Pass, LB /Qi^ iT "^^^Cldi COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT PERSONALITY IN EDUCATION PERSONALITY IN EDUCATION BY JAMES P. CONOVER (Master in St. Paul's School, Concord, N. H.) NEW YORK MOFFAT, YARD AND COMPANY 1908 1-3 01 ri ^r LISRARY of CONGRESS 1 wo Copies Recsived NOV 5 t9oa Ccsvritht tiiuy CLASS ex. ■'^Ac, !M.o, Copyright, 1908, by MOFFAT, YARD AND COMPANY All Bights Beserved Pablished, October, 1908 CONTENTS Intkodtjction ix I. The Teacher ...... 1 11. The Child 31 III. The Nursery 45 IV. School 66 V. Some Questions of Expense ... 95 VI. The Playground 104 VII. Discipline 118 VIII. The Class 155 IX. Classwork . . . ' . . . . 180 X. Examinations 209 XI. Religion in the School .... 225 XII. College 254 INTRODUCTION The essays in this book are the observa- tions of a workman, recorded from time to time amid the noise and business of the shop. For this reason they should be worth reading. A review of the collection has disclosed a certain amount of repeti- tion arising from the fact that the different subjects were treated at ditferent times as complete in themselves and not parts of a whole ; but this review has also disclosed a theme throughout which the writer has ven- tured to call '' Personality in Education." An apology is certainly due to so great a subject for dragging it into the atmosphere of machinery and oil which pervades these pages. Therefore, the writer doffs his cap while he points to his overalls and says, * ' Please let me have my hour of play with- out a change of clothes." A little playful- ness in the shop is prime oil for the ma- chinery of the school. It is hoped, indeed, that the '' play " of X INTRODUCTION philosopliy to be found here will bring into the study, the schoolroom, and the home something of the life for which all method exists. There is always present the danger of too much trust in method. As experi- ence increases, the true workman perfects his method, but not without proportion- ately perfecting himself. In fact, ' ' life in method " is a phrase that very nearly de- scribes the unconscious effort underlying these essays. Young teachers fresh from college or seminary enter their work as if fully equipped. They think they have all the best methods at their fingers' ends, and they wonder why it is that their scholars do not at once glow with their own enthu- siasm. Even the distance of a quarter of a century cannot blot out the feeling of injured pride with which the writer con- templates in the light of his after expe- rience how thoroughly he made a fool of himself. That, no doubt, is all very good discipline for the teacher, but hardly so good for the child. And it does seem as if schools should more fully realize their re- sponsibilities to young teachers; should realize their duty to give beginners in this INTRODUCTION xi profession the same kind of professional Help which is given to young doctors and lawyers. It is an amazing thing that, whereas beginners in the practice of med- icine and law are considered of little ac- count till they have had practice under ex- perienced guidance, beginners among the clergy and teaching professions in general are, as a rule, at once launched into a ' ' sea of troubles " on which they are to pilot themselves and their charges to safety. There can be no reason for this except that, in the popular conception, a man's body and pocket are of more value and of more delicate structure than his mind and heart, or even than his soul; for to the teacher especially belongs the training of the whole man, the fruits of which are to be seen primarily in that distinctive life of man which we call the soul. Let us hope that the time is not far away when the first duty of the school will be not only a provision for the personal upbuild- ing of every teacher, but also for a system by wliich each inexperienced man will be given his early practice under the same kind of supervision which the young doctor gets at the hospital. xii INTRODUCTION ' ' Personality ' ' being the theme of this book, the writer has made free use of quo- tation. President Hyde of Bowdoin, and Dr. Briggs, formerly dean of Harvard, are inspiring leaders to all teachers who have been fortunate enough to know them or even to read their words to men and women of our profession. Edward Thring's book on the " Theory and Practice of Teaching " has been a handbook to some of us who were start- ing our labors when Uppingham was first mourning the loss of its great head-master. The writer indeed claims no originality, especially while he still works and writes on the ground so thoroughly saturated with the life of our own great school- master, Henry Augustus Coit. The thanks of the writer are due to the Rev. Latta Griswold, of St. George's School, Newport, R. I., for the reading and correcting of proofs. St. Paul'9 School, Concord, N. H., October 1, 1908. PERSONALITY IN EDUCATION THE TEACHER TO teach the child we must have a teacher. Though this is a self-evi- dent proposition, it is not always duly con- sidered. There have been times in the de- velopment of the nation's life when little account was made of the teacher. Some of us may remember that, comparatively speaking, * ' any one was good enough to be a teacher." It is now, however, one of the encouraging signs of the times in Amer- ica that the teacher is fast coming to his own. There can be no doubt that in itself teaching is a great profession. When this is said, it is of course assumed that by ** teaching " is implied the moulding of character. When souls are being tried out by fighting the enemies of our country, or 2 PERSOxNALITY IN EDUCATION by the excitement and work of the pioneer, the teacher is a small factor in the land ; he is considered the weakling of the commu- nity. But as life becomes less intense, and the stream becomes broader, the deep chan- nels are not so evident, and pilots are in demand. In the sunny and often shallow waters of peace, it is to the teacher that we look more and more for guidance and dis- cipline, lest we arrive not at the fair ocean of God's love. The institutional church no longer controls the supply ; in our day men and women from all quarters are awaken- ing to the nobleness of the profession, and in ever increasing numbers are arising to obey the command " G-o, teach." Further- more, they are discovering that girls and boys have for them a more enduring in- terest than stocks or merchandise, and they are finding that cultivation and re- finement in themselves have no truer or more satisfactory expression than in their reproduction in the next generation. Noth- ing is so fine in this world as human life; so it may well be said that of all profes- sions none is so fine as that which has for its object the proper training and develop- ment of that life, and no man may look THE TEACHER 8 with such confidence as the teacher for the high award. Let us, then, who are teachers, be sure that we rise to an appreciation of the greatness of our vocation. Our standard of private life as well as of public service should be nothing short of that of the Great Teacher Himself. For after all im- provements in books, methods, and ap- pliances, the teacher is the one abso- lute requisite, and all true advance must go through him; he must ever be the ex- ponent of what he is teaching. This is a New Testament axiom about teachers; yet many fail to appreciate its far-reaching application. The public are perceiving, however, something of its force in the fact that children are learning in our public schools, from which religion has been excluded, much of the es- sence of religion, through the personal- ity of their teachers; and from all the great educators comes steadily the call for the teacher of strong and uplifting personality. President Hyde, in " The College Man and College Woman," writes: " Some people can teach school and others can't. 4 PERSONALITY IN EDUCATION Some teacliers have good order, as a mat- ter of course, as soon as they set their feet in a school classroom. Other teachers can never get anything more than the outward semblance of decorum, try as hard as they will ; and often cannot get even that. Some teachers the scholars all love. Other teach- ers they all hate. Some teachers a super- intendent or president will jump at the chance to secure after a five minutes' inter- view. Others, equally scholarly, equally experienced, equally well equipped with formal recommendations, go wandering from agency to agency, from one vacant place to another, only to find that some other applicant has secured or is about to secure the coveted position. ' ' For nearly twenty years I have had to employ teachers every year, and to recom- mend teachers to others. I have seen many succeed and some fail. But I have never seen success that could be accounted for by scholarship and training alone. I have never seen a failure that I could not ac- count for on other grounds. What is it then that makes one teacher popular, suc- cessful, wanted in a dozen different places ; and another equally well trained, equally THE TEACHER 6 experienced, a dismal failure where he is, and wanted nowhere else? " The one word that covers all these qualities is personality." *^' One may say to all this, * ' Very true ; but personality is hereditary." *' Yes and no both." It is true, no doubt, that personality is hereditary, and that men and women of good stock make the best teachers. But it is also true that personality is largely a matter in our own hands, and a diligent ap- plication to things that count in our pro- fession always has its reward. The teacher has this advantage over the other profes- sional man: namely, that his critics are constantly at hand. His class is a mir- ror in which he may see himself for the looking. As he polishes it, he is sure to get, now and then, a grotesque image of himself, for which, if he is wise, he is duly thankful. Let no good man, then, despair. We have seen many men turn early failure to years of happy success. It is, therefore, to my own personality that I must give first place. Now for some of the essentials in this personality. The first of these is undoubt- 6 PERSONALITY