Copyrights COKTRlGiff DSFOSfT. TEACHER RECRUITING SERIES PERSONALITYCULTURE by COLLEGE FACULTIES by DAVID E. BERG After visiting seventy-two university teachers of all ranks at work with summer school classes in twenty-five subjects INSTITUTE FOR PUBLIC SERVICE NEW YORK CITY • 134 Educational Studies and Reports by Institute foe Public Service Include Self-surveying and teacher recruiting Who's Who and Why in After War Education Rainbow Promises of Progress in Education Teacher Benefits from School Surveys Self Surveys by Teacher Training Schools Surveys by Teacher Training Schools Record Aids in College Management Pick Your Prof or Getting By in College Personalityculture by College Faculties War civics Liberty the Giant Killer Stories of Americans in the World War War Fact Tests Civic Lessons from War Facts Unconditional Surrender Civics Teachable Facts about Bolshevism and Sovietism Universal Training for American citizenship Field studies High Spots in New York Schools Budget studies for Virginia Reorganization studies for Ohio Reconstruction studies for Michigan Latin America How Latin America Affects our Daily Life How We Affect Latin America's Dally Life Teacher recruiting bulletins The Rewards of Teaching Teachers Salaries a National Peril Why Not Teach? Why I Like Teaching Career Boundaries for American Girls Boys, After High School What? Teacherless Schools and Holiday Thoughts University Presidents on Teacher Recruiting Cartoonist Ireland on Cartooning Teachers Colossal Growth of Higher Education Copyright, 192J0 by Institute for Public Service, New York City ©CI.A608110 DEC 20 1920 INTRODUCTION "Personalityculture by College Faculties" is based up- on observations of seventy-two university instructors at work in over one hundred summer school classes. It is a plea for nation-wide insistence upon the highest types of personality for college instructors. Its personality portraits are by a former university stu- dent, himself but a few years out of college, who frankly tried to see these seventy-two instructors as their own students were seeing them, rather than as extensive and intensive explorations of their possibilities by college authorities might reveal them. This book is issued by the Institute for Public Service as part of its efforts to help America see the utmost im- portance of recruiting her ablest and noblest personal- ities into the teaching profession. Nothing short of the strongest personalities in our uni- versities, technical schools and colleges — not even double or quadruple salaries — will give to teaching the reputation necessary to attract able young men and women into this greatest of all public services. The "personalities plus" here described prove that it is not necessary to select "low level personalities" for American colleges and training schools, and support the author's plea for conscious and systematic personality- culture by American colleges and universities. This question of teacher personality in our colleges is by no means a mere academic question. On the contrary, it is one of the most urgently practical questions before higher education. In fact, unless more attention is given to personalityculture by faculties, it is doubtful if our col- leges, universities and professional schools can add teachers of the right kind, or even teachers of any kind, fast enough to take care of the enormous increases in student register which are on the horizon. Between 1914 and 1920 the register in 210 colleges and universities which answered an inquiry by the Institute for Public Service with comparable figures, grew from 187,000 in 1914, the school year before the war, to 294,000 in 1919-1920, the first full school year after the war. If these 210 colleges continue the same number increases each year they will have 471,000 in 1930 and 83 1 ,000 in 1 950. If they keep on growing at the average percentage rate of the last six years, they will have 659, 000 in 1930 and 1,138,000 in 1950! None of the proposals for taking care of larger numbers of students without proportionately increasing educational plants — such as the extension of night schools, afternoon and Saturday classes and university extension work by classes, institutes and correspondence — removes or de- creases the urgent need for personalityculture. On the contrary, every extension which higher education makes in its sphere of influence intensifies the demand for person- ality among teachers which will inspire ambition and build character. The same forces that are bringing additional armies of young people into colleges are also calling not only for more teachers, but for more teachers in proportion to students and more teaching ability and personality in each teacher. INSTITUTE FOR PUBLIC SERVICE AUTHOR'S PREFACE The colleges and universities of the United States came through the war with flying colors. Their profes- sors and graduates aided in the field as technical men, chemists, physicists, engineers, psychologists, educators and drillmasters, while at home colleagues gave courses in special and general branches of the service and re- cruited patriotism. The war demonstrated to the government and to the colleges as well the necessity for commanding, daring and creative personalities in attaining victory. And now it is equally essential that we obtain great leaders, and vigorous and alert personalities, to: fill the chairs of learn- ing in the colleges and for training future generations to win the battles of peace. Heretofore in spite of the fact that our college facul- ties have over a quarter of a billion classroom contacts a year with students, our colleges have under-estimated, so they themselves say, the importance of personality to the success of their faculty members. Not only that, but the personality of higher education's teachers has never been adequately studied. Very little literature on the subject exists. The only study which the author has been able to find has not been printed, and whatever else has been written of it consists chiefly of passing remarks in college presidents' reports and in pedagogical texts, mainly deploring the lack of any real knowledge on the subject. The writer records here the results of classroom visits to seventy-two instructors, who during the summer sea- son of a large university were observed in the actual process of teaching. These reports describe briefly the living spirit and personality of the teachers, and the at- titude and reactions of the students during the class period. One hundred classes conducted by seventy-two teach- ers of twenty-five different subjects were visited during six weeks. Thirty-nine of the men visited were observ- ed only when lecturing, thirty-one only when holding rec- itation, while two were visited more than once who used both methods. When steps in the teaching process, method or tech- nique are mentioned, it will be only to illustrate what happened to a class as the result of the teacher person- ality. While high grade personalities were frequently found using low grade technique, no defective personal- ity was observed that could not easily have been strengthened by improvements in technique. When visiting the classes, all of which were held in the morning, the gist of the recitation and lectures was taken down and notes made of the appearance, manner- isms, dress, method of teaching and personal qualities of the professors, together with the number of students in the class and main facts about ventilation, lighting, seating arrangements and other relevant classroom de- tails. Then each afternoon these notes were written out as a detailed analysis of the teaching personality observed in the morning. As shown on page 111 the seventy- two personalities fell into ten type groups. The point of view is frankly that of a student. For this no apology is made because it is students, not trust- ees or presidents or benefactors who' are permanently helped or harmed by faculty personality. This report is intended for teachers, students and alumni of colleges and universities and for all other per- sons interested in securing the highest standards of personality in America's teaching force, particularly in higher education. Teacher personality can be selected as easily as seed corn and can be consciously improved as easily as can student personality. DAVID E. BERG Philadelphia Nov. 15, 1920 CONTENTS Introduction 3 Preface 5 I College Classroom Contacts 9 II Personality Close-ups — First Two Days 1 1 III Low Levels of Teacher Personality 27 IV Personalities Plus 49 V Personality and Teacher Training 69 VI Teacher Personality Classified 81 VII Candle Power of Teacher Personality 89 VIII B T U's of Teacher Personality 97 IX Kilowatts of Teacher Personality 1 03 X Ten Grades of Teaching Ability 1 09 XI Next Steps in Personalityculture 119 Analyzing Personality Pratt Institute requires from each instructor for each student a per- sonality impression with a list of weak points, strong points, and needs. Miami University's president keeps a character and personality record of each student. Capacity analysis is an art at Car- negie Institute of Technology and Cincinnati's engineering college. Minnesota notes each instructor's special aptitudes, kinds of student attracted, reputation for teaching with faculty and students, and whether a high or low marker. Personalityculture will everywhere follow personality analysis. CHAPTER I CLASSROOM CONTACTS— 250 MILLION A YEAR America's 400,000 college students spend from 15 to 30 hours per week for 36 weeks in classroom or labora- tory. This means 250 million contacts with instructors in a regular college year, and over one billion during the four years constituting a college generation. Classroom contact thus assumes an enormous significance. Of the various activities which occupy the time of the college student, such as attending classes, reading, sleeping and eating, attending social and athletic affairs, it is only that of the first, attending classes, lectures, recitations and laboratory, which means a subjection to a definitely planned set of influences. Out of the 135 waking hours each week of possible supervision, after deducting 9 hours of sleep per day, only about 11% to 22% of the time is actually spent under the immediate personal supervision of faculty members. For 16 weeks of vacation the student is almost wholly free from all college influence, so that of the whole calendar year's time, only from 8% to 16% is spent under direct class- room influence. Yet this alone amounts to a quarter billion sessions of one to two hours where learner and teacher meet, the one to grow and the other to help. This daily contact of professor and student is higher education's opportunity to exhibit personality to its 400,000 students. Obviously it behooves college facul- ties to make these contacts as significant and impressive as possible. Obviously, too, professors should be men and women of inspiring personality, who are also mas- ters of the art of teaching. To determine how effective 10 » PERSONALITYCULTURE were the classroom exercises of seventy-two university instructors, chosen from the catalogue without previous contact with them, is the main concern of this study. Only those particular traits of personality are portrayed which are directly related to the teaching power of the instructors. To help the reader approach these person- ality pictures as the writer approached them after being out of college but a few years, the personality portraits are first given of those teachers who were visited during the first two days of the summer school session when by common consent teacher personality should be at its best. For Questions or Notes by Readers CHAPTER II PERSONALITY CLOSE-UPS— FIRST TWO DAYS It was a bright, cool summer morning, this first day of the summer session. From the eminence upon which the university was situated, one obtained a panoramic view of beautiful scenery, which with the keen, eager air was exhilarating to both mind and body. One stepped into the classroom prepared for a swift and daring in- tellectual chase. Teacher Personality No. 1 — Type 9 A gray-bearded man, with furtive eyes like those of a startled squirrel, was giving a course in grammar. His body and his face were small and thin, his eyes and voice were dull. He stuttered somewhat, but it was a stuttering not of the vocal organs, but of the brain itself. To cover the holes and rents in the texture of his ideas, he used great long "uhs," at the rate of twelve to sixteen per minute. He rarely started a sentence correctly, he usually went back to start it over, repeated the first phrase two or three times, then tottered off. The progress of his ideas was like that of an old man trying to scale a steep ascent ; a step, a pause, a step, a slip; halting, feeble, painfully slow. The auditor's first flush of expectant exhilaration changed swiftly to a sense of oppressive tedium. Although he had probably given this course of gram- mar fifty times, he was dependent upon his notes for the definitions he wished his students to learn. His lecture proved to be a carnival of definitions, for he defined phon- 12 PERSONALITYCULTURE etics, phonology, grammar, art, science, descriptive, his- torical and comnarative grammar and many other every day terms. TliJy vvere definitions which most of his hearers could have given off hand, and need not have read, as he did, from a manuscript, for his class consisted of twenty-seven students, most of whom had taught. Nine of them were middle-aged. To all, this flood of de- finitions must have been very tedious. Had he tried to picture their needs, he would have used a different method. He had no charm, no sweetness, no wit, no enthusiasm, and no originality. His diction was commonplace, al- though he was a teacher of English, and his ideas were platitudes. He lacked force and animation. His whole personality was as colorless as ashes. He seemed strick- en with a chronic catalepsis, which had frozen his emo- tions and feelings and had stiffened all suppleness of thought. Not once during the hour did he call on anyone for suggestions or information about experiences and prob- lems, try to enlist the cooperation of the class, or attempt to determine what was going on in the students' minds. Nothing occurred that gave promise of life, of fresh knowledge, of inspiration ; everything said and done boded a six weeks trip across an intellectual Sahara. The bell rang and the sepulchral charm was broken. The students grabbed hats and books, and started for the door. "Take the first nineteen pages of Sweet", called the teacher, straining his thin voice almost to the cracking point. The class, unheeding, poured out into the hall. Teacher Personality No. 2 — Type 6 The next was a class in the "Nature and Function of Play." The title, at least, gave promise of something interesting and enlivening. A tall, angular man stalked awkwardly into the room and sunk his body behind the desk. He must have been mostly legs, for he almost disappeared from sight after he had seated himself. Sud- PERSONALITY CLOSE-UPS 13 denly his tall, lanky form shot into the air, and he set about distributing mimeographed lists of texts and read- ing assignments. Then he again cleverly concealed the major portion of his anatomy behind the bulwark of his desk, where he remained impregnably entrenched during the whole hour. He started to speak in a hard, rattling voice that was much too loud for the size of the room and echoed and re-echoed with a confusing din. He spoke of the atten- tion devoted to play in biology, in folklore, in education, in works on the theory of evolution, in social reform, in institutions, in churches, and gave examples of activities that placed emphasis on play and recreation. He waxed eloquent on this theme, but the class did not melt into a common sea of enthusiasm. They remained cold and inert. Had he felt the importance of mutual sympathy between teacher and student, he could hardly have con- tinued his lecture without opening the channels of sym- pathy and comprehension. The teacher's enthusiasm was based on many years of experience with the subject. He made sweeping state- ments, one after the other, which were too strange, too radical for immediate assimilation by the students. Most of them had not heard of play in this sense before, consequently they had no body of knowledge, had no in- ternal fuel to be ignited by the flame of his enthusiasm. The class, after its first start of interest, was unable to gather headway as fast as the teacher, was left far be- hind in the race, and lapsed into inanition. His manner was artificial and over-strained. His eyes had a forced brightness and alertness ; he flashed them from one part of the room to the other, but they appeared to see nothing. There was a false emphasis in his voice and an exaggerated leaning forward over his desk. His attempts at humor fell flat. The impression he gave was this : here was a man without the essential quality of personality, mechanically overdoing the motions of pos- sessing one, and trying to "put across" something he did not possess. He was like a man who swims at the rate of one-half mile an hour trying to breast a five mile 14 PERSONALITYCULTURE current. He made no headway, but was carried down stream. No one in the class seemed impressed. The bell rang. He then started to call the roll which consumed five minutes of the students' time. Teacher Personality No. 3 — Type 4 The next man visited was giving a lecture course in the "History of the Renaissance". He had a considerable command of his subject matter, possessed great ease of manner and a nonchalance, that, if not an affectation, was in strange contrast to his burly figure and voice. He appeared conscious of his power, his force, his success and popularity with students. He was conscious of it; too conscious of it, as a matter of fact. He began a sentence with a spurt, and at the begin- ning his speech was rapid, forceful and distinct. Towards the end of the sentence, his thick, heavy voice dwindled down to a decided drawl. His voice came in fits and starts, like sounds to one in a fever. At first, the drawl struck one as being accidental and involuntary, but later one wondered if his sporadic drawl like the flabby pos- ture of his body, his arm hanging limply over the back of his chair, his sprawling limbs, and his chin drawn tight to his neck, were part and parcel of his whole histrionic makeup and attitudinizing. He was likable, but not inspiring. He did not illumin- ate the halls of the mind, nor did he spur his students to increased action and enthusiastic effort. Withal, how- ever, he was entertaining. His lecture was studded with gems of wit like these : "We are going to evaluate," he said, preening himself like a peacock, "evaluate, isn't that a lovely word?" "Dates in history always attract students; they are like honey to a bee." "Leave out the details in taking notes. Take down the generalizations; unrelated details are a weariness to the flesh." PERSONALITY CLOSE-UPS 15 "He was a most omnivorous reader, but his head was like a sieve, nothing remained." "Taking notes checks your natural impetuosity in reading." > As he continued talking, his self-conscious vanity, his indolence and cocksureness provoked a feeling almost of contempt. To one who had expected a keen, straining spirit, it was a disappointment to find an intellectual voluptuary, dallying with the pretty phrases of the con- firmed wit. He evinced a disdain for mental exertion ; the deeper powers of his mind sprawled out in much the same fashion as his limbs. Here was a course rich in material treating of inspir- ing men and ideas, with the brightest of possibilities to illumine and exalt the youthful mind. But the first thing the teacher did was to draw a sooty finger across the glorious picture which each student in his imagination had painted of the age of Renaissance. His preliminary remarks, flippant and sarcastic, cheapened the student's conceptions of that golden age, so productive of spirit- ual wealth to humanity, and degraded the spirit of his whole course. As he lectured in his studied tone of bore- dom about the great Dante, one noted involuntarily, with a distinct sense of pain, the difference between the soaring spirit of the poet and the affectation, the disdain, and the vanity of the teacher. Here were no incisive, startling flashes of remote re- semblances, no profound principles, no originality of ideas; just a fatuous indulgence in platitudes and the obvious, the pitter-patter of the drawing-room wit. He was a man of unusual ability and attainments, who had made his mark, but who was resting on his oars content to drift with the current of his reputation as an enter- tainer and stimulator. That he interested and attracted the students could not be denied. But was his attitude of nonchalance and cynicism one that should be imitated by the students? College students are all too ready to assume this air and attitude of superiority. Would not imitation levy tot> heavy a toll on society, or if this teacher's value consisted 16 PERSONALITYCULTURE in warning- the students of the undesirable, is not this dangerous procedure? Teacher Personality No. 4— Type 1 The last class visited the first day was that of a mathe- matics teacher, later learned to be well-liked and admired by his students. Exactly as the gong sounded, he strode into the room. In a few seconds he had called the roll. While doing so, his sharp eyes singled out the student who answered. He appeared to connect name with per- son instantly. One felt intuitively that his mind re- tained the impression permanently. His first words were electrical in their effect. They were common enough intrinsically, but they revealed the acumen and energy of a powerful personality. Every move he made, every statement he uttered, expressed energy, resolution and keenness. In five minutes, every student must have felt that he was every inch a man and in addition a mathematician with a profound and ready command of his subject. He talked without notes. As he walked from one part of the room to the other, each head in the room turned in his direction, and his eyes, as they swept from student to student appeared to fix in turn each pair of eyes in the room. In a few minutes, he had given a bird's-eye view of the whole field of mathematics, and showed how algebra was related to the other branches of mathematics and to the practical sciences. He told the Hindoo and Chinese conceptions of mathematics and the relation of algebra to the Greeks' geometry. He emphasized the necessity of mastering the elementary processes in al- gebra : to actually perform the operations, for their mas- tery is as essential to the student's grasp of advanced algebra as the violinist's mastery of technique of his in- strument is to his ability to interpret great music. Imme- diately in the students' minds, the simple, routine opera- tions of algebra were invested with a significance never before suspected. One gained the impression that he was firm and exact- PERSONALITY CLOSE-UPS 17 ing, that he demanded precision and diligence, and a high standard of acquisition. At the same time, he ap- peared kindly and sympathetically penetrating in his judgment of human nature. He went to the blackboard to illustrate his remarks and called on various students individually and on the class as a whole to direct the work. In a short while he had enlisted the hearty co- operation of the class, had the class thinking as one mind, alert and eager to anticipate the next step and next oper- ation. The thirty individual members were fused into an organic working unit. The whole impression was that of a keen, invigorating mind, so swift and incisive that it almost deprived one of breath. The man seemed the embodiment of a swift moving force that spurred his students to great effort. His wit was incisive and searching, a wit that scintillated and illuminated. Here were charm, humor, kindliness, resourcefulness, penetration, energy and other qualities that make for a dynamic personality and a brilliant teacher. This last class exercise was an excellent demonstration of the results which a skillful teacher can accomplish within the space of an hour. The teacher because of his discriminating and comprehensive command of the subject had, in this period of time, made a definite con- tribution to the student's supply of knowledge. From the very beginning his great enthusiasm and forcefulness had aroused the interest of the students in the subject. He wasted no time in putting them to work, and his de- cisiveness, resolution and exactingness made them real- ize that much hard and conscientious work was in store for them, which was to be productive of definite results. Moreover, it had been a great pleasure, a mental and physical exhilaration, to sit in his class. Compare this last with the first three teachers: the first man was unbearably stupid and tedious ; the second was a loud-voiced ranter who distressed one's ears and sense of truth ; the third was an indolent egotist, amusing, but provocative of resentment and contempt. From the first man the students could gain only un- 18 PERSONALITYCULTURE serviceable and deadening- facts and methods. The second and third were men of ability, but their effectiveness was greatly handicapped by remediable faults of personality. Teacher Personality No. 5 — Type 3 The first class visited on the second day was one in philosophy, called ''Man and Nature". Seventy one stu- dents were present; about an equal number of men and women. A short, dark man passed rapidly up the aisle from the back of the room. The laughter and chattering of the class subsided instantly. Every face turned to the desk with that expectancy which characterizes the rise of a curtain on an absorbing play. "I shall speak today of the arguments for evolution," he began. His voice was somewhat thick, choked and roughened, and his enunciation was marred by a kind of lisp. His forehead was rounded and massive. "There are four arguments for evolution ; first, argu- ments from embryology ; second, those from morphology ; third, those from geographical distribution; and last, the arguments from paleontology." He spoke slowly and deliberately. Contrary to one's anticipations from his appearance and voice, every word could be heard distinctly. In two sentences he had out- lined the plan of his lecture for the hour and every one knew what part to expect. It would be easy to follow the whole lecture, whether one took notes or not. "The criticism made against these arguments is that they rest on merely circumstantial evidence," he con- tinued. "But all kinds of proof dealing with matter or with facts are based on circumstantial evidence, and evolution is the simplest conclusion from all the great mass of evidence that exists." He then gave the arguments for evolution from em- bryology, and spoke of the presence of rudimentary or- gans in man. "The evolutionist asks why all these pe- culiar and unnecessary organs and tissues develop and PERSONALITY CLOSE-UPS 19 disappear in the embryo if they are not vestiges and signs of previous stages in the history of the race. The creationist answers that God is all-wise and that his motives are inscrutable. Now, I don't ask you to decide one way or the other; I shall not impose my beliefs on you. I shall merely present you the facts ; you may draw your own conclusions." Despite the blandness of his words, there was a note of raillery in the tone of this voice that bit sharply and deeply. It implied that if you did not believe in evol- ution after he had stated the arguments for it no one could have much respect for your intelligence. His lecture proceeded in a clean-cut methodical man- ner. He possessed a ready command of his subject; he drove his principles home with great force and selected examples and illustrations that were interesting and val- uable in themselves. His mind was supple, prolific and logical. He also showed considerable skill as a draughts- man. Before the class hour he had made some admirable chalk drawings on the blackboard, illustrating the re- semblance of the forelimbs of various animals, — fish, bird, seal, and whale — to those of man. The whole lec- ture was pointed, suggestive and extremely interesting. It must have made a profound impression on minds hear- ing its information for the first time. The teacher was alert, ingenious and possessed great charm of manner, and a ready, sympathetic wit. The class was keyed to a high degree of interest, for during the lecture every student strained forward in his seat, to catch the next phrase. A close bond of sympathy and understanding had already by the second day sprung up between the class and the teacher. But again and again appeared this fine vein of biting irony, when comparing explanations of the various arguments offered by the evo- lutionist with those advanced by the creationist. Appar- ently the teacher realized the tremendous disturbances that his message would set up in many listeners' minds, and slipped into this ironic mood possibly to leaven and circumvent their seriousness. This sharp, delicate note of raillery marred somewhat the impression of his lecture, 20 PERSONALITYCULTURE for it denoted a certain lack of that sustained and elevated attitude which the seriousness of the subject demanded. Moreover, his diction also' lacked elevation, so that the effect was not clean-cut and gripping as it might easily have been. On the whole, however, his was a personality of exceptional power. Teacher Personality No. 6 — Type 4 The sixth class consisted of eighty-five students. It was a course termed "The High School Recitation", in- tended for high school teachers or prospective high school teachers. The gong sounded and a man projected himself into the room at an amazing speed and started talking with an incredible rapidity. The suddenness of this assault of sound upon the ears was momentarily confusing. "To keep a record of your attendance, I shall ask you to write your names on slips of paper and hand them to my assistant at the door as you pass out at the end of the hour. If you have any questions you want me to answer, write them on the same slip." These statements came out in one continuous roll. "I will read and answer the first question. 