DAYS.
lighted to see Johnny sharing an apple with one of his less fortunate class-mates. And on the next day after she learned he had given half of his marbles to a little fellow who had none. Who knows but that this teacher had made a Peter Cooper, or a George Peabody of Johnny ? And yet all the examinations ever given, by all the boards of examiners that ever existed, would not have discovered the competency of this noble woman.
CHAPTER XVI. A CHAPTER FROM REAL LIFE.
THE year's work is done. The annual examina- tions are finished. We sent a large class to take the test. We have been congratulated on our success. Many, yes, nearly all of our class have passed. A good showing, says the public at large.
Are we happy? Alas! no. Johnny has been left behind. Johnny was under our charge for four years. O, how he tried us ! Time after time we were tempted to suspend him from school. Still, we held on to him year after year. Some of our friends thought us too patient. Others said we " lacked back-bone," while others who knew us and understood us said, " There is a limit to all things and you have done your duty." * Still, we held on to Johnny. Even some of his class- mates thought we were letting Johnny go too far. Yet, we did not give him up.
A few weeks before the annual examinations, how- ever, the last straw breaks the camel's back. We sent for the father and asked him to take Johnny from school. " We have no influence over him," we say, " Nothing we have ever done or said has moved him, rind now we feel that for the good of the school he must go."
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The father, with tears in his eyes, agrees with us, thanks us for all our care and patience, and we feel while he is talking that we have been quite a hero. Johnny goes, and when he has gone, we do not feel so much like a hero as we did. We feel that we are a poor, weak, impatient good-for-nothing man, and long to get out of teaching and go into something for which we are fitted.
The year has gone. Its work is done. Johnny has not graduated with the rest and we feel, notwith- standing the congratulations of the public, the year's work has been a failure.
Weeks, yes, months, have passed since Johnny has left us. To-day there was a ring at the door-bell. " Some one wishes to see you," says the little monitor. We go to the reception room, where we find an old friend. We shake hands and are glad to see each other. Our friend asks after our health, how our class is doing, what kind of a class it is. Then he tells us of himself, where he has been, what he is and has been doing, thanks us for something we once did1 for him, tells us that though he did not show any ap- preciation at the time, his heart was softer than we thought; says he has just joined the church and is taking up some of his old studies at home.
We grasp his hand and say, " Ah, Johnny, (yes, 'tis he) we always said you would come out all right; we are so glad you came to see us; come again often." He says he will ; he does not go yet, and seeing he has something still to say we encourage him to say it. At last he says, " There is one thing I do not yet
IN THE FIFTIES. 95
understand." " What is that, Johnny ? " we ask. " Why did you sometimes tell me before the class that you thought I would come out all right? I can see why you did so sometimes in private, but do not see why you did in public." " My dear boy," we say, " we did it because we try to do our work for all time and not for the time being only. In your old class of forty boys and girls some, perhaps many, may become teachers. They may have a Johnny in their class; they will then remember you and us, and will remem- ber our words, and when they see you, or hear of your becoming a good man, they will have more patience with their Johnny and will be thankful to you and to us for our lesson of patience to them."
How happy we feel to-night! How thankful we are to our kind Heavenly Father because He has given us a little view of our harvest! O, teachers, what a grand noble work is ours! We are too apt to look for immediate results, and think, if we see or hear of no improvement in our pupils while they are with us that none has been made. Those teachers who did the most for me never knew how much they were doing. If I can do as much for any of my pupils as some of my teachers did for me I shall feel that God has let me do some good in the world and that it is a little better for my having been in it.
Pardon one more reminiscence. Fred, Fred, what a boy was Fred! How often we came nearly giving him up. Once his teacher, a grand good woman, said to us, " Either he goes or I do, which shall it be?"
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" Fred," said I one day, " how is it you cannot get along better?" "Oh," said he, "I get ugly, then Miss — — corrects me and then I get mad, so of course she gets mad, and the next thing is the office." I could not but feel that a fellow who talked like that must have some good in him and so I would talk with him and (let me say here, with no thought of ad- vancing an argument for or against corporal punish- ment, I cannot but feel that the fact that / had the power to whip him but would not had a much better influence over him than would the fact that I would but could not) he talked back with such good hard sense that I would beg the teacher to give him another trial. He was a queer boy to deal with, but we held on to him and at last sent him to the high school and I came west. In something like four years I returned on a visit. One day, when walking down one of the prin- cipal streets, I felt some one tapping me on the back and turning I saw a six-footer looking down at me. He had on a broad grin and said, " You don't know me, do you ? " " No," said I, " I must say I do — w-h-a-t? Is that you, Fred?" "Yes, it is I." " How are you, old boy, and what are you doing ? " " Oh, I am well and you can't guess what I am doing." " No, I give it up at once, so tell me." " Well, sir, I am down at R college preparing for the ministry !
CHAPTER XVII. SYLVANUS.
By Professor James R. Richards.
How are we to reach these unfortunate innocents? Can they be taught by the ordinary methods? What is the difficulty?
These questions can, perhaps, best be answered by drawing a comparison between the normal and the abnormal child, laying down some general principles, and illustrating the methods of teaching by giving one or two cases which have come under my own ob- servation.
The normal child has all his senses acute, keen, on the alert. He recognizes the mother's voice, sees any bright object near him, grasps firmly the finger placed in his hand. The senses of the abnormal child are all dormant, sluggish, perhaps morbid. A film seems to be over his eyes; to the mothers voice, he never re- sponds; his limbs are useless; he is also deficient in will power. I was once asked by the late Dr. Bellows, of New York. What constitutes an imbecile? The imbecile child is one who has the fewest wants. Per- haps his only want is to be made comfortable, that is all; but, from that one simple want, we shall climb,
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98 SYLVANUS.
step by step, the ladder of wants, and so ascend in part the scale of all human development.
One of the most trying cases that I ever had to deal with was in my early experience. It was a boy about eight and a half years old. He had never known his mother, so she told me. She had never seen a smile upon his face. His father had tried to send a light from some shining object into his eyes, but he never blinked but once. He had not the power of locomo- tion; his lower limbs were paralyzed. Not even the sense of pain or the sense of touch did he have. This boy I found dressed in a red flannel gown, lying upon the floor. He could not even roll over; he could do nothing. There are a great many others as bad as he, but let us see what we did with him.