IN EDUCATION edly truth. The second, sympathy, or, to state it more hroadly, unselfishness. While Dean of Harvard Dr. Briggs wrote from his wide experience: '* No school or col- lege discipline can be perfect; but school and college discipline become more nearly perfect according as the teachers possess, beside strong character, unquestioned sym- pathy with young people and unquestioned integrity. When I say, ' unquestioned,' I imply tact, courtesy, and possibly humor; for without at least the first of these quali- ties no sympathy can be unquestioned, and without the others some sympathy misses fire. Tact, courtesy, and a sense of humor are in most of us intermittent, and hence some of our failures. Men may be able, upright, and genuinely sympathetic, yet quite unable to make young people know their sympathy or even feel their upright- ness, except on long acquaintance. Such men are, among young people, ineffective. A just teacher may be hated and an unjust teacher loved, if the just man cannot show sympathy at short notice and the unjust man cannot help showing it. . . . '* In teachers of boys ready sympathy and absolute straightforwardness are so THE TEACHER 7 important, that I, for one, place them above high scholarship. . . . The difficulty is that, though no teacher can have learned too much, yet the love of learning may un- fit a man to be a teacher of boys. . . . The modern schoolmaster's work is vastly more than having or even imparting knowledge. It penetrates and compasses the boy's whole living ; it cannot be done without en- thusiastic drudgery in small and unlearned things, without a devotion to commonplace details, such as characterizes a good mother's care of a young child, without what a man of remote learning regards as wasting time, without a deliberate putting into the background of what people call the development and expansion of one's own self. * I want,' young teachers write, ' a larger field for my own growth and my own career.' Yet often, as Dr. Holmes would say, in the place they already occupy they ' rattle round ' ; they fail to know their far- reaching power where they are for good or for evil, and to know that out of the very things they are shirking now come the growth and the career. ... It is of vital importance what sort of men our school- masters are." 8 PERSONALITY IN EDUCATION If a teacher is not a true man he has missed his profession. There may be an appearance of progress under a man who is one thing in the class and another thing in his own life. Grammars may be com- mitted to memory, the writers of the world may be studied, examinations in science may be passed, but the boy who sits under a false man and himself grows to be a true man does so through his native force of character in spite of his teacher. The majority of young people had better never y be in any class than in one under a false man or a false woman. This seems so clear as to be self-evident, yet it is my experi- ence that nothing is so easily forgotten; we all run so quickly to cover and hide our- selves behind some mask of fancied power or beauty. And the young trustful child takes it all for granted; he is so easy to dupe, and he, in turn, learns his own lesson in deceit without being aware of the proc- ess or the result till it is too late. He finds me out eventually, but he is gone, and I am practising my fooleries on the next lot. If, however, I should carry such a personality to the older boys or men, they would make me over into a decent man or THE TEACHER 9 turn me out. By the very young, pictures are easily and unconsciously learned, and, above all others, the picture of a life. The influence of the elder and more formed character upon the younger is not easily overestimated. Children may be bullied and tricked into order and a certain kind of attention; they will admire the grand manner and obey the voice and gesture of the charlatan, but their hearts are not won ; and worse than all is the destructive lesson in the shallowness of man. It surely is better that a man should never have been born than that he should cause one of these little ones to lose faith. A child is a hero worshipper before he is a critic, and often an unconscious mimic of what he may afterward despise. Truth in a man prompts him to be humble-minded, to strive to see himself as others see him, and to abandon all habits of pretence. The humility of the scholar is not at once appreciated by the young ; but, among many other desirable things not natural to man, this stands as one highly important lesson set for us to teach; and there is only one way to teach humility, and that is to he humble-minded. It not 10 PERSONALITY IN EDUCATION only helps to keep a man from making mis- takes himself if he is ready to acknowledge them, but it is often encouraging to the child to find that in his teacher he has a fellow learner. The true man can always afford to be known; and he is a gainer thereby in the mutual fellowship that is sure to grow from truth and humility. /^. As truth begets humility so also does it beget purity. A true heart refuses to cherish what would be shameful in act; it becomes a jealous guardian of thought and motive. These remarks are of the nature of platitudes, yet it seems to me that the teacher is often in a fair way to forget how insidious are many things innocent in themselves, if they convey impure sugges- tion. The comparative innocence of the child or youth does not at the time con- sciously note the more subtle phases of a man's character, but none the less the pic- ture is steadily growing in clearness, and, all unnoted by man or boy, turns of thought and expression are doing their work on what may be called the subconscious life of the younger, to bear bitter fruit in years to come. My fellow teachers, have you not seen it? I confess that at times I am THE TEACHER 11 haunted with a dread of what I all uncon- sciously may have done to hasten the fall of this or that man whom I once knew in- timately as a pure-minded, open-hearted boy. Rigid self-examination of our man- ners and habits, backed by regular exercise and the companionship of noble literature and friends of one's own age, seems to me indispensable to those in the early years of our profession. As humility and purity are the results of the application of truth to ourselves, so justice is the result of the application of truth to our charges. Is it not remarkable how truth, or rather, the constant endeavor to see and act the truth in all things, broadens the intellect and heart, so that even the narrow man becomes able to see his boys in the true light in which God has made them and brought them to him to be taught 1 And the woman of ready sympathy and quick instinct, if she is a searcher after truth, is led into broader fields of vision and opportunity. No doubt one of the le- gitimate rewards of the teacher is the bond of friendship which grows between himself and the feiv of his pupils, yet it must never be forgotten that a child is a child, a boy is 12 PERSONALITY IN EDUCATION a boy, and if the man's craving for sym- pathy or appreciation leads him to treat such as his equal, he does an injustice both to himself and to the child, and the sure consequence is disappointment. Some of these children are far above us in every way. I sometimes come close to one whom I feel it a privilege to have known, from whom I have received new and higher con- ceptions of duty and life; yet there is always the immaturity in such boys whose very beauty is spoiled by being plastered, so to speak, with the features of the man. Moreover, in opening one's heart even to the legitimate intimacies of the young, there is always an added danger of injus- tice. I Justice is very hard to exercise, if one is warm-hearted and sympathetic. While sympathy is a gift absolutely neces- sary to the successful teacher, justice is more important, not so much for the sake of one's own power, but as part of the impres- sion of truth to be made upon the child. And over and above the personality or power of the teacher, the main point is simple : namely, what is due to each one / of our charges whether he be lovely or unlovely. The thoughtlessness of the THE TEACHER 13 young, their expectation of everything being done for them, and hence their disre- gard of a teacher's rights, form no excuse for our disregard of theirs. With bad grace indeed from a teacher comes a plea for jus- tice to himself in exculpation of some neglect ; and with equally bad grace does he show favor to those who show favor to him. There is positively no excuse for discour- tesy to any child ; on the contrary, "Maxima debeturpuero reverentia," is a motto for us all. No matter what the offence of the child, for us is the counsel, *' Fathers, provoke not your children to wrath." Yet the kind of " offence " that falls upon the child from a too rigid ap- plication of justice has nothing in com- mon with the '' offence " offered by the man who is not true. Though the first may provoke wrath and a deal of unpleas- antness, and the second pass unnoticed or followed for the time, in after years the child will rise up and call the first man *' blessed " and the second '* cursed." I well remember a teacher of my youth who rarely allowed himself to show any sym- 14 PERSONALITY IN EDUCATION pathy. The consequence was a dull, spirit- less class, with many failures in work. The man's sense of justice was so exacting as to dominate the whole atmosphere of the room. After listening in perfect quiet to a translation, while making small dots on his marking sheet, he would say, ' ' Norris, you may sit down now. I have no more room to register your mistakes.'