'Don't you think that one can get as much enjoyment out of studying a book as merely reading it?' Yes, there can be an en- joyment of saying the multiplication table rapidly, or translating a difficult passage of Latin." "Second question : 'Parker says that an old person can learn a foreign language more rapidly than a young per- son. Is this true?' Parker is on delicate ground. No one has proved this. Parker wants to insist that old people can also learn languages. You at your age can learn better because you have more control over your attention. The argument for learning a foreign language in youth is a matter of emphasis." Then followed a series of discursive remarks on the teaching of Latin in high school, on the value of language as affording intellectual training and on politics in schools* PERSONALITY CLOSE-UPS 21 "We don't know anything about it; no exact experiments are available to test the higher processes of the mind," was his parting shot to the second question ! He read question after question, answering them as he read them. "Is Latin more valuable than manual train- ing?" "What is the use of drawing and music?" "When is the time to 1 help a child who is experimenting?" "At the point of discouragement or at the point of confusion," answered the talker in answer to this last question. Then he branched off into a discussion of the evils of repetition, the folly of trying to pump something out of empty heads, and of teachers then dropping into the level of scolding. A teacher should be able to detect which pupil will be able to contribute something of value to the recitation. Otherwise he makes a living sacrifice of the best pupils. Then he told the story of a teacher scolding a boy who apparently knew nothing. "At your age Abraham Lincoln was earning his living," said the teacher. "At your age Abe Lincoln was president of the United States," retorted the boy. "Teachers demand too much verbal reproduction. We should stretch our judgments over a larger span. We are too much interested in a continual garrulous self-analysis," and so on for forty- five minutes. Five minutes before the hour was over, he had run through the questions and had started his lecture proper, "How do we get our educational ideals?" Nothing but a stenographic report could do justice to this performance. His talk was an inextricable jungle of words and phrases, of half formulated and blind alley theories. Ideas followed each other by the merest acci- dent of association, and not because they had any logical bearing on the subject under discussion. Sentences were broken off like faults in a geological formation and entire- ly unrelated ideas placed in juxtaposition. Ideas were poured forth like the eruption of a volcano, the good with the bad, prejudices and personal opinion grating on ac- cepted, rationalized principles. His talk possessed neither lucidity nor coherence. 22 PERSONALITYCULTURE He talked like a mad hurricane in great rolling periods which ended only when his breath gave out. His voice was hard and raucous, a domineering, egotistical voice. He possessed the characteristic squint of conceit, that inward turned glance of a man who hears others' ideas only as confused reverberations of his own. His nature bore the ineffaceable stamp of the spectacular and the exaggerated. His highly-charged mind, his torrent of words and distorted ideas, his gusts of emotion and over- towering egotism produced an effect both fascinating and repelling. The class listened stunned and spellbound. Teacher Personality No. 7 — Type 10 "Public School Music" was the name of the seventh class. Twenty-two women and two forlorn looking men comprised the class. The course was intended to train teachers of public school music. The teacher turned out to be a tall young woman, who dragged herself slowly across the room and collapsed wearily into her chair. Her voice, expression and movements were listless. "I want to give a few criticisms of your practice teaching last time," she drawled. 'T shall speak of them as I think of them." These consisted of a few straggling re- marks, rank vagrants drummed up from remote corners of her brain, ludicrously shallow and trite. Two women of considerable maturity took issue with some of her wilder criticisms, and after a lively encounter, forced the teacher to retract some and modify others of these criti- cisms. Her thoughts had apparently been doomed to the same fate as the Wandering Jew. She talked as though her consciousness and tongue had long parted company. Occasionally her gaze would grow abstracted, and her face would contract into a puzzled frown for no apparent reason. Then she would make an effort to collect her thoughts, would suddenly straighten herself, sit bolt up- right, and direct hef gaze to the class. This performance PERSONALITY CLOSE-UPS 23 dragged on for fifteen minutes with a generous propor- tion of repetition. After this followed a lamentable attempt to conduct a recitation. Apparently she had assigned chapters or sec- tions in several texts on psychology, and the recitation was to consist of a discussion of them. She called on the students to state what the various authors had said, not specifying in regard to what particular topic. One half of the students were not prepared and those who did respond proceeded to read their answers indistinctly and almost inaudibly from their notebooks, so that when their murmurs had ceased, few knew what had been said. The teacher seemed to know even less about what was being said than anyone else. It gradually developed that the assignments referred to certain principles of habit formation. As these hap- hazard contributions to the recitation straggled in, no attempt was made to sum up or relate them to the main topic, no well defined principles were evolved, and no efforts were made to indicate the relation of the principles of habit formation to the learning or teaching of public school music. One woman who appeared to know something of the subject spoke of a certain statement that William James has made. "Oh, I don't know anything about that," said the teacher, sharply. "I have just read the two chapters I assigned." When listening to a student's garbled recitation, she would refer constantly to her own notes to check the ac- curacy of the student, occasionally reading haltingly from them. She had absolutely no sense of the relative value of the matter that the students read from their notes. She lacked logical power, alertness, and possessed merely a superficial acquaintance with a few trite, oft-repeated principles. She could not even focus her own attention upon the work, much less hold the attention of her students. The visitor discovered later that the teacher had never taught public school music in her life. And she was teaching others how to teach it! 24 PBRSONALITYCULTURE Teacher Personality No. 8 — Type 1 The last class visited the second day was a huge one of over two hundred teacher-students, whose electing a course in such numbers guaranteed some kind of strong personality in store. The room was full to overflowing; several of the men students had perched themselves on the window-sills and many of the others were standing. It was a class in Social Education. A rather short, well-built man entered the room and took his place behind the desk, alert and smiling. His bearing and movements indicated poise and ease of man- ner. He spoke a few words about the electric fans and the necessity of ventilating the room. Then he noticed the students perched in the window-sills. "Is it really and genuinely comfortable up there?" he asked. The class broke out into a hearty laugh. The speaker began to speak slowly in a smooth, even voice that had good carrying power. The day's subject was "The Various Aspects of Sociability." He spoke of the moral consciousness of our nation, and asked if it were declining or advancing. His own views were optimistic. As the talk continued on freedom of speech, friendship, social cooperation, etc., stories and witticisms that grew out of the situation would be followed by waves of spon- taneous laughter. His alertness and resourcefulness, his keen realisation of the effect of carefully chosen words, his adaptation to the students' psychology, his good hu- mor and spontaneous wit gave him a power that riveted the attention of the whole class. One thing that contributed to arousing their interest was the unexpectedness of the things he said and did. The "what-will-happen-next" attitude was aroused, the students stood on the tiptoe of attention to catch his next word. Nor did he by any means depend solely upon his "jolts" to produce interest. The reason was partly that, but it lay deeper. The subject matter itself was pro- foundly interesting, he took a novel point of view, his attitude was sincere and socially minded, and his com- PERSONALITY CLOSE-UPS 25 ments were penetrating and illuminating. Then too, the lecturer had mastered a unique kind of technique, a technique that was so highly finished as to appear spontaneous. For example, he used the rhetori- cal question often with great success. He would pro- pound the question, pause a moment until two hundred students had formulated answers in their own minds, and then snap off the answer. Sometimes he would raise a question and ask for an oral vote. There was a subtle air of flattery in the manner that the teacher called for the votes of the class. It was as though he suspended judgment until the class had rendered its verdict. Here was a man whose appearances were followed by hand-clappings and cheers. For fifty minutes he had commanded complete attention from a class of two hun- dred. His words were highly charged with suggestive power, which set in motion trains of thought and feelings greatly disproportionate to the intrinsic value of the words. It was as though light, delicately sounded over- tones possessed the power of vibrating sympathetically the deep fundamental tones. No visitor needed to be informed that he had seen a remarkable example of ar- tistic teaching by a strong personality, where an easy command of the subject was combined with audacity, subtlety, wit, charm and purposefulness. Summary, first two days' visits These first eight personality sketches include examples of the zenith and nadir of teaching ability observed. Only two other men of the seventy-two visited were on a par with the fourth and eighth teachers of mathematics and education, although four or five other teachers of great ability approximated them. The teachers of gram- mar and of public school music, Nos. 1 and 7, were among the half dozen least effective teachers observed whose teaching was clearly below "passing mark". The poor teaching power of Personalities Nos. 2, 3, 6, was due largely to faults of personality, — coldness, lack 26 PERSONALITYCULTURE of insight and enthusiasm, affectation, bluff, exaggera- tion, etc. — and only in a smaller degree to bad teaching methods. To be sure, each of these teachers could im- prove his teaching methods to considerable advantage. It is a significant fact that the teachers whose person- alities seemed the most effective, Nos. 4, 5, 8, also had a greater mastery of the proper teaching methods. From a reading of merely the above sketches, it be- comes apparent that certain traits of personality and teaching power are intimately related ; that if a teacher exhibits certain undesirable qualities of personality, he cannot attain marked success as a teacher. One trait in particular seemed to characterize the effective teacher and appeared to be lacking in the poor teacher; it was that of insight, the knowledge of what was going on in the students' minds, after first wanting to see, of appreciating their difficulties and points of view. The effective teacher adjusted his ideas, diction, and methods to suit the needs and backgrounds of his students. Enthusiasm, sympathy, charm, wit, exactingness, thoroughness, logicality, sin- cerity, vision and vigor were other desirable traits of personality observed. Does the reader question the desirability, yes, the ur- gency, of having teacher personalities observed at work in classrooms by college authorities who offer these person- alities to students? For Questions or Notes by Readers CHAPTER III LOW LEVELS OF TEACHER PERSONALITY Visits to the classes revealed this interesting point, that the classroom exercise, whether lecture or recitation, brings out in high relief for students as well as visitors the characteristic and fundamental qualities of the teacher's personality. A person in repose can conceal much, but action is a pitiless self-revealer, especially action that is bent upon the serious purpose of teaching. The act of teaching, the contact of instructor and stu- dent, lays bare the great hidden powers of prolific and pro- found spirits, or reveals the emptiness and impotence of shallow natures. It is a curious fact that in the class- room some teachers seem freer, less reserved than in the outside world, while others appear to withdraw them- selves into a shell of reserve. To the more expansive and volatile spirits the students' presence usually acts as a stimulus, while to cold, unsympathetic natures, its in- fluence is that of a depressant. Although the proportion may be the same in both cases, oddities, freakishness and exaggerations seemed more prevalent in the classroom than in ordinary social life. Peculiarities of dress, affectation and faultiness of speech and manner, slovenly postures of the body, tardi- ness, insincerity, frivolity, tediousness, garrulousness, flirting, salaciousness, indolence, cynicism, rampant ego- tism, arrogance, superciliousness, iciness and stoniness of manner were some of the salient faults which flaunted themselves. Some of the teachers were of displeasing or distressing physical appearance. Several appeared more careless of their appearance, manners, and actions during the class 28 PERSONALITYCULTURE period than one would like to imagine them when in the privacy of their own homes. In some cases one could plainly see that the students were greatly handicapped in their work because of the more glaring faults of the teacher's personality, and in many cases lesser faults must have proved discouraging and distracting influences. The following fifteen per- sonality portraits will illustrate some of the idiosyn- cracies, oddities of manners and appearance and weak- nesses and inadequacies of low level personalities among instructors. Some men of nimble wits and lively imaginations allow their minds to run wild, like engines stripped of governors. The two instructors next described are ex- amples of this. Teacher Personality No. 9 — Type 5 A French class was a miniature Babel. It seemed an Americanized version of a Chinese school. The teacher possessed a volatile mind whose safety valve showed it- self in a continuous running fire of persiflage. While he directed a few volleys to students in one part of the room, those out of range set up a number of minor vortices of chattering. The teacher was tall and stout, unctious in manner, fair-haired and of a florid complexion. The nimbleness of his tongue was in startling contrast to his portly appearance and listless posture. Only the surface of his mind was agitated, the deeper currents. — if such existed — were as inert as his body. "Perfect as I get it!" was his response to nearly every student's answer. Sometimes an excited buzz of protest arose. The rest of the class had not heard his last ques- tion or failed to understand the student's answer above the steady hum of their own voices. This sign of attention was astonishing. Apparently they chattered with one ear open to the teacher's words as the proverbial cat sleeps with one eye open. He momentarily withdrew his attention from the student who was reciting and LOW LEVELS OP TEACHER PERSONALITIES 29 directed his fusilade towards the rest of the class to clear up the difficulty. "Get it folks?" came from the teacher, after a few words of explanation. Another buzz of protest, then a little altercation, a truce and a readjustment, and "Now you're fixed, folks?" Again the teacher resumed his run- ning fire of individual persiflage. His questions were in French. He asked the ladies their age, and some said it was six and others eighty. He asked them if they liked the movies and wanted to be movie-actresses. No, they would rather be charwom- en and cooks. He asked the men if they had potatoes in their pockets, if they liked to eat snow. No, they had nothing but diamonds in their pockets and would rather chew snuff. During this chaffing some of the men walk- ed from one end of the room to the other to compare translations of sentences. One man was trying to stuff a book down another's coat collar. Here are three remarks by the teacher caught on the fly, while the observer had his eyes on the stage busi- ness of the lesser stars of the performance. "I'll let you do that later." "You don't know enough English to answer that." "You've got more trouble than spelling." It was very amusing. One wondered if this Gaelic light- ness, this frothy effervescence was not far preferable to the too frequent Anglo-Saxon dough of dullness. Still it was too bad that this wildfire mental activity could not be directed to more substantial and serious ends. Teacher Personality Noi 10 — Type 4 It was a class of "Musical Appreciation" assembled in a large auditorium. The teacher was a tall, heavy set man, well past middle age, with a thick mat of iron gray hair and a thunderous voice. He began by calling, or rather shouting, the roll and spent seven minutes running through forty names. It was strange performance. He went through it only once a week — as was learned later — 30 PBRSONALITYCULTURE but then he made an event of it. He made droll remarks about the more uncommon names, and demanded more sonorous responses to his calls. When some of the bolder spirits in the class answered so stentoriously that they awoke the echoes, he would shout back; "That's some- thing like it. I'm glad you're alive." There was no re- sponse when he called one girl's name; "We'll put her among the goats." The next girl responded to the call. "You belong to the sheep," he remarked. During the roll call some students entered about five minutes late. "Why don't you people come to class on time?" he roared. The late arrivals were momentarily taken aback. The other students laughed appreciatively. The class was in a constant state of titillation during the whole of this performance. It was sheer buffoonery with an element of drollery, but it none the less expres- sed a low level leadership. He then commenced to talk about Bach. He wanted to play some of Bach's organ compositions, but considered the organ in the auditorium too wretched to be endured. "I'd like to get rid of this organ !" he said, pointing to the instrument. "It is driving me stark mad. Who will buy it? It's up for auction. Who'll make the first bid?" No one bid. Apparently his depreciating comments had prejudiced the members of the class. No one desired the organ. All his exhortations did not "get a rise" from the class. He assumed an air of desperation. "Nothing bid. Going! Going! Gone! Sold to no one for nothing!" and he banged his fist on the lecture stand. The class was convulsed at the mummery. The rest of the class period was spent in much the same manner. His personality possessed a whimsical eccentricity of manner and expression, tinged with considerable high- handedness and arrogance. Yet his character appeared invertebrate and slovenly. His tomfoolery, nonsensical- ly, and horse-play were amusing, but demoralized the educational interest of the class. Not ten minutes of serious work was done during the whole hour. LOW LEVELS OP TEACHER PERSONALITY 31 Some teachers were lackadaisical and apathetic. They neither desired nor were able to do any effective teaching. A number of such teachers were visited and their classes were the scenes of several startling and unusual incidents. Two examples of this type of personality will be des- cribed briefly. Personality No. 11 — Type 7 A small class — eleven women and two men — sat wait- ing for the instructor to appear. It was a course in "Elementary Harmony." Five minutes after the gong had sounded, a young lady appeared in the doorway, an- nounced that the teacher wanted the class to write their exercises in harmonizing on the board, and thereupon disappeared. The transcribing of these exercises, con- sisting of four measures, occupied eleven minutes. The students finished this work, returned to their seats, but no teacher appeared on the scene. Then some daring spirit suggested that we organize an impromptu chorus and sing the exercises which had been transcribed on the board. One spirit took command of the piano, another seized a baton and assigned parts to each of the students. The visitor was asked to sing bass, presumably because he sat on the left side of the class. A few crashing chords, and we were off. It was real fun ; it was spontaneous and original and contained the spice of danger. The melodies which had been harmoniz- ed were sonorous and had the majesty of Gregorian chants. The spirit and exhilaration of the thing mounted higher and higher. We were carried away by a genuine enthusiasm. Suddenly as we were gloriously launched on the pinions of a stately melody, the teacher appeared in the doorway. The song faltered and dropped like a wounded bird in its flight. It was twenty-four minutes after the hour. The in- structor smiled comprehendingly, but made no comment. He was a tall young man and wore a cream colored palm 32 PBRSONALITYCULTURB beach suit, a white tie and white canvas shoes. The total effect was pleasing to the eye. His expression was nonchalant and indifferent, his manner was distinguish- ed, and as he strode across the room he carried himself stiffly and haughtily, like a young military officer attend- ing a fashionable reception. The teacher went to the board, and corrected one after another of the exercises written there, making a few com- ments as he went along. He finished the correcting in twelve minutes — nine out of the thirteen students having gone to the bo'ard. During the procedure he merely pointed out the mistakes and corrected them, but did not try to discover whether or not the various members of the class had noted them and could correct them. Then he wrote out a melody on the board and proceeded to harmonize it. Even in this he did not enlist the coopera- tion of the class. He sat down at the piano and played it over. "Wherever you can use a fifth you can also use a seventh," he said after he had finished. For a few mo- ments he dawdled with the keys, striking a few chords. "Do you know the use of discord in music? Concord of sweet sounds is not always a concord. Harmony is a matter of interest, you have discord and then a resolu- tion." He played a few bars from Tristan and Isolde, saying that here discord expressed desire. "We are not writing black dots, but music," he re- marked in a bored tone, gazing up at the ceiling. The class was a necessary evil ; he regarded it as a child that must be quieted, it was his task to keep it from fidgeting or crying. He succeeded, for he almost put the tiresome little creature to sleep. Some of the students stared listlessly about, others sat dreaming with half-closed eyes. They asked him no questions and he took care to ask them none. He wrote on the board, played the piano, and made a few desultory remarks. The twenty six min- utes which he deigned to spend with the class passed peacefully and uneventfully. The delightful spirit that had permeated the class during the impromptu concert had been smothered by the teacher's indifference and LOW LEVELS OF TEACHER PERSONALITY 33 bored manner. The teacher was frequently late and always lacka- daisical, was the statement of one of the students, as we filed out dejectedly. This teacher's apathy was in strik- ing contrast to the turgid, effervescence of the teacher previously described, but the results in both cases were about equally negligible. Teacher Personality No. 12— Type 8 It was another class in beginning French, which was visited during the last week of the summer session. The teacher was a saucer-eyed, thick lipped man with gaunt cheeks and sandy hair. He did not look like a French- man, much less did he talk like one. First he sent his class of fourteen students to the