I took the boy with me with the greatest care to the institution, and dealt with him as with a babe. He was held in arms, fed, rubbed, manipulated, worked upon to see if we could arouse the energy of his body. He was properly bathed and exercised, and everything possible done to develop him. After a month's care- ful study of his case, I made up my mind that I must get down to him. Where did I get my lesson? 1 observed one day how a mother, a bright, intelligent woman, managed a child. She was upon the second floor and her boy, who was on the lower floor, dis- obeyed her. She did not scream to him from the top of the second flight of stairs, saying, " Jack, you must not do that." She came down stairs, both flights, and getting right down to him, on the same level with with him, eye to eye, she said, " My dear boy, don't
SYLVANUS. 99
you know that that is wrong? " The boy melted and threw his arms around his mother's neck. That is where I got my lesson. Get upon the floor, — get down where the child is, right down there. If he knows anything, it is down there. You must take hold of the slightest thing in your favor. Day after day, for an hour at a time, for three months, I took a book and read aloud to that boy, — intelligently, as if he understood every word I said, adapting the intona- tions as if I were reading to an intelligent person. When mothers talk to their little babes, telling them little "goo-goo" stories, what is the effect? The bright child wakes up by and by to this pleasant voice in the ear. And so it might be with this unfortunate boy here. And so it was. He finally heard this voice that was ringing around him in a musical tone, month after month, and one day,, when I came and simply sat in a chair and read to myself, I looked one side to see if he missed me, and the child actually appeared uneasy. Imagining that he missed me, I lay down on the floor beside him as usual, saying, " Oh, you want me, Sylvanus ? Well, I am here." He breathed a soft " Ah ! " I had planted the first want. He wanted me. and he wanted me there. He had felt my influence there; I was too far off in the chair. So I read to him two or three months more. Then, in- stead of reading aloud, I read to myself one day. After a long time, I saw he was trying to do some- thing. I watched him. Gradually he lifted his finger and laid it on my lips. " Oh, you want me to read to you, do you ? " And so I read. Another want had
100 SYLVANUS.
been implanted. I read to him every day, letting him always have the privilege of opening my lips. At last he smiled, — the first smile of recognition that ever came upon that unfortunate child's features. It was enough to pay me ten thousand times over for all I had done. " If we can redeem one," I said to Dr. Howe, " we will redeem them all over the country. We will open the door so wide that every State shall pass an act to found an institution for these unfortu- nates, and every intelligent being shall feel that it is a privilege to enter into this great work."
This boy, step by step, went on. Finally I could take him up and have him where I pleased. He was near me — we were one. He felt it and knew it. He was glad to be taken up. This training went on and until one day I found he could move his limbs. I put him on his hands and knees to teach him to creep. This was nearly a year and a half after he came into the institution. As I placed him there, I said, " I wonder if I can help him to talk." He had not talked any. I said to him, " Now, move this hand; that is right. -Now the other; that is a good boy," guiding them as I spoke. I did this every day for months, till finally I found he was trying to do it himself between the drills. After a while I thought I saw his lips moving as he did it. Putting down my ear very close I found he was talking. He was whispering to himself : " Move this hand, that is right. Now the other; that is a good boy. Now, move this leg; that is right. Now the other; that is
SYLVANUS. 101
a good boy." He had heard me talk in such a way, and it aroused him to talk.
We went on. Object lessons came in. He must go down to the shoemaker's every day to see the shoemaker make him a pair of shoes. " What are those, Sylvanus ? " we would ask ; and he would say, "Shoes." "Who made them?" "Shoemaker."' "What is this?" "Bread." "Who made it?" " Betsy " (the girl). And so the object lessons had a connection in his mind. One day I showed him an apple. " What is that? " " Apple." He had picked them up on the ground. " Who made it." " Don't know." "Didn't the shoemaker?" "No." "Didn't Betsy?" "No." It was time to give him another lesson.
I took him up stairs one morning to an east window, to see the sun rise. " What is that, Sylvanus ? Say sun." "Sun," he repeated. " Who made it, Sylvanus? Say God." " God," he repeated. I left him there and went down stairs. When breakfast was ready I sent the nurse for him. When I came to the school- room there was this little boy. He had crept up to the window, and was talking to another boy. " What is that, Charlie ? Say sun, Charlie. Who made it ? Say God, Charlie," calling up one child after another, and going through his brief lesson. " What is that ? Say sun. Who made it? Say God." He was the best teacher I ever had.
That is the way. You must take the clew before you, and not always thrust yourself in. Some days after in my object lessons, I took up the apple.
102 SYLVANUS.
" Who made it? " I asked of the children. All were silent but Sylvanus. He looked as if he had a thought. " What do you think, Sylvanus ? " I asked. " God," was the reply. He had made the connection. Remember, this was the little child when eight and a half years old, lay upon the floor and could not recog- nize a thing about him.
One day Sylvanus saw a mother come in and take up another child and try a jacket on him. Sylvanus looked up in my face and asked, " Have I a mother ? " He wanted a mother. Yes, we all want mothers ; and this little boy wanted one, too. I told him that he had a mother. He said that he wanted to see her. So she came one day, and when she came into the room, she looked all around, and said, " Where is Sylvanus?" When he heard his name he answered, " Here I am; is that my mother? O, mother, I am so glad to see you ! " Joy upon the return of one among the angels? Here was one redeemed.
Yes, and let me add, my dear Mr. Richards, Through patience, perseverance and love.
CHAPTER XVIII. THE TEACHERS' ALPHABET.
A teacher who has forgotten how he felt as a child lacks an essential for a good disciplinarian.
Because a child is slow we must not count him dull. Slow boys and girls have made quick men and women.
Children soon learn to wait for the " thunder clap." Never, then, begin by trying to startle a class into at- tention. Attention thus gained is not healthy.
Do not make tug-boats of yourselves, to pull your pupils through the waves. Act as the rudder, to guide them. If patient the storm will soon pass.
Every teacher who succeeds in awakening a desire for better things in a young scapegrace, deserves more praise than a thousand " hearers of lessons."
Faith, love, courage, patience, sympathy, self-con- trol, enthusiasm and common sense, are the avenues that lead to the children's hearts.
Good, hard-working, conscientious, progressive, en- thusiastic teachers must never hope to receive their full reward in this world.