* Nevertheless, while the actual work of the Csesar became irksome, the integrity and justice of the man were doing a higher work. Never could some of us forget this man; the close touch with such a character, little appreciated at the time, has grown in my memory as a thing to be cherished reverently. Next to truth and its plainer corollaries, follows unselfishness. To give truth ample scope in any case, we must be unselfish. The true man comes eventually to see that truth demands self-surrender. The life of the great scientist and seeker after truth, Huxley, is inspiring and instructive in many ways, and not the least in this, that in his later days he attained to a wonderful humility and submission which were prac- tically a real Christian sacrifice. THE TEACHER 15 The spirit of sacrifice begets such a habit of self-forgetfulness that a man will attain to the best of the old Stoic philosophy; he will be independent of outside worry or in- side pain, a state of being quite necessary for the man who would be a successful teacher, and yet one very difficult to acquire except through the spirit of sacrifice. Self-forgetfulness, therefore, we may call the first corollary to unselfishness. This is far better as a cure for the ills of the teacher than the fooleries of so- called Christian Science. To quote again from President Hyde: *' The Christian Scientist with the toothache says there is no matter to ache. The Stoic, both truer to the fact and braver in spirit, says there is matter, but it doesn't matter if there is. Stoicism teaches us that the mental states are the man ; that external things never, in themselves, constitute a mental state ; that the all-important contribution is made by the mind itself ; that this contribution from the mind is what gives the tone and de- termines the worth of the total mental state, and that this contribution is ex- clusively our own affair and may be brought entirely under our own control." 16 PERSONALITY IN EDUCATION No profession probably is so full of heart- burnings over failures of self, poverty of means, and discouragements in children and colleagues as our own. If we are any good, our ideals are high, and consequently disap- '- pointments almost crusliing. Let us apply some further words of the above quoted writer in regard to Stoicism. * ' There is a way of looking at our poverty, our plain- ness of feature, our lack of mental bril- liance, our unpopularity, our mistakes, our physical ailments, that will make us modest, contented, cheerful, and serene. The blun- ders we make, the foolish things we do, the hasty words we say, though they, in a sense have gone out from us, yet once committed in the external world they should be left there ; they should not be brought back into the mind to be brooded over and become centres of depression and discourage- ment. ' ' Even the old philosopher realized that. How much more the Christian man, who knows that his God has taken our own weak nature, that He is in us and around us, and bids us cast all our care on Him I In the words of the great Apostle, forget- ting those things that are behind let us press on to the mark of our high calling. THE TEACHER 17 Losing oneself in the high calling of shap- ing children to the image in which they are made, is a guarantee of success and happi- ness. The man that cannot lose himself is , for ever doomed to the woes of selfish- ness. Rules for teachers or children, like other formalities, count for very little, and in the long run for worse, if the man is not be- hind. But if there is the character worthy of the form, there cannot be too much stress laid upon the latter. The outward expres- sion is what first catches the attention, and is the natural medium for thoughts high or thoughts low. Let us remember how we ourselves were attracted or repelled by the face, the manner, or even by the dress of a teacher. How minutely did we observe every detail of gesture and of apparel, the clean hands and well-brushed clothes and polished shoes! There is no place in this world, I believe, where the manners of a gentleman count more for himself and for his generation than they do in the class- room. The well-modulated voice, the clear and distinct articulation, the ready smile indicative of humor and sympathy (not sarcasm) ; in fact, all the arts of good 18 PERSONALITY IN EDUCATION breeding, furthered by love, are not too much to spend in order to win the heart and open the mind of the child. So often some little trick of voice or of manner or of dress is the undoing of the teacher. I remember distinctly my own aver- sion to a man, which aversion arose at first solely through the spots and dandruff on his coat. Different peculiarities annoy different children. The unmanly caress, or effem- inate speech, as well as the harsh and brutal, is likely to annul the effect of many fine qualities. << Why do you not get on with Mr. A? " C'A" was a painstaking, refined, and un- selfish master.) " He is too affectionate," answered a boy who, in every respect, was capable of appreciating the high qualities of his teacher. And then again one wonders at the ap- parent success of a man who is often harsh and brutal in voice or manner ; and a young teacher will be thus tempted to assume the hardness which he does not feel. Success of this sort is like the success of any other tyrant and is criminally out of place among THE TEACHER 19 teachers of children. Benson, in his *' Upton Letters," notes, "A man who is an egotist and a bully finds rich pasturage among boys who are bound to listen to him and over whom he can tyrannize." This man, say I, is among those whose necks should be hung with millstones. In the m'idst of some tirade, suddenly one stops and imagines himself an observer passing the door of his own classroom: if he be a true man, shame overwhelms him, and this, perhaps, he takes no great pains to conceal ; perhaps, confesses at once, and afterwards, in the stillness of his own study, wonders what his pupils think of him. Then is his chance to step up higher on another stone thrown down from that great wall of pride that would hem in and darken the life of every man. If we could see ourselves as our boys see us, and if we did but realize what they ex- pect of us, we should be better men and better teachers. Valuable as is such a self-reflection from our pupils, our friends, or our enemies, there is, however, a truer gauge as well as a surer source of strength: 20 PERSONALITY IN EDUCATION ** Blessed is the man whose strength is in Thee; In whose heart are Thy ways. Who going through the vale of misery Use it for a well : And the pools are filled with water, They will go from strength to strength And unto the God of Gods appeareth Every one of them in Zion. ' * Oh, for that spirit to-day which three hundred years ago inspired the great La Salle and filled France with bands of men, devoted heart and soul to teaching the child ! No hardship, no mental or spiritual discipline was too much for these men that they might win the children of their coun- try to straight thinking and living. It is interesting to note that La Salle was the first man to gather children and teach them in classes, and he was the first to bring men together into brotherhoods and community of life for the sake of this kind of work. While he was subject to the mistakes of the Church of his day, he kept himself and his men clean from intrigue, and won for his schools the lasting love of the best people in France. The tale of the devotion and phenomenal success of * ' The THE TEACHER 21 Christian Brothers " is one that every teacher would be the better for reading. One of their customs shows the spirit in which they approached their work. After the daily morning devotions all assembled in their common room and confessed one to another the mistakes and failures of the preceding day. It is this spirit of self-a&- cusation, this habit of tracing failure to oneself rather than to the child, that not \y^ only keeps a man humble in his own life but gives him real power over the life of the child. But withal, let not a man forget that he is set to be a leader. Children are merci- less in their demands, and as soon as the teacher abdicates the position of leader, he is not only teased and overburdened, but, curiously enough, his pupils lose their respect. They fear and perhaps hate the bully, but they obey; while they play with a better man who does not assert himself. True leadership can come only to the strong, attractive, disciplined, and humble- minded who never allow their pupils to lose sight of the ideals of life. The leader must go before in all things that make a man, not only in striking points of personal 22 PERSONALITY IN EDUCATION character and good manners, but also in habits that conduce to bodily health and good temper as well as in habits of study and scholarship. Alas, how dependent on good digestion and good red blood are not only the healthy flights of our imagination and the ex- pression of high thoughts and ideals, but the happy conduct of the simplest routine ! The nerves of teachers must be steady; they must reflect health and happiness if they are to lead the young. President Eliot has said, I believe, ' ' The only man fit for a teacher is the young man or the man who never grows old." For the comfort of those of us who are growing old in our profession, let us remember Emerson's lines, ** Spring still makes spring in the mind When sixty years are told ; Love makes anew the throbbing heart And we are never old. ' ' And the sage goes on to say, ' ' Get health. And the best part of health is fine disposi- tion. It is more essential than talent, even in the works of talent. Nothing will supply THE TEACHER 23 the want of sunshine to peaches, and to make knowledge valuable, you must have the cheerfulness of wisdom." I fear that we shall be obliged to confess with President Hyde that Epicurus must be the first teacher of him who would teach. He says: "A teacher who works at such exhausting and narrowing work as in- structing thirty or forty restless children, and does not counteract it by plenty of play, is not only committing slow suicide, but he is stunting and dwarfing his nature so that every year will find him personally less fit to teach than he was the year before. . . . Play and people to play with are as neces- sary for a teacher as prayer for a preacher, or votes for a politician, a piano for a mu- sician, or a hammer for a carpenter. You simply cannot go on healthily, happily, hopefully, without it. . . . In short, to quote one who is our most genial apostle of Epicureanism, do you recognize and ar- range