board, each to translate two short sentences from En- glish into French. To each student were assigned dif- ferent sentences. During the ten minutes consumed in writing these, nothing was said. The next twenty-five minutes were devoted to correcting these sentences. The number and variety of the mistakes that the students succeeded in making in these simple exercises constituted a marvel of misdirected ingenuity that taxed shrewdly the teacher's ability to correct them. One might have expected a storm of denunciation and ridicule from the teacher, for the futility of the work was truly disgraceful. But it appeared to occasion no surprise. He plodded a- long amiably and futilely, droning out his criticisms with an apathetic patience mixed with a somnolent keenness. The remaining fifteen minutes were devoted to oral work, wherein it developed that the students did not understand what the instructor was saying, that the lat- ter's pronunciation of French was execrable, and that the students' ability to answer in French was almost zero. The oral work consisted of a series of questions in French repeated a half dozen times, often with an English trans- lation of them and interspersed with monosyllabic re- plies from the students. The replies consisted mainly of 34 ' PERSONALITYCULTURE variations of "non", "oui", "comment", and "je ne sais pas". The students had learned practically nothing dur- ing the five and a half weeks. Towards the end of the hour a huge wasp, which had remained perfectly silent until this time, broke out into a terrible buzzing, apparently unable to restrain any longer its indignation at this parody on teaching. Most of the girls started as if stung, craned their necks, and glanced wildly about the room to locate the source of these ominous noises. Even the men aroused themselves out of their apathy to stare about in search of the intrud- er. The wasp seemed to have been seized with some violent hallucination. He was spinning round and round the chandelier like a motorcycle on a race track. The attention of all the students was focussed on the antics of the crazy little beast. Their expression was one of commingled amusement and alarm. The teacher at- tempted to continue the recitation, but the class could think of nothing but the furious revolutions of the wasp. Apparently, there was but one solution, the immediate annihilation of the intruder. So, snatching up a window stick, the instructor like a valiant knight of old advanced to the attack and struck out fiercely at the venomous creature. The blow missed the wasp, but almost smashed the chandelier. The warrior struck again and this time a glancing blow knocked the winged opponent against the window pane. The blow and the impact of the glass pane appeared to have stunned him, for he crouched there silent and immobile. The gleaming window stick descended and crushed the benumbed creature. The poignant suspense of the class vented itself in a sten- torian sigh of relief. Flushed with the victory, the wasp- slayer marched proudly back to his desk, brandishing his weapon aloft. "Voila la bataille de la guepe!" he called out. The class laughed heartily. The "battle of the wasp" was practically the only thing to the teacher's credit that occurred during the hour. These last four descriptions illustrate the pernicious effects of indifferent, lackadaisical personalities. In none LOW LEVELS OF TEACHER PERSONALITY 35 of these classes were the students obtaining results in any degree approximating the possible attainments. The first two men were teachers of considerable ability and grasp of subject, who frittered away the class time with banter and tomfoolery ; the two last described were lack- adaisical young men who had little enough personality as it was, and should have strained every effort to de- velop their teaching power so as to 1 produce results. Many of the teachers were frigid and stiff in their man- ner. Their expression was one of contempt and aloofness, and appeared extremely forbidding to the student. Teacher Personality No. 13 — Type 6 In this class the teacher was lecturing on "Heredity and Eugenics". He was past middle age. His features were large and firmly moulded. As he stood by the side of his lecture stand waiting for the class to assemble, his appearance was impressive and commanding. When he started to speak, however, one suffered a dis- tinct shock. Instead of the resonant voice of a deep chested man, one heard a thin, high-pitched voice like the quavering of a youth. He spoke rapidly, enunciated quite distinctly, but his intonation was as monotonous as the flatness of a prairie. It was impossible to detect from his tone what part of his lecture was essential and important, and what incidental and trivial, for he empha- sized nothing. As he lectured, the settled hardness and coldness of his nature revealed itself unmistakably. He seemed as incapable of enthusiasm and sympathy as a granite statue. His eyes were cold and hard and dull, while his face lacked the mobility of expression which reveals a warm, sympathetic nature. His influence on the spirit of the class was markedly depressing, for the students sat in their seats dull and apathetic. He had his assistant throw various lantern slides on the 36 PERSONALITYCULTURE screen. This sufficed to arouse momentarily the interest of the students, who sat up and craned their necks to observe the slides. However, as soon as he commenced to explain the slides, they would relapse into their former listlessness. Apathy and interest alternated like the trough and crest of ocean waves as new slides were fol- lowed by tedious, unilluminating" explanations. His com- ments were full of long strange, technical terms, which no one appeared to understand and which he made no at- tempt to define. When the lights were turned off to bring out the pictures on the screen, the teacher's form, erect and im- mobile, could be seen dimly outlined by the reflected light thereon. One was then forcibly struck by the im- pression that the thin, droning voice was mechanically produced in the interior of a cunningly fashioned statue. The teacher did not appear capable of a genuine human emotion. Teacher Personality No. 14 — Type 5 Another teacher who seemed as cold and unemotional as the one preceding, was giving a course in "Physical and Applied Geography". He was of middle age, tall and spare. What appeared at first glance to be traces of laughter and good humor in the corners of his eyes and mouth turned out to be markings of an ironic humor and a tolerant cynicism. His was not a harsh, arrogant na- ture, but it did contain a vein of coldness and mocking aloofness. His chair was swung around so that his left side was presented to the class and as he sat there, he slouched back in his chair and his limbs sprawled out with one knee crossed over the other. His chin and knees were on the same level. He changed his position only once during the recitation, when he went to the board to point out the course of the Rhine River. His mind was as lazy as his body, for while the class consisted mostly of mature students, — presumably high » LOW LEVELS OF TEACHER PERSONALITY 37 school and grade teachers, — who had a right to expect to gain a broader perspective as well as a deeper grasp of the profounder principles of the subject, the course ap- peared to be merely a review of fifth, sixth and seventh grade geography, identical in matter and spirit with the work done in these grades. Nothing was discussed, no questions asked or answers given that would have sur- passed the grasp of a sixth grade pupil. Not only that, but the method of conducting the recitation was of the same quality as the subject matter, — mechanical, cut-and- dried, and monotonous. The class lacked snap and vim. Intelligence and interest were minus qualities. The pe- riod was an intellectual backwater, stagnant and brackish. The whole trouble could be laid at the door of the teacher, for it resulted directly from his peculiar type of personality. This quality of emotional inertness, this coldness and indifference, characterized all too many of the instruct- ors. At least twenty of them were of a markedly frigid, unsympathetic nature and in twen'ty-four more there were traces of this trait. It is folly to expect teachers of such personality to accomplish worth while results with young people, whose emotional natures are so fresh and vigorous and whose enthusiasms are so lively and expansive. Coldness is a deadly foe to interest, without which little good can come out of classroom instruction. Another obstructing personality element is affectation. Among college students many of whom still retain their adolescent perspicacity, it is fatal for a professor to be af- fected. Students have a keen sense of the ridiculous, and there is little that escapes their sharp eyes, and does not prove fair game for their ridicule and mockery. The affectations of the professors furnish inexhaustible sources of amusement for the students, and at the same time provoke in their hearts a feeling of patronizing contemot. 38 PERSONALITYCULTURE Teacher Personality No. 15 — Type 7 The teacher wore tortoise-shell rimmed glasses of such great size that they looked like automobile goggles, and distracted the students' attention from what he was say- ing. He was a fair, plump young man of about thirty. He spoke blandly, with a soft wheedling voice. During most of the class hour he sat on a tall stool, swinging his leg to and fro. One was reminded of those drawing room gods, "eligibles," who pose in front of fireplaces, and chatter glibly on all possible subjects, while doting mammas and worshipping daughters drink in their golden words. It was a course in voice training. The subject of his talk was the vocal organs. He was speaking of the larynx. "With some men the larynx is very large. Haven't you ever watched a man's larynx when he is eating? The action of it fascinates one." The class, mostly girls, watched him soulfully — he was very hand- some — with that far away look of people listening to soft music. He spoke of the peculiarities of certain voices, and as an example, he told of a large youth he had heard in a cafeteria a few days ago, who talked like a girl. As he imitated the youth's voice, the unconscious irony of the situation flashed upon one. The difference between his own voice and the one he imitated was but the difference of a few degrees. Voice and tortoise rimmed glasses were admirably suited to his nonchalant, affected air and manner. It was not enough for him that his appearance and manners were affected, but he must treat his intellectual processes in the same way. He evinced an unusual attitude toward his subject matter, for he appeared to stand apart from his subject with his arms akimbo, teasing and befuddling it, laughing at it and flirting with it. Occasionally he resembled a child, pretending to be an actor. He appeared to forget about the class, and sometimes seemed to treat it as an imaginary audience. His prattle apparently was intended mainly to amuse LOW LEVELS OF TEACHER PERSONALITY 39 himself. For example, he had a number of plaster of paris casts, some of the vocal chords, some of the skull. He fondled them as a child its dolls, turned his head away from the class, and directed his chatter to them. Then he would suddenly recollect the presence of his class and address himself to his fond admirers. It was a ridiculous performance, to say the least. There is a great deal of cruelty in most students' natures. Students make but little distinction between those ridiculous affectations which are preventable, and certain physical defects which are unavoidably ludicrous. The man next described is an example of a teacher who was ridiculous in both appearance and manner, yet is classed in personality type 3 because of other qualities and powers that even affectations could not entirely sub- merge. Teacher Personality No. 16 — Type 3 He was a professor of history whose low cut sailor collar revealed a thin pipestem of a neck, upon which was perched — most precariously, it seemed — his round, bald head, resembling for all the world a large wooden ball on the top of a gate post. His weak, squinting little eyes were protected from the too curious gaze of his students by blue-tinted glasses. A flamboyant, light green necktie made large claims on student attention. His voice was thin, high-pitched and girlish. He had a facile command of words. But he overworked an affec- tation of his speech until it became tiresome. For ex- ample, he used long "uhs" to link together his loose jointed sentences, while he drew generously on his stock of "ands", pronounced "awhnd", to bridge the students' attention from one idea to another. He used seventy- five "uhs" and thirty "awhnds" in five minutes. France became "Frawnce"; can't was pronounced "cahnt" and dance "dawnce". "Europe", for example, became "Eurip" under the wizardry of his tongue. Despite these little idiosyncrasies of dress and speech, he was dn the whole 40 PERSONALITYCULTURE quite charming, entertaining - and informing. He was bright and humorous, and alert to adjust his sly, whimsi- cal humor to the mood of his students, who laughed both alternately and simultaneously at his affectations, ludi- crous appearance, and witticisms. A couple of the men appeared to experience difficulty in expressing themselves as fluently and as clearly as they wished. Teacher Personality No. 17 — Type 7 A class in "Architecture" was being held in a darkened room. A young man with a bald forehead was seated behind the lecture desk. A small dim light with a green shade illuminated his manuscript. The shade darkened his eyes somewhat, but the light shone full on his mouth. It was a startling mouth, for it was both enormous and ill-shapen. Certain irreverent spirits in the class spoke of him as "Newlywed". He spoke so indistinctly that one wondered if the size of his mouth did not prevent the proper focussing of the sound waves. Not only was his enunciation indistinct, but his voice was so low that it was practically impossible to catch his words. Yet he sat there, blase, nonchalant and assur- ed, as though he were a most effective, instead of an al- most futile pedagogue. Teacher Personality No. 18— Type 8 Another man was giving a course for football coaches. He was a large, powerfully built man. He gave a curious talk on liniments, alcohol, wintergreen, bruises, sprains, scratches and broken arches. Apparently, he was not a man of wonjs, but a man of action, for very often he would stop in the middle of a sentence as though stricken with sudden aphasia, sputter and choke, and start pacing LOW LEVELS OF TEACHER PERSONALITY 41 the room. His movements were eloquent of an internal distress which he had no power to alleviate. He maltreated the King's English with the same energy and incivility that he usually bestowed upon a tackling dummy. He had a predilection for saying "arnicky." The term seemed as indispensable to his discourse as the article is to football players in their training rooms. His ideas appeared to suffer from fearful dislocations and rheumatic distortions. The progress of his ideas resem- bled the wheezing and snorting ascent of a superannuated locomotive up a steep grade, bumping and jerking along. There existed no possibility of extracting any humor from the situation, for the slow grind of a few phrases inter- rupted by sudden jerky pauses was agony for both teach- er and students. And yet the man continued his attempts at speaking with a desperate, foolhardy cour- age. It was a unique but extremely uncomfortable ex- perience. Tediousness on the part of the instructor in the class- room may result from a number of causes. Very rarely does it result from a teacher's excessively rapid intellec- tion, although such cases may exist. Then tedium results because the ideas thrown out by the teacher are too unusual and move along too rapidly for the students' minds to grasp them. The students cannot hit the same pace of intellection and lose interest through sheer ex- haustion. The lecturer in the class "The High School Recitation" described in the preceding chapter, was a good example of rapid, though confused intellection. The students could no more follow his rapid train of associations and ideas than they would overtake the Twentieth Century Limited going at full speed. Sometimes students become bored because of too great an amount of banter, joking and whimsicality. Living on mental froth is unsatisfying; the intellect calls for substantial food. Then, too, apathy, coldness, affectation and ineptitudes of speech are breeders of boredom. The zenith of tediousness, however, is reached in classes 42 PBRSONALITYCULTURB where the teacher is prolix and platitudinous. Nothing is so painful as to be subjected to lectures and recitations which are discursive and repetitious, and are replete with the trite and the obvious. An astonishing number of the instructors had develop- ed this power of inflicting tedium upon the defenseless students. Often the classes of such men were torture racks from which there was no escape. Teacher Personality No. 19 — Type 7 The teacher of a class in "Modern German Drama" was a young, tall, blond-haired fellow who wore glasses, and had already fallen into the manners and tak- en on the appearance of the proverbial scholar. He talked continuously in a peculiar and erratic kind of German. The fault was not so much that the pronun- ciation was so execrable, but that the structure of his sentences was strange and uncouth. He would propound a question, repeat it, and then proceed to recast it into two or three different forms, sometimes using complete sentences and at other times only phrases. During the whole hour he called on only three students individually to answer questions. In addition, he asked only a dozen leading questions of the class, who mechanically respond- ed "Yes" or "No" as the occasion demanded. The rest of the time was consumed by his talk, sheer drivel, by comments and explanations which were variations of the trite and the obvious. He possessed a species of alertness which was part of his campaign for suppressing thought of any character or quantity, for his eyes were constantly searching for the laggard and the inattentive and whipping them into a state of mechanical eye-allegiance to himself. He strang- led all thought and animation. There was no escape from the all-encompassing tedium. In some classes, however, there existed some loop- LOW LEVELS OF TEACHER PERSONALITY 43 holes for escape from boredom. Some of the classes were large, and there the students could take turns nap- ping like squads of sentinels relieving each other, could read novels, study other lessons, write letters, send notes, or whisper gaily. Teacher Personality No. 20 — Type 9 In one class a number of students managed to escape the full effects of tediousness, despite the fact that it was a small class consisting only of six men and six women. Although the room was small and contained only three rows of seats, each row had the backs of the seats solidly connected, so that they formed bulwarks against the prying eyes of the instructor. It was a sophomore class in "Composition." The teacher was talking about reformed spelling, and was inveighing against the tendency to mangle the English language. He devoted thirty-five minutes to a tedious talk on reformed spelling, which should not have required more than ten minutes. His talk consisted of a series of loose-jointed, rambling ideas, utterly hackneyed and stupid, which the students had probably discarded in the grades six or seven years previous. Not one of the stu- dents paid any attention to his remarks. Dull and listless they sat gazing wearily about the room or staring ab- stractedly out of the windows. Three of the students were courageous enough to emancipate themselves entirely from the tyranny of their teacher. One girl was reading Arnold's "Sohrab and Rustum," another was reading a French play by Labiche, and a third student, a man, was reading some German poems. Their absorption was complete, and no doubt the other students envied them their brief snatches of happiness. During the last fifteen of the fifty minutes the teacher attempted to enlist the students' cooperation, but with no success. He spent ten minutes in reading a composition, then asked for comments. No one had any comments to make, so finally the teacher was forced to 44 PERSONALITYCULTURE criticize it himself during the five remaining minutes. The two men last described had mediocre, pedestrian minds. They were like tortoises crawling along, labor- iously examining every inch of ground they covered. Not only was their gait plodding, but the ground covered had been traversed many times before. Teacher Personality No. 21 — Type 5 Another man observed had this same quality of mind, but his fault was not so much that of triteness as of an excessive diffusiveness, due to an overanxiety to make things clear for the class. He was giving a course in the "Teaching of Literature". He was of medium height. His brow was finely proportioned and betokened fine in- tellectual powers, but a weak chin expressed irresolute- ness and timidity. His manner was suave and his voice bland. He bent forward in an apologetic manner, and he rubbed his hands together in a conciliatory fashion like the conventionalized pawnbroker receiving a rich customer. Diplomacy and tact oozed from every pore. He was advising the students what texts to use. It was "One should not do this", "It was better to use that text", "This is preferable", "Does not this seem advis- able?" "What does the class think of this idea?", until one wondered if all his vertebrae had been extracted. He seemed to abhor the idea of an argument or a dis- cussion. He monopolized almost all the time; occasion- ally, he would ask a yes-or-no-question of a student, stop a few seconds for an answer, and hurry on. A number of times some of the students were on the point of raising a question, but the teacher would then talk all the faster, and stretch out his hands deprecatingly, like a minister hushing up a boisterous Sunday school class. Although he was a man of considerable ability, his faults — correctable faults — of personality alienated the sym- pathy of his students. His effect upon teachers is re- curred to in Chapter V. LOW LEVELS OF TEACHER PERSONALITY 45 Teacher Personality No. 22 — Type 4 It was a class in "English Literature". The teacher stalked into the room dragging his feet in a peculiar manner. Although he could lift his heel off the floor the toe of his shoe scraped on the floor. He was tall, slouchy and awkward. His body was a wonderful collection of joints, — ankles, knees, hips, fingers, elbows and shoulders. A huge Adam's apple and a colossal nose, a close rival of Cyrano's, gave the finishing touches to the edifice. The man seemed an orgy of knots and protuberances. One might have thought that he was an apotheosis of Ichabod Crane, only this man's ears were puny upstarts in comparison with Ichabod's "flapping sails". He was lecturing on Smollet, Fielding, Richardson, Sterne, and did not mince his words. His frankness was unnecessarily offensive, and he mouthed his innuendoes — of which a dozen were recorded by the visitor — as though he relished every word. It must have been a disgusting experience for the seventeen women of the class, who possibly were wondering whether it were vileness or justifiable scientific frankness. One speculated whether this was his usual procedure or whether the theme and subject-matter had temporarily contaminated the man. After the class some of the men said he was always like this, continually flinging out cynical and salacious re- marks. That a detailed classification would rank such a personality in type 4 only emphasizes the fact that col- lege faculties may not safely condone lack of minimum essentials no matter what other qualities of "scholar- ships" may be present. There exist a few men who are so surcharged with energy that they are constantly erupting like active vol- canoes. To many students these eruptions usually appear ridiculous or affected, and always disconcerting. They cannot understand why anyone should concern himself so energetically and seriously with the affairs of this world. 