Chapter 14

And now, ladies and gentlemen, before I conclude, allow me to remove, or at least to lessen, an impression that these remarks are calculated to produce. I have assumed that teaching is a profession--an arduous profession--and that perfection has not yet been attained. I have assumed, also, that there are many persons engaged in teaching, especially in the primary and mixed district schools, whose qualifications are not as great as they ought to be. But let it not be thence inferred that I am dissatisfied with our teachers and schools. There has been continual progress in education, and a large share of this progress is due to teachers; but the time has not yet come when we can wisely fold our arms, and accept the allurements of undisturbed repose.

Nor have I sought, on this occasion, to present even an outline of a system of female education. In all the public institutions of learning among us, it should be as comprehensive, as minute, as exact, as that furnished for youth of the other sex. Nor is it necessary to concern ourselves about the effect of this liberal culture upon the character and fortunes of society. I do not anticipate any sudden or disastrous effects. The right of education is a common right; and it is unquestionably the right of woman to assert her rights; and it is a wrong and sin if we withhold any, even the least. Having faith in humanity, and faith in God, let us not shrink from the privilege we enjoy of offering to all, without reference to sex or condition, the benefits of a public and liberal system of education, which seeks, in an alliance with virtue and religion, whose banns are forbidden by none, to enlighten the ignorant, restrain and reform the depraved, and penetrate all society with good learning and civilization, so that the highest idea of a well-ordered state shall be realized in an advanced and advancing condition of individual and family life.

THE INFLUENCE, DUTIES, AND REWARDS, OF TEACHERS.

[A Lecture delivered at Teachers' Institutes.]

It is the purpose, and we believe that it will be the destiny, of Massachusetts, to build up a comparatively perfect system of public instruction. To this antiquity did not aspire; and it is the just boast of modern times, and especially of the American States, that learning is not the amusement of a few only, whom wealth and taste have led into its paths, but that it is encouraged by governments, and cherished by the whole people. Antiquity had its schools and teachers; but the latter were, for the most part, founders of sects in politics, morals, philosophy, religion, or the habits of daily life; while its schools were frequented and sustained by those who sought to build on the civilization of the times such structures as their tastes conceived or their opinions dictated.

There were not in Athens or Rome, according to the American idea, any schools for the people; and Carlyle, Brownson, and Emerson, are such teachers in kind, though not in power and influence, as were Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. These men were leaders as well as teachers, and their followers were disciples and controversialists rather than pupils. But it is not possible for modern leaders in politics, philosophy, and social life, to rival the ancients. Manual labor is not more divided and subdivided than is the influence of the human intellect. The newspaper has inspired every man with the love of self-judgment, and the common school has qualified him, in some degree, for its exercise. The ancients, whose names and fame have come down to us, taught by conversations, discussions, and lectures; the moderns, as Carlyle, Brownson, and Emerson, by lectures, essays, and reviews. But these systems are quite inadequate to meet the wants of American civilization.

Indeed, however men of talent may strive, there cannot be another Socrates, Plato, or Aristotle; for the printing-press has come, and their occupation has gone. Teachers were philosophers, pupils were followers and disciples, while learning was devoted to the support of speculations and theories.

But, while we have no such teachers as those of Athens, and need no such schools as they founded, we have teachers and schools whose character and genius correspond to the age in which we live. Teaching is a profession; not merely an ignoble pursuit, nor a toy of scholastic ambition, but a profession enjoying the public confidence, requiring great talents, demanding great industry, and securing, permit me to say, great rewards. To be the leader of a sect or the founder of a school, is something; but the acceptable teacher is superior to either; he is the first and chief exponent of a popular sovereignty which seeks happiness and immortality for itself by elevating and refining the parts of which it is composed. The ancient teacher gathered his hearers, disciples, and pupils, in the streets, groves, and public squares. The modern teacher is comparatively secluded; but let him not hence infer that he is without influence. Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, had their triumphs; but none more distinguished than that of a Massachusetts teacher, who, at the age of fourscore years, on a festive day, received from his former pupils--and among them were the most eminent of the land--sincere and affectionate assurances of esteem and gratitude. The pupil may be estranged from the master in opinion, for our system does not concern itself with opinions, political or religious; but the faithful teacher will always find the evidence of his fidelity in the lives of those intrusted to his care. No position is more important than the teacher's; and his influence is next to that of the parent. It is his high and noble province to touch the youthful mind, test its quality, and develop its characteristics. He often stands in the place of the parent. He aids in giving character to the generations of men; which is at once a higher art and a purer glory than distinguishes those who build the walls of cities, or lay the foundations of empires. The cities which contested for the honor of being the birthplace of Homer are forgotten, or remembered only because they contested for the honor, while Homer himself is immortal. If, then, the mere birth of a human being is an honor to a city, how illustrious the distinction of those who guide the footsteps of youth along the rugged paths of learning, and develop in a generation the principles of integrity and mercy, justice and freedom, government and humanity! If in a lifetime of toil the teacher shall bring out of the mass of common minds one Franklin, or Howard, or Channing, or Bowditch, he will have accomplished more than is secured by the devotees of wealth, or the disciples of pleasure. As the man is more important than the mere philosopher, so is the modern teacher more elevated than the ancient.

