Rural Life and the Rural School Part 4

With single men and women it is impossible to secure the permanence of tenure that is desirable and necessary to the educational and social welfare of a school and a community. This has been demonstrated over and over again, and foreign countries are far ahead of us in this respect.

Such a real leader and teacher will, it is true, command a high salary; but a good home, permanence of position, a small tract of land for garden and field purposes, and the coming policy everywhere of an "insurance and retirement fund" would offer great inducements to strong men to take up their abode and cast their lot in such educational and community centers.

CHAPTER VII

THE TEACHER

=The Greatest Factor.=--Now, although we may have a beautiful school campus, an adequate and artistic building, a library, laboratories and workshops with all necessary physical or material appointments complete, we may yet have a poor school; these things, however desirable, will not teach alone. The teacher is the mainspring, the soul of the school; the "plant," as it may be called, is only the body. A great person is one with a great soul, not necessarily with a great body. Hence it is that a great teacher with poor buildings and inferior equipments is incomparably better than great buildings and equipments without a competent teacher.

=What Education Is.=--Education is essentially and largely the stimulation and transformation of one mind or personality by another. It is the impression of one great mind or soul upon another, giving it a manner of spirit, a bent, an att.i.tude, as well as a thirst for knowledge. This is too often lost sight of in the complexity of things.

Many people are inclined to think that educational equipment and machinery alone will educate. There is nothing further from the truth.

Mark Hopkins would be a great teacher without equipment; buildings, grounds, apparatus, and laboratories will not really educate without a great personality behind the desk. There is probably nothing more inspiring, more suggesting, more stimulating, or more transforming than intimate contact with great minds. Thought like water seeks its level, and for children to come into living and loving communication with a great teacher is a real uplift and an education in itself.

As a saw will not saw without some extraneous power to give it motion, neither will the gun do execution without the man behind it. The locomotive is not greater than the man at the throttle, and the ship without the man at the helm flounders aimlessly upon the sea. Just so, a great personality must be behind the teacher's desk or there cannot be in any sense a real school.

=What the Real Teacher Is.=--The true teacher is an inspirer; that is, he breathes into his pupils his spirit, his love of learning, his method of study, his ideals. He is a real leader in every way. Children--and we are all children to a certain extent--are great imitators, and so the pupils tend to become like the teacher.

The true teacher stimulates to activity by example. Where you find such a teacher, things are constantly "doing"; people are thinking and talking school all the time; education is in the atmosphere. The real teacher is, to use a popular phrase, a "live wire." Something new is undertaken every day. He is a man of initiative and push, and withal he is a man of sincerity and tact. While he is retrospective and circ.u.mspective he is also prospective--he is a man of the far-look-ahead type.

=A Hypnotist.=--The teacher is in the true sense a suggester of good things. He is an educational hypnotist. The longer I continue to teach the more am I impressed with the fact that suggestion is the great art of the teacher. Hence the true teacher is the leader and not the driver.

=Untying Knots.=--A man once said that the best lesson he ever learned in school was the lesson of "untying knots." He meant, of course, that every problem that was thrown to the school by the teacher was "tackled"

in the right spirit by the pupils. They investigated it and a.n.a.lyzed it; they peered into it and through it to find all the strands of relationship existing in it. It would be easier, of course, for the teacher under these circ.u.mstances merely to cut the knot and have it all done with, but this would be poor teaching. This would be _telling_, not teaching. This would lead to pa.s.sivity and not to activity on the part of the pupils. And it may be said here that constant and too much _telling_ is probably the greatest and most widespread mistake in teaching. Teachers are constantly cutting the knots for children who should be left to untie them for themselves. To untie a knot is to see through and through a subject, to see all around it, to see the various relations of its parts and, consequently, to understand it. This is solving a problem; it is _dissolving_ it; that is, the problem becomes a part of the pupil's own mind, and, having made it a part of himself, he understands it and never forgets it.