your life according to the principle that " The world is so full of a number of things, That I'm sure we should all be happy as kings! ' " 24 PERSONALITY IN EDUCATION Education in this country owes a great debt to President Hyde of Bowdoin Col- lege. His manly and clear insight into the needs of the present day is helping men everywhere and especially teachers to un- derstand the ideals and details of the pro- fession. In line with his remarks on this subject let us add our experience as to the helpful- ness of riding a hobby, if we do it unosten- tatiously. Outside intellectual interests that carry us away even into the clouds broaden our horizon, and bring us back to our classes with renewed mental brightness and vigor. When the mystic descends from his beautiful castle in the air, when the philosopher closes his book or blots his page, when the musician " hangs up the fiddle and the bow," when the forester comes out of the woods or the hunter out of the swamps and briars, one and all, they come from a new point of view after un- conscious mental growth, and each bright- ens his old routine with new lights. Let a man be not only well prepared in his subject far in advance of his pupils, but let him follow his own sweet pleasure in all that goes to make his own life full to over- THE TEACHER 25 flowing. Indeed, no culture is too high, no attainment too exalted to bring into the classroom of the youngest child. We can never overestimate the silent influence upon the boy or girl of all that the teacher is in his own personality. Therefore, in this exercise of our right and duty. to work and to play, "the problem is," to quote again from President Hyde, ''one of pro- portion and selection, to know what to slight and what to emphasize. . . . The teacher should have a pretty clear idea of - what he means to do and be. That which is essential to this main end should be ac- cepted at all costs; that which hinders it should be rejected at all costs. . . . The teacher should learn to say, 'No!' to calls which are good in themselves, but are not good for him." Amateur theatricals, church fairs, Sunday-school work, avoid^; ' in fact, close attention to anything that re- quires the expenditure of the same nervous force required in our profession is to be shunned. As there is a danger in the wrong selec- tion of all such occupations in our leisure, so there is a danger of want of proportion in the attention which we give to the different 26 PERSONALITY IN EDUCATION parts of our work. There is such a thing as too much attention being paid to mark- ing and to accurate ranking by those whose business it is to teach large classes. If anything is to be shirked, shirk the least important so that we may emphasize the more important. "Do the thing that counts. Leave things that do not count un- done or get them done quickly. Remember that physical health, mental elasticity, and freshness and vivacity of spirits must be maintained at all costs in the interests of the school and the scholars no less than as a matter of imperative self-preservation. The wise teacher will say to himself, ' I must know the lessons I teach; I must do some reading outside; I must take an interest in my individual scholars; I must keep myself strong and happy and well; these are essential, and for the sake of these things I stand ready to sacri- fice all mere red tape; I stand ready to be misunderstood by good people who know nothing of the strain I am under; I stand ready to shirk and to slight minor matters when it is necessary to do so in order to do the main things well.' The larger a man's aims, provided he is able THE TEACHER 27 measurably to realize them, the larger his influence ; but what does not further those aims must be politely ignored so far as they require time or energy." The child is the teacher's specialty and constant study; not simply children, and the ways of teaching and disciplining, but the child, each and every individual child committed to his care. The curse is not upon those who shall offend these little ones but upon '^ whomsoever shall offend one of these little ones"; so the blessing, the joy, the success of our work wait upon him who will '^ receive one of these little ones." He knows and calls each by name in his heart as well as with his lips. If one errs the ninety-nine must be left for a time, while he seeks the lost through all the pains and dangers to his own pride and ease. The only measure of such individual care is the measure of his own powers. The true leader goes before, and he holds his life in his hand ready to give with no reserve.^ This is the supreme glory of our profes- sion. Writes President Hyde: "Pour your- selves unreservedly, without stint or meas- ure, into the lives of your scholars. See / 28 PERSONALITY IN EDUCATION things through their eyes ; feel keenly their joys and griefs. Be sure that you share in sympathy and helpfulness every task you lay upon them; that you rejoice in every success they achieve, and that you are even more sorry than they for every failure they make. Be a leader, not a driver, of your flock ; for to lead is Christ-like, to drive is unchristian. The difference, you see, be- tween the teacher who is a Christian and the one who is not, is not a difference of doctrine or ritual or verbal profession. It is a difference in the tone, temper, and spirit of the teacher's attitude toward the scholars. . . . The greatest difference be- tween teachers, after all, is that in this deepest sense some teachers are Christians and some are not. The teacher who is not a Christian according to this definition will work for reputation and pay, — will teach what is required and rule the school by sheer authority and force. Between teacher \i and scholar a great gulf will be fixed ; the only bridges across that gulf will be au- thority and constraint on the part of the teacher, fear and self-interest on the part of the pupils. Such a teacher will set tasks and compel the scholars to do them. THE TEACHER 29 Here such a teacher's responsibility will end. " Precisely here, where the unchristian teacher's work ends, is where the Christian teacher's best work begins. Instead of im- posing a task on the scholars, the Christian teacher sets before scholars and teacher alike a task which they together must do ; the teacher is to help each scholar to do it and each scholar is to help the teacher to get this task done. It is a common work in which they are engaged. If they suc- ceed it is a common satisfaction ; if any in- dividual fails it is a common sorrow. The Christian teacher will be just as rigid in his requirements as the unchristian teacher, but the attitude toward the doing of it is entirely different. The unchristian teacher says to the scholars, ' Go and do that work ; I shall mark you and punish you, if you fail.' The Christian teacher says, ' Come, let us do this work together ; I am ready to help you in every way I can, and I want each of you to help me.' " While it is true, as we have reminded ourselves, that nothing unworthy will do to give the child, that no sacrifice is too great that makes the man or the woman more 30 PERSONALITY IN EDUCATION effective, so it is equally true that, no matter how great the gift we give, we shall find it again in our work. There is nothing that comes home to the true teacher more clearly as the years go on than this fact, guaranteed by the Great Teacher, namely, that just in proportion as a man gives his life he takes it again. There is ever a new joy as this or that difficult child turns more and more to the light that you are trying to hold, and begins really to take in what you are trying to give. And is it not true, my fellow teachers, is it not true that, in spite of a full share of disappointments and sor- rows, we have more than our share of the love of our fellows? And let us love in return; for he that loves much will not only sorrow much but rejoice much. This is life. / n THE CHILD **T^7HAT is your subject? " asked a V V friend of a teacher in one of our large schools. '' Boys," was the quick reply. " I mean, what is your branch? " ' ' Boys ! boys ! ! boys ! ! ! " was all the an- swer that the man would give. Every true teacher must feel that his *' subject " is always the child. Mathe- matics, history, the classics, or, whatever the study in hand, it is absolutely sec- ondary to the child. A master of boys whose success as a teacher and leader was a by-word in his generation, was frequently heard to say, '' Win the boy." He man- aged his great school largely through his personal influence on the individual mem- bers, both men and boys; public welfare sometimes seemed to suffer and even jus- tice seemed to halt in the plain endeavor to win this or that particular boy to a " better 81 32 PERSONALITY IN EDUCATION state of mind." With all great teachers the same point is invariably emphasized as first and last and all the time the underlying principle of their work. It is not to win the child to oneself, but to win him to his ■^ own '* better self." The winsomeness of some children is often just what stands in the way of our disinterested efforts for them as well as for each of their fellows, whereas the special and loving attention bestowed upon the commonplace and un- attractive, is not only one's duty to the individual, but it is a source of power for winning all. Nothing so impresses chil- dren with a teacher's competence as his patient attention and success with the slow and diffident child. The diffident child? How often is he the father of the brilliant man! That which marks a boy as out of the ordinary, the very element of his fu- ture greatness, is often the cause of his shyness and early reticence. Such chil- dren are generally slow to develop: they do not understand themselves: the only thing that they do seem to see plainly is that they do not fit their surroundings. Men and women long in our profession have noted how very many of their THE CHILD 83 stupid scholars have attained to solid success, and some to real greatness. These coins, therefore, are worth the hunting, for they bear the " Image of the King." Let us remark just here, that