Hundreds of teachers (?) go to their class-rooms every day, who are as unfit for their work as a snail for rapid transit.
It is much easier to teach by rote than to train and 103
104 TEACHERS' ALPHABET.
develop the mind. For this reason many cry down the new methods and cling to the old.
Just as well to practice medicine with no knowledge of physiology, as to teach with no knowledge of the child one is teaching.
Know as much of the home life of your pupils as possible. It will often help you to get hold of the bad boy to know his bad father.
Let every child have access to the school library. Lending the books to only those who obtain high rank is bad. Often the ones who need the books most never get them.
Many children who are full of animation, life, fun, and happiness, are made to hate school and books be- cause their teachers do not take the time or trouble to study their dispositions.
Never get out of patience with a slow pupil if you desire to keep him patient. Never laugh at him unless you desire to wound his feelings.
Opportunities are often given teachers which they fail to see. Heaven lead us all to feel thy power, Op- portunity, and teach us how to rightly use it.
Professional teaching can only be done by profes- sional teachers. Professional teachers are those who take time to prepare themselves for the work.
Question, then name the pupil who is to recite; all will then give attention, not knowing who may be called to answer the question.
Read of Laura Bridgman, Helen Keller, or the boy Sylvanus, and tell me if we, who have the five senses with which to work, dare assert there is a child in
TEACHERS' ALPHABET. 105
our charge whose understanding we cannot reach.
Some of your brightest pupils may become useless members of society unless you teach them how to ap- ply what they learn. (I once saw a pig pass a good examination in reading.)
There should be almost as many methods as there are pupils. " 'Tis they who with all are just the same, more often than their pupils are to blame."
Unless a child is taught to govern himself in the school-house and school-yard, pray, where is he to be taught? His employer cannot be expected to hire some one to watch that he does his duty.
Very few teachers stop to think that the " dull boy " is only slow because he is deaf or near-sighted. Test any cases you may have to see if this is not true.
What credit is due a teacher who graduates a bright, intelligent boy with a high standing ? Scarcely any. Such a child will learn if shut up in a room by himself.
Xenophon, when a young man, had charge of an army of ten thousand men. He owed his success to his faithful, patient teacher, Socrates.
Young teachers are apt to look for immediate re- sults and think if they see or hear of no improvement in their pupils that none has been made. Your in- fluence is life-long; let it be for good.
Zeal, rightly applied by a teacher in her class-room work, is a better disciplinarian than a thousand rattans in the hands of as many " living " automatons. The teacher who deserves credit is he who awakens the sleepy mind ; he who reaches that which others have failed to reach.
APPENDIX
Containing an Autobiographical Sketch
OF FRANCIS WAYLAND PARKER
107
APPENDIX.
INTRODUCTION.
Not long after receiving his appointment as Vice- Principal of the Cook County Normal School (1889), the writer one day asked Colonel Parker what data, if any, there were on file that could be used by one desir- ing to write a sketch of his life. He knew of none. He was then asked if he would be willing to give sittings if a stenographer was engaged to take down what he might dictate. After thinking it over he said he would give such sittings. A stenographer was en- gaged by the writer, and he can see the Colonel now as he sat in his reclining chair, with his head thrown back, his eyes closed, his right hand twisting the end of his mustache, and as he talked his face now and then reflecting a smile, when he recalled some past event. Those were busy days at the old school, and it is to be regretted that but one sitting was ever had. What was taken at that time is here given. Now and then the Colonel was unable at the moment to recall a proper name of some person or place. Such places the reader will understand have been filled in with stars. They might have been looked up and supplied by the writer, but it was thought best to leave the record just as it fell from the Colonel's lips. Meager
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I IQ APPENDIX.
as is the sketch, it will be read with pleasure by all who knew him and with interest by all others.
AN AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF
FRANCIS WAYLAND PARKER
My ancestor on my father's side was Rev. Thomas Parker, who came over from England to Newbury- port, Mass. He was a Presbyterian minister, and the record says he was a little liberal, and they turned him out at Newburyport. My grandfather, William Par- ker, was the founder of the village called Piscatauquog, in the old Scotch-Irish town of Bedford, N. H. He made boots to pay for his first acre of land. My mother's name was Rand. My great-grandfather on that side was a classmate of John Hancock, and once the librarian of Harvard University. Another of my ancestors was Col. John Goffe, a noted Indian fighter of those days. He was supposed to be of the same family as Goffe the regicide. One prominent feature of my ancestry is the number of ministers, as many as five strains of ministers, the Stiles, . . . Rand, Goffe and Parker. I had three ancestors who fought at the battle of Bunker Hill, and three of my ancestors lie buried at Copps Hill burying ground in Boston.
My grandfather Rand was the first school teacher recorded in the old town of Derryfield, now Man- chester, N. H. My mother was a teacher, and it was said of her that she never taught as anyone else did,
APPENDIX. Ill
that she had ways of her own. My father, Robert Parker, was partially deaf, he was a cabinet maker, and noted all the country round for the good work he did at his trade. I was born in the village of Pis- catauquog, Town of Bedford, N. H., Oc ;ber 9, 1837. My father was poor, from the fact that he was sickly, he was never a well man, he died at the age of forty- seven years.
The first thing I can remember in my early child- hood is when at three years of age I climbed up to the window to look out of the little log house and see £ procession go by. It was an original Harrison pro- cession, in 1840. I cannot remember when I learned my letters, nor when I learned to read, but I knew my letters before I went to school. I can remember very well the first time I went to school. I carried a Leonard spelling book in my hand, and was led by my two sisters, each one holding a hand. I dropped my book at every few steps, and my sisters would pick it up and hand it to me. I went to the village jschool, one of the old fashioned variety of schools, in Pisca- tauquog. I went there until I was seven_years old. Then they had an academy established there, as the village school was too full, and all the boys over ten years of age were drafted out of this school and put in the Academy, and as I thought I knew a great deal more than some of those boys, and as my uncle was on the School Committee, I cried my way into the Academy. I put my head down on the desk and bawled until they allowed me to go. So I went to the Academy at seven years of age. My father