46 PERSONALITYCULTURE Teacher Personality No. 23— Type 3 A teacher of "Agricultural Bacteriology" lectured on his subject with all the fervor of an old time evangelist. He possessed a megaphone voice, which would have suited the New York Hippodrome better than this modest class- room seating 'thirty-five students. His words came rushing out at breakneck speed. His voice rumbled and increased to deafening crescendo and then suddenly drop- ped to a low diminuendo. One might imagine him to be battling furiously with an unseen foe. But, over-exag- gerated as his manner might seem, he accomplished his purpose, for his principles were driven home with trip- hammer blows. The man had a tenacious grip on his subject matter. Facts and figures were poured profusely in an almost continuous seething cascade of words. If he stopped, it was only to catch his breath and glance at his notes. Like a great tragedian, he projected his deepest and sin- cerest emotions into his subject. His voice became thick and choked when he talked about the number of people who had succumbed to typhoid fever and tuber- culosis from impure milk. One was drawn into his own raging maelstrom of feelings, as he declaimed on the horrors of infant mortality caused by contaminated milk and made a plea for the necessity of pasteurizing it. He also delivered an impassioned speech on the manu- facture of cheese. Eight varieties of cheese had been placed on the lecture table, and suffused the room with their pungent, heavy odors. Their odoriferous po- tency almost rivaled the lecturer's eloquence. It was an unforgettable symphony of sounds and smells. The teacher had certainly mastered the principle of emphasis and the trick of appealing to as many senses of his students as possible. One wondered if he would allow us to taste of his cheese, but this he did not permit us to do. However, one felt apologetically grateful that he showed greater consideration for our palates and stomachs than for our ears and noses. As it was, with- LOW LEVELS OF TEACHER PERSONALITY 47 out this additional appeal to our sense of taste, his lecture made a lasting impression. It was unfortunate that a man built physically and intellectually on such a heroic order could not obtain a far greater arena for the exercise of his powers. Summary of Low Level Personalities It was distressing and disheartening to observe such a large proportion of tattered and ill-kempt and low-level personalities among seventy-two university instructors. Some of them retained many of their adolescent traits, such as banter, frivolity, superciliousness, conceit, and affectations of dress and manner. Others had sloughed off these, but had gained in their stead few, if any, of the sterling qualities of maturity. A number were apathetic, indifferent, indolent, fawning or cynical. Several ap- peared to be in their dotage, were senile and ineffectual. Others were cold, arrogant, unsympathetic, unresponsive and diffusive. Many of the men described in this chapter were indolent, anemic natures, whom a generous supply of vital energy would have destroyed, as a powerful engine would wreck a rotten hulk. All of these low-level teachers seemed to lack the power of self criticism. They could not see themselves as their students saw them, and readjust themselves to the requirements of the situation. They did not appear to realize that their affectations provoked ridicule on the part of the students, that excessive banter irritated them and bred a feeling of contempt, that their coldness alien- ated the interest and affection of the students, that their insincerity and apathy aroused disgust, and that their diffusiveness and triteness bored painfully. Some teach- ers seemed oblivious to the fact that although they pos- sessed considerable power they were not obtaining re- sults. Others did not realize that they themselves had practically nothing to give the students. Some were 48 PERSONALITYCULTURE bluffs, knew it, but persisted; others were so egotistical that they deliberately ignored the students, Many of these men, especially the younger, could easily take themselves in hand, and reshape and develop their personalities, if they were helped to realize their short- comings and to apply themselves to personality culture. For Questions or Notes by Readers CHAPTER IV PERSONALITIES PLUS Under the present scheme of higher education, it is largely in the classroom that the vast spiritual treasures of the past generations are transmitted to the rightful heirs, the youth of the new generation. It is here that the great canvasses of the past are flashed upon the mental screens of the youth, so that their minds may gain perspective and see the world in its three dimensions. The present must be stripped of its baffling complexity and its fundamental order and framework laid bare. Young hungry minds must be nourished and quickened to multiform activity, noble passions must be aroused, enduring interests kindled, and eager souls swung into action. It was gratifying to observe that a number of the teachers had comprehended the more significant and com- prehensive potentialities of the classroom and at the same time had the ability and the desire to develop and utilize them. The preceding chapter depicted a gallery of rather displeasing and ineffectual personalities. Fortun- ately, they had their opposites. What follows will pre- sent an exposition of eight personalities who, but for exceptional traits, were serious and well-balanced, force- ful, enthusiastic, sympathetic, pleasing, and in many cases charming. These range from highest types of mental and spiritual excellence to types which are con- siderably above the average in qualities that inspire students to high levels of thought and effort. A number of these teachers were men of generous mental endowments, of high attainments, and of great energy and poise. A few possessed the qualities of true greatness; exceptional powers of acquisition, indefatig- able zeal, and a vast capacity for work. Some were of restless intellectual curiosity, of retentive memories, of 50 PERSONALITYCULTURE penetrating insight, with a rapacious appetite for fresh knowledge, a driving enthusiasm and contagious sym- pathy. Others were not so highly endowed, were of les- ser mental stature, but fine, sincere and winning. A few finely wrought and highly finished minds were discovered, men of delicacy and sensitivity, keen, witty, and scintil- lating. Two of the men were frank and open-hearted, and were so generously endowed with broad, human sym- pathies, that their kindness, tolerance and good nature seemed inexhaustible. Their sympathies had so sharp- ened their intuitions that in presenting their ideas, they knew exactly how to make them lucid and transparent to the class. Instinctively they appreciated the specific difficulties of certain ideas, and took particular pains to clear them up. Some teachers project their ideas at the student in much the same fashion as mud geysers eject their columns of mud. The more such men talk, the more they befuddle the students. But these two men seemed to invite you down through pellucid depths into spacious submarine galleries of glass, through whose transparent walls you could observe the profound and hidden mysteries of life and nature. Teacher Personality No. 24 — Type 1 It was a class in education termed "The Treatment and Training of Atypical Cases", consisting of twenty- four students, nine of whom were women. The teacher was a gigantic fellow, tall and powerfully built, with a massive head and strong features. He reminded one of the magnificent Porthos in the "Three Musketeers". During the first two or three minutes of the hour, he struck one as being cold, almost apathetic, but after he commenced talking and drawing out his students the first impression was soOn dispelled. Apparently, his mind was of the same great proportions as his frame, and required some time to gain momentum. During the first five minutes, he made announcements of various PERSONALITIES PLUS 51 texts to be used as references. He spoke easily and dis- tinctly, and his voice was rich and sonoitms. He began his lecture proper as follows : "In classifying children they are divided into two class- es, the normal and the defective. But there are also some cases which are doubtful, and these are said to be on the border line. The term border line is merely a conven- ient refuge for ignorance. The definiteness of such cases will come out in the offspring, and they will show whether these persons are defective or normal. The point is to know this before children are born." Then he went to show the final tests which distinguish the normal from the defective in borderline cases. Chil- dren of the same degree of backwardness of five years must be judged by their potentiality, not by their ac- quisition. The same is true of two children backward at eight years, for either or both may be "aments". It is during puberty that the distinction between those merely temporarily backward and those permanently backward becomes clear. '"Children at puberty," he said, "have a tremendous growth in brain tissue and fibres ; they have a new supply of soldiers to be mobilized, to be drilled to fight the bat- tle of life. The problem of backward children is not what they have attained, but what is their mental po- tentiality for puberty. MENTAL POTENTIALITY should be written like NEW THOUGHT with capital ietters to make it look like something. Suppose we have two children of fifteen years. Suppose both appear back- ward. Then what are the problems? In this case would we examine their capacity?" "Yes," answered the class. "The first that must be done is to remove all physical defects, allow a certain period, so that there has been time for adjustment, then we may examine their ca- pacity." He was very careful to make sure that the terms used were fully understood by the class to head off wrong conceptions. 52 PERSONALITYCULTURE "What is the difference between amentia and demen- tia?" he asked. "Amentia is the lack of a fully developed mind," an- swered a student. "Can an ament be a dement?" "No," said the class, "anyone becoming a dement must start right." He then commenced a discussion of the physical de- fects which cause backwardness among school children. He enumerated a number of these defects and commenc- ed an exposition of adenoids. This included their defini- tion, the signs of their presence, and the immediate and remote effects of enlarged adenoids. The gong sounded before he had completed his talk on adenoids. During the whole hour he had stood on his feet behind a lecture stand. Occasionally he would turn to the black- board to draw a diagram, make an outline or write out an unusual word, for the purpose of eliminating all ob- scurities of subject matter. In addition to his gift of clear exposition he possessed that most desirable quality of a teacher, the knack of heading off all possible mis- conceptions and preventing twisted ideas from striking root in his students' minds. He appeared to realize just what things were difficult to understand and took special pains to drive these home. He had mastered the great principles of emphasis. The students were left in no doubt as to what was or was not important. In addition, he enlisted the cooperation of the class. The students' minds worked in unison under his guidance like a com- pany of well drilled soldiers. He asked them questions and demanded their opinions on various subjects. The teacher was winning, open and frank. He treated the students with an air of intimacy and displayed a spirit of camaraderie that quite won their hearts. He was saturated with his subject, with knowledge gained not only from books, but from laboratories, clinics and public schools. So easy, so fluent was his command of the subject, that he seemed like a conjurer who could by some power of psychic legerdemain adapt the matter to suit the minds of every member of the class. His was PERSONALITIES PLUS 53 a nature in which sympathy and knowledge seemed in- terfused. The same intuitive power by which he appre- hended his students' needs and difficulties had commu- nicated itself to the students, so that they in their turn were able to perceive his meaning quickly. This give- and-take was like the magic interplay of spirits which sometimes springs up between an actor and his audience. He was a man of dynamic energy, with an active and powerful mind and an upwelling sympathy. His was an inspiring and strengthening personality, which later fig- ures as one of the four 100% personalities noted in this study. Teacher Personality No. 25 — Type 3 It was a course in "Rural Sociology." The class con- sisted of twenty-three men and nine women, most of them mature, some middle-aged. The teacher was a short, thick-set man of about fifty years, jovial and im- perturbably good natured. His manner was assured, simple and direct. From his first statement it was ap- parent that he was a man of enthusiasm and idealism. "If you can meet a dynamic man for two dollars, do so by all means. I once walked twenty miles to hear Henry Ward Beecher . I have made journeys to great men as to Meccas," he said and commenced to recount a number of his similar experiences. Suddenly he stopped short in his discussion of this subject, and apologized to the class for having strayed from the topic for the day's lesson. He then commenced his consideration of the lesson, which was an exposition of the family life on the farm. He spoke of the dominat- ing influences of the man on the farm. Hitherto, the man had lorded it over the women, sons and daughters, who had virtually been merely servants. Now a modern farm is coming to resemble a business concern, for the farmer has his business office where he keeps his ac- counts and carries on his correspondence. Sons and daughters are given their own rooms, receive spending 54 PERSONALITYCULTURE money and time off, while the women are not the drudges they once were. Women are beginning to demand the modernization of the farmhouses, servants and good clothes. Upon women depends the complete socializa- tion of farm life. "Farm life is the bulwark of the home life of the nation," he said, "the farm is the breeding ground of people of stamina." He told of an incident of a horse- buyer who would not buy a team of horses which had been raised in Chicago. He wanted nothing but country bred horses. Just then a beautiful collie wandered into the room, sniffed about and disappeared. "He is just an auditor, not signed up yet," flashed out the teacher. All this was preliminary to a detailed consideration of definite attempts that farmers in the state had been mak- ing towards socialization. Farmers' Clubs, Women's Clubs, and the Commercial Clubs of Villages which wel- come the farmer were concrete examples of a growing community spirit among rural dwellers. The teacher was full of his subject, he appeared to have worked shoulder to shoulder with the farmers in their attempts to or- ganize their clubs. He mentioned the names of many of the clubs, knew personally the presidents, secretaries and prime movers in these activities. He passed around pic- tures of members, officers and buildings of some of the clubs and of various fairs and exhibits which had resulted from this form of cooperation. His talk was packed with good, hard common sense and full of concrete suggestions as to improving the conditions on the farms and arousing and coordinating community spirit. Flis subject was the breath of his nostrils. He had many amusing experiences to relate and his talk was sprinkled with odd phrases recurring again and again. He radiated good nature and sympathy, laughed heartily at the remembrance of past experiences, and was equally ready to laugh at similar accounts from the students. The class was like a genial social club, of PERSONALITIES PLUS 55 which the teacher was the leader, who saw to it that there was a definite program run-off per schedule. Some of the teachers who possessed great intellectual power, high attainments and mastery of their domains of thought still appeared to lack proper emotional equip- ment. They were cold, formal, distant and unsympathet- ic. They dazzled their students with their brilliant attainments, but did not win their affections or arouse them to great sustained effort. The two men described next were examples of this type of personality. Teacher Personality No. 26 — Type 2 It was a class in the "German Novel." The teacher was about forty years old, tall and finely proportioned. His was a serene countenance that betokened the pres- ence of a majestic intelligence and a lofty spirit, of poise and sincerity, and a pervasive, tempered zeal. He lectured in German, a beautiful, melodious, flowing German. His sentence structure was supple and mus- cular, his diction elevated, and his style adorned by the treasures of beautiful figures of speech and by jeweled utterances of noble souls. He spoke first of the great Goethe, and commenced chiseling away the incrustation of fiction that concealed the real Goethe in "Dichtung and Wahrheit," comparing the true image with that presented in "The Sorrows of Werther" and "The Vicar of Sesenheim." He compared the other characters of Goethe's novels with their pro- totypes in real life, and traced the similarities and dif- ferences between the related and actual incidents. The various influences upon Goethe of other writers, Rous- seau, Goldsmith, Richardson, etc., were brought out. He read his lecture from manuscript fluently and clear- ly. He was careful to make everything clear to the class. He would repeat the antecedents of his pronouns, would write out on the board the names of unfamiliar characters and people as he came across them in his lecture. His discussion of Goethe's novels showed- an intimate know- 56 PERSONALITYCULTURE ledge of that author's works. The teacher's pertinent observations when comparing the fictitious with the real Goethe, gave proof of extensive reading and scholarly- research, and displayed exceptional qualities of pene- tration and judgment. The lecture was the finished product of a highly gift- ed and well trained mind. It was well suited to the au- dience which consisted of mature students of intelligence and apparently good training. To understand, it presup- posed a broad grasp of literary movements and an intimate knowledge of Goethe's works. Whether or not the teacher had taken steps to test the students' knowledge could not be determined. The one great fault of the class procedure was that the teacher did not ask the students any questions or attempt to enlist their active cooperation. Furthermore, his personality was too cold and distant to inspire the average student. Ordinarily, this kind of a lecture is a poor vehicle of instruction. The redeeming feature of this particular lecture was the opportunity accorded the class to sit and listen to the polished expression of a finely cultured mind, and to become acquainted with such a distinctive and admirable personality. Teacher Personality No. 27 — Type 2 A class in "The Crusades" had assembled for the day's lecture. At the stroke of the gong, the teacher strode in and seated himself — for the hour — at the desk. He was of medium height, thick set, well past middle age, with a bald forehead and iron gray Van Dyke beard. He spoke with great deliberation, his voice was thick and heavy, with a peculiar rising inflection at the end of each sentence. One gained an impression of a vast men- tal energy lurking in this physical bulk. Preliminary to his lecture, he gave the sources of his material. They consisted of works in French, German, English and Latin. The one in Latin was a translation of an old Saracenic writer, Ossanna, a man, who had lived about PERSONALITIES PLUS 57 one hundred years. The teacher said he would give the picture of the period, first from the viewpoints of the Saracen writers, Ossanna among them, and then from the Christian chron- iclers. He would give fthe facts and the class might draw their own conclusions, and determine what was the real condition of life during the Crusades. The period discussed was that succeeding the Crusaders' conquest of Jerusalem, when they were engaged in keeping the Saracens at bay. He related the events of the life of the Saracenic author, Ossanna, and spoke of his education and his activities. Then he quoted some of Ossanna's observations about the Christians and the Saracens. Apparently Ossanna had found plenty of opportunity to acquire a thorough understanding of the Christians. "This was easy enough," said the teacher, "because there was probably less fighting in Syria during this period of the Crusades than in Western Europe." Ossanna told of the Christians' knowledge of medicine and compared it with that of the Arabs. The Arabs were very skillful in the use of drugs and herbs to cure wounds, but the Christians used the axe to get results as soon as possible. Amputations were the fashion. Sometimes the Christians had eruptions on their bodies, and since they appeared on their faces and noses, the habit of the axe occasioned some trying experiences. He told how the pious French scholars who translated the Saracenic books had made many amusing mistakes. In their excessive zeal they had interjected expressions of praise or blame and often would transpose the mean- ing of bless and curse. Hence, often there is found the expression, "May Allah curse them," addressed to the Christians and this "May Allah bless them," when in- tended for the Saracens. For instance, in one place Ossanna is rendered by chroniclers as follows: "I visited my friend, the Frank, may Allah curse him !" The Saracens had a vast contempt for Franks, especial- ly for their amusements, and made sport of their piggeries and pig-catching. "Wherever you find Franks, you will find pigs," they said. "May Allah forgive me for men- 58 PERSONALITYCULTURE tioning such a vile object," were the words of a sheik, when speaking of a Frank. A Frank who had been wounded, wanted to see the Saracen who had hit him such a tremendous crack. The Saracens gave him a safe conduct to satisfy his pardon- able curiosity. "Whenever a Christian writer wants to refer to a Syrian, he gives him the name of some Philistine or heretic," said the teacher. "He is correct, all the heresies of the world have originated there." He also gave the Christians' impressions of the Saracens and of their own life. The manner and customs of the Saracens had a beneficial effect upon the Christians. They gained fineness and polish, and learned many of the courtesies and comforts of life through their contact with the Saracens. The teacher had a tenacious grip on his subject. A vast number of concrete facts and specific details were steadily brought forth to reconstruct the pictures of this bygone age. It is true that while sometimes the out- lines of the pictures were confused, nevertheless one could not help admiring the wealth of material the teacher poured out with such quiet, inexhaustible energy. There seemed no end to his knowledge. One imagined he could sit and multiply details after details for years. And there he sat, imperturbable, impassive and immovable as a great statue. He did not even smile at his own flashes of irony. Neither lips nor eyes betrayed the presence of anything but a settled gravity. His was a calm and ma- jestic nature whose vast activities proceeded leisurely, yet persistently, irresistibly carried along by the momen- tum of its previous activity. The finest teaching results were not obtained because of a cold and unsympathetic personality accentuated by his sitting throughout the hour and giving his students no opportunity or need to show if they were grasping his masterly presentation. Others of the eight ablest teachers were of less com- manding intellects, but keen, alert, flexible and sympa- PERSONALITIES PLUS 69 thetic. They were men of fine spirit, charming and witty. The three men next described belong to this type. Teacher Personality No. 28 — Type 3 "The pageant is the drama of the history and life of a community showing how the character of that community as a community has been developed ; is W. C. Langdon's definition of a pageant," began the teacher in a class in "Festivals and Pageants." "Here is another definition, formulated by Lewis W. Parker: A pageant is a representation of the history of a town from the earliest period to some later point forming a fitting climax. It is not a stage play ; it is the lofty and dignified panorama of the town's history." He read rapidly and distinctly. The man was alert, his manner and appearance were charming, poised and vigorous. His face was oval, its shape accentuated by a pointed beard, light brown in color. The face was sensitive, but expressed resolution, and that steel-like strength which characterizes Frenchmen of fine spirit. His smile had an underlying seriousness. He read two other definitions of the pageant, and asked the class to name the pageants they had heard of or seen. Then as the various pageants were mentioned, the students would compare their characteristics with those called for by the definitions. One after the other he called on the members of the class, — twenty-four in number. The Rockford and the Whitewater pageants, the pageant of the Star Spangled Banner, the pageant of the missionary, the St. Louis pageant, and the mask in La Crosse were mentioned among many others. Some of the students could not think of any. As they compared the characteristics of the pageants mentioned with that demanded by the definitions they discovered that the illustrations did not fit the definition. "All right," said the teacher, "We must change the definition to fit the reality." He spoke of the Pageant of Nations, which was not an orthodox pageant. 60 PERSONALITYCULTURE "One always thinks of the pomp and circumstances of the pageant. There is a great display, a long procession of persons," he went on. "That is what was meant by pageants before Mr. Parker came along and defined it." He was dexterous in his contact with his students. He had an intuitive knack of setting them at ease, of win- ning their confidence and enlisting their cooperation. A genial tolerance and a ready open-mindedness were the salient characteristics of his personality. He had a subtle air of deference towards the women which quite reassur- ed them and set them at ease. His wit was tinged with a delicate whimsicality. It was pleasing and stimulating to sit in his class. Teacher Personality No. 29 — Type 3 It was a course in "Shakespeare's Historical Plays." The teacher, whose physiognomy resembled that of a Jap- anese, was a small, dark man who wore glasses with thick lenses. His appearance and mannerisms were those of the traditional scholar. The class work for the day appeared to consist largely of a detailed study of the style and diction of Shake- speare's "King Richard II". Peculiarities of word usage, striking phrases, unusual meters, and all the idiosyncra- sies of its language were noted. He traced the geneology of many of the words rapidly and crisply. He seemed to have a good grasp of Anglo-Saxon and Latin and a pre- cise and comprehensive knowledge of philology. He stated simply that he had bicycled many times over Eng- land. He appeared intimately acquainted with the geog- raphy of the scene of the play and described the places mentioned in the play. He had a very good map of England on the wall, and referred constantly to this, pointing out locations of towns and castles, streams, hills, valleys, parks, and manors. It was very illuminating to listen to his quiet expositions of English geography. The teacher's mannerisms were peculiar, but not dis- tressing. When searching for a word or idea, he would PERSONALITIES PLUS 61 roll his eyes toward the ceiling, and then suddenly jerk his head down and glance sharply at the class. Some- times he would clasp his hands together with his arms extended stiffly in front. His speech and all his motions were sharp, quick and precise. His knowledge of English political history, of the cus- toms and laws of the period, appeared to be as exact and exhaustive as his philological and geographical lore. One might have supposed that this leisurely precision, this exhaustive attention to minute details, would prove extremely tedious to the class, but the reverse was true. The class seemed imbued with the same quiet passion for accuracy that characterized the teacher. It was in marked contrast to the impatient, slipshod work done in many other classes, in which not nearly the same atten- tion was demanded of the students. This interest of the class was probably due to a certain exactness, keenness, and crispness of the teacher's mind. He demanded these same qualities of his students, and encouraged them to point out their independent discov- eries and observations of the peculiarities of language. The class had gained considerable power in observing and thinking for themselves. When he called for reci- tations the students would respond quickly and accurate- ly. Their senses of sight and hearing were on the alert to observe every motion and word of the teacher. It was splendid training for these hurly-burly, impatient young Americans to work with a man of such patient exactness and penetration, of such precise and exhaustive know- ledge. His mental qualities were productive because of engaging personality elements, sympathy, interest in in- dividual students and sincerity. Teacher Personality No. 30 — Type 5 A dark little Frenchman was conducting a class in French conversation. He had a black beard which he caressed with his right hand, while his black, snappy eyes glanced rapidly about. He was alert, vivacious and 62 PERSONALITYCULTURE witty. He spoke only French — very little English was used even by the students in the class — and gesticulated con- tinually. All his motions were quick and sharp like those of a wild creature of the woods. His habit of tugging at his beard would occasionally blur his words, interfering to a small extent with the clearness of his enunciation. Usually, however, it was easy to understand what he said. It was 'the thirteenth of July. The teacher reminded the class that the morrow would be the fourteenth, the French Fourth of July. ''You may not show sympathy towards France tomor- row in this building, but you may do so outside if you choose." He spoke in French. He announced a lecture