the after success of this kind of a child is owing not only to native ability, but to these two facts: first, such a child, always taking a low place, is learning the inestimable lesson of humility; and, second, such a child is learning to overcome difficulties, to work hard and patiently in a way denied to the quicker and earlier mature. And, after all, are not these two chief ends of edu- cation? The power to work, and the hu- mility that fits one to take his right place in the brotherhood of man, go far toward opening to a man the treasures of the universe. Education, as we all know and generally forget, is not so much the putting in as the leading out: the leading out to a child's own consciousness all that is best in him, and so exhibiting the possibilities of his mind in such attractive guise as to arouse his every effort. Before good work must come the appetite, and before the appetite the ideal. The ideal is given shape, and 34 PERSONALITY IN EDUCATION the appetite aroused not only by the exhibi- tion of what the world holds outside the child, but also by showing to the child his own connection with all these things and his possible sovereignty over them. To an awakened mind or body every labor has its charm. Therefore, these three parts of education, the setting forth of the ideal, the sharpening of the appetite, and the drilling in the habits of work, though coming in the order named and having at different peri»ods in the child's life their relative importance, are all steps to the different stages in the same ascent, to be repeated again and again before each new landing. Early childhood is preeminently the time for inculcating what we call the idealistic elements of life; and, while this must always be the underlying feature of educating children, the next stage in the child we may call the hungry stage, which is to be duly used to lay in stores of beau- tiful and necessary forms, and to incul- cate habits of application and hard work. Here we may venture a general definition of education as " the process of proving to the child that work and not idleness is the normal state of happiness." We shall THE CHILD 35 induce him to try, and so to prove to him- self that work begets appetite for more work. On these considerations, then, depends the attitude with which the teacher ap- proaches the child, and, therefore, the gen- eral character of the teacher's methods in training and discipline. Is it to put in something that is not there, or to bring out something that is there? Is it to present a subject or a les- son as something foreign to the child's ex- perience to be driven in, or is it to lead the child from its own conscious experience step by step to heights of imagination and practice before unknown? In discipline, is it to force the will to make a show of obedience, or is it to bring the child, even by severe punishment, if needs be, to his own better self? What more precise or more comprehen- sive expression may we use for the child in this view than the old familiar phrase, ' ' the child of God ' ' ? When applied gen- erally, we mean by this, that the child is made in the image of perfection. We may say what we please about ' ' The Fall ' ' or man's natural degeneracy, yet it is the uni- 36 PERSONALITY IN EDUCATION versal testimony of those who look for it that in every normal child there is that Image, and a more or less ready response to its appeal. The chink to this inner divinity is sometimes very narrow, and the frightened little soul would feign hide. It is this conscious possibility, however, in the child that the true teacher sets himself to strengthen, and to which in some form or other he invariably appeals. We have all noted how a mother's faith in a boy gives her a hold that the father, as a rule, fails to acquire. And it is this very same kind of faith in and insight into a child's possibilities that gives a teacher the en- trance to the heart. We all remember, in our childhood, those who believed in us: a teacher here or there, one trained and ele- vated by a life of devotion, a friend, or per- haps a servant in the house. Whoever it was, their belief in us " led out ' ' the best of our hidden store, and went a long way toward our '* education.'* When we have said this we have said what comprises everything in the treatment of the child. Given the devotion on the part of the teacher and this idea of the child, then the different characters to be dealt with will THE CHILD 37 suggest the different methods to be used. Older teachers know only too well the ab- solute failure that waits upon the ma- chinery of education uninspired by the personal touch ; as we also know the failure of trying to make one kind of a child out of another kind. The docile teachable youngster who easily takes one's point of view spoils us for the more obstinate or lazy; and then there comes the temptation of putting the screws of one's own making upon the wrongheadedness of the one or upon the flabby inertia of the other : there is pinching and squeezing, but not much moulding. It is also easy to forget that, as a rule, the more independent mind, the one harder to teach, is of the higher or creative class. It will be interesting later on to study the methods by which one may arouse this kind of a child to do his best. The danger is that we make it stupid by our own stupid driving. On the other hand, the quick response and rapid ad- vance of the first is often but catching the mere straws of education, and when bereft of the stimulus of the teacher and of school honors, — quick returns for small successes, — fails miserably ; it has not been 38 PERSONALITY IN EDUCATION taught to *' lead out " and marshal its own resources, but, on the contrary, has formed the habit of looking for friendly allies. While the one is growing into the habit of the slave, the other is growing into the habit of the nursling; both are losing in manliness and initiative force. The driver and the nurse are equally out of place in the school. When one sees the failures of some men who stood high at school, he is reminded of the old slave who came to his much-loved master after the war to beg him to make him work his own garden patch as he did " 'f o ' de wah. ' ' On the next plantation, they robbed the slave- driver whom they did not love. What President Hyde says of the college boy is, to a degree, true of the child : " No man can grow in character unless he is doing freely and gladly something which he likes to do — something into which he can put the whole energy of his will, the whole enthusiasm of his heart. . . . We can never make men out of the boys who come to us, unless in some form or other we give them a career in which to work out freely what is in them. Wherever pre- scription and paternalism undertake to THE CHILD 39 domineer the life of the student, there we are sure to find either lawlessness, re- bellion, and all manner of boisterous mis- chief, or else the product of such an insti- tution will be a lot of good-for-nothing, effeminate namby-pamby weaklings." As a man proceeds in the work of edu- cation, he has less and less confidence in the line between " clever " and '' dull " children. An old teacher was wont to say that, in his opinion, there is very little difference in actual ability to learn; that the difference lies mostly in the desire and the will. But here there is a wide differ- ence, and it is our task to arouse and direct the desire, while we strengthen and steady the will. There is no such thing as the ' * average child ' ' : each one claims our spe- cial attention for its own individual wants. The '' ninety and nine " will not stray while we seek the one lagging or lost. Yet we note that the Master left them that He might make the flock whole once more, — '' that they all may be one." Therefore, there is no such thing either as the '' ex- ceptional child, ' ' in the sense that he can be saved alone, that his *' leading " is to end anywhere but as one of the great family of t^ 40 PERSONALITY IN EDUCATION men. This idea should permeate the whole process of education. The earlier a child learns that he is but one of a great com- pany, that he is not an exception, but a rule, the better for him. The earlier a boy learns to take his bitters and his sweets with his fellows, the better and happier for him. Children are naturally gregarious ; it is the state in which we all find our great- est happiness, and the child from the start should be trained to take his place. This natural joy of companionship is one of a teacher's best means to arouse the desire and steady the will. How often we have seen the stupid listless boy ^' wake up " when thrown with others! It is not only the competition, it is the play of number- less and unnamed characteristics aroused by the mere companionship. We have here, then, both an end and a means of education. To press this point still farther, not only is the child to be educated in that balance of mental attainments which go to make the boy an educated man, able to hold his own in the world, and the girl an educated woman, able to hold her own in the world, but the particular ability of each is to be THE CHILD 41 discovered and so guided as to enable each to fit best in that place in the family of mankind to which he may be called. A careful judgment, therefore, in regard to the material before one is a grave responsi- bility for the teacher. A skilled workman must be a good judge of material. Minds must be studied and known if minds are to be trained. The blind cannot be taught to draw, nor the dumb to sing. The ques- tion is first, what this mind is, not what it ought to be; the actual material that gen- erations of neglect, or idleness, or wrong methods or dull homes, or money-loving cities, or any other form of stunted life may send forth ; or, on the other hand, the actual material that generations of refine- ment and intellectual effort have produced in the child before you. In any and in every case, the child must be studied and its best side reached. Broadly speaking, the elective system cannot be too soon or too wisely begun. While we are constrain- ing the child to the