112 APPENDIX.
died when I was six years old — in 1843. I had $200, and that was all the money I had for my life. My uncle, James Walker, proposed to put me out on a fanji, to bind me out until I was twenty-one years of age, and so I was bound out to a man by the name of Moore. It was in the middle of winter when I was sent out to the little rocky farm in Goffstown, N. H., where I was to stay until I was twenty-one. I was a little fat, squabble of a fellow. When I went there I read in the Rhetorical Reader, had been through . . . Arithmetic, and had just gone into the Written Arithmetic. I studied the large geog- raphy, Roswell & Smith's Geography. I stayed on the farm for five years, in the meantime going to school something like eight weeks in the winter. I was not allowed to go in the summer be- cause my services were needed on the farm, riding the horses to plough. The schools were very poor in- deed, and I do not know as I learned anything in them, but I can well remember now as I look back upon it, how the old farm attracted my attention and was a great means of educating me. I did not understand it then, but now I see how I loved everything in nature, and how I- observed everything around me. I remem- ber one great thing that attracted my attention was the change in the season. I went there in the winter, and I observed the changing of the trees from their winter bareness to the spring glory, and of one especial orchard that I could see out of my little garret win- dow. I slept up in a little bit of a garret, so low that I could touch the rafters with my hands, and could
APPENDIX. 113
hear the rain pattering on the roof as I lay in bed. I always loved to hear the rain, because I knew on that day I would not have to work, and could go a-fishing in the Piscatauquog River. I watched these trees in the orchard with their shining bark, and by and by the buds bursting out, and the change, until it was one great snowbank of beautiful apple-blossoms, and I thought I must tell all about what I had seen. I had not learned to write very much, but I got an old stump of a pencil, and an old piece of brown paper, and sat down at my desk, for I had my father's desk with me, and wrote an account of this wonderful change, this marvelous change in the orchard. I wrote down all I could think of about the dead tree and the shining bark and then the bud and blossom, and then I prognosticated about the fruit. I put my whole heart into the composition, and then I felt that I must show it to somebody, and I carried it down to the lady where I lived who had taught school for about six months. She looked atjt^ read it, and then handed it back to me with a very scornful look on her face, and with the remark that if she could not write better than that she would not try to write.
I never afterward in my life, except when I was in the Academy, could be compelled to write a composi- tion, and I lay it to that influence. I used to study in a spontaneous way everything in nature. I knew every tree on the farm, and the grasses and flowers and berries. That was my Botany. And now when I go anywhere, in any part of the world that I have ever visited, I always, when I see a new plant, say to
114 APPENDIX.
myself, " That was not on the old farm," and when I see another I say, " That was on the old farm." I also knew all the animals. I studied them in a spon- taneous way, all the butterflies and insects and animals, and I also studied what little Mineralogy there was. I learned about the rocks by loading them on the cart and building them into a stone wall. I studied Physics in the work I did in logging in the woods, and in ploughing, but when I went to school no one ever-told me that that work I did on the farm was of any worth in my education, and I never dreamed it until I had taught school twenty years. Now I know it was the beginning of what littlejjducation 1 have, and the
best in__thg world J If any teacher Tiad tolcT me in*
/"school that that was real true education that I was getting on the farm, and that the work I did was the best I could have, how it would have lit up the whole farm in a blaze of glory for me,_becaiise- 1 had a-
strong desire to get an education -J I believe most boys then in New England did have. I believed that an education was the one thing I must get or die in the attempt, and I never lost a day in school, or an hour, when I could get it. The teachers I had, one in par- ticular, were the old hedgehog variety, who worked on the farm in the summer and taught school in the winter. This one chewed tobacco' and spit all around on the floor, and I hated him with a just and righteous hatred. He did not teach school in the way that I had been used to, or the way that I thought he ought, and according to my idea he was not doing just right, and
I said to him one day in school, " Mr. Major, you are
'
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not doing right; you don't teach as they do down in Squog."
The first summer I was on the farm I begged to go to school, and although they thought I ought to stay at home and ride the horse to plough, they sent me off for a day or two, for I cried and said I wanted to go, and as I was a little fellow they let me go; so/ I started off to school with my books under my arms consisting of Smith's Arithmetic, the Rhetorical! Reader, the large Geography, Roswell & Smith's I Geography, and carried them to school. I was a small boy and the teacher came to me and asked me in whatf class I belonged, to which I replied very quietly and ^ firmly that I was in the first class. As it happened there was a little different arrangement in this school from the one in Piscatauquog, the first class was the lowest instead of the highest. So the teacher waited until she called out the A. B. C. class, consisting of some large boys, one a colored boy, and then little Miss Mullet walked up to me and said, " Little boy, come out and say your letters." I have been very much chagrined at different times in my life, but prob- ably that was the deepest chagrin I ever knew. I put my head down on the desk and wept sore. A boy sitting beside me said, " He does not belong in that class, he has an Arithmetic and a Geography," and he pulled out my books and put them on the table. But I could not get over it, and would not go back to school. I took the advice of the man for whom I worked and stayed at home. I can say that the boys at school were very rough. But I was used
Il6 APPENDIX.
to it. In the village where I went to school they were very rough. The boys in the country school proposed to whip me, and I had no peace afterward until I whipped every one of them except a large boy fifteen years old, who was a sort of friend of mine.
I think I can say that I loved to work. I never shirked my work. One favorite occupation of mine was sawing wood. We used to draw up eight-foot long sticks under an old butternut tree, " oilnut tree" we called it, and then cut it into four-foot sticks, and then I sawed it up in the spring into wood for the year's fire. I liked the sawing very much, — because I could work and think. I had a great many dreams under that old oilnut tree, and I read, by the way, everything that I could get my hands on. In a little cupboard in the house there were almanacs dating back to 1794, and I read all these, every one of them, jokes and all, right through. I read the Bible through several times, generally getting a reward for it. I read everything I could find. " Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress " I used to read through about once a month. I got hold of Wayland's " Life of Judson." By the way, I was named for Francis Wayland, the great educator, and as I said I read " Wayland's Life of Judson," and read it with great pleasure. It had quite an effect on me. One favorite dream I had while sawing wood was to dream out what I would be in life. I would follow out a certain line of life. I would be a statesman, and I would follow a statesman through what I knew of statesmanship, until I got to be President of the United States and head of all
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affairs, and then I would stop and say, " Well, and what then ? " Then I would go back and begin again on another line. I would be a warrior, and I would go on until I commanded all the warriors and was at the top, and then I would say to myself, " And what then? " And so I went through all the various lines of greatness, and success, and fame, but every time I would come out at "and what then?" and I think I then made up my mind to be a school teacher. I did not see any fame in it, or.honoj* but I think I made up my mind then, in fact I cannot' remember the time when I had not made up my mintf to be a school teacher.