in French that was to be held on the morrow, and spoke of arrangements for a picnic of the French classes. Then he called on a girl to take his place behind the desk. The two exchanged positions; she to assume the role of the teacher, he to become a student. The girl read an original story in French, in which she told about a canoe trip on the lake, a storm coming up, the excite- ment of paddling to shore, the return home and the mother's anxiety about her daughter's safety. It was well done, executed in fine, free strokes, short, but with vivid description and sharp flashes of observation. The language used was charming. She had a fine feeling for apt words and phrases. The class listened attentively during the reading. When she had finished reading, she asked a few questions based on the story and called on various students to answer them. The students were ready with replies, some serious and answering the question directly, others evasive, playing on words and twisting the meaning. The impromptu teacher would reprove the flippant with mock sternness, while the impromptu student would nod his head approvingly, call "bravo" and flash out a witty remark. When the latter was called on to recite — as he sometimes was, although the school mistress did not show an overdue partiality, he would break out into a PERSONALITIES PLUS 63 flood of French, ironic, and satirically catching her up on the improbabilities of the story. But the young instruc- tress would brook no insubordination. "Listen, Monsieur," she would break in, "you forget yourself. Remember to whom you are speaking. Do not become rude." (All this was in French.) "Ah, to be sure, Mademoiselle. Pardon me. Truly T have forgotten myself. I should have remembered that women are goddesses, above all criticism and reproach," returned the offender, cleverly shifting the implication of her reproof that respect was due her as the teacher. He stood up, bowed humbly, and seated himself meekly. It was delightful, the whole class was permeated with a fine spirit, and most of the students seemed to catch this fine French spirit of raillery and respond to it. Nimble tongues flung back sharp retorts, and quick, glinting ideas were shuttled back and forth. Another girl was called on to read her story after the discussion of the first was exhausted. She had written up an incident about a little girl, Rosette, who was very poor and very plain in her appearance. But Rosette had a very lively imagination, and felt keenly her poverty and plainness. She was always imagining herself rich and beautiful, always popular and receiving attentions from a host of admirers. One day she found a beautiful rose on the street which some rich lady had probably dropped from a carriage. Soon after she met a number of her girl friends and told them that her rich young adorer had sent her a dozen of these roses. Her companions would not believe her, she must prove it, and they would accompany Rosette home to find out. They did so, but discovered no flowers. "Menteuse," they called to the little deceiver and left her in high disdain. The story was cleverly handled, and aroused an ani- mated discussion. At first the authoress maintained command of the situation. But soon the students broke away from her control, and demanded to know more a- bout this little girl. Where did she live — what were her parents like — had she read much — what was to become of her — did her habit of lying grow on her — etc. The teach- 64 PERSONALITYCULTURE er was bombarded with questions. She could not answer them all. The class swung into a discussion of the hor- rors of lying. Some said it was dreadful, others said it was necessary, that clever lying was a virtue. Rosette's fault was that she was found out. It was very amusing. The whole class had become infected with a spirit of delicate humor. If a teacher is to be judged by the spirit of indepen- dence and the self-activity of his students, and by the personality his students evince, surely this teacher de- served a high reward. Teacher Personality No. 31 — Type 1 The next man described evinced the most consummate mastery of the art of teaching that the visitor has ever observed. Greater intellects and stronger personalities have been encountered, and a vaster display of attainment witnessed, but never one who was so indisputably a mas- ter of his craft. His is the fourth 100% personality among the seventy-two instructors here reported. A class of fifty students, only four of them men, was assembled for the last recitation of the summer session. It was a course in the "Teaching of German." The teacher entered the classroom promptly on the hour. He was a tall, angular man. As he paced nervously back and forh across the room with soft, springy steps, he seemed the embodiment of alertness. His mind possessed a leaping, flashing energy. Every eye in the room re- turned the glow of his eyes' fire. "I shall sum up briefly the ground we have covered in this course," he began, as he glanced at some meager notes. Then in a few statements he had summarizd the work of the whole summer session. It was a tour de force that bespoke great energy and brilliance of mind. He then tossed up a few questions and called on stu- dents to express their views. The students attacked the problem with the dash and skill of trained soldiers. *'Let us consider a few questions on modern language PERSONALITIES PLUS 65 instruction which have been sent me by teachers through- out the state," he said. "The first question is : How much stress should be put on concert reading", and what is the advantage of it?" He called on a number of students by name. ''It will encourage weaker students who are timid," said one student. "The muscles of the voice are trained, it affords opportunity for motor expression, and saves time," came from a second student. "It checks faulty pronunciation of a certain few pupils and they get strong- er auditory sensation," said a third. "It keeps the class awake," remarked the fourth student. The students had answered clearly and concisely. The teacher then gave his view on the subject. "I should use it mainly for the first and fourth reasons," he said, "it encourages the timid and keeps the class awake. The last reason is the most salient one. Again if you have a large class to deal with, in concert recitation you give them all a chance. If you have individuals who are particularly handicapped, you must speak to them after class. You ought not spend too much time with individuals, for it is robbing the class of its time. A knowledge of phonetics comes in handy at such a place. Sometimes the trouble is physical and requires medi- cal aid, or perhaps it is incurable." He took up another slip of paper. "The second ques- tion is: What do you think of work at the board, is it mainly a means for drilling or is it a good way to save work on the part of the teacher?" The instructor then called upon various students for their opinions. "I would send them to the board just to write the sentences," said one. "Would you consider it a crime to write a declension on the board?" asked the teacher. "No," returned the student. "Have the students put a whole declension on the board, not a small part," continued the teacher, "it is easier to retain the whole, although it is possibly easier to learn the small part." "I should send two or three to the front board," vol- 66 PERSONALITYCULTURE unteered a student. "I should send two or three to the back board," re- marked the teacher. "Why?" "So as not to distract the other students." "But the other students want to see their work," ob- jected another of the students. "But we do not want them to do this, we want the rest of the class to be occupied during this time," replied the teacher. "Take the example of a mixed class, of Anglo- Americans and German-Americans. Give a good deal of outside reading to the German-Americans, have them write their resumes in German, keep the pupils busy and there will be no need for discipline." Another student volunteered. "The purpose of the board work should be to give tests in spelling. If one or two were deficient, 1 would give them individual atten- tion." This answer did not seem acceptable, for the class demurred strongly. "What is the objection?" asked the teacher. "Because you are taking the time of the class for the benefit of the few." "Would you send the poorer or the better students to the board?" asked the teacher. "I should send the better students to the board, for they would work faster and save time," was the answer. "I would send the poorer students to the board," said another, "for then their mistakes are brought out more clearly. If the pupils make a mistake, then the correc- tion of it is striking, hence I should send the poor stu- dents." "It would be better for the pupils if they did go to the board, because otherwise they do not get the mus- cular action of writing, I should give them assignments in rotation and give everyone a chance," was another opinion. Others had their ideas : "It is better to correct the oral work, because then the mistake or wrong idea would not have time to take root or make a permanent impression." "The more who do board work the better, for pupils like justice." "Board work gives justice to PERSONALITIES PLUS 67 those who are poor in pronunciation, who can express themselves in writing." There was a flood of conflicting opinions. "Shall I settle this strike?" interrupted the teacher smilingly. "Let me tell you that I believe in board work. I should send the pupils in rotation. I should give harder sen- tences to the brighter pupils. Writing fixes things, makes a more permanent impression. This gives justice to the pupil who does not pronounce well. But don't utilize the whole board, giving an assignment to each pupil, for then you spend too much time correcting all the mistakes, and you will get nothing but board work done during the hour. I should treat the class like one in mathematics and give more credit to those who do more work." A number of other questions were discussed in a simi- lar fashion. It was a dramatic display of teaching personality and efficiency. The teacher stood on his feet during the whole hour. His whole manner and attitude expressed assurance, resourcefulness and sagacity. He was like a great general in battle, who was marshalling his force for a vigorous attack. His students were like well drilled soldiers, awake, trained to think, to speak, to defend their own opinion and criticise severely those of others. Amid this lively rivalry, the teacher stood alive to the weight, the bearing and the shrewdness of every thrust given and of every defense made. Then after the skir- mish was over, he would rapidly seize the main points of the discussion and combine them in a final summary. The class gave proof of great cumulative progress. The minds of the students had been trained to think in similar terms, to watch with a hawk's eye the progress of the recitation, to pounce upon the essentials, to attack the vulnerable and to defend that of real value. The keen, ready judgments of the students were based on well grounded principles of pedagogy, — the principles of motor expression, of preventing diffused attention, of the utilization of all the senses in learning, etc. In addition the students had a clear realization of practical problems of the classroom and the mechanics of recitations. Dur- 68 PERSONALITYCULTURE ing these six weeks the teacher had implanted the basic principles of classroom procedure, and had trained his students to apply them skillfully to concrete situations. The man was tall, rather gaunt, with high cheek bones, and quick eyes. His smile was like the smile of a lovely landscape, — a smile that opened the vista of all the earn- estness, the kindliness, the humor, the sweetness of a lifetime of active, purposeful and beautiful living. Here was a man purged of puerile vanity, a man of whose character modesty was an integral and unconscious qual- ity. His personality was magnetic and powerfully at- tractive. He received you into the splendid halls of his nature, as one peer meets another, with a ready and im- plicit confidence that was a poignant exhilaration. The visitor left this class with the conviction that here was one of nature's noblemen, whose splendid intellectual gifts, whose broad, fervent sympathies and dynamic zeal were whole heartedly devoted to the task of illuminating the minds and energizing the wills of his students and fellow beings. If personality can win appointment, pro- motion, dismissal If it makes one such a good fellow that his time is wasted in good fellowship If it causes students to flock to or from an instructor's course If it draws students like a magnet for conference If it wins confidence If it compels and expresses thoroughness Why, pray, is it impossible to describe it? Self Surveys by Colleges and Universities, P. 274 CHAPTER V PERSONALITY AND TEACHER TRAINING The beneficiaries or maleficiaries of the thirty-one per- sonalities thus far described were, with few exceptions, students who were seeking help for use in teaching. Most of them had taught, were about to teach again the next autumn, and were spending their vacation at the feet of advertised masters. The significance of this fact is accentuated when we remember that ''teachers teach as they are taught not as they are told to teach." Besides courses in subject matter for teachers there were twenty-two courses in how to teach different sub- jects like history, mathematics, literature, composition, public speaking, training the atypical, etc. One natur- ally expected the highest type of personality and of teaching in these courses on how to teach, work which would illustrate most clearly and forcefully those methods and precepts which would be described to teacher-stu- dents. Unfortunately, the observations did not justify such expectations. Of twenty-two teachers of teaching only three were in the first class exhibited at this same institution ; five were of high grade personality ; six were mediocre ; and eight because of defective personality and technique were doing seemingly futile or ineffective work. Personality elements that can never in fairness to de- mocracy's education be set to teaching teachers were prominently exposed such as : affectation, flippancy, su- perficiality, carelessness, procrastination, inertness, slav- ish devotion to mechanical routine, lack of openminded- ness, coldness and formality of manner, pretense, stupid- ity, diffusiveness, laxity and tediousness. Of twenty-two instructors whose only advertised pur- pose was to teach others how to teach, seven were 70 PERSONALITYCULTURB extremely careless and indolent. They came to class al- most wholly unprepared. They had not sharpened their impressions of the subject, or reviewed their material before coming to class, but relied on old smooth worn impressions and knowledge gained years ago. Teacher Personality No. 21 — Type 5 One example of this fault was the teacher who was giving the course in the "Teaching of Literature", men- tioned on page 44. The class consisted of seventy students, most of whom appeared to be teachers of con- siderable experience. The teacher commenced talking about the "Merchant of Venice." He propounded and answered several ques- tions in regard to it: 1 — "Who is the hero of the play, Antonio or Shylock? Probably Shylock, for no> actor stars as Antonio or Bassanio." 2 — "Is the play a comedy or a tragedy? Did Shake- speare intend it as either, or did his play get away from him? Probably the latter was the case." 3 — "When does the play become serious, cease being comic, and enter the realm of the tragic? When Jessica elopes." A — "How serious is Shylock's intention to exact the pound of flesh— that is, why did he exact the bond or loan the money? Probably for two reasons, first, to humble Antonio, and shut his mouth, and second, to harass him. These less tragic reasons are crystallized into an avowed revenge when Jessica elopes." 5 — "What of the character of Bassanio? Teachers must not let high school pupils become enamoured of Bas- sanio. He is a great calf." The students laughed. "But one should not be too harsh with Bassanio either." 6 — "How far shall the plot be studied? Not deeply — just indicate the four plots and see how they are con- nected." PERSONALITY AND TEACHER TRAINING 71 During the first part of the hour he was at ease and held the attention of the class admirably. He appeared to have a fairly fresh and intimate acquaintance with the play. But when he tried to quote passages illus- trative of his points, he failed lamentably. He did not have his text at hand to read the passages to the class, hence was unable to quote. The latter part of the hour was spent in discussing Milton. Here he made less headway for his grasp on the matter was poor and his presentation lacked clear- ness and grasp of details. He had forgotten to bring his copy of Milton, he said, and would have to rely upon his memory. But his memory played him false. He mentioned the poems of Milton that should be read in class, — "L'Allegro", "II Penseroso", the sonnet on "Blindness", and the first book of "Paradise Lost". He had purposely left out "Comus", he said, since that was rather unsatisfactory for high school pupils. "What shall we look for in Milton?" he continued. "First, the beauty of the cadence of sound. This should be brought out by good oral reading. The teacher her- self would be able to do this. Little is accomplished by poor oral reading. Don't let poor readers spoil Milton. You must not develop reading at the expense of Milton." At this point he tried to quote Milton's sonnet on "Blindness" as illustrative of his point, but he could scarcely stumble through it. Then he spoke of the grand- eur of Milton's verse, its uplift and biblical elevation, but gave no concrete examples. He was an experienced teacher, well versed in his sub- ject, but had neglected to prepare himself adequately for his class. He had not only neglected to refresh his mem- ory but had forgotten to bring to class copies of the works to which he was referring. It is small wonder that students resort to bluffing and deception. There were five examples of colorless and inert per- sonalities wholly controlled by old fixed habits of thought. The recitations consisted mostly of fact questions and 72 PERSONALITYCULTURB answers. Very few questions called for anything but sheer memory processes. Judgment, reasoning, compar- ison, and contrast, induction and deduction were in these classes as superfluous as a third thumb. Teacher Personality Not 40 — Type 8 The teacher was giving a course called the ''Influence of Geography on American History." It was an oral quiz of the first week's work, so that the visitor had an oppor- tunity to discover the nature of the subject matter cov- ered. The teacher was a young man of perhaps thirty- five years, medium stature and of slight frame. He lacked animation and force. His nature was cold and impassive. Although his questions called for knowledge of the most elementary character, the teacher-students halted at answering them. It was as though they possessed merely a collection of hard, angular fragments of facts and had difficulty in picking out those which would have any relation to the question. The teacher's attitude was shifty and wheedling. He tried to coax out the answers by a leechlike process, but the difficulty was that he applied his process to undigested, inorganic masses in- stead of assimilated, organic material. What he needed was some sort of a magnet to pick up the bits of infor- mation he had scattered in the minds of his students. Here again was a teacher syphoning a vacuum. "What else?" "What more?" were constantly in use during the whole of the hour. The recitation was a series of me- chanical shocks and jolts on the memories of the students to start a train of thought. The following represents a portion of the recitation : T. Why did Europe seek the tropical products of the Orient? S. They sought mostly luxuries. T. (The teacher called on another student.) S. The difference of the products of the two coun- tries explained it. Their mineral products differed PERSONALITY AND TEACHER TRAINING 73 to a considerable degree. The Crusades increased Europe's desire to know the Orient; to know the scientific advancement of agriculture. T. How about the civilization of the Orient? S. Civilization in the Orient was much more ad- vanced. T. What factors made the contact with the Orient quite easy? S. All the water routes. T. Was it all water? S. No, there was the Isthmus of Suez, but it was cheaper by water. T. What other geographical factors made water more desirable? S. The winds and monsoons that were encountered on the land routes. The recitation progressed in the above manner during the whole hour. The elementary character of the subject matter, the formality and mere fact-vending character of the course, the poor grasp that the students had on the subject be- tokened two things : first, the students had in previous courses and teaching experience either never learned or had completely forgotten these things both as students and as teachers ; second, even in the present course, the simple subject matter had not been mastered. The last fault must be laid at the door of the univer- sity teacher, and a five minutes' visit to the class would have revealed the reason. The trouble was threefold : first, the man had not mastered the technique of teaching . second, he had a very poor grasp on his subject matter; the third, his personality was weak, colorless and inef- fective. He had only twelve persons in the class, each one of whom should have been able to give the gist of the whole hour's recitation in eight or ten minutes. In- stead, an hour was needed to extract it piecemeal from the students. Five out of the twenty-two teacher trainers made ab- solutely no attempt in the sessions visited to capitalize 74 PERSONALITYCULTURE the students' experiences, three others made but very- little, and only four made the most of this potential bene- fit. Teacher Personality No. 1 — Type 9 An example of this fault was the class in "Modern English Grammar" for teachers and prospective teach- ers, described on page 11. The class was visited on the first day of the summer session and was again visited the day before the final examination. The teacher was still talking in his halting fashion, still stumbling over his "uhs", and laughing at the vision of approaching jokes which never materialized. He was now talking to a class whose thoughts had been beaten as flat and hard by six weeks of crushing tedium as a macadam road packed by a steam roller. "Punctuation is taught too mechanically, it should be taught from the analysis of sentences," the teacher com- menced. "Turn to page 31, to the classification of sentences. The usual definition of a simple sentence is that it represents a single thought. But the word 'thought' is definite. A simple thought does not need to be expressed in a simple sentence without modifiers. A simple thought needs one subject and one predicate and may contain a number of modifiers." As he proceeded he would read certain illustrative sen- tences which the author had given and criticize these. For example, the text contained this sentence : The letter of introduction containing no matter of business was speedily run through. "The author wants you to say that the phrase 'con- taining no matter of business' is an adverbial phrase, because it gives the reason why the letter was speedily run through. But we must be careful to distinguish be- tween the grammatical relation and call it an adjective phrase," was the teacher's comment. He rambled along in this manner for some time. Fi- nally a vague feeling of the inadvisability of further PERSONALITY AND TEACHER TRAINING 75 diffuseness must have arisen in his consciousness for he said that there are some things in grammar we can take for granted. He cited a young lawyer in a case before the State Supreme Court, who persisted in going into the most exhaustive details upon every conceivable point of law when presenting his case. The judge, all out of patience, said finally : "There are a few things in law that you may take for granted the Supreme Court knows." The teacher seemed utterly unconscious of the beau- tiful irony of his story. His whole six weeks' course like the young lawyer's presentation had been largely a tedious exposition of the obvious. For fifty minutes the teacher continued his tortoise- like progress, carefully examining every inch of his way. During the time no student said a single word. Not once did the teacher address a question to these teacher-stu- dents. They maintained the impassiveness of bronze statues. Here were thirty experienced teachers, who had probably taught grammar for years, treated like so many empty vessels to be filled up by a stream of words. It would not have been so bad if the talk had been interest- ing, but it was intolerably dry, diffuse and trite. It would require the genius of a Burbank to produce ideas of any kind in this intellectual desert. An atmosphere of formality and constraint pervaded ten or about one-half of the twenty-two teacher training classes. Teacher and class seemed utter strangers to each other and each appeared suspicious of the other. Here was lacking that spirit of give and take which characterized the classes of skillful teachers. The teach- er did all the talking, and students remained silent and stolid, like a group of brow-beaten prisoners. Teacher Personality No. 42 — Type 6 A particularly flagrant example of this fault was in a large class of seventy students in the "Teaching of His- 76 PERSONALITYCULTURE tory". When the visitor entered the room, the teacher was writing- the outline of his lecture on the blackboard. This occupied a few minutes after the gong sounded. The teacher was a man somewhat past middle age, with gray hair and moustache. He was tall and squarely set, and wore a gray suit. "It would not be much amiss to wish you the top of the morning," he remarked in a constrained, formal tone of voice. One noticed immediately a stiffness and cold- ness of manner, of diction and voice. His movements were angular and mechanical. His greeting did not a- rouse much interest. He turned and pointed to the blackboard on which he had written his outline, and pro- ceeded to lecture about reasons for teaching history, con- sidering in turn the following topics : 1 — The recentness of teaching history. 2 — Distinction between reading and study of history. 3 — Informational values. 4 — Intellectual values. 5 — Ethical values. 