exertion of what seem to be its weaker faculties, leading it with all the power we may to a habit of over- coming difficulties, the special gift, if there be one, must never be lost. Everything 42 PERSONALITY IN EDUCATION will be better done if opportunity is wisely given for even the baby to choose what she likes best. The instinct to be alone with nature or with books or with the one friend, is to be recognized and turned to the best advantage. The power to be a great leader often develops from these very habits of close and quiet communing. Modern methods of education are in dan- ger at some points of denying this chance to the child, while at others there is a fool- ish latitude. Some of us have seen the listless schoolboy, the " butt " of his class, rouse up all his faculties when he has dis- covered something which he can do well. The carpenter's bench, more than once, has helped to open the mind to the contem- plation of the highest themes. One little eminence attained gives a new view and opens new possibilities. Happiness floods the heart, and the heavy mind becomes, in a sense, a new creature ; all work becomes easier and is better done, because one thing is well done. It is the well-rounded spe- cialist who has learned to work even under difficulties that makes the happiest as well as the most useful citizen. " Jack of all trades " becomes " master of none," and THE CHILD 43 this '' master of none " never knows the joy of doing a thing really well, as he never knows the full joy of that sweet interdependence between those who give and those who receive. He tries to be all- sufficient in himself. But " to give and to take " — this is breath,. the breath in and the breath out — this is life as well as education. In a large degree this is the life and the reward of the true teacher, for he gets as much as he gives. Year after year, day after day, as a man goes to his class in the same old room to give and to hear the same old lessons, not only are the faces ever new, but for him there is an ever- growing faith in the hidden treasures of the child. Every day there is the old enemy in much the same guise, but every day we are learning his tricks and new methods of attack, and every day we find a new treasure in a fresh breath of truth and purity from the child. We are the first recipients of what we "■ lead out " from this inexhaustible child. Such, then, is the child, and such is his destiny. He is now the " Child of God," fresh from the hands of his Creator, with all the possibilities of happiness and use- 44 PERSONALITY IN EDUCATION fulness; and tlie fulfilment of his destiny is largely in our hands. All our methods, therefore, should tend to bring home to the child the truth of his inheritance, and so to fit him not only for his own battle against *' the world, the flesh, and the devil," but for his fight in the ranks for the spread of that Kingdom of Love which is to bring deliverance to the oppressed and freedom to those that are bound. in THE NUESEEY IF it comes to a choice of " bringing up " the child according to some pre- conceived notion or of " letting him grow up," by all means choose the latter. If I were a child endowed with the light of my present experience, I should say with David, ** Let us fall now into the hand of the Lord; for His mercies are great: and let me not fall into the hand of man." It is evident, however, that more children are spoiled by neglect than by over care. Our object is, therefore, to indicate the lines on which the early years should be trained in order best to prepare the child for going away to school. Wise training rather than much training, wisdom rather than zeal, is our watchword in all this nurturing of the springs of life. The problem is al- ways the same, though, if anything, more 45 46 PERSONALITY IN EDUCATION important in the nursery than in the school ; and the problem is, ' ' to bring out all that is best in the child to all good uses." It is not, therefore, to '' bring up " the little one to something great, but to " bring out " the inborn image of per- fection by a wise nurture of growth. This nurture cannot be started too soon. When one attempts to trace to its source some habit for good or evil, he generally becomes lost in the earliest reaches of his memory. Our Roman brother says, ' ' Give me the child till he is twelve and he is mine always." Discipline meets us on the very thresh- old; as to this, let us remember that the exalting of good is better than the blaming of bad. Scolding and punislmient can never take the place of happy surroundings and uplifting example. However, a child must be led to strict obedience even at the cost of painful punishment. A light switch quickly and lovingly and effectively ad- ministered saves much unhappiness. Dif- ferent methods of bringing about this obedience in children will apply to differ- ent children, but for all, the personality of the father, mother, or nurse is the one thing THE NURSERY 47 needful ; such a personality as never leaves a sting, but brings home and finishes every punishment with words and deeds of love. Discipline may have but one object, and that is to raise the divine in the child, and not the devil. Deceit and lying are the Devil's clothes for the little one, and some children they fit so naturally as to demand great patience and wisdom in substituting the garment of truth. If there is a necessity for the teacher to be truthful, pure, and unselfish, there is greater necessity for the nurse, be she mother or servant. There is not only the direct infliience through discipline and ex- ample, but there is that mysterious spirit- ual influence that the elder has over the younger and unformed character. The child catches not only manners and ways, but traits of character, so that the ex- pression of its face will often grow very like to that of a nurse. Next to the personality of the nurse we shall have a care to all that the little one sees and hears. Pleasant faces, attractive pictures, etc., are, however, more common than wise words. '' Little pitchers have long ears," and many a child has learned / 48 PERSONALITY IN EDUCATION in the nursery the habit of unkind criticism and gossip which he carries with him through life. Just here we touch what seems the first principle in the education of children and all young people, the prin- ciple of faith. Now faith, as a principle of life, to state it very simply, is the habit of mind which first believes and then tests the belief in practice; the habit of mind which, drilled in grammar (so to speak), through good example, grasps intuitively the best of man's experience for its own use. Original investigation and initiative are the surer for practical result with faith as a basis for individual experience. Many men, emi- nent scholars, lecturers, and preachers of great power, have failed with children for lack of that definiteness which not only carries conviction to the mind of the child, but calls out faith. It was a wise man as well as a poet who sang: ** Blessed is the man . . . that sitteth not in the seat of the scornful. But his delight is in the law of the Lord ; And in His law doth he meditate (exercise himself) day and night. THE NURSERY 49 ** And he shall be like a tree planted by the riv- ers of water that bringeth forth his fruit in due season; His leaf also shall not wither ; and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper. ' ' Moreover, the supposition on which we "began and continue these reflections is that those who teach in the nursery or in school should first have faith themselves in the child; and, second, by their own truth and sincerity teach the child in turn to have faith in them. They are to believe that the best is somewhere hidden away in the heart of every child, and then to work out this belief in every act of discipline or en- couragement in such a way as to win the trust and confidence of the child to them- selves and to the law that they teach. Faith in a teacher and in the law which he teaches will lay in the young a foundation on which to build the finest structure of ex- perience, whether in science or practice. Faith? We have sometimes been so frightened at the grotesque forms taught in the name of faith for the purpose of sat- isfying human greed for power that we have fled to the opposite extreme only to find that the truest agnostic, in his search 50 PERSONALITY IN EDUCATION for truth, arrives at the point where every child should start : " I knoiu little or noth- ing; every step forward in knowledge but broadens my view of those facts which I must believe in order to live." When we speak of faith, therefore, we mean, in this connection a habit of mind ; and something even more than this, even that idea of faith which we gather from St. Paul's frequent use, a " soul-attitude " which involves the whole person, and directs the whole intel- lectual growth. Nothing could be more unwise than to allow such a faith to be bound within the limits of word formulas, call them what you please. Equally un- wise is the teacher to forego the use of such formula in teaching this element of trust or faith, not only as a starting-point for the child, but in directing the intellect to the most practical method for arriving at results for itself. A creed is not a wall, but a path leading out into limitless ad- venture. No one has improved on the plan of the great apostle Paul,* " For I deliv- ered unto you first of all that which also I received." Then after a clear statement of what he had received comes the equally clear statement of his own experience, and * 1 Cor. XV. THE NURSERY 51 then the appeal to the experience of his pupils, ' ' If Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins "; three equally important witnesses, with which to confront every child, in their proper order ; the witness of the fathers, as coming with the authority and weight of one who has made it his own, and so applied it as to stimulate experience to be its own witness. Indeed, this is the method of the Master Himself all through His teaching; the " witness of John," the ^' witness " of His own works, and the '^ witness " of the