The true teacher takes hold of the practical and elementary, as distinguished from the learning whose chief or sole value is in display. Present gratification is desirable, especially to parents and teachers; but it may be secured at the cost of solid learning and real progress. This is a serious error among us, and it will not readily be abandoned; but it is the duty of teachers, and of all parents who are friends to genuine learning, to aid in its removal. We are inclined to treat the period of school-life as though it covered the entire time that ought properly to be devoted to education. The first result--a result followed by pernicious consequences--is that the teacher is expected to give instruction in every branch that the pupil, as child, youth, or adult, may need to know. It is impossible that instruction so varied should always be good. Learning is knowledge of subjects based and built upon a thorough acquaintance with their elements. The path of duty, therefore, should lead the teacher to make his instruction thorough in a few branches, rather than attempt to extend it over a great variety of subjects. This, to the teacher who is employed in a district or town but three or six months, is a hard course, and many may not be inclined to pursue it. Something, no doubt, must be yielded to parents; but they, too, should be educated to a true view of their children's interests. As the world is, a well-spoken declamation is more gratifying to parents, and more creditable to teachers, than the most careful training in the vowel-sounds; yet the latter is infinitely more valuable to the scholar. Neither progress in the languages nor knowledge of mathematics can compensate for the want of a thorough etymological discipline. This training should be primary in point of time, as well as elementary in character; and a classical education is no adequate compensation.

Elements are all-important to the teacher and the student. It is not possible to have an idea of a square without some idea of a straight line, nor to express with pencil or words the arc of a circle without a previous conception of the curve. Combination follows in course. We are driven to it. Our own minds, all nature, all civilization, tend to the combination of elements.

We think fast, live fast, learn fast, and, as the fashion of the world requires a knowledge of many things, we crowd the entire education of our children into the short period of school-life. Here, and just here, public sentiment ought to relieve the teacher by reforming itself.

It should be understood that school-life is to be devoted to the thorough discipline of the mind to study, and to an acquaintance with those simple, elementary branches, which are the foundation of all good learning. When a knowledge of the elements is secured, then the languages, mathematics, and all science, may be pursued with enthusiasm and success by a class of men well educated in every department. Public sentiment must allow the teacher to give careful instruction in reading and spelling, for example, in the most comprehensive meaning of those terms--in the sound and power of letters, in the composition and use of words, and in the natural construction of sentences. This, of course, includes a knowledge of grammar, not as a dry, philological study, but as a science; not as composed of arbitrary rules, merely, but as the common and best judgment of men concerning the use and power of language, of which rules and definitions are but an imperfect expression.

Nor do we herein assign the teacher to neglect or obscurity. He, as well as others, must have faith in the future. His reward may be distant, but it is certain.

It is, however, likely that the labors of a faithful elementary teacher will be appreciated immediately, and upon the scene of his toil. But, if they are not, his pupils, advancing in age and increasing in knowledge, will remember with gratitude and in words the self-sacrificing labors of their master.

We are not so constituted as to labor without motive. With some the motive is high, with others it is low and grovelling. The teacher must be himself elevated, or he cannot elevate others. The pupil may, indeed, advance to a higher sphere than that occupied by the teacher; but it is only because he draws from a higher fountain elsewhere. In such cases the success of the pupil is not the success of the master. He who labors as a teacher for mere money, or for temporary fame, which is even less valuable, cannot choose a calling more ignoble, nor can he ever rise to a higher; for his sordid motives bring all pursuits to the low level of his own nature.