6 — Training of powers of expression. The lecture lasted forty-two minutes. At the end of this time, the teacher remarked that the class was open for discussion on the part of the students. After much prodding, two students ventured a few comments, and the teacher had to fill in the other six minutes with his own remarks. During the whole hour, the class had maintained the attitude of a man who resigns himself to listen to un- welcome advice from a dictating superior, but takes his revenge in assuming an expression of deliberate and pointed indifference. The atmosphere was one of frigid hostility. And the reason for it all was the formality and stiffness of the teacher's personality. The "front" of his personality was an impenetrable, forbidding wall through which nothing entered from nor emerged to the outside world. An assemblage of mummies would have served the purpose equally as well as these students. PERSONALITY AND TEACHER TRAINING 77 Personality concerns colleges only so far as it produces results. There are personalities that seem to violate prac- tically every standard but nevertheless produce excellent results. At the end of a summer session, however, re- sults should be apparent. In class after class there was tangible evidence that students had not benefitted in proportion either to the university's obligation to help them or to their own capacity. Deficient teacher person- ality multiplied by deficient teaching technique was the chief explanation. Teaching Personality No 44 — Type 7 It was a course in "Public Speaking", which was in- tended to give the students training in speaking grace- fully and convincingly before large audiences. The class consisted of twenty-one students, ten of them women. This class was visited the fifth week of the summer ses- sion, so that if any definite results were to' be forthcoming, they should have been apparent at the time. The teacher was a young, dark haired man who car- ried himself with a military stiffness. His gestures were jerky and mechanical. He spoke distinctly but with the monotonous intonation of a deaf man who has been taught to speak by the lip reading method. The teacher spent the first twelve minutes of the hour in directing the class how to make an outline of a little speech which they were to write, a proceeding which should have been unnecessary at this stage of the course. The remainder of the hour was devoted to the recita- tion of short selections by members of the class. Of the fourteen students who were called upon, no one spoke with any degree of force or animation, or possessed any ease of manner. One young lady had not quite mastered even the words, much less the art of delivering her little speech. She stumbled along painfully and stopped four or five times during her three minute speech. One large, fat fellow stood up as stark and stiff as a corpse and recited 78 PERSONALITYCULTURE his piece in a thin, bland voice, which might have been an asset to a young lady, but which was ludicrous emerg- ing from him. One girl gave a selection containing a number of Spanish names over which she rattled with a superb unconcern for accuracy and intoned her phrases as though she were reciting a lullaby. Another co-ed dashed breathlessly through her sketch as though it were a hundred-yard-dash. The women were the most inept in their efforts. The last young lady tripped gaily through great rhetorical phrases as though she were gossiping about a dance at an afternoon tea. The last man to speak, however, despite the fact that he forgot and repeated, was really vigorous and convincing. Some of the selections were patriotic and contained bronze-throated phrases that should have stirred the pulse to quickened action. Patrick Henry's clarion calls — "Shall Freedom be purchased by chains?" and "Give me liberty or give me death !" were reduced to trivial- ities. Apparently these phrases had not struck a single responding chord in the hearts of the students, had not kindled a spark of the emotion which had given the words birth. One could have excused extravagance, but this apathy was unendurable. Towards the end of the recitation, the instructor asked how many wanted to speak before a large audience the next week which was to include all classes taking "Public Speaking." Only five students evinced enough interest to ask about it in greater detail and of these two half-heartedly expressed an intention of attempting it. This incident exemplified the listlessness of the teacher, the apathy of the students and the futility of the whole course. The fact that the faults listed in this chapter were noted in many of the other fifty teachers considered in this study does not mitigate the seriousness of exposing teachers to such deficient teaching and such inadequate personalities. What can be the final result of such a condition of PERSONALITY AND TEACHER TRAINING 79 affairs upon the teaching ideals and habits of those teachers who sit in such classes day by day? The an- swer is obvious. All these teachers are subject to the law that a teacher teaches as she is taught. Mastery of subject matter does not dismiss objectionable models. The teacher imitates the tones, the gestures, the attitude of mind, and the methods of her own teacher. What more natural than that to a considerable extent teachers in training should consciously as well as unconciously imi- tate the personalities they encounter and endure in col- leges of education? Some of the teachers of splendid personality and mark- ed ability, just fell short of excellence by their failure to enlist the cooperation of their classes through student self-activity, without which class attendance is almost productless. A little self analysis and self criticism after the fault has been pointed out to these men would easily remedy this fault. The ill effects of bad models, of vicious examples of teaching in colleges of education are not confined merely to secondary schools, but are visible within the confines of the universities themselves. In very few cases are there any provisions made for the pedagogical training of young men who are preparing to teach in colleges. Many normal schools produce teachers for elementary schools who really can teach. The college and univer- sities can do the same if they will train college teachers in the same thorough-going manner. When university authorities will permit only real teachers of strong per- sonality to train other teachers, then can grade and sec- ondary teachers come to the university as to a truly in- spiring, a quickening and rejuvenating Mecca. 80 PERSONALITYCULTURB "■S n -' 03 hfi d ' d ° .Pi CO oS P Pi O to CO P.2 ^•d ° • p £ £ d 3 y £ ce o :>>>>>> ri k^j t^> l r^ n »*^ >,!>>>> 3 g aS_oaSa3a3aS.Qa3aSaS a)P« 'd as? o rs CO o £ .9S^^oj§cd_pi C o co i-i 0) CM b0 d 'So >>"£ : as t; o -u ■■a -4-* .d ho : d . o £ d o ,d • '3 bJJ I d C 4-3 d • O . cS • +3 -d o oS o> fa 3 • *_, f-^ p CO o • a , P „ a gd^'oa^ho^o.SlS^S So » H fl"H 72 021 11 £,d •° °> a as d 0> 03 bJO CP U X! g HNM^UMt-CeOSOHIMOJ^iatONOOOiO CHAPTER VI TEACHER PERSONALITY CLASSIFIED Classification of the personality of elementary and high school teachers has been projected as an indispensable science and art by several university teachers. Several score cards have been devised, taught and marketed as aids to school boards and superintendents in selecting, training and promoting classroom teachers. Moreover superintendents, as in Kansas City, Mo., and Evans- ville, Ind., Republic and Bay City, Mich., have with the aid of teachers themselves worked out classifications, elaborate and simple. The most comprehensive scheme yet developed was built up cooperatively by teachers, principals and superintendent in Evanston, 111. — and later abandoned for non-educational reasons ! The ac- companying personality chart has already been widely used for and by teachers in public schools. Higher education, however, including normal schools, has been slow to admit that what's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. Perhaps university faculties have not yet found time to try their own medicine. Per- haps they have been too busy diagnosing the personality ills of lower education to diagnose their own personality needs. It may be easier for college teachers to develop a classification that has been built from personality factors observed among seventy-two university teachers at work, than to accept one spun from the wisest introspection. The following classifications and comparisons are sub- mitted for their possible helpfulness to those analysts of higher education who see the need for workable classifi- cations of professorial personality and for systematic 82 PERSONALITYCULTURE personality culture for and by college teachers. Modern educators agree that the college teacher should aim to produce advantageous modifications of the intel- lectual, emotional and volitional life of the students. From the teachers' success in educating the minds, hearts, and wills of their students we shall be able to gauge the relative degree of their teaching power. Any classification of teacher personality should consider sep- arately the intellectual, volitional and emotional factors. The ability to produce what Cardinal Newman terms an "enlargement of the mind or illumination," what we shall term candle power of intellectual illumination, is, at present, what most colleges expect first and foremost of all teachers. But we have outrun Cardinal Newman's contention that "the business of a university is to employ itself in the education of the intellect." Modern educa- tors consider this too narrow an idea of the university's function. Even if we agreed unreservedly to Newman's statement, we would still contend that the best way to educate the intellect is not to attempt to train the intel- lect alone. For the human mind is a complex living whole from which no one theoretically defined faculty or activity can be abstracted or segregated for any isolated treatment. Sensations, feelings, emotions, concepts, mental imagery, desires, motor impulses and acts of the will are all inextricably inter-related components of any conscious state. If one faculty is influenced so are other closely related faculties influenced. "But man is not all intellect," as John Tyndall writes from his personal experience. "If he were so, science would, I believe, be his proper nutriment. But he feels as well as he thinks ; he is receptive of the sublime and the beautiful as well as the true. Indeed, I believe that even the intellectual action of complete man, is, con- sciously or unconsciously, sustained by an under-current of the emotions. It is vain, I think, to attempt to separ- ate moral and emotional nature from intellectual nature. Let a man but observe himself, and he will, if I mistake not, find that in nine cases out of ten, moral or immoral considerations, as the case may be, are the motive force TEACHER PERSONALITY CLASSIFIED 83 which pushes his intellect into action. The reading of the works of two men, neither of them imbued with the spirit of modern science, neither of them, indeed, friend- ly to that spirit has placed me here today. These men are the English Carlyle and the American Emerson. I must ever remember with gratitude that through three long, cold German winters Carlyle placed me in my tub, even when ice was on its surface, at five o'clock every morning; not slavishly, but cheerfully, meeting each day's studies with a resolute will, determined whether victor or vanquished not to shrink from difficulty." The fullest development of the intellect depends upon enlisting the powerful support of the emotions and the will, but it must not be forgotten that emotional and volitional powers are more than a means contributing to this end. They are also ends in themselves. Man is a feeling and acting being, and not merely a thinking ma- chine. Intellection or contemplation is not the sole end of life; it is a means as well as an end. Intellect gives direction, volition furnishes the motive powers, and the emotions give tone and value to the whole process. Without the feelings and emotions, human beings would be machines, propelled by the will and directed by the intellect, and would derive no satisfaction or flavor from life. To insure a complete and satisfying life, there must be a harmonious development of intellect, emotions and will. College teaching and training aim to facilitate this threefold development of "college bred men and women." In order to classify the teacher personality of the var- ious instructors, it was thought best to find some living standard and then place each teacher in comparison with this living standard. All ratings were on a scale of one hundred percent, the standard for a scale that would not be used if we were trying to interest individual instructors in next steps in personality culture, but which serves our present purpose of illustration and suggestion. The stan- dard for comparison was some one or four of the seventy- two instructors who possessed in the highest degree the qualities for producing desired changes in the intellec- 84 PERSONALITYCULTURE tual, emotional and volitional life of students. Such a man, or such men, — and there were four of them — were said to be one hundred per cent in grade. The three pow- ers were nicknamed candle power (C.P.), kilowatts (K. W.) and British thermal units (B. T. U.). No instrument or scheme has ever been invented to measure a teacher's power of intellectual illumination. The solution of the problem was to take some man who possessed this power of illumination in the highest de- gree as the standard and compare all others with him. Such a man was said to possess 100 candle power, (C.P.). (It is not, of course, contended that one candle power represented any definite invariable unit.) The degree of intellectual illumination of each other teacher was es- timated relative to the highest standard observed. In forming an estimate of a teacher's powers of intel- lectual illumination, the following tangible factors were considered : the proportion of matter occurring in the lesson which was left obscure or doubtful ; the absence of material that would have increased clarity; the a- mount of time consumed in clearing up a topic ; the proportion of diffuseness ; the kind and quality of the illustrations, figures of speech, and style and diction ; the presence of irrelevant matter; the use of illustrative devices, slides, diagrams, etc. ; the organization of the lecture or recitation; and the value of the subject mat- ter. Then, in addition to this the various intellectual qualities of personality, profundity, visio'n associative- ness, alertness, wit, originality, etc., were considered. The same difficulty, of course, cropped out in the es- tablishing of some standard for emotional heat. The same solution offered itself. The highest degree of pow- er for quickening emotions evinced by one of the seventy- two teachers was taken as the standard. The man pos- sessing this was said to have 100 British thermal units (B. T. U.'s) of emotional heat. Again, it was a question of relativity, of comparison of the other teachers with this man, and determining the ratio on the scale of 100. Determining the presence of emotion and the degree of its intensity might at first thought appear a hopeless TEACHER PERSONALITY CLASSIFIED 85 task. But it is relatively simple. The fixed gaze and tense position of the student indicates an absorbed in- terest, while luminous eyes, smiles, the hush of suspense, or th^ ripplings of laughter betray the presence and flux of emotions. The tangible results of emotional pow- er will usually be discernible within the four walls of the class room. The spark of emotional life is seldom placed unnoticed in the breasts of the students, to flare up at some later time. The teacher who can not quicken the emotions of his students when standing before them with the magnet of his personality exerting its power at close range, can not safely count upon moving them outside the classroom beyond the spell of the magnetic field. The great, unfailing source of emotional power is en- thusiasm. Enthusiasm is the welding, fusing power that molds human nature as a trip hammer fashions steel. A fine, deep, driving enthusiasm on the part of a teacher is an invaluable and powerful asset. One aspect of the emotional nature which the ablest teachers emphasized was the refining and sharpening of the sensibilities, the developing of a fine sense of the value of things ; of words, of ideas, of the fine arts, of nature ; of conversation and of the rarer aspects of human nature and human relationships. Then the third power that the ablest teachers possessed and exercised is the power of arousing the students to independent effort and self activity. The term kilowatt (K. W.) of volitional energy has been used to denote this power and the four teachers evincing this power in the highest degree were said to possess 100 K. W. of volitional energy. There is possibly a discrepancy be- tween the magnitude of this and the other units, but this discrepancy may serve to accentuate the great importance of this essential factor in the work of a teacher. The dilettante, the procrastinator, and the ne'er-do-well are those who suffer from an atrophy of the will. To ener- gize the will, to swing the whole human planet into sweeping momentum is the supreme task of the teacher. The development of the students' volitional power by 86 PERSONALITYCULTURE the teachers visited was often ignored. For example, assignments of lessons were often hasty and faulty; many had no definite standards of acquisition; devices for checking up the student's progress were usually inadequate. In many cases this laxity and these slovenly methods resulted directly from weaknesses in the charac- ter of the teachers, such as indolence or procrastination. Dignity, poise, resoluteness, force, independence, sin- cerity, these vigorous, dynamic qualities that are marks of rugged moral health, were too often missing in the characters of the teachers. The educational world has been convinced of the folly of upholding interest as the sole stimulus for the ac- quisition of knowledge and the development of the pupil, and is demanding the antidote of discipline. The pupils must be taught to exert their own intellectual muscles, and should acquire a zeal for the conquest of intellectual worlds. Despite this crying demand for a regime of dis- cipline, tempered by an appreciation of the laws of in- terest, educational leaders are finding in schools of all kinds, mental and moral flabbiness on the part of teach- ers and students alike. As a kind of regulator a balancing device for check- ing undue exaggeration of one of the above three factors and for indicating the presence of extraneous, ungov- ernable conditions was added to the three above men- tioned. This regulator was class interest which was term- ed class temperature (C. T.). The highest degree of class interest observed was taken as the standard, and the other classes graded on a scale of 100 per cent. Condi- tions over which the teachers had no control, such as the nature of the subject matter, the novelty and modern- ity of a subject like sociology; the inherent dryness of a course like grammar, the rigorous demands of a course like mathematics ; the preparation and intelligence of the students and certain erratic, unusual qualities of person- ality, were often powerful determinants of class interest. These erratic conditions with their extreme complexity and disconcerting capacity for producing irregularity had to be considered, and yet, however intractable these fac- TEACHER PERSONALITY CLASSIFIED 87 tors proved themselves, the attempt was made to give them due recognition and weight. The value of the proposed classification depends in no sense upon its fairness to the seventy-two university in- structors observed. Concede for sake of shifting the light from the writer to the reader that not one of the instructors was half appreciated. The question is, would it help students and faculties alike if some such classification were to be generally employed in selecting, promoting and developing higher education's teachers? Again, concede that too many or too few qualities are here discussed, and with wrong emphasis. The question is, should higher education engage itself in seeking and using the most helpful classifications? For Questions or Notes by Readers 88 PERSONALITYCULTURE For Questions or Notes by Readers CHAPTER VII CANDLE POWER OF TEACHER PERSONALITY At present universities and colleges frankly confine their official efforts almost wholly to training the intel- lect. A careful analysis and a tentative evaluation of the intellectual qualities of the seventy-two teachers may yield interesting results. If the teachers themselves do not possess power of intellectual illumination and cannot stimulate or develop intellectual power in their students then there is small excuse for their presence in the class rooms. This chapter will consider their candle power of intellectual illumination. The intellectual qualities have been divided into four groups : 1 — Qualities describing, as one might say, the capacity of the intellect and its acquisitive powers. 2 — Qualities having to do with the organization of ideas and knowledge. 3 — Qualities concerning the dynamic and inspiration- al activities of the intellect. A — Qualities which represent the intellect's embel- lishments. I. Capacity and Acquisition In the first group have been included the qualities of scholarship, erudition, generalization, grasp of facts, pro- fundity, comprehensiveness, retentivity, insight, associa- tiveness, analytic power, open-mindedness and tentacu- lar power. These represent the qualities which make possible the attainments and denote the content of the intellect. 90 PBRSONALITYCULTURB The desirability of the teacher possessing the above qualities is self evident. The tables at the end of this and succeeding sections will show roughly in what degree these qualities or their opposites were discovered or found lacking. It is the ever-present duty of the teacher to attempt to develop all these desirable qualities not only in his own personality but also in that of his stu- dents to the maximum of the latter's capacity to grow while in college. Insight into human character is, of course, an essential quality of any personality which purports to influence others. It is especially valuable for the teacher, for he will teach, modify and improve only what he understands. Teachers should have the power to enter imaginatively into the lives, the ambitions, interests and problems of their students. They should mix with the students, study their life and personality and capitalize this infor- mation in their work. Associativeness is a great asset to any mind. A teacher with great powers of association can see the unusual resemblances or incongruities of things and can combine apparently unrelated impressions. Power to analyze is absolutely essential to all teachers because they must break up bodies of knowledge into their smaller components, so that the less mature minds of their students will be able to digest and absorb it bit by bit. Lack of adequate analytical power is very fre- quently the cause of a teacher's failure. Open-mindedness, a willingness to see the other per- son's point of view, will work wonders in the matter of enlisting student sympathy and co-operation. Further- more, it is a sign of educability and capacity for future growth. Great minds are always open-minded, eager to receive new impressions. The following tables represent the summary of a de- tailed analysis of the degrees in which the various in- tellectual qualities appear in the personalities of the sev- enty-two university teachers studied. In Table No. 1, the numeral value of "Scholarship" represents the total of the values assigned to each of the seventy-two teachers CANDLE POWER OF TEACHER PERSONALITY 91 for that particular quality. Five degrees of each quality were distinguished, "none" given a value of 0, "slight" given value 1, "medium" 2, "great" 3, and "extraordin- ary" 4. Similarly negative qualities were given values. Thus for seventy-two instructors credits for scholar- ship total 137. The maximum score obtainable for the whole group was 72 x 4 or 288. The highest score in this group of qualities is 199 for grasp of facts, which is 70 c /o of the obtainable score. The group of seventy-two instructors might have totaled 288 in each of twelve traits or 3456; they did total 1376 positive scores or less than 40%. Were the negative total of 337 subtracted the net score would be about 30%. Table No. 1 INTELLECTUAL QUALITIES CAPACITY AND ACQUISITION Possible total, each point, 288 Possible total, No Desirables Value No Undesirables Value 1 Scholarship 137 1 Abstractness 58 2 3 Erudition Generalization 28 83 2 3 Superficialty 18 Narrow-mindedness 76 4 5 6 7 8 9 Grasp of facts 199 Profundity 83 iComprehensiveness 98 Retentivity-recall 161 Insight 109 Associativeness 119 4 5 Forgetfulness Lack of insight obtuseness 66 119 10 11 Analytical power Open-mindedness 133 124 12 Tentacular power 138 Total 1412 Total 337 Possible total, all points 3456 Net Total 1075 92 PERSONALITYCULTURB These group scores are ventured for their suggestive- ness, not for their infallibility. They are one layman's esti- mate based upon very incomplete acquaintance. It would be gravely unfair to award salary increases or prestige on the basis of such analysis. It would not be unfair, however, to start helping instructors by asking them to analyze themselves in this way, or to start helping college students by showing them how to chal- lenge by such analysis the teacher personalities offered them. II. Organizing Qualities The four qualities of organization that should be part and parcel of a teacher's mental makeup are balance, emphasis, logicality, and coherence. A well-balanced mind is one in which knowledge is viewed in its proper proportion and perspective. It re- cognizes justly the relative value of things. Certainly the university or college is not the place for anarchists, fanatics, faddists, neurotics, and psychopathic monoman- iacs. Twd of the teachers appeared seriously erratic. In the work of the ablest teachers observed the essen- tials of a subject were properly emphasized and the prin- ciple of relief observed. Their lectures or recitations re- sembled relief maps with the tall peaks and valleys all in- dicated. Important laws, principles and facts of a subject were stressed, so that the students had a few guide posts to point the way, and were not hopelessly mired in a slough of details. Balance and emphasis were, however, not necessarily noncomitant. Now and then a well balanc- ed mind would not stress things properly whereas a fan- atic seldom failed to. Logical minds saw the immutable relations of cause and effect. The minds without logicality were like jelly- fish, without a backbone, form or effectiveness. Illogi- cality is inexcusable in a teacher. Coherence exhibited itself by bringing out clearly the relation of one thing to another, marshalling facts and CANDLE POWER OF TEACHER PERSONALITY 93 knowledge in the proper order. Some logical minds were unable to present things coherently, but coherent minds were necessarily logical. Table No. 2 INTELLECTUAL QUALITIES II. ORGANIZATION Possible total, each point, 288 Possible total, No. Desirables Value No. Undesirables Value 1 Balance 146 1 Warped-unbalanced 8 2 Emphasis 105 2 Monotonous 89 3 Logicality 151 3 Illogical 86 4 Coherence-system 146 4 Incoherent 54 Total 548 Total 237 Possible total every point 1152 Net total 311 The majority of the men appeared well balanced, were logical and coherent. However in the presentation of their subjects they neglected the principle of emphasis, a very important but easily corrected factor. In organ- izing qualities the group totaled 548 positive scores out of a possibile 1152, a negative score of 237 in four bad traits, a net score of 311 where 1152 was possible had all equalled the best. III. Dynamic