hearts of His hearers, or, as it is summed up in another place (S. John iii: 32) by the Forerunner himself, " "What he hath seen and heard, that he testifieth," and ' ' He that receiveth his testimony hath set to his seal that God is true." Faith, therefore, may be called both the method and the chief object to be attained in teaching the child. As one would sup- pose, it is the nature of the child to trust and to take things on trust; and, while we make use of this faculty, it is all-important to lead it out, or educate it, on sane and natural lines. The elder cannot be too careful in fulfilling every promise and in 52 PERSONALITY IN EDUCATION refraining from all threats ; cannot be too careful in setting an example of trust and faith in their fellows ; cannot be too careful in avoiding all pretence, and effort to fool the child. The religious elements of edu- cation do not enter distinctively into the scope of this paper, but let us note here that so-called religious faith cannot be taught except through faith in man ; ' ' first that which is natural, then that which is spiritual." The child drinks in its faith in God through mother and nurse. Indeed, faith in God and faith in man and (may we not say?) in nature are one. Long expe- rience in the country districts of New Eng- land has burned into my mind some dread- ful pictures of faithlessness. I doubt if darkest Africa can match instances of the devilish natures nurtured in some of our New England homes where *' experience " rather than ' * faith ' ' has been for genera- tions the religious watchword. Deserted farms and childless homes bear witness to the failure of the stream of life. No trust in God or man, no trust in nature except what a man may win by his own meagre jefforts, has produced a condition of society and a type of individual truly appalling. THE NDRSERY 5S Shut within itself the heart of man, nat- urally trustful and teachable, has become so small and hard as to seem almost inhu- man. Self-will has become its God, and selfishness its rule of life, even where some of the old formulas of faith have a nominal dominion. The very soil is hungry for the seeds of faith. The Irish and the French- Canadian, trained on different lines, come into the waste places, and the old house is full of children, and the old barn full of plenty. Every quackery has also found in this country a ready soil; so barren is the heart that the man whose faith is roused by a bread pill or a Mother Eddy goes out to a newer and happier life. Works with- out faith are veritable grave-clothes; this, too, in the land whose watchword once was *' justification by faith." Do let us read the signs of the times, that our children may have life in abundance. Faith being, therefore, the main proposi- tion for the nursery, Responsibility is the first corollary. The child who is brought up to believe that he is a child of God made for some fine purpose and one of a great family, naturally breathes the spirit of responsibility. Eegularity in all the 54 PERSONALITY IN EDUCATION small duties of the home is essential, as well as order and obedience. There is but one commandment that has a promise all its own: namely, " Honor thy father and thy mother." Obedience as a principle and habit of life is rarely learned except in the nursery or in the hard life of the barracks. Experience soon teaches that submission is expedient, but expediency is a weak mas- ter. It is the unswerving and loyal sub- mission of the well-trained child that brings success to the man, the life ' ' long ' ' in usefulness and happiness if not in years. Responsibility, however, has its back- ground: namely, the free and happy growth of the child's own tastes and pow- ers. A wise freedom to choose his own way is absolutely essential, as well as the chance to bear the results of his own mistakes. As soon as joossible the child should be held responsible for the care of his own posses- sions — his room, pets, books, or toys. As a child grows older, every added privilege should carry with it an added duty. Great, strong men who have fought and won their battle in life bring their boys from the nur- sery to the school with the remark, " I have had to work for everything from my THE NURSERY 55 boyhood, and I want my boy to have what- ever he wishes." We look at the boy and we see the stamp of helplessness, and our hearts sink. If we were wise, we would answer, ' ' Then, sir, please take him home again; you would deprive your boy of the very thing that made you a man." The child in the nursery knows not what the word '' responsibility " means, but it is remarkable how soon the sense of it grows under the proper influence. Indeed, the older one takes so naturally to a share in the care of the younger, and in the other burdens of the nursery, that with some there is a danger of blighting their free and light-hearted joys. There are two sides to the answer of the question, ' ' Dost thou not think that thou art bound to be- lieve and to do as your sponsors promised for you ? ' ' — the ' ' yes, verily ' ' and the ' ' I heartily thank ' ' : there must be the yoke, but it must be easy and light; there must be joy in the nursery. The imagination furnishes a large part of the material for the life of a happy nursery, and it should have free play. In that wonderful fairyland in which most of us have lived, the hours are not only happy, 56 PERSONALITY IN EDUCATION but they are fraught with deep truths of life. Never mind the borderland between truth and fancy; that is " a secret " of the little one and will clear itself without the aid of the " grown up," if we are just to ourselves. Dwarf the imagination and you impair the power of vision, and weaken the grasp of faith; in other words, you dwarf the whole realm of the intellect and heart. Let the fairyland extend on into life, in poetry and prose, leading to the higher and maturer flights of the imag- ination which open so many vistas of truth. Hard facts come only too soon, and they are not half so hard if we may still have our dreams. '' Eeading without tears " becomes an actual fact for the child whose mind has been somewhat ordered by the nursery. Six or seven is old enough to begin this more serious business. Two little boys who knew their alphabets came to me for their first lessons in reading. We sat at the window overlooking the playground and the pond. I made up a little story of what we saw, while they watched the main facts being printed in words of one sylla- ble. They soon took up the printing for THE NURSERY 57 themselves from my dictation and their own suggestions. Each day, while we added new matter, we read the old. Their interest being aroused by making the ex- ercise a growth from their own little lives ; their eyes, their ears, and their memories being called on to do their parts, it was wonderful how soon and happily they got over the difficulties of the start. While it is a laudable eifort to make lessons attractive and to give to learning its true place in the natural and happy de- velopment of a child's mind, lessons are not play. The power to work and concen- trate thought is the end in view, and this can be attained only by work and concen- tration. The habit of patient close work without prompting from a teacher cannot be cultivated too early. The Kindergarten does not seem to accomplish this result. Either we do not know how to work it, or it is unsuitable to our American life of independence. The product of the Kinder- garten, so far as I have seen it, is a men- tal dependence and a lack of real industry that are destructive to scholarship. The ordinary nursery school is little better. It is true, the child has more initiative, but 58 PERSONALITY IN EDUCATION the detention for a certain number of hours, the waiting before an open book till so much time has passed or so many other children have been ' ' heard, " is a dreadful performance. Moreover, instead of work- ing out alone and undisturbed short por- tions, the child forms the habit of turning to the teacher for explanation of every little difficulty. The whole plan should be different. For subjects that require close attention there should be a quiet room. The limit of attendance should be not time, but work accomplished, and the little one should be encouraged in every way to work quickly and accurately. As has been well said, " The first lesson of education is the lesson of getting down to hard work and doing the work thoroughly." This whole subject is one of such im- portance that I take the liberty here of quoting a few paragraphs from a paper of Dr. Briggs read before the Department of Superintendence at Chicago, February, 1901 : ' ' What threatens our early educa- tion nowadays is the amusement and va- riety theory. Working upward from the Kindergarten, it bids fair to weaken the intellect and to sap the will. A well-known THE NURSERY 59 teacher in Boston had no difficulty in pick- ing out the members of his school who had begun their education in the Kindergarten; and he picked them out because of a weak- ness in their intellectual processes. There are exceptions, and notable ones ; and there is, as everybody knows, a lovely side to the Kindergarten: but the danger of the Kin- dergarten principle is felt by many a teacher who hardly dares hint at it. An elective system in college gives a noble liberty to the man who has been so trained that he can use his liberty wisely; but when an elective system goes lower and lower into our schools till it meets children who have been amused through the years in which they should have been educated, what chance have these children for the best thing in education? ** ' On a huge hill, Cragged and steep, truth stands; and he that will Reach her about must, and about it go, And what th' hill's suddenness resists, win so.' " That I am not fighting shadows or knocking down men of straw, the testi- mony of a hundred teachers and parents 60 PERSONALITY IN EDUCATION makes clear. The amusement theory, starting in an honest and benignant desire to show children the beauty of the world about them and to rouse their interest in study, especially in the study of nature, may end