Yet it is not to be assumed that the teacher, more than the clergyman, is to labor without pecuniary compensation; for, while money should not be the sole object of any man's life, it is, under the influence of our civilization, essential to the happiness of us all. Wealth, properly acquired and properly used, may become a means of self-education. It purchases relief from the harassing toil of uninterrupted manual labor. It is the only introduction we can have to the thoroughfares of travel by which we are made acquainted personally with the globe that we inhabit. It brings to our firesides books, paintings, and statuary, by which we learn something of the world as it is and as it was. It gives us the telescope and the microscope, by whose agency we are able to appreciate, even though but imperfectly, the immensity of creation on the one hand, and its infinity on the other. The teacher is not to labour without money, nor to despise it more than other men; and the public might as well expect the free services of the minister, lawyer, physician, or farmer, as to expect the gratuitous or cheap education of their children. While the teacher is educating others, he must also educate himself. This he cannot do without both leisure and money. The advice of Iago is, therefore, good advice for teachers: "Go, make money. * * Put money enough in your purse." The teacher's motives should be above mere gain; though this view of the subject does not, as some might infer, lead to the conclusion that he ought to labor for inadequate compensation.

When George III. was first insane, Dr. Willis was called to the immediate personal charge of the king. Dr. Willis had been educated to the church, and a living had been assigned him; but, becoming interested in the subject of insanity, he had established an asylum, and gained a distinguished position in his new profession. The suffering monarch was sadly puzzled to know why Dr. Willis was with him, and how he had been brought there. The custodian was not very definite in his explanations, but suggested that he came to comfort the king in his afflictions; and, said he, "You know that our Saviour went about doing good."--"Yes," said the king, "but he never received seven hundred pounds a year for it." This was good wit, especially good royal wit, because unexpected. But there is no reason why actual monarchs of England, or coming monarchs of America, should be treated or taught gratuitously. The compensation, the living of the teacher, is one thing; the motive may and ought to be quite different. The teacher should labor in his profession because he loves it, because he does good in it, and because he can in that sphere answer a high purpose of existence. These being the motives of the teacher, he should educate, draw out, corresponding ones in his pupils.

The teacher is not to create--he is to draw out. Every child has the germs of many, and, it may be, quite different qualities of character. Look at the infant. It is so constituted that it may have a stalwart arm, broad chest, and well-rounded, vigorous muscles; but yet it may come to adult age destitute of these physical excellences. Yet you will not say that the elements did not exist in the child. They were there; but, being neglected, they followed a law of our nature, that the development of a faculty depends upon its exercise. Nature will develop some quality in every man; for our existence demands the exercise of a part of our faculties. The faculty used will be developed in excess as compared with other faculties. It is the business of the teacher to aid nature. For the most part, he must stimulate, encourage, draw out, develop, though it may happen that he will be required occasionally to check a tendency which threatens to absorb or overshadow all the others. He must, at any rate, prevent the growth of those powers which tend towards the savage state.

While the teacher creates nothing, he must so draw out the qualities of the child that it may attain to perfect manhood. He moulds, he renders symmetrical, the physical, the intellectual, the moral man. Nature sometimes does this herself, as though she would occasionally furnish a model man for our imitation, as she has given lines, and forms, and colors, which all artists of all ages shall copy, but cannot equal. But, do the best we can, education is more or less artificial; and hence the child of the school will suffer by comparison with the child of nature, when she presents him in her best forms.

In a summer ramble I met a man so dignified as to attract the notice and command the respect of all who knew him. I was with him upon the lakes and mountains several days and nights, and never for a moment did the manliness of his character desert him. I have seen no other person who could boast such physical beauty. Accustomed to a hunter's life; carrying often a pack of thirty or forty or fifty pounds; sleeping upon the ground or a bed of boughs; able, if necessity of interest demanded, to travel in the woods the ordinary distance which a good horse would pass over upon our roads; with every organ of the arm, the leg, the trunk, fully expressed; with a manly, kind, intelligent countenance, a beard uncut, in the vigor of early manhood, he seemed a model which the statuaries of Greece and Rome desired to see, but did not. He had at once the bearing of a soldier and the characteristics of a gentleman. He was ignorant of grammatical rules and definitions, yet his conversation would have been accepted in good circles of New England society. This man had his faults, but they were not grievous faults, nor did they in any manner affect the qualities of which I have spoken.

This is what nature sometimes does; this is what we should always strive to do, extending this symmetry, if possible, to the moral as well as to the intellectual and physical organization. This man is ignorant of science, of books, of the world of letters, and the world of art, yet we respect him. Why? Because nature has chosen to illustrate in him her own principles, power and beauty.