This is the difference between not being able to remember and not being able to forget. In the former case the so-called knowledge is not a part of oneself; it is not vital. The roots do not penetrate beneath the surface of our minds; they are, as it were, merely stuck on; the mental sap does not circulate. In the latter case the knowledge is real; it is alive and growing; there is a vital connection between it and ourselves.

It would be as difficult to tear it from us as it would to have our hearts torn out and still live.

=Too Much Kindness.=--An ill.u.s.tration of the same point appears in the following incident. A boy who owned a pet squirrel thought it a kindness to the squirrel to crack all the nuts for it. The consequence was that the squirrel's incisors, above and below, grew so long that they overlapped and the animal could not eat anything. Too many teachers are so kind to their pupils that they crack all the educational nuts for them, with the consequence that the children become pa.s.sive and die mentally for want of activity. The true teacher will allow his pupils to wrestle with their problems without interruption until they arrive at a conclusion. If some pupil "goes into the ditch" and flounders he should usually be allowed to get out by his own efforts as best he can. Here is the place where the teacher "should be cruel only to be kind."

=The b.u.t.ton Ill.u.s.tration.=--Another ill.u.s.tration may help to bring to us one of the characteristics of the really good teacher. When children, we have all, no doubt, amused ourselves by putting a string through two holes of a b.u.t.ton and, after twirling it around between our thumbs, drawing it steadily in measured fashion so as to make the b.u.t.ton spin and hum. If the string is drawn properly this will be successful; otherwise it will become a perfect snarl. This common experience has often seemed to me to typify two different kinds of school. In one, where there is a great teacher "drawing" the school properly, you will hear, incidentally, the hum of industry, for all are active. A school which may be thus characterized is always better than the one characterized by silence and inaction. A little noise--in fact a considerable noise--is not inconsistent with a good school, and it frequently happens that what we call "the silence of death" is due to fear, which is always paralyzing.

=The Chariot Race.=--Still another ill.u.s.tration may help to make clear what is meant by a good school and a good teacher. Lew Wallace, in his account of the chariot race, makes Ben Hur and his rival approach the goal with their horses neck and neck. He says that Ben Hur, in getting the best out of his steeds, _sent his will out along the reins_. A really spirited horse responds to the throb of his driver's hand upon the rein. A good driver gets the best out of his horse; he and his horse are in accord and the horse takes as much pride in the performance as the driver does. This is a.n.a.logously true of a good school.

The schoolroom is not a complete democracy--in fact, it is not a democracy at all in the lower grades; it is or should be a benevolent autocracy. The teacher within the schoolroom is the law-making body, the interpreter of the laws, and the executor of the laws. The good teacher does all this justly and kindly, and so elicits the admiration, the respect, and the active support of the governed. He sends his will out along the reins. Some schools--those with great teachers in charge--are in this condition; they are coming in under full speed toward the goal, guided by a master whose will stimulates the pupils to the greatest voluntary activity. Other schools, we are sorry to say, ill.u.s.trate the conditions where the reins are over the dashboard and the school is running away, pell-mell!

=Physically Sound.=--What are some of the characteristic attributes or traits which a masterful and inspiring teacher should possess? In the first place he should be physically sound. It may seem like a lack of charity to say, and yet it is true, that any serious physical defect should militate against, if not bar, one from the schoolroom. Any serious blemish or noticeable defect becomes to pupils an ever-present suggestive picture, and to some extent must work against, rather than for, education. Other things being equal, those who are personally attractive and have the most agreeable manners should be chosen. Since children are extremely plastic and impressionable, and so susceptible to the influence of ideas and ideals, beauty and perfection should, whenever possible, be the attributes of the person who is to guide and fashion them.

=Character.=--A teacher should be morally sound; he should "ring true."

One can give only what one has. A liar cannot teach veracity; a dishonest person can not teach honesty; the impure cannot teach purity.