I have been often asked what I considered the best thing in my education, and I have named two things / - the five years on the farm, and the four years in the V army. The five years on the farm gave me my love for study, and the work gave me my physical strength, and the army gave me some measure of self-control, not very much, by the way, but' enough to steady me. At thirteen years of age I was very much dissatis- fied. Though I loved to work, still I felt that I must have an education. As I said before, I only had eight weeks schooling in the year, and I was extremely anx- ious to become educated. I had very few with whom I could consult. My mother lived in the old house at Piscatauqoug, but she thought that perhaps I had better do as my guardian said and stay on the farm. But the man for whom I worked, Mr. Moore, thought I was so .very much dissatisfied that I had better go and see my guardian, Mr. Walker, and talk with him
Il8 APPENDIX.
about the matter. So one day I walked five and one- half miles to see him. I met him at the gate of his domicile and told him my desires, and then he very earnestly and savagely told me that I was a lazy brat and did not want to work, and that that was the rea- son I wanted to go to school, and that the one thing for me to do was to walk back to the farm and go to work. I remember that I made up my mind then and there that I would have an^education, or die for it. And so I went off without his consent to Mt. Vernon, where they had a very good school. My sister went to school there, and a cousin of mine. I went to school for five years, working my way sawing wood, painting or varnishing boxes, and doing odd jobs, and in the summer I worked for my uncle on the farm, picking up a little money in that way. In the fall or winter I went to school, until I was sixteen years of age, three years. Then I had forty dollars left me, and I went to my uncle and asked him if I could not have it to go to school, and I made the statement to him that if I could go to school one term more I could teach. He said there were too many school teachers already, and that I had better get a job and go to work on the road at eleven dollars a month if I could get it, and advised me to take it, or commanded me to. I obeyed him by starting off to school. The school was in charge of Dyer H. Sanborn, a man who taught grammar by a new method. That winter I got a school on Corser Hill, N. H. This was my first school. I had nearly seventy pupils, a large number older than myself. Six of them taught school the next
APPENDIX. IIQ
summer. One of my pupils set the copies for me. How I got through that school I don't know. I simply know that I lived through it. I did not know anything about teaching, and it was only by the love and sympathy of my pupils that I man- aged to teach out the winter. That summer I went to work again on the farm, and in the fall I wanted a school. I was told that there was a school over in Auburn at a place called " Over-the-Brook," and one afternoon I started and walked over there, nine and one-half miles, and found the school com- mittee husking corn. I sat down and husked with them, and as the result of our talk I was offered the school at $17 a month, and $18 if I did well, and board around. The winter before I had had $15 a month. This was a very hard school, and one old gentleman gravely informed me that I was too young, and had better go home. But I came down with my old trunk to the school house, and there I taught for thirteen weeks, and they gave me the $18 a month. In all my country school teaching, so far as I can see, I simply did what my teachers had done before me, noth- ing more, but I had a way of getting along with the pupils. I had spelling schools and evening schools, and declamations, and other things of that sort. One thing I neglected to say in regard to my early educa- tion, and that is, that I began to declaim before I was three years old, and I was considered quite a famous declaimer in all the country round. I learned to re- cite nearly all the pieces then in vogue. This part of my education I believe to have been very damaging
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upon my success in after life. The declaiming culti- vated an extreme self-consciousness.
I had a way of governing by getting the good will of my pupils. I seldom punished. As I boarded around I got acquainted with all the people in the dis- trict, and better acquainted with the scholars, and I was quite successful in my management.
I taught a select school in the vestry of the meet- ing house. I had about fifty pupils. Afterwards I taught in the village school. When I was twenty years old I was called to take a very hard school in the Village of Hinsdale, N. H. The boys had turned out the former master and pelted him with snow- balls, and they sent to Manchester where I lived, and I went over to take the school. A village schoolmas- ter who wanted the place had told the boys that I would punish them unmercifully, and they had made up their minds that they would whip me and turn me out as they had my predecessor. As I sat in my chair the first morning I noticed that the boys had a very firm and determined look, in fact there was a tightness of the teeth and a glare in the eyes that told me there was trouble ahead, and it pleased me so much, the more I thought of it, that I burst out into a loud laugh, and then they all smiled, and that was the end of the trouble. I never punished anybody there.
Then I was called back to my native village of Pis- catauquog to take charge of the Grammar School, which I taught a little over one year.
In 1859 one of my classmates who had been a teach- er in Carrollton, Greene County, Illinois, was in-
APPENDIX. 121
structed to procure a Principal for the school of which he was First Assistant. He chose me, and I went West in 1859. Carrollton is about thirty miles north of Alton, and fifty miles from St. Louis. The people were mostly Southerners, Kentuckians and Virginians, intensely Southern in feeling. I had in the school, about one hundred and twenty-five, with one assistant. The pupils in my room were from twelve to twenty-five years of age. It was probably the roughest school I ever taught. I was then a thin, spare young man, with long hair, very pale and almost emaciated. I re- member very well when I sat down in the room for the first time surrounded by my pupils. The past rec- ord of the school had been exceedingly bad, one of my predecessors had been pelted with mud, the soft unctious mud of Southern Illinois. I remember the first speech I made to the pupils seated in a big chair. I told them that my idea of a good school was to have a first class time, and that in order to have a good time they must all take hold and work together, and then they would be sure of a good time. My first as- sistant, Miss Gilchrist, told me confidentially some time afterwards, that she knew when she heard me talking that way to the pupils that I would fail, and she felt sorry for me, and sorry that I had come out there so far from home. The schoolhouse was old, and the yard was not blessed with a single shade tree, the yard was full of gypsum weed, and was a rooting place for hogs; the fence around the yard was in a very bad condition. I got my pupils to pull up the weeds, and I sowed grass seed in their place. I used