and Inspirational Qualities Whereas the qualities implying capacity and ac- quisitive powers — excepting scholarship and erudition — and those descriptive of the powers of organization, are fundamental to any man of significance in any walk of life, they are not the qualities which are necessarily dis- tinctive of a teacher. A teacher covets most of these qualities as assets, but without the dynamic and inspira- 94 PERSONALITYCULTURE tional qualities, he will never be a great teacher. With- out vision, imagination, clearness, associativeness, orig- inality, resourcefulness, ingenuity, alertness, illustrative- ness, incisiveness, and brilliance he remains at most only a scholar. A teacher must possess qualities which pro- duce the proper reactions on his students. Vision is possibly the greatest single asset of any mind. The teacher with vision utilized the experiences and knowledge of the past and painted a glorious, stim- ulating picture of the future. He pointed out to the students the value of what they had done, what they were doing, and enlarged on the possibilities of the fu- ture. And whatever subject he is dealing with, such a teacher will throw about it an irridescent aura which makes it interesting and wonderful. Four men possessed this in high degree. Originality is one of the fundamental qualities of gen- ius. Few of the teachers could be said to have any great originality. Resourcefulness may be useful to a teacher in answer- ing the students' questions, ingenuity in formulating new ways of presenting things and driving things home. Both are highly stimulating qualities. Several men appeared to be ingenious and resourceful. Alertness on the part of the teacher, the ability to rapidly and constantly focus his attention on each in- cident that comes up in class, is a quality that keeps the students on the qui vive. Many of the teachers were quite alert. Illustrativeness might be considered as a component of the quality of associativeness, but is so comprehen- sive and so essential in itself that it deserves independent mention. The ablest teachers had on the tongue's tip illustration after illustration to drive home a law or prin- ciple. This quality was a great aid in gaining clearness. Several others made good use of illustrations. CANDLE POWER OF TEACHER PERSONALITY 95 Table No. 3 INTELLECTUAL QUALITIES III. DYNAMIC AND INSPIRATIONAL Possible total, each point, 288 Possible total, No. Desirables Value No. Undesirables Value 1 Vision 54 1 Short-sightedness 75 2 Verve 63 2 Lack of dash- 3 Imagination 12 inertness 144 4 Clearness 125 3 Obscurity 90 5 Originality 85 4 Triteness 100 6 Resourcefulness 126 5 Dependence 84 7 Ingenuity 66 6 Absent-mindedness 84 8 Alertness 137 9 Illustrativeness 110 10 Incisiveness 134 11 Brilliance 68 Total 980 Total 577 Possible total, every point 3168 Net total 403 The teachers scored very poorly in this important group of qualities, totaling 980 positive scores out of a possible 3168. Subtracting 577 negative scores we have a net score of 403 in 3168. They scored only fair in clearness, resourcefulness, alertness, illustrativeness and incisiveness, poor in vision, verve, originality, ingenuity and brilliance. One discov- ered only a few traces of the quality of imagination, which of course need not be apparent in each and every session. They also made a bad record in the positive undesir- able qualities of this group, particularly lack of dash, obscurity and triteness. The very poor showing made in this group of traits was a proof of that general lack of dynamic and inspirational qualities which characterizes all too many of the teachers' work. 96 PERSONALITYCULTURB IV. Embellishing Qualities Some traits may be termed embellishments, adorn- ments that make for charm and grace of per- sonality. Such factors as wit, anecdotes remin- iscences, epigrams, paradoxes, figures of speech and whimsicality constitute the fragrance and the iri- descent hues of personality. These are qualities project- ed by the intellect, yet producing distinctly emotional effects. By inducing the proper frame of mind on the part of the students, they serve to lessen tedium and neutralize the wear and tear of the daily grind of school work. The dullness of too many classes was deplorable. The almost general absence of embellishing and adorning qualities explains to a considerable extent the tedious- ness and ennui of the majority of the class exercises. The success of a teacher's personality rests as essentially upon the presence of these qualities as does the success of personalities in any other walk of life. Table No. 4 INTELLECTUAL QUALITIES IV. EMBELLISHMENTS Possible total, each point 288 Possible to tal No. Desirables Value No. Undesirables Va lue 58 1 Dullness-lack of wit 124 1 Wit 58 2 Anecdotes 29 3 Reminiscence 36 4 Epigrams 20 6 Whimsicality 52 5 Paradoxes 12 7 Figures of speech 65 Total 272 Total 124 Possible total, every point 2016 Net total, 148 CHAPTER VIII B. T. ITS OF TEACHER PERSONALITY The picture of college breeding which colleges and universities paint is something like this : Students are taught to enjoy and appreciate the more elevated aspects of poetry, literature, sculpture, music, painting, drama, nature and conversation, and the finer, rarer qualities of personality. They are trained to see the beauty of hum- ble and common things, to appreciate the homelier and more substantial qualities of human nature as well. They are taught to dress well, to develop agreeable manners and charm of personality and to furnish homes and of- fices in good taste. Their voices, facial expressions, personal habits are refined, and their appreciation of these in others developed. Desire and capacity to enjoy the refining influences in life is one of the products of a true education. College men and women learn to live more fully, more richly, more deeply, to enjoy life to the full as the result of a college education. How can our colleges realize this ideal unless their instructors have developed the qualities the students should have? If James' theory of vibratory brain cells is true, that the profounder and more compelling power of emotions to produce vibration induces greater and more trenchant thoughts, then professors who are devoid of emotion and enthusiasm inflict untold injury on stu- dent mind. Emotional qualities are of three groups : I. Qualities of conduct and appearance, II. Basic emotions, III. Refining qualities. To help think of their purposes in life, distinct from 98 PERSONALITYCULTURE those of intellectual qualities, they are likened to British thermal units. They are effective according to the heat units and ash they bear. I. Qualities of Conduct and Appearance Naturalness of manner, neatness, a pleasant voice, a pleasing facial expression, good diction, modesty, tact, and courtesy include 'the principal external and physical traits by means of which students decide al- most at first sight, whether or not they will like a teacher. Many students have not been trained and are not sufficiently mature to observe the more fundamental and subtle qualities of human nature, and judge almost wholly by externalities, "niceness" of appearance, and ex- pression and manners. Affectation and slovenliness of dress, expression or manner, egotism, tactlessness or rudeness, cannot fail to alienate the students' sympa- Table No. 5 EMOTIONAL QUALITIES I. CONDUCT AND APPEARANCE Possible total, each point, 288 Possible total No. Desirables Value No. Undesirables Value 1 Naturalness of manner 129 1 Affectation 14 2 Neatness and taste 141 2 Slovenliness 12 3 Pleasant voice 158 3 Conceit 19 4 Pleasant expression 142 4 Rudeness 3 5 Good diction 147 6 Modesty 139 7 Tact 132 8 Courtesy 132 Total 1120 Total 48 Possible total, every point, 2304 Net total 1072 L ft B T ITS OF TEACHER PERSONALITY 99 thies, and interfere with their progress and development. Most of the instructors made a good impression in an analysis of this group of qualities. A few of them were affected, slovenly and conceited; and one was extremely rude in the treatment of his students. Out of a possible 2304 positive credits they scored 1120; subtracting 48 undesirables, the net total is 1072. II. .Basic and Stimulating Emotions No one will deny the desirability of a teacher being vir- ile emotionally and generously equipped with the great basic human emotions, those qualities which constitute a sort of social cement and serve to bind us together into a SGcial unity. Address is one of the greatest assets of any personality. It is the outward manifestation of one's attitude toward one's fellow creatures, not always the true one, but usual- ly the one that is accepted at first meeting. Most people whom one meets have no other way of judging person- ality than by the manner in which they are treated on first meeting. A person of good address possesses a ready smile, a kindly smile, a nimble tongue and mind, a warm handclasp, an expression of sympathy and interest in everyone he meets. There is a suppleness, an ingen- uity, and a sympathetic insight that establishes an agree- able and penetrating contact with whomsoever such a person may meet. Such a person seems to gauge, to sympathize, to approve and be glad to meet another. A winning address should be and can be cultivated by every teacher. In fact, so striking is this quality when present in a remarkable degree, that students at first con- fuse this one quality with the whole of personality, and often exclaim upon first meeting a new instructor "What a wonderful personality he has!" often with a large measure of truth, for it is the touchstone of personality. Then there are the great fundamental qualities of sympathy, humor, enthusiasm, democracy, responsive- ness, good nature, tolerance and optimism which every 100 PERSONALITYCULTURE college teacher can have and be able to stimulate stu- dents. Enthusiasm for the subject, if not for the student, is essential to success in teaching. Not all teachers appre- ciate as they should the tremendous importance of humor. A genial humor and a ready wit will offset the lack of many other desirable qualities and will arouse the inter- est and win the sympathy of the students as few other qualities. "How to infuse interest into their classwork should be ever prominent before the teachers' eyes," according to Julius Sacks, Teachers' College, Columbia University. "It has always seemed inconceivable why some of our teachers are inclined to sneer at interest as a vital force in teaching." How ability to arouse student interest manifests itself in classes visited has already been shown. Table No. 6 EMOTIONAL QUALITIES II. BASIC EMOTIONS Possible total, each point, 288 Possible Total No. Desirables Value No. Undesirables Value 1 Address 142 1 Furtive-shrinking 34 2 Sympathy 111 2 Sarcasm 3 3 Humor 62 3 Lack of humor 50 4 Enthusiasm 135 4 Coldness 101 5 Democracy 144 5 Snobbish-super- 6 Responsiveness 108 ciliousness 28 7 Good nature 138 6 Harshness 2 8 Tolerance 86 7 Domineering 8 9 Optimism 85 8 Tediousness-boring 74 10 Eloquence 38 11 Interest-gripping 103 Total 1152 Total 300 Possible total, every point, 3168 Net total 852 B T U'S OF TEACHER PERSONALITY 101 Not one of these basic emotion-creating qualities can be properly dispensed with or slurred in college teaching. Where 3168 points were obtainable, there were 1152 positive scores ; subtracting 300 undesirables we have 852 or a little better than 25 per cent of the total which the group would have had if all had equalled the best. Most of the men were fairly good natured, but few gave evidence of active humor. Most appeared to be demo- cratic in their attitude. Optimism and eloquence existed only in a small degree and in few cases. Among a con- siderable number, those of the higher types of teachers, the qualities of address, sympathy, enthusiasm, respon- siveness and interest-gripping were present to a com- mendable degree. Tolerance could be gauged fairly only in the recitation classes, and here the quality appeared in the majority of cases. The personality deficits were present in a rather large proportion of cases and in considerable degree. Many of the men were diffident and shrinking in their manner, a much larger number were cold, unsympathetic and ted- ious, while others were dry and lacked humor. A num- ber of examples of snobbishness, intolerance and one of sarcasm were observed. Table No. 7 EMOTIONAL QUALITIES III. REFINING QUALITIES Possible total, each point, 288 Possible total, No. Desirable s Value No. Undesirables Value 1 Charm 102 1 Colorless ~43 2 Sensitivity 82 2 Boorishness 6 3 Aesthetic sense 35 3 Prosaic-matter of fact 78 4 Sense of wonder of life 39 4 Cynicism 6 Total 258 Total L33 Possible total, every point, 1152 Net total 125 102 PBRSONALITYCULTURE Of a possible 1152, the seventy-two instructors scored 258 in positive refining qualities. But they also scored 133 in negative undesirables, a net score of 125 or a little over 10 per cent. Little criticism would be made because of the lack of these qualities if the antithetical qualities of aggressiveness, decisiveness, fearlessness and exacting standards were present in a considerable degree, for the two kinds of qualities are not often discovered in the same personality. This is merely a further example of the sins of omission that are chargeable to teachers. Too many colorless personalities, and prosaic, dull minds, were noted. For Questions or Notes by Readers CHAPTER IX KILOWATTS OF TEACHER PERSONALITY Modern education has been accused by leading educa- tors of turning out graduates with invertebrate, jelly- fish wills. The charges run like this : "Students are cosseted and coddled, are entertained and amused all through their school life, so that when they emerge from college, they are like soft-shelled crabs, unfit for the rude shocks of the outside world. Students have not develop- ed the sterner traits of character, such as the more rugged volitional qualities, aggressiveness, application, resolute- ness and decisiveness." Writing in the Western Teacher, Mr. G. G. Acton declares : "Our schools are filling with a spry, deft, alert, attentive, nonintrospective generation of young people, who seem to be losing certain qualities of ruggedness that should distinguish a people. Our students are too willing to take a teacher's word for it. There seems to be too little of that fixity of purpose and independence of attitude that leads one to say even of an unschooled man that he has good stuff in him. As a body, our students ask few questions, they seldom challenge a classmate's statements, they are glad to be passed by in recitations to avoid interrogation. They like to bloom without being torn to pieces for analysis. They are not fond of knotty problems. There is little of that rejoicing in strength to run a scholarly race. I think parents make a mistake in not commending teachers more often for requiring students to work out questions for them- selves." Many believe that such charges are true and apply to the majority of the students of both high schools and 104 PBRSONALITYCULTURB universities. But are not such statements an admission of defeat and ineffectiveness on the part of our educa- tional institutions rather than evidence of defect in stu- dent material? We have no right to reprove students for being what their teachers have made them or unnecessarily allowed them to remain. By the time a student reaches college or even high school, he is pretty much a product of the school system. Has the teacher no responsibility for the growth and development of the student's intellectual, emotional, and moral nature? If not, who then has? The school is expected to show results for its efforts. Our teachers admit that they are the moulders of stu- dent minds and characters. If a contractor builds a poor building we blame the contractor not the building. If a school system makes a contract to educate the child, and does not succeed, whom shall we blame, the teacher or the child? It is granted that the work of the teacher is infinitely more complex and difficult than any work of mechanical construction, but even so, the burden of proof clearly rests on the teacher's shoulders and not on the pupils. The fault is due largely to the fact that heretofore very few qualities of action have been required of the teacher as the price "of success in his field. Given a fair amount of persistence and power of application, a man may be said to possess the qualities of action necessary to make him a "success" in the scholarly world and even in the classroom. Some of the men rated lowest in this book enjoy enviable reputations for scholarship and others for popularity even with students. Wherever there exist no properly accepted method and no admin- istrative machinery for checking up adequately a teacher's results Avith his students in the classroom or the laboratory, and wherever reward comes for almost everything ex- cept excellence in teaching, teachers will fail to develop the rugged qualities of action, forcefulness, aggressive- ness, decisiveness, courage and independence, which are absolutely essential for success in the world of affairs. And yet, even though it is difficult to develop these qual- KILOWATTS OF TEACHING PERSONALITY 105 ities within the walls of a college, the existence and the desirability of cultivating these sterner traits in the stu- dents should be recognized and given due emphasis. That it can be done several of the personality descrip- tions have shown. I. Qualities Stimulating to Action and Effort Too many teachers were not sufficiently rigid or exacting in their standards of attainments. They were too easy-going. Slovenly reports passed mus- ter, mumbled and garbled shreds of information were accepted as recitations, and examinations called merely Table No. 8 VOLITIONAL QUALITIES I. STIMULATING TO ACTION AND EFFORT Possible total, each point, 288 Possible total No. Desirables Value No. Undesirables Value 1 Exacting — rigid 78 1 Laxity 52 2 Fearlessness — moral 2 Subservience (moral) 10 courage 10 3 Timidity of judgment 36 3 Aggressivness 92 4 Irresolution 16 4 Independence of 5 Discouraging-re- judgment 34 pressive 47 5 Decisiveness 34 6 Encouraging 80 7 Dynamic 102 Total 430 Total ~ 161 Possible total, every point, 2016 Net total 269 for small samples of knowledge. Yet no other single quality wins the lasting respect of the students as that of a teacher's being exacting and rigid in standards of 106 PERSONALITYCULTURE attainment. Other desirable qualities are fearlessness, — that is, moral courage, — aggressiveness, independence of judgment, and decisiveness. A teacher who is encourag- ing and dynamic will be able to stimulate his students to continuous and independent effort. Of a possible 2016 only 430 positive scores were made, with 161 negative scores, leaving a net total of but 269. Quite striking was the lack of definite and exacting standards of work. The teachers were much too lax and easy-going as to the results attained by the students. There was a lack of decisiveness and of independence of judgment. Subservience to authority and timidity of in- dependent judgment were flagrant. A large number were given rather poor grades for the qualities of aggressive- ness, encouragement and dynamic power. The quality of fearlessness could not be judged in most classroom observations. II. Qualities of Conduct and Appearance The qualities of dignity and reserve, poise, vi- tality and forceful speech are definite and essential assets to a teacher. The insistence upon mere physical vitality should not be carried to an extreme. It is usually true that a sound mind resides in a sound body, but it does not inevitably follow that a sound body houses a fine teaching personality. A special study was made of the relation of physique to teaching personality. Out of the twenty-seven of the best personalities, twenty-two were men of good physique, and five of poor physique. Out of the other forty-five less adequate personalities, twenty- seven were of good physique and eighteen of poor phy- sique; the twenty-seven of excellent physique were also of decidedly inferior teaching personality. Thus although a poor physique may mar irretrievably a fine personality, one must look carefully beyond mere physical appear- ance to determine whether a man has a good teaching personality. With few exceptions the teachers' personalities ex- KILOWATTS OF TEACHING PERSONALITY 107 pressed dignity and reserve and poise ; in fact, some over- did it. There was noticeable a lack of physical vitality and forceful speech, although only a few examples of sickliness and nervousness were noticed. Every one of these qualities can be cultivated. Table No* 9 VOLITIONAL QUALITIES II. CONDUCT AND APPEARANCE Possible total, each point, 28 Possible total, No. Desirables Value No. Undesirables Value 1 Dignity — reserve 146 1 Undignified 9 2 Poise 157 2 Nervous — erratic 14 3 Physical vitality — 3 Sickly 15 energy 109 4 Forcefulness of speech 115 Total 527 Total 38 Possible total, every point, 1152 Net total, 489 III. Qualities Ethical in Effect Sincerity or integrity, industry, fairness and clean- mindedness are qualities essential in a teacher to win and hold the respect of the students. Of a total possible score of 1152 this group of sev- enty instructors were marked 542 in volitional qualities ethical in effect. Subtraction of 89 points was necessary for striking undesirable qualities producing unethical or antithetical effects, leaving a net total of 453 or 40 per cent of the possible score. Again it is repeated that these numerical expressions of an observer's impressions are not scientific determination, but an appeal for effort 133 1 Bluff — pretense 28 115 2 Indolence 38 81 3 Unfairness 20 213 4 Salacious 3 108 PERSONALITYCULTURE on the part of higher education to successfully analyze and cultivate instructor personality. Table No. 10 VOLITIONAL QUALITIES III. QUALITIES ETHICAL IN EFFECT Possible total, each point, 28 Possible total, No. Desirables Value No. Undesirables Value 1 Sincerity — integrity 2 Industry 3 Fairness 4 Clean mindedness Total 542 Total 89 Possible total, every point, 1152 Net total, 453 All but one of the men seemed clean-minded, most of the men appeared sincere, a lesser number very industri- ous. Some examples of bluff and four-flushing were noted, and some also of indolence. One striking example of lack of clean-mindedness was observed, later discov- ered to be a notorious and frequent offender. The benefits of positive volitional qualities and the in- juries of negative volitional qualities multiply inexorably for "teachers teach as they are taught." Deficiencies of personality will not so easily survive after higher education more generally substitutes direc- tion in work that needs to be done for lecturing and quizzing about book contents. CHAPTER X TEN GRADES OF TEACHING ABILITY Ten distinct grades of teachers were discovered in the process of analysis and classification. These will be de- fined and described in this chapter. This classification of seventy-two teachers may not serve as a pattern for anyone else to use without con- siderable alteration and development. However arbi- trary and subjective the actual grading of the individual teachers may appear, will the reader kindly remember that the definition and establishment of the various types did not start with judgment in the author's mind, but with qualities of personality and teaching method which were observed and analyzed? It is remarkable how quickly points of resemblance bring birds of a feather into a "type." A large number of salient qualities con- stitute the common denominator of each type despite the wide-spread impression that each human being is a unique individuality. Furthermore, once the various types have been defined, arranged in order of effective- ness and the teachers classified accordingly, it is easier than one thinks to arrange teachers within types ac- cording to their respective ability, and to assign to each factor of teaching ability a percentage range which will indicate relative excellence. Of course, the percentage grading of the various components may be legitimately criticized as being subjective and arbitrary, but this charge can be made of the grading of any imponderable quality that characterizes living organisms, whether it be judging flowers, wheat, pigs, dogs or horses. What, for example, is more subjective and arbitrary than the judg- ment of a tea taster, unless it is a conventional university 110 PERSONALITYCULTURB grade of B + or 67 ? In any reasonable classification of teaching ability, the person who does the grading will arrive at his judgments by observation, not guess work. In every instance the au- thor has notes to support the grades given the various teachers. Furthermore, anyone else can easily by a de- tailed analysis of components of teaching ability study a number of teachers, classify them into groups and deter- mine their relative teaching ability. The point the author wishes to emphasize is that this classification of teachers is not the result of an arm-chair study, arrived at by consulting eminent authorities, but is the result of a field study of teachers observed in the act of actually teaching. The degree of teaching ability can nev- er be determined by looking up a teacher's previous record in college, by examining his Ph. D. thesis, reading the books and articles he has written or sampling his reputa- tion at the faculty club. It can only be determined by first-hand observation in a classroom where the teacher is caught redhanded in the act of teaching or by an ex- amination of his students. The summary on page 111 gives the number of teachers in each of ten groups and the limits of the percentage gradings of the various factors in each group i. e. C. P., B. T. U., K. W., and C. T. The ten types are explained with references to earlier personality protraits. First and Highest Type — 4 Teachers The four men included in the first group of teachers — Nos. 4, 8, 24, 31 — represent the very highest type of teacher observed. They were men of high intellectual endowments and untiring mental energy. All were men of rugged physique and commanding bearing. Their voices were clear and pleasingly resonant. In them splendid physical equipment and mental endowments were equally matched. In them seemed constellated a galaxy of teaching vir- tues. They possessed great retentive and associative TEN GRADES OF TEACHING ABILITY 111 O W o < w H fa o CO fa fa H 55 fa H fa O co O •— i H < fa fa o < £ fa O fa w Oh w B H fa O CO H I— I o w H-a u u G O C . o O rt p. 2 • B ° S 2 "5 a .5 -5 ° CJO bJO.S £> fa Z rt •s g g H a. H loOloloOOOOO O LO LO O O CO On 00 8 lo o ^O lo loo o o o tJ- lo rf- ro rO O O O O S8ii^si^S d lOloQLOlOOQq On 00 00 *> O vdooo666o 'trJ-vO^vO^NiOflfo ^H(NfO"^-LOVOt^OOONO On VO i fO LO 00 i o LO CO i 00 ^ LO ^ 00 CN1 T3 en tuo*> A3 t3 fa .5 112 PERSONALITYCULTURB powers; they struck one as being incisive and penetratr ing, alert and resourceful. They were sympathetic and open-minded; their wit was keen, yet sympathetic and pleasing and their humor inexhaustible. They had that animation, that infectious enthusiasm which is most es- sential to a really great teacher. Their character and personality were characterized by a glowing enthusiasm that kindled student interest and swung student energies into action. The students