One may deceive for a time, but in the long run the echo of what we are, and hence what we can give, will be returned. It is often thought that children are better judges of moral defects and of shams than are grown people; but, while this is not true, it is nevertheless a fact that many children, in a short time, divine or sense the true moral nature of the teacher. Children appreciate justice and will endure and even welcome severity if they know that justice is coupled with it. They are not averse to being governed with a firm hand. If pupils are allowed to do just as they please they may go home at the close of the first day, saying that they had a "lovely time" and liked their teacher, but in a very few days they will tire of it and begin to complain.

=Well Educated.=--We need not, of course, contend at any length that a teacher should be well educated, in the academic sense of the word. In order to teach well, one must understand his subject thoroughly. It is quite generally held that a teacher should be at least four years in advance, academically, of the pupils whom he is to teach. Whether this is true or not in particular cases, the fact remains that the teacher should be full of his subject, should be at home in it, and should be able to ill.u.s.trate it in its various phases; he should be free to stand before his cla.s.s without textbook in hand and to give instruction from a full and accurate mind. There is probably nothing that so destroys the confidence of pupils as the lamentable spectacle of seeing the teacher compelled at every turn to refer to the book for verification of the answers given. It is a sign of pitiable weakness. If a distinction is to be made between knowledge and wisdom a true teacher should be possessed of the latter to a considerable extent. He should also have prudence, or practical wisdom. Wisdom and prudence imply that fine perspective which gives a person balance and tact in all situations. It should be noted that there is a policy, or diplomacy, in a good sense, which does not in any way conflict with principle; and the true teacher should have the knowledge, the wisdom, and the tact to do and to say the right thing at the right time and to leave unsaid and undone many, many things.

=Professional Preparation.=--In addition to a thorough knowledge of subject matter every teacher should have had some professional preparation for his work. Teaching, like government, is one of the most complicated of arts, and to engage in it without any previous study of its problems, its principles, and its methods seems like foolhardiness.

There are scores, if not hundreds, of topics and problems which should be thought out and talked over before the teacher engages in actual work in the schoolroom. When the solutions of these problems have become a part of his own mind, they will come to his rescue as occasion demands; and, although much must be learned by experience, a sound knowledge of the fundamental principles of education and teaching will always throw much light upon practical procedure. It is true that theory without practice is often visionary, but it is equally true that practice without any previous knowledge, or theory, is very often blind.

=Experience.=--In addition to the foregoing qualifications the teacher, in order to be really masterful, must have had some--indeed considerable--actual experience. It is this that gives confidence and firmness to all our procedure. The young lawyer when he appears at the bar, to plead his first case, finds his knees knocking together; but after a few months or years of practice he acquires ease, confidence, and mastery in his work. The same is true of the physician and the teacher. Some successful experience always counts for much. School boards, however, often over-estimate _mere_ experience. Poor experience may be worse than none; and some good superintendents are willing, and often prefer, to select promising candidates without experience, and then train or build them up into the kind of teachers they wish them to become.

=Choosing a Teacher.=--If I were a member of a school board in a country district where there is either a good one-room school or a consolidated school, I should go about securing a good teacher somewhat as follows: I should keep, so to speak, my "weather eye" open for a teacher who had become known to some extent in all the surrounding country; one who had made a name and a reputation for himself. I should inquire, in regard to this teacher, of the county superintendent and of his supervising officers. I should make this my business; and then, if I should become convinced that such a person was the one needed in our school, and if I had the authority to act, I should employ such a person regardless of wages or salary. If after a term or two this teacher should make a satisfactory record, I would then promote him, unsolicited, and endeavor to keep him as long as he would stay.

=A "Scoop."=--Sometimes there is considerable rivalry among the newspapers of a city. The editors or local reporters watch for what they call a "scoop." This is a piece of news that will be very much sought by the public and which remains unknown to the people or, in fact, to the other papers until it appears in the one that has discovered it. This is a.n.a.logous to what I should try to do in securing a teacher: I should try to get a veritable educational "scoop" on all the other districts of the surrounding country. The only way to secure such persons is for some individual or for the school board to make this a specific business. In the country districts this might be done by one of the leading directors; in a consolidated school, by the princ.i.p.al or superintendent.