122 APPENDIX.
to go out and play games with my pupils at recess time, and though I taught in the same old way, teach- ing the rules of Grammar and Spelling in a perfectly perfunctory manner, I gained the good will of my pupils in my two years there. My salary was $650 a year, paid in depreciated wild cat scrip of that time. While there Lincoln was elected President, and then came the rumors of war. Though I was a Republican at heart my Directors were all Southerners. I cast my first ballot for Lincoln, and when the question of war came to the front J. did not keep still. I pro- nounced myself a Union man and ready to go to war. They got up a Cavalry Company in Carrollton, — I owned a pony at that time, and I rede him in with the recruits and said I would go with them. Then my Directors turned on me. They did not dare to turn me out, but proposed to cut down my salary because I took the stand I did. The Company could not get the saddles and equipments necessary to enter the service, and the school closed its term and I went East to my home in old Bedford, but the war spirit had not gone, though my sisters begged and pleaded with me not to go to war, saying that I was the only son, and the only hope 'of the house. My mother never said a word against it, and I judged rather from the way she acted than from what she said that she thought I had better go. However, my sisters' plead- ings led me to put off the day of my enlistment, and I received the offer of the High School. In the mean- time the Directors in Carrollton had cut down my sal- ary one hundred dollars in order to punish me. The
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Directors of the High School in Alton hearing of it offered me by telegraph the position of Principal of the High School, and I accepted it. But just as I got ready to start I received a message from a Cap- tain of a Company saying that if I would come over and help him recruit his Company he would make me Lieutenant I did not wish to be an officer at all, I did not know anything about war, but my sisters had said that if I could only be an officer of some sort they would give up their opposition to my going. So there was my chance, and I hurried over to the place. This was Company E, Fourth New Hampshire Volunteers, and the time was August, 1 86 1. The Company was recruited and on the first of September we went to Washington and to Annapo- lis, where we prepared to go South to take Port Royal. In my Brigade there were several distinguished men; General Terry was the Lieutenant Colonel of the Seventh Connecticut, Gen. Joseph .Hawley, now United States Senator, was Lieutenant Colonel of the Sixth Connecticut. We were in a great storm off Cape Hat- teras and came near being foundered on Frying Pan Shoal. The first battle I witnessed was a naval battle, the taking of Fort Walker at Port Royal. My Captain afterward went home and I was promoted to take his place. We spent the winter of 1862 at Port Royal. We went down in the expedition to Florida in 1862, tak- ing Augustine and Jacksonville. In 1863 we were in the siege of Charleston and at the battle of Pocotilligo. and in 1864 we were under General Butler in the great Virginia campaign. Had a thousand men in the
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spring when we recruited, and in September my regi- ment could muster only forty men. We were in the battles of Drury's Bluff, Coal Harbor, the attack on Petersburg and the siege of Petersburg, and the bat- tle of the Mine, where I took command of the men and commanded until the i6th of August, where I was in the midst of a fight under General Hancock. General Grant was present. At Deep Run I was called to take charge of the Brigade, as the Captain and two Brigade commanders had been shot before me, and in repelling the charge of the enemy I was shot in the neck, and ordered taken to the hospital at Hampton Roads. I came home and was detailed as Adjutant General of the rendezvous at New Haven, Connecticut, and took an active part in the second Lincoln campaign. I stopped in New Hampshire for three or four weeks, and was married to Phenie E. Hall of Bennington, N. H., went back to New Haven, was promoted to Lieutenant-Colonel, and by request went back to my regiment at Port Royal. They had been in two battles under General Butler and one under General Terry, and had done noble service. My old flag was against the Rebel flag on the redoubt for twenty minutes during the thickest of the fight at ... I took command and marched across the country under General Schofield. Then we marched to Goldsboro, N. C, where we met General Sherman. Then my regiment was sent back to take charge of a strip of railroad nine miles long, between . . . and ... to send supplies to General Sherman. Then the regiment was afterward
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stationed higher up, and in making a detour my Adju- tant and myself were away from the railroad and were captured by a squad of Wilber's Cavalry and taken across the country to General Johnson's army, with whom I marched through to Raleigh, N. C, bare- footed, for one of the Rebels had taken away my boots. We brought up at Greensboro, N. C., where I was paroled, but could not leave for eight days. I was in my Colonel's uniform and was the only Yankee there and they plied me with questions. They had re- ceived the information that Lee had surrendered. Three weeks later I was back in Raleigh in charge of a Brigade and continued in command until we were ordered home. After I got home, by the way, I preached reconstruction and reconciliation as well as I knew. I said the war is over, the Southern people have done the best they can, now let us shake hands and make up. I was looked upon by my friends as a young man who had succeeded very well, and I had a commission in the regular army offered me, and a clerkship at WaghingtQnj in Jact— nothing-juras _too good^for me.^ywhen I said that I was going to be a\ school teacher my friends were very much disgusted with me. One of my friends, a man who had taught
school and was a teacher^ said Iwas a fool for/
_any such a thing^l told him all 1 wanted was a chance to teach the school at Manchester at $1,100 a year. In fact, all through the army I thought a great deal of what I would do in school, and planned how I would change things. It seemed to be the only thing that held me as a dream, and I thought if I ever did
126 APPENDIX.
get back, and I never expected to, that I would teach school. So in 1865 I was in the North Grammar School as Principal, and there was where I began my discipline. I had everything in good shape, I had bat- talion drill and marching, and everything went like clock work. I also believed in ranking, and I had the idea of emulation as an incentive for school work. I ranked my scholars, changing their places from week to week, and had everything to my mind. This was the first time in my life that I had departed from the regular routine of school teaching. Up to this time I kept the law and the gospel of the old fashioned teach- ing with a great deal of strictness. I taught school here for three years in the North Grammar School in Manchester, having considerable success as a teacher, and studying hard for my profession. I did not wish to go into politics, and I tried to keep out of it, but some way or other I was drawn into it at this time, and I asked a friend of mine if he knew of a place out West for me. They were then founding the Soldiers' Home in Dayton, Ohio, and I was called to take charge of the first district school there, at a salary of $1,600 a year. This was the first time I had ever had charge of little children since I taught a country school. And I had long wished it. I had been down in the school at Manchester and had seen the little children studying their A B C's, and doing their work, and they did not seem happy in it as I thought children should, and my question was, Did God intend that this mournful process, that this mournful plan, should be the way of
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developing the embryotic man? It seemed to me wrong. I could not be reconciled to the fact that these little children were in such, tn rn<*, flpp1nrah]^_ _slate^~JSo when I went to Dayton I made up my mind that I would study the question of the treatment of, little children./^! got horn ot some work or other that ^gave me a list of juvenile books that were published, but I could find none of them in this country except " Sheldon's Object Lessons." That was in 1868 when I went to Dayton, Ohio. I immediately went to work and studied the Primary School question^ I had a class of eight preparing for the High School, and I prepared them for the High School, but spent all the time I could in the Primary Departments where the teachers wanted me to help them. I told the Primary teacher I did not know anything about Primary teach- ing, but thought it could be better, and she said, " Come and help me." In 1868 in Ohio everything was run upon the examinat^n_j)lan_jmda. percentage in marking, and Cleveland, Toledo ancT Cincinnati went wild over it. They actually telegraphed from one city to another the percentage in examinations, —"What per cent, did you get?" "We got 75." " Well, we got 90 in our place," and so on. The whole plan of the schools was to learn words and re- cite them, and then write them down in the examina- tion stiff and strong. Now, I had very little idea, and was perfectly innocent, of how other teachers did their work. My whole idea was to learn how to teach school.>Tthought_it_was a great profession and that I ought to know myjvvork, and wherTl waked up to
I2g APPENDIX.