That we may draw out the qualities of the human mind as they exist, we must first appreciate our influence upon childhood and youth. Our own experience is the best evidence of what that influence is. All along our lives the lessons of childhood return to us. The hills and valleys, the lakes, rivers, and rivulets, of our early home, come not in clearer visions before us than do the exhortations to industry, the incentives to progress, the lessons of learning, and the principles of truth, uttered and offered by the teachers of early years. In the same way the lines of the poet, the reflections of the philosopher, the calm truths of the historian, read once and often carelessly, and for many years forgotten, return as voices of inspiration, and are evermore with us.

That the teacher may have influence, his ear must be open to the voice of truth, and his mouth must be liberal with words of consolation, encouragement, and advice. He rules in a little world, and the scales of justice must be balanced evenly in his hands. He should go in and out before his scholars free from partiality or prejudice; indifferent to the voice of envy or detraction; shunning evil and emulous of good; patient of inquiries in the hours of duty; filled with the spirit of industry in his moments of leisure; gathering up and spreading before his pupils the choicest gems of literature, art, and science, that they may be early and truly inspired with the love of learning.

The public school is a little world, and the teacher rules therein. It contains the rich and the poor, the virtuous and the corrupt, the studious and the indifferent, the timid and the brave, the fearful and the hearts elate with hope and courage. Life is there no cheat; it wears no mask, it assumes no unnatural positions, but presents itself as it is. Deformed and repulsive in some of its features, yet to him whose eye is as quick to discover its beauty as its deformity, its harmony as its discord, there is always a bright spot on which he may gaze, and a fond hope to which he may cling. Artificial life, whether in the select school or the select party, tends to weaken our faith in humanity; and a want of faith in our race is an omen of ill-success in life. Teachers should have faith in humanity, and should labor constantly to inspire others with the belief that the true law of our nature is the law of progress.

Those who come early in life to the conclusion that the many cannot be moved by the higher sentiments and ideas which control a few favored mortals, cease to labor for the advancement of the race. They consequently lose their hold upon society, and society neglects them. For such men there can be no success.

Others, like Jefferson and Channing, never lose confidence in their species, and their species never lose confidence in them. When the teacher comes to believe that the world is worse than it was, and never can be better, he need wait for no other evidence that his days of usefulness are over.

The school-room will teach the child, even as the prison will instruct maturity and age, that few persons are vicious in the extreme, and that no one lives without some ennobling traits of character and life. The teacher's faith is the measure of the teacher's usefulness. It is to him what conception is to the artist; and, if the sculptor can see the image of grace and beauty in the fresh-quarried marble, so must the teacher see the full form of the coming man in the trembling child or awkward youth.

The teacher ought not to grow old. To be sure, time will lay its hand on him, as it does on others; but he should always cultivate in himself the feelings, sentiments, and even ambitions of youth. Far enough removed from his pupils in age and position to stimulate them by his example, and encourage them by his precepts, he should yet be so near them that he can appreciate the steps and struggles which mark their progress in the path of learning. There must be some points of contact, something common to teacher and pupils. Indeed, for us all it is true that age loses nothing of its dignity or respect when it accepts the sentiments and sports of youth and childhood. But above all should the teacher remember the common remark of La Place, in his Celestial Mechanics, and the observation of Dr. Bowditch upon it. "Whenever I meet in La Place with the words, 'Thus it plainly appears,' I am sure that hours, and perhaps days, of hard study, will alone enable me to discover _how_ it plainly appears." The good teacher will seek first to estimate each scholar's capacity, and then adapt his instructions accordingly. Though he may be far removed from his pupils in attainments, he should be able to mark the steps by which ordinary minds pass from common principles to their noblest application.

This observation may by some be deemed unnecessary; but there are living teachers who, having mastered the noblest sciences, are unable to appreciate and lead ordinary minds.

The teacher must be in earnest. This is the price of success in every profession. The law, it is said, is a jealous mistress, and permits no rivals; the indifferent, careless minister is but a blind leader of the blind, and the "undevout astronomer is mad."

Sincerity of soul and earnestness of purpose will achieve success. According to an eminent authority, there are three kinds of great men: those who are born great, those who achieve greatness, and those who have greatness thrust upon them. If we take greatness of birth to be in greatness of soul and intellect, and not in the mere accident of ancestry, it is such only who have greatness thrust upon them; for the world, after all, rarely makes a mistake in this respect. But there is a larger and a nobler class, whose greatness, whatever it is, must be achieved; and to this class I address myself.