If it is true that "as the teacher so is the school," it is likewise true that as is the princ.i.p.al or superintendent so are the teachers.

=What Makes the Difference.=--It will be found that a small difference in salary will frequently make all the difference between a worthless and an excellent teacher. It is often the ten or fifteen dollars a month additional which secures the prize teacher; and so I should make the difference in salary a secondary consideration; for, after all, the difference amounts to very little in the taxation on the whole community.

=A Question of Teachers.=--The question of teachers is the real problem in education, from the primary school to the great universities. It is the poor teaching of poor teachers everywhere that sets at naught the processes of education; and when the American people, and especially the rural people, realize that this is the heart and center of their problem, and when they realize also that the difference, financially, between a poor teacher and a good one is so small, they will rise to the occasion and proceed to a correct solution of their problem.

CHAPTER VIII

THE THREE INSEPARABLES

In the preceding chapter we discussed the type of person that should be in evidence everywhere in the teaching profession. Such a type is absolutely necessary to the attainment of genuine success. In rural schools this type is by no means too common, and in the whole field of elementary and higher education it is much more rare than it should be.

Because of the frequent appearance of the opposite type in colleges and in other schools, the teacher and the professor have been often caricatured to their discredit. There is usually some truth underlying a caricature; a cartoon would lack point if it did not possess a substratum of fact.

=The "Mode."=--Now, there is often in the public mind this poorer type of teacher; and when an idea or an ideal, however low, becomes once established, it is changed only with difficulty. The commonplace individual, the mediocre type of man or of woman, is by many regarded as a fairly typical representative of what the teacher usually is; or, as the statistician would express it, he is the "mode" rather than the average. The "mode" in any cla.s.s of objects or of individuals is the one that occurs oftenest, the one most frequently met with. And so this inactive, nondescript sort of person is often thought of as the typical teacher. He has no very high standing either financially or socially, and so has no great influence on the individuals around him or on the community in general. This conception has become so well established in the public mind, and is so frequently met with, that all teachers are regarded as being of the same type. The better teachers, the strong personalities, are brought into this same cla.s.s and must suffer the consequences.

=The "Mode" in Labor.=--This same process of cla.s.sifying individuals may be seen in other spheres also. In some sections of the country it is the method of estimating the worth of laboring men; all in the same cla.s.s are considered equal; all of a cla.s.s are reduced to the same level and paid the same wages. One man can do and often does the work of two or three men, and does it better; yet he must labor for the same common wage.

=The "Mode" in Educational Inst.i.tutions.=--The same is to a great extent true of the popular estimate of educational inst.i.tutions. In the public mind an inst.i.tution is merely an "inst.i.tution." One is thought of as doing practically the same work as another; so when inst.i.tutions come before legislatures for financial recognition in the way of appropriations, one inst.i.tution is considered as deserving as another.

The great public is not keen in its discriminations, whether it be a case of educational inst.i.tutions, of laboring men, or of teachers.

=No "Profession."=--The fact is that, in the lower ranks of the teachers' calling, there is really no _profession_. The personality of many who engage in the work is too ordinary to professionalize any calling.

=Weak Personalities.=--This condition of affairs has grown partly out of the fact that we have not, in the different states and in the country at large, a sufficiently high standard. The examinations are not sufficiently extensive and intensive to separate the sheep from the goats. The unqualified thus rush in and drive out the qualified, for the efficient cannot compete with the inefficient. The calling is in no sense a "closed" profession, and consequently in the lower ranks it is scarcely a profession at all.

=Low Standard.=--There is also established in the public mind a certain standard, or test, for common school teaching. This standard has been current so long that it has become quite stable, and it seems almost impossible to change it. As in the case of some individuals when they become possessed of an idea, it is almost impossible to dispossess the social mind of this low standard.