the fact that other teachers did not study their pro- fession I was very much surprised. I was aston- ished. I went into this school to learn how to teach. My first efforts were very crude. The papers poured out the vials of their wrath against me, and a great book house by its agents 'did its best to kill me. But at the end of the year they said I had a very good school.* The next year they put up a building and proposed to have a Normal School in the City of Day- ton, and I was elected
__
teachers, and in i86oj I began the Normal school jfNcmdthe plan ~oi training teachers by practice work. I I had one teacher in each room, and then took (| the pupils from the High School and trained them to teach. I went on in my work under a great load of opposition from the teachers in all the country round. I tried to teach reading on something like the phonetic plan, and then I introduced the Word Method. I changed a little in Arithmetic and~*Ge ( )ofap?ry" and dropped Technical Grammar. I kept ijp the idea of ranking and emulation right through. I stayed two years as Principal of the Normal School, having under my charge about seven hundred. The fourth year they called a Superintendent to the school and I was appointed Assistant Superintendent, at a salary of $2,000 a year, with general charge of the Primary work and of the Normal School. It was here that my wife died and left me with a little girl.
I had a great fear that I might be wrong in my teaching. In fact almost everybody, all the teachers at least, said I was wrong, and the criticism was very
APPENDIX.
129
strong. They also said that I had not a good educa- tion, that I had not been to college. I was fitted to enter college, and proposed to go after I returned from the West, but the war broke out and that prevented my entering college, and when I came back I was married and of course could not well go. They accused me of being an illiterate man, and a]l_t±La±_r/TrrfartT ther> ^as very little they did not accuse me of, and I waked up to the fact slowly that other teachers did not study and plan for their work as I was doing, so I resignepi my position in 1872. /\ had a little money at this time, coming from~an aunt who left me $5,000, and I took this and went to Germany, to_Berlin, and studied in the University of King William in Berlin. ( I visited schools in Berlin, and all over the country. During vacations I traveled in Holland, Switzerland, Italy and France. I studied in Germany for about two and one-half years. I also took private coaching in certain branches. I went into the Kindergarten Schools, and became acquainted w:ith the Kindergarten work in Berlin. ) In 1874, or early in 1875, I returned to my home. I wanted to stay in New England and teach school, because I thought the influence would be bet- ter than if I went West. I wanted to teach in Bos- ton, because there I thought I would have the best ad- vantages for study, having access to the libraries, etc. There were several failures in my family about this time, and I offered to teach in my native school \vhere I had taught before, — but they did not want me. I became greatly despondent and discouraged, and in Boston I offered myself for a sub-master, and though
130
APPENDIX.
I had the highest recommendations and credentials, the highest a man could probably have, they did not care to engage me. A little later I accidentally made the acquaintance of a gentleman by the name of Adams, a relative of John Quincy Adams and of Charles Francis Adams, and through his influence I was appointed Superintendent of the school in Quincy, the first Superintendent they had had. I went there ^Mn 1875. Quincy never had had a Superintendent be- fore, as I said, it was an old fashioned town, but the schools were fully as good as the average in the State of Massachusetts, perhaps a little better.
I never had any idea of any particular fame that would come from that work, that was entirely foreign to my feeling. I never thought for an instant that I was going to do anything superior to anything else that had been done in the schools; I simply wanted to carry out my plans. My observations, and what I had learned in Europe, had convinced me that the philosophers and thinkers of the ages were right ; that there was something a great deal better for mankind than what I had been doing, at least, in school; that there was a means of arousing the mental and moral power that I never had tried, at least, and I was seek- ing to try to present the conditions for higher growth. I knew from what I had read and from what I had seen that reading and writing and numbers could be taught in a better way than the old fashioned way. And from all the works that I could get on the sub- ject, both in English and German, I found that there was a great deal better way of doing it than anything
APPENDIX. 131
I had done, and of course I had a great deal of en- thusiasm and a great desire to work out the plan and see what I could do. I did not have the faintest sus- picion that I was going to do anything better than had been done, that was entirely foreign to my mind, and when our schools in Quincy became famous and thousands of visitors poured in, and it was written up in all the papers and discussed, I was probably the most astonished man in the whole community.) I thought from my point of reasoning that the work I was doing was a grand work and the right work and what most teachers would do.) I must say I felt very sorrowful and sad over what I found as to the schools in Boston and Massachusetts, in Boston in particular.
lougnt every teacher with such a profession7~al such a glorious opportunity for good work would do all \ these .things that I was trying to do. When I went into Boston and could not find a single work on pedagogics I was surprised, and when I met the teachers in Nor- folk and talked with them on the Phonetic Method, when I found that they did not know what I was talk- ing about I was astonished, and my feeling was simply a strong feeling of sadness and of sorrow over the fact that they were not doing the work that I supposed they were doing. — that they should do, and that thi
About 1876 there had been a change in the govern- ment of the Boston schools. Dr. Samuel Eliot was chosen Superintendent, and a Board of Six Supervis- rs was established to supervise the schools, and in 1880 I was called to become one of the Supervisors. I
APPENDIX.
was placed in charge of the primary schools of the North End of South Boston. My work here met with fierce and prolonged opposition of the teachers, espe- cially of the principals of the schools; but notwith- standing this opposition I was re-elected for a second term. The position was not, to say the least, what I wanted. I wanted to come in closer contact with the schools, that I might verify the suspicion of better things which I thought were in store for the children.