caught the spirit of their teachers. The students strain- ed forward in their seats, every eye riveted on the teach- er. For the teachers were not like actors, merely whip- ping up a sea of emotions, but were the inspiring leaders of an active working group. The students were intense- ly interested in their subjects, were working hard or eager to work hard and accomplish results, and enjoying the whole process. Type 2 — 4 Teachers The second type of teacher must not be thought of as falling very much below those of the first group as to physical and mental equipment. On the contrary, to a certain kind of student the teachers of the second group might be more desirable and more inspiring. Their great intellectual gifts, their keenness and sweeping energy of mind undoubtedly acted as a driving force and an inspiration to some of the students. But because of the coldness of their natures, their great abstruseness of intellection and impatience with students lacking marked ability, they influenced only the more brilliant students. The great majority of the students were wounded by the impatience and lack of sympathy, or were confused, mys- tified and struck dumb by the too dazzling brilliance of these personalities. It is due to the fact that their range of influence was narrow, that these men were placed in this group of teachers second in the degree of teach- ing ability. If only the intensity of their influence were considered, they would easily rank with those of the TEN GRADES OF TEACHING ABILITY 113 highest type. (For example see Personalities No. 26, 27 and 32.) Type 3—16 Teachers The sixteen men grouped as representing the third type of teacher were all, with but possibly two excep- tions, between thirty and fifty years of age. The varia- tions in power of the men within this group, for naturally they were not on the same level, were without exception in direct proportion to their ages. These sixteen men appeared to possess those qualities of buoyancy, of sup- pleness and something of that eternal adolescence which promises a further increase and maturity of their powers. It was only from this group that teachers of the first type could be recruited. One of the men of forceful per- sonality, great ability and tenacious grasp of his subject, just fell short of achieving the highest distinction because of faulty technique of teaching, and lack of wit, charm, and most serious of all, enthusiasm, that most kinetic of all qualities of personality. The distinctive character- istics of this group of teachers as a whole were their power to arouse enthusiasm among the students due to magnetic personalities, their intellectual power insuring a mastery of their subjects, and the promise of further development. (For examples see Personalities Nos. 5, 25 ,28 and 29.) Type 4 — 5 Teachers Five men were included in the fourth group. All were men with more than average ability, but the results of their efforts were discounted by the influence of correct- ible imperfections of character and personality. In all but one of these men there was a lack of freshness, a dearth of exhilaration in personality and a lackadaisical and dawd- ling attitude towards their work and students. The at- mosphere of their classes was muggy and sluggish, per- meated as they were by the teachers' vanity and conceit. An expression of contemptuous arrogance was stamped 114 PERSONALITYCULTURE on their faces. In addition to this common denominator of undesirable traits, each personality had a distinct flav- or of its own. One man was a blustering domineering fellow, whose arrogance was tempered by a certain good humor. The second was even more blustering and dicta- torial, and lacked the saving grace of good humor, he was crotchety and irascible. The third was especially abrupt, rude, cynical and haphazard. The fifth was a buffoon and a trifler who bullied his students, wasted their time and sneered at them disdainfully under the cover of good humor. Type 5 — 16 Teachers This group of sixteen teachers includes both young and old men, men who had been teaching possibly only four or five years, and men who had been teaching fif- teen or thirty years. They appeared to possess neither unusual abilities nor striking faults. Their main char- acteristic was their mediocrity. What sharply distinguished the men of this group from those of the third group was that they gave no def- inite promise of development. They all appeared, whether young or old, to have reached their full maturity and their future existence seemed to promise at best nothing but a continued preservation of their present state. Their work was marred by poor technique, by objectionable traits of personality, and by a poor grasp of the subject. They were still journeymen at their craft and one gained the impression that although they might improve somewhat, they would never become master craftsmen, — unless some force outside themselves should provoke self analysis and effort to improve. Interest was fairly well sustained in their classes and they appeared to be getting a fair percentage of results, but by no means as much as they should. In some cases, an improvement in the technique or a change in attitude toward the class would have made a great deal of dif- ference, would have added considerable interest to the class work, and increased its value immensely. TEN GRADES OF TEACHING ABILITY 115 Very noticeable was the utter lack of humor and wit among the men. Only four of these men showed any gleam of humor. In one class, however, wit had degen- erated to banter and time was wasted that should have been devoted to the essential interests of the class. The rest of the men lacked congeniality or had not cultivated that solvent of constraint, humor, which is the "Open Sesame" to all men's hearts. The pall of dullness which settled down upon their classes could have been dis- pelled like a fog before the sun by a touch of humor. Truly in these classes, the great god Pan was dead! (For examples see Personalities Nos. 9, 14 and 21.) Type 6 — 9 Teachers Most egos, like the thyroid glands, undergo an enlarge- ment during the period of adolescence, but with the advent of maturity decrease to proper proportions. In some cases this diminution does not take place and we can see examples of men suffering from a permanent hypertrophy of the ego. These are the men who become insufferable egotists, who are so wrapped up in self- worship that they do not develop .sympathy for and in- terest in others. Such men lack generosity, good humor, tact, enthusiasm, charm and other emotional qualities which are necessary to make human association pleasing and stimulating. This sixth group of nine men were elderly men, all afflicted with this distorted and inflated sense of their own importance. Five of them appeared to have passed the half century mark and the remaining four were well past forty years. There was something distinctly ex- asperating about coming into contact with this type. Here were mature men, of tall commanding stature, of dignified and impressive bearing, from whom we should fairly expect a corresponding distinctiveness and vigor of mental power. They had only to speak to dispel the illusion and to reveal their negative personalities. Their egotism, dullness, coldness, tediousness and general in- adequacies as teachers at once became apparent. (For 116 PERSONALITYCULTURE examples see Personalities Nos. 2 and 3.) Type 7 — 7 Teachers The seven men included in this group were young, immature instructors who had taught less than five years and who apparently had served their apprenticeship with- out thought of personality, culture or teaching technique. All of these were ranked as instructors except one. All but two of them seemed sincere, earnest and conscien- tious. Not one seemed to have those gifts of intellect or qualities of personality that promised development in- to the highest type of teacher. Only the two exceptions, who were extremely flippant, seemed to possess the qual- ity of humor. The salient feature of their class was the lack of contact between the teacher and the class, so marked that one actually sensed a barrier between them. The stu- dents had little conception of what the teacher was driv- ing at — the latter seemed to have little enough himself — and the teacher appeared to have not the slightest idea of what existed in the minds of the students that he could appeal to and use as a basis for arousing their interest. In all cases it was due partly to the precarious hold that the men had on their subject matter, and partly to their failure to cultivate the acquaintance of their classes and to invite responses from the students on any matter that was really close to their hearts. None of the teachers were dull, all were keen and fairly alert to everything but their need for self analysis, but they lacked perspective and vision, and were still engaged in the struggle of mas- tering their subject matter. Should not some older, more experienced teacher have taken them in hand and guided their uncertain footsteps? (For examples see Personal- ities Nos. 14, 15, 17 and 19.) Type 8—5 Teachers This eighth group of five men was composed of five comparatively young teachers, although somewhat older TEN GRADES OF TEACHING ABILITY 117 than those of group 7. Their personalities were cold and clammy. They were matter-of-fact, lacking in imagina- tion. Their intellectual processes were dull and viscous. Their subject matter eluded them, they could barely re- call some ideas, and had very little power of organization. They showed no sense of humor, no enthusiasm, and no power of arousing interest. They were wooden, trite, and supremely tedious. They were men approaching the prime of life, and what should have been a period of generous fecundity and activity was a period of stagna- tion and sterility. (For examples see Personalities Nos. \Z and 18.) Type 9 — 3 Teachers It seems sacrilegious to criticize and disparage the ef- forts of old age, but the folly of those who should be wise is as reprehensible as the wantonness of youth. In this group were three men whose days had been number- ed, who should have retired gracefully to slippered ease and ruddy firesides, but who clung tenaciously to their posts and cluttered up the places that should have been filled by young stalwart stock. We should not complain if their only disability were old age, for some men do not ripen fully until white hair and wrinkles arrive to bear false testimony against the mellow, lambent spirit within. I recall an old Greek professor, old in years and with all the superficial trappings of old age, but who was sound as a young oak, and whose mind had a fire, a flexibility, and audacity that was the envy of many of his associates in their prime. What I do complain of is that these men were senile and decrepit. Type 10 — 3 Teachers Three step-children of Fate comprise this last and most ineffectual group of teachers. Their futility was some- thing to marvel at, their crass stupidity something to be- 118 PERSONALITYCULTURE wilder the imagination. All three possessed a mental awkwardness and a spiritual ungainliness. They were afflicted with a kind of mental astigmatism ; thoughts and ideas could not be focussed sharply, but were projected confused and distorted. It produced a mental dizziness, a blurring like a moving picture film reeled off too fast. The effect upon the students can be readily imagined. They were thrown into a benumbed bewilderment, which rendered them totally unable to derive any benefit from the class exercise. In these three teachers, physical de- fects had been combined with mental inadequacies. One man was short, rotund and pudgy-faced. Another was tall and awkward, a geometrical frenzy. The third was deserving of sympathy, lame and haggard-faced, and ap- peared to be suffering from some nervous disorder that prevented any physical repose or poise. The present number of types could possibly have been somewhat extended or slightly reduced. The exact number of types is not of paramount importance. What is of supreme importance is that the study reveals an astonishing and preventable variation in teaching abil- ity, a difference of ability that the ratio of 100% to 10% — the lowest — does not adequately represent. A ratio of 100% to 0% would be more nearly correct; it was the difference between a teaching ability of the highest or- der and a teaching ability that was worse than futile. From merely a process of deductive reasoning, it is easy enough to conclude that between these two planes of ability must exist different grades of power, which might be clearly defined and sharply differentiated. It is hoped that this attempt to distinguish these var- ious grades of teaching ability among one group of seventy-two teachers, may stimulate teachers towards self analysis of their own teaching ability, and that it may encourage college authorities to analyze more keen- ly and to consider more comprehensively the subject of teaching personality and ability. Discussion of a ten- tative plan may break the ground for a more refined and comprehensive scheme of classifying the teaching ability of higher education's pilots. CHAPTER XI NEXT STEPS IN PERSONALITYCULTURE From the preceding pages the reader has seen that no plea is intended for the exaltation of one single type of personality over others as the only kind suitable for successful teaching. On the contrary, the personality portraits show that different types of personality which combine various qualities in varying degrees make for success in teaching. For example, in Chapter IV eight teachers were described who represented different types of personality, and yet all were excellent in their own way. Some of them were men of great physical and abounding vitality, while others were men of lesser physical energy. Some men were enthusiastic, aggressive and forceful, and others were quiet and unassuming. In fact, different types of personalities with qualities that were antitheti- cal achieved success in teaching. If the reader will consider the list of desirable quali- ties given in the various tables he will discover very few which can be dispensed with without detracting ap- preciably from the effectiveness of teaching ability. A pe- rusal of the list of objectionable qualities will also discover that there exist definite faults of personality which can- not safely be harbored and which must be avoided in order to prevent handicapping one's teaching ability. Certain qualities which are desirable when present in a moderate degree, become objectionable when present in an exaggerated degree. For example, Personality No. 6 was a man of great vitality, gifted with marked powers of expression. However, this gift proved his undoing, for his volume of talk swamped his students, who could not possibly retain and assimilate material poured to- 120 PBRSONALITYCULTURE wards them at such a stupendous rate. In fact, not a few faults of personality were merely exaggerations of good traits. Thus an excess of dignity became coldness ; good nature degenerated into banter, flippancy, and lax- ity ; generalization into abstractness ; individuality into eccentricity ; taste in dress into foppishness ; openminded- ness into subservience, and so on. Personalityculture would trim the excess and develop the main stalk. A number of the teachers fell short of excellence in teaching ability because of the presence of only one or two objectionable traits of personality. For example, Personality No. 5 who lectured on the "Theory of Evolu- tion" was somewhat too ironical. Personality No. 3 who lectured on the Renaissance was too lackadaisical. Personality No. 9 who taught French, and No. 15 who lectured on the vocal organs, were too flippant. Others were too cold and formal, too abstract, were affected, eccentric, slovenly, indolent, or inert. If this one par- ticular fault were eradicated, as would easily be possible, their work would become immediately much more ef- fective. Although, to be sure, it is very difficult for a person to materially alter traits of personality, nevertheless, chang- es are occurring in everyone to a certain extent, in some consciously, perhaps in the majority unconsciously. With- in certain limits everyone's personality is modifiable. Once teachers are led to realize keenly and comprehen- sively what traits in personality count in teaching and which do not count, the road to improvement will have been at least commenced. It is due, possibly, to the enormous complexity of human personality that so little effort has been made to analyze, classify, and expound a system of character- ology or science of personality. Psychology and social psychology have broken the preliminary ground, but systematic, practical psychology is yet in its formative stage. Pedagogy must wait for science to solve some of the great questions of psychic life. Pschiatry and psycho- analysis have commenced the solution of certain path- ological mental conditions. The followers of Binet and NEXT STEPS IN PERSONALITYCULTURE 121 Simon are struggling with the problem of measuring in- telligence. Numerous investigators are wrestling with the problem of analyzing and classifying the phenomena of psychic activity, normal, subnormal and abnormal. They are encountering enormous difficulties in explor- ing this most imponderable and complex phenomenon in the world. Nevertheless, although we may yet have vast fields to explore and study, great advances and contributions have been made in the field of psychology and the study of personality. Enough material is available so that courses in practical and individual personality could eas- ily be given to teachers and could be required of students as well. Furthermore, teachers and students should be encouraged to observe personality, to study themselves and others. Pathological traits and tendencies, excres- cences, vicious and anti-social habits and qualities among students should be recognized and guarded against, and desirable and constructive ones encouraged. Constantly there should be held up to the attention of both teacher and student an adequate, illuminating and inspiring con- ception of personality and the idea that personality is modifiable. The proper development of personality should be one great aim of both teacher and student alike, and of college management as well. The work in a college should provide for the progres- sive training of other qualities of a student's personality than that of memory. If college authorities would plan and arrange the work and methods of the courses in the various college years in such a manner that habits of application can be progressively developed, together with qualities like reasoning power, concentration, pa- tience, resoluteness, clearness, precision, forcefulness, ra- pidity of accomplishment, organization, originality, pow- ers of oral and written expression, persuasion, argument, discussion, etc., the students would emerge from the college walls much better prepared to take their places in life. Questionnaires to suit the needs of both teacher and student might be formulated by the proper authorities 122 PBRSONALITYCULTURE For Questions or Notes by Readers NEXT STEPS IN PERSONALITYCULTURE 123 and distributed for self analysis and criticism. See the card on page 80. A personality card might be kept by both teacher and student when in college to keep sharply in mind their own problems and to register their personality develop- ment. Several such for students are now in use. (See Record Aids in College Management.) If they analyzed student personality in this way the teachers would be awakened to the real problems of teaching, would take more interest in and would be able to give expert and comprehensive attention to the educational needs of their students. Of all the problems competing for the attention of the college authorities none transcends in importance that of teaching efficiency. All else is impedimenta. Each col- lege should organize a committee to study teaching per- sonality and efficiency and give it power to study, analyze and formulate recommendations for improvement. Such a committee could collect information about teaching per- sonality, methods and classroom procedure from all sources, could visit classes in its own institution or in others, observing, recording and analyzing. Then the authorities and faculty on the basis of the knowledge and recommendation, could formulate minimum standards of teaching personality and methods. The various depart- ments of the faculty could also be engaged in studying their own pedagogical problems. Departmental heads might be entrusted with the task of determining by per- sonal visitation and other means the instructional efficien- cy of their individual teachers. Then means should be tak- en to correct the weaknesses of inept or indifferent teach- ers. Having done their best to strengthen personality and improve teaching technique colleges will not often need to employ the supreme penalty, dismissal. A committee on teaching efficiency might formulate the standards of teaching ability for guiding college authorities in the choice of new instructors and addition- al members. Must then universities sacrifice research ability for 124 PERSONALITYCULTURB personality? Is there no room on faculties for great re- search ability unless accompanied by teaching ability? These are two of the most fundamental questions which American universities are trying to settle. Leaders like Presidents Hadley of Yale and Butler of Columbia have declared in annual reports that ability in research does not always carry with it ability to teach. The Carnegie Foundation says that much research in universities is only imitation research. One of two lessons follows clear- ly from a consideraton of instructor personality in its relation to teaching: 1 — Where a great researcher has neither desire nor ability to teach others, either through lecturing to them or questioning them in class, or by directing their re- search, he should neither be compelled nor permitted to teach, and universities should frankly finance his re- search without camouflaging it by calling it teaching. 2 — A way out which would cost our higher ed- ucation few great leaders in research would be to limit their so-called instruction to the direction of research by their students. Seldom is a personality engrossed in competent research a weak personality in the eyes of those who are his collaborators and colleagues on the threshold of research in his field. What personalityculture requires is not a decrease in research work, but a clean-cut differentiation between the aims and methods of research and those of teaching in order that both may gain in amount and effectiveness. That the proper material is not now being obtained for either research work or college teaching is being widely insisted by leading educators. For example, at the recent national conference in connection with the in- auguration of Marion L. Burton as president of the University of Michigan, Dean Frederick Woodbridge of Columbia University's graduate school declared: With few exceptions the graduate student is poor material. He is alert, he has industry, and he has an aim to succeed. Morally he is good material, but intellectually he is poor. He comes to us with credits for entrance. Instead NEXT STEPS IN PERSONALITYCULTURE 125 For Questions or Notes by Readers 126 PERSONALITYCULTURE we should substitute examinations so constructed that only a scholar can pass them Another thing, graduate students should never be taught. If they can't teach themselves, they should perish. My moral is: If we want to in- crease the supply of adequately prepared teachers, we must make the graduate school a place of learning [and of personality!] When we remember that it is from the graduate school that our colleges and universities are recruiting their fac- ulties and that in the next decade more college teachers should be recruited than exist today, national interests make it imperative that the calibre of teaching personal- ity be improved at its source. Weak personalities and inferior intellects may not safely be encouraged or per- mitted to flood the college markets. While doing its utmost to improve the intake and the output of graduate schools, higher education will doubt- less search for able instructors among successful teachers and strong personalities in secondary schools and public school systems. For the same reason teaching power will be sought among successful men and women in industry and com- merce where both personality and teaching efficiency are essential to leadership. Finally higher education will cultivate personality among faculty and students alike by using what one distinguished developer of man power, John R. Commons, calls the "dig it up" method of instructing or training. "Yellow streaks," personality weaknesses and teaching deficiencies quickly advertise themselves when confront- ed by world loads that need to be carried. Such statements as those of Dean Woodbridge are pre- monitory signs of a new spirit in education which has its origin in the intense desire to see things as they are, and expresses itself through the channels of self criticism of purposes, goods, methods and results in education. Self surveys, investigations by outsiders, the linking up of colleges with the work of industries and business, the de- velopment of vocational education, the pruning away of NEXT STEPS IN PERSONALITYCULTURE 127 the obsolete and useless from courses of study, — all are signs of healthy growth in education. The fact that sev- eral colleges have already started the work of analyzing and studying student personality is an added proof that colleges are in unison with the spirit of the times. From the now common mental tests of students it is but a short step to personality tests of instructors as well as students. American industries, after a long and intense absorp- tion in mechanical efficiency and improvement and in the salvaging and complete utilization of materials, are at best recognizing that the human factor is mote than a combination of brain and muscle, that it is an organic union of mind, heart and spirit which must be peculiarly handled, if the whole human entity is to be aroused into activity and power. The efficient use and development of the human resources, which are worth many times the whole earth's material resources, are more and more com- ing to be the main concern of business and industry. A similar conversion is necessary in the field of educa- tion. Education must realize that students are more than granaries to be filled with facts and ideas; that they are in addition, great, living dynamos of feeling and aspira- tions ; that they are wonderful potential creative spirits ; and that all the knowledge they absorb is but food and stimulation for developing human souls. They must realize that the impact of living soul on other living souls, the contact of spirit on spirit is the most effective medium of real education known, and the main excuse for formal education as now organized. And the blind cannot lead the blind. To obtain the greatest and most effective results in education, we must stimulate, train and develop the personality of our existing teachers and seek to attract and add to our present supply of person- ality resources. The End