=The Norm of Wages Too Low.=--In regard to the wages of teachers it may be said that there is fixed in the social mind also, a certain _norm_.

As in the case of personality and of standard qualifications, a certain amount of wages has long been regarded as representing the sum which a teacher ought to receive. For rural schools this is probably about fifty dollars a month; in fact, in most states the average wage paid to rural school teachers is below that amount. But let us say that fifty dollars is the amount that has become established in the popular mind as a reasonable salary. Here, as in the other cases, it is very difficult to change ideas established by long custom. For many years people have been accustomed to think of teachers receiving certain salaries, and they refuse to consider any higher sums as appropriate. This, of course, is an egregious blunder. The rural schools can never be lifted above their present plane of efficiency until these three conceptions, (1) that of personality, (2) that of standard, and, (3) that of wages, are revised in the public mind. There will have to be a great revolution in the thought of the people in regard to these inseparable things.

=The Inseparables.=--The fact is that, (1) strong personalities, (2) a high standard of qualifications, (3) and a respectable salary go hand in hand. They rise and fall together; they are reactive, one upon the other. The strong personality implies the ability to meet a high standard and demands reasonable compensation. The same is true of the high standard--it selects the strong personality and this in turn cannot be secured except at a good salary. It may be maintained that if school boards really face the question in earnest, and are willing to offer good salaries, strong personalities who are able to meet that high standard can always be secured. Professor Hugo Munsterberg says: "Our present civilization shows that in every country really decisive achievement is found only in those fields which draw the strongest minds, and that they are drawn only where the greatest premiums are tempting them."[2]

[Footnote 2: Psychology and Social Sanity, p. 82.]

=Raise the Standard First.=--The best way, then, to attack the problem is, first, to raise the standard. This will eliminate inferior teachers and retain or attract those of superior qualifications. It is to be regretted that we have not, in the United States, a more uniform standard for teaching in the common schools. Each state has its own laws, its own standard. It would not, we think, be asking too much to provide that no person should teach in any grade of school, rural or elementary, in the United States, unless such person has had a course for teachers equivalent to at least three years of work in the high school or normal school, with pedagogical preparation and training. In fact, a national law making such a uniform standard among the teachers in the common schools of the country would be an advantage. But this is probably more than we can expect in the near future. As it is, there should be a conference of the educational authorities in each state to agree upon a standard for teaching, with a view to uniform state legislation.

=More Men.=--One of the great needs of the calling is more men. There was a time when all teachers were men; now nearly all teachers are women. There is as much reason for one condition as for the other.

Without going into an a.n.a.lysis of the situation or the causes which make it desirable that there should be more men in the teaching profession, it is, we think, generally granted that the conditions would be better, educationally, socially, and every other way, if the number of men and women in the work were about evenly divided.

=Cooperation Needed.=--Educational movements and influences have spread downward and outward from above. The great universities of the world were established before the secondary and elementary school systems came into existence. Thought settles down from leaders who are in high places. We have shown in a former chapter that the state universities, the agricultural colleges, the normal schools, and the high schools have had a wonderful development within the last generation, while the rural school has too often lagged perceptibly behind. The country districts have helped to support in every way the development of the higher schools; now an excellent opportunity presents itself for all the higher and secondary educational influences to unite in helping to advance the interests and increase the efficiency of the rural schools.

=The Supply.=--The question is sometimes asked whether the right kind of teachers can be secured, if higher salaries are offered. There can be no doubt at all on this point. Where the demand exists and where there is sufficient inducement offered, the supply is always forthcoming. Men are always at hand to engage in the most menial and even the most dangerous occupations if a sufficient reward, financial or otherwise, is offered. For high wages men are induced to work in factories where mercury must be handled and where it is well known that life is shortened many years as a consequence. Men are secured to work long hours in the presence of red-hot blast furnaces and in the lowest depths of the holds of ships. Can it be possible that with a reasonable salary the strongest kind of men would not be attracted to a calling that has as many points of interest and as many attractions as teaching?