I was offered the position of principal of the Cook,X^ County Normal_School at a salary of five thousand / dollars a year. The school had had a struggling ex- istence for fifteen years ; it was born in the travail of a bitter fight, and had lived only by the persistent en- ergy and indomitable love of its principal, Dr. D. S. Wentworth. Professor Went worth had founded the school in 1868, and under great opposition had held it until he was taken sick. When I came here in 1883 Professor Wentworth, who had been sick two years, died the September previous to my coming. The school therefore not having a head and always having had a bitter fight, was in a sad condition.
I don't know why I took the school, I had no par- ticular reasons for taking it. I had a good place and everything was going well. But it came to me, I do not know how, or why, that that was the place for me to work. I suppose some people would call it Divine Providence, I don't know. It came to me that that was the place for me to work, that I could work out right face to face with little children the plan I had in my mind, and so I resigned my position in Boston,
APPENDIX. 133
was married again, and came to Cook County in 1883.* I was given the full charge of the school for three years, to make my own course, and to appoint my own teachers, within certain limitations of salary.
I can say that all my life I have had a perfect pas- sion for teaching school, and I never wavered in it in my life, and never desired to change. I never had anything outside offered me that had any attractions for me, and never desired to go outside of the work, and it was sort of a wonder to me that I did have such" a love for it./ I remember when I was teaching in .the Grammar School in Piscatauquog I had a little gar- den. Then we lived near the old home where I was born, and I had a little rocky, gravelly garden, that I used to tend and hoe at morning and night, beans and corn, and so on. Of course when I was hoeing I was dreaming and thinking of school. I remember one day I was hoeing beans, and, by the way, I always liked to hoe beans the best, and I remember just where I stood, and I said to myself, " Why do I love to teacl school ? " and then I looked around on the little gro\v ing plants, and I said, " It is because I love to se things grow," and if I should tell any secret of my life, it is the intense desire I have to see growth and impnngmejQt in'lrun'uii beings. — I lliinfcTJTat is the whole secret of my enthusiasm and study, if there be any secret to it, — my intense desire to see the mind and soul grow.
* His second wife was Mrs. M. Frank Stuart, who at that time was first assistant in the Boston School of Oratory.
APPENDIX.
The change from the strict discipline to the democratic form of government.
I am by nature a Martinet. I was in the army noted for my discipline, and in my school in Manches- ter, and very much so in Dayton, and to some extent in Quincy, though I had not direct charge of the schools. I was noted for my discipline, but I want
tO Show Why I Chajlggj my frn-m._.r>f grp^rnrnm^TT
made up my mind, slowly, that if the human being is to attain freedom, if its soul is to grow, he must choose for himself, andjmis^ see the right_and_chpose it and jmder it/And when I took the NormaLSdiool-hete^
T pnrpnspd fr> rarry nut tin* plnn thifffhp great Secret
of human growth was to arouse the spiritual and higher in the human being, to drop all external incen- tives to selfishness, leave out ambition and emulation* and all unnatural competition, and feed the child with mental and-.mnral -nourishment. Make it love the work and love to help others for the sake of the work. That was the great change I made, and slowly of course, I was going from the Quincy work to the Cook County Normal School plan of teaching. Then in the Normal work I took up the mental training for the first time to any extent. I took up the Science wOTkLjmji^Jii«--eott:elatk^ as one
whole_and th ^concentration— oL^ajl. I saw for the first time fully that reading, for instance, should be a means of growth, and that- there was no need in the study of reading to have any reading- outside of that
APPENDIX. 135
which bears directly upon the study taught. It seemed to me one of the most satsifactory discoveries to my- self in my life when/ I felt that there was only one
that is the study nf lifc,
Jaafc — ihe study of the laws of Jfhere is aperfect correlation and a perfectjmjty, all lies, it all centers, in Tjod._ l'he~great en- ergy should center in the human being as a focus, just what the human being can take into his soul of this All Life, and give it back again, is the function of the human being ; to take the truth that comes in from all the universe and give it back being created and ever creative. The child rules with God so far as this All Life, the lines of life come in, — he conforms to that life and the functions of his own life in giving it out to others, and just so far he rules with God, — and the supreme joy of being is to take in this life and give it out to others. The steps of progress that I can see are the concentration of it in an ideal school, in an ideal education, — and mankind is lost upon any- thing else, because all forms of expression and all the so-called branches when seen under the light of the one central thought of unity are all one, and one cannot be known alone, and if all is known each study is only known as it is known in its relation to the great center, to the unit.
An Instance in My School Life
This was an instance in my school life in Pisca- tauquog. One of the customs of the school there was
136 APPENDIX.
the habit of going and telling the teacher if any one teased another, or hurt another, and out at recess one day somebody abused me and I trotted up to the school room door, and opened it, and said, " Teacher, John- nie has been pounding me," and the teacher, a very nice lady, Miss Sarah Walker, said, " Come right in, and bring the little boy with you." And then I immediately began to be very much ashamed to think what a mean thing I had done to go and tattle. So I did not return to the school house, but started off in another direction, and the teacher thought it was her duty to catch me, and she started after me. Up right opposite to my house was a steep declivity which led right down into a swamp. The teacher was still fol- lowing after me, and down I went into the swamp and paddled my way through the mud, and lost one of my shoes. At last she gained on me and I laid down in the mud, and as she was not strong enough to take me up in her arms and carry me she called to a man who was working in a field near by to come and help, and I was taken up kicking and struggling and taken back in all ceremony into the school house and laid out on a long seat, where I was straightened out and left to dry. And then as I began to dry I began to re- flect how foolish I had been, and that the teacher had done nothing to me, and then I began to melt and I lifted up my voice and wept loud and long. And be- fore the close of the school when the teacher called me up to the desk and took out the ferrule and told me to hold out my hand, I felt it was only a just and
APPENDIX. 137
righteous punishment, and every whack she gave me on my hand I felt was an expiation for a sin.
The author one day said to Col. Parker, Colonel, I have heard that when you went to Germany and se- lected the line of work that you desired to take the President of the University said. " But that does not lead to any degree." And that your answrer was, " No, but it leads to the children of America." Is it true? He did not deny it.
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