with the sacrifice of strength in the pulpit and of truth in the teacher ; may become a sweetmeat theory, giving the children food which debilitates and de- ranges the organs that crave it. * * Certainly the education of boys should not be a bore and a bugbear, nor should it ignore culture. Yet the culture should not crowd out training; it should rather be atmospheric; it should come to the boy from the finer, maturer, and more sensitive character of his teacher; it should take little visible or tangible part in the school programme ; it should pervade the whole. ' ' Let us consider some lines of teaching in the nursery. For the imbibing of ideas, pictures, accompanied with story-telling, are the simplest forms. The child soon learns to express itself in the same way, by telling stories in its turn and using its own pencil. When reading begins, spelling begins. The habit of observation should be cultivated by making the spelling lesson THE NURSERY 61 consist of words chosen from the reading and spelled and pronounced by syllables: words missed should be written and learned for next day, so that both eye and ear are trained to supplement each other in the memory. Correct and distinct pro- nunciation and intonation in reading are the very elements for lack of which many go through life handicapped. The writing from memory and imagination of small essays may be done with great advantage at an early stage, as well as copying short bits of simple prose and poetry, sometimes to be learned by heart and carefully recited. Writing from dictation should be added as soon as practical. Geography is an excellent nursery study. The first ideas may be built about the geog- raphy of the home, but for serious study the globe is indispensable. The child can- not begin too early to look at all things in their mutual relations. The mere round- ness of the globe impresses itself upon the young imagination in a way never to be forgotten. And in these days of travel it is easy to keep constantly in view the rela- tions to each other of different nations, as well as of different lands. The background 62 PERSONALITY IN EDUCATION of the Geography should always be the life of the people. There are phases of the history and life of every people that are of intense interest to the nursery child. As they progress from one country to another, with the map and the globe always before them, the few names of principal localities being memorized in conjunction with a study of their inhabitants, gives the whole subject plenty of life. The drawing of maps and filling in of blank outlines and the writing out their impressions of the life of the people, are excellent exercises and entirely practical from the start. Arithmetic, of course, is indispensable. Mental drill is the main thing: to see that the child understands the simple properties of numbers, then to lead him to the point of answering very rapidly, building up, and learning perfectly as he builds, his multi- plication table. This can be driven home and fixed permanently by varying ques- tions on simple factors, divisors, quotients, and dividends. The young mind will al- ways avoid the use of names and defini- tions if possible, but should carefully be trained to the contrary. The written work should coincide with the oral and should be done as far as practical without help. THE NURSERY 63 The spirit to be fostered is that of the youngster who, after laboriously studying out and completing his first little problem, and finding that his answer corresponded with that in the book, came triumphantly to his teacher with the remark, ' ' The book is right." History should not be introduced till the child's mind is stocked with hero stories of great men. This gives the appetite ; and as these men appear there is something tangible on which to build the outlines of history. Not only is the interest awakened and the memory stimulated, but the young heart is early filled with ideals which should live. Eecitations in History should be varied, as in Geography and Reading, by writing and telling orally the substance of the lesson. There is absolutely no way to acquire facility of expression except by practice. The answer, '' I know it, but I can't say it," should never be admitted as evidence. Half -answers pieced out by the teacher, guesses, and inarticulate mum- bling are not to be tolerated. Let the lan- guage be as simple as need be, but require a finished thought expressed both in the writing and in the oral exercise. Such care in expression is worth while in itself, and 64 PERSONALITY IN EDUCATION at the same time it produces care in thought and stimulates originality. It is wonder- ful how soon the child begins to think for himself. The point is to foster that de- sire on healthy and helpful lines, and so prepare the little one for his emancipation from the nursery into the world of school. Fortunate indeed are those little ones whose minds and hearts turn naturally to music. Not only to them should be given every chance, but for all there should be place found for training in singing. In no way perhaps can high ideals and fel- lowship be so easily and delightfully taught as in music. While the love of flowers and of all things beautiful in nature and in art is an important thing to cultivate in the nur- sery, children are different in their capac- ities for such things, and great care should be taken not to quench the delight in beauty by a too careful analysis, or by its association with distasteful work. Open the way for discovery rather than force the child along a beaten track. A very few subjects suffice for the work of the nur- sery school, and a very few hours for its accomplishment. From one to three hours a day is the limit of detention for children THE NURSERY 65 between the ages of seven and twelve, and these hours should be liberally provided with recesses. The custom of sending the little ones to school in order to get them out of the way or to keep them quiet is a menace to education. They may learn to be comparatively quiet, but they surely do learn to be idle. One of the objects of this early training, namely that of concentra- tion, is completely defeated. In a large majority of cases, the first three or four years of a young child's experience in the school-room had much better have been left out or spent rather in the fields. The child left alone will find lots of objects which stimulate thought and reflection, whereas the child hemmed in by the walls of a room and faced by a distasteful book is simply being robbed of his natural heri- tage of permission to grow. It must ever be borne in mind that these years are the years when memory is most retentive, and no care is too great to in- sure the memorizing of beautiful forms of thought in prose and poetry, the full intent of which will dawn only upon the maturer years. It is the age for firmly planting ideals, so that the appetite may be whetted and the desire for work aroused. IV • SCHOOL. HAPPY the man who can look back to his school with love, the fra- grance of whose early days never passes wholly from his life. We do not mean merely that sentiment that wraps the early life of most men, but we mean that solid happiness that lives on from the boy's life to the man's — the happiness that grows only when the life is growing, the kind of happiness that is ever the test of the true school. For, after all, education is but healthy growth toward perfection; and healthy growth is the only state of solid content. Education, in its broadest sense, is, as has been well said, ' ' the transmission of life from the living to the living." To the young everything is alive, even the ^' stocks and stones " of the familiar wayside, — each has its message of life ; and it is to the school that we look to convey 66 SCHOOL 67 that message truly. Memory is the pre- dominant faculty of the child, and it is with amazement that the man considers the mass of material stored in those early years of light and sunshine. Therefore, it is of the first importance that the school should still carry on, with the happiness of the home, the task of proposing the highest and best things to be remembered, — such scenes of life, such words of life as one should want always to remember. The home, the nursery, and the school are the places for setting up ideals. The uni- versity has comparatively little to do with that side of education. As one of the great- est of school-masters used often to say, ' ' The first duty of a school is to raise and hold high the standard of life." In the early days of one of our great schools, it was my privilege to be present at a certain '' prize day." After a few words from the head-master, one of the trustees gave from his own experience a short account of the inception of the school. During their family drives over that beau- tiful country they used constantly to pass a certain field which greatly attracted an invalid sister. She would playfully re- 68 PERSONALITY IN EDUCATION mark that some day she was going to buy that field and build a home there. From this the custom grew of calling it '' The Field Home." After the sister's death, this field became in their eyes a sacred spot, and when the opportunity presented itself of helping to start a boys' school, they bought the field and gave it as the home of the school. Then this gentleman went on to draw a very true and simple picture of what a school should be : first, a home, giving all the individual and per- sonal care of a home, developing all those finer traits which grow only in the sunshine of love and fellowship; second, a field for the wider use of all the powers of the boy looking to his manhood in the world — a field where he may try out himself with his fellows in preparation for the larger field of the world. The words of this trustee found a ready echo in the heart of more than one, as the years were soon to prove. No better word could be coined to describe a true school, and few men have so realized their hopes as those who built their wall upon that '^ Field-Home." For the boy or girl at school, nothing in nature, nothing in art, nothing in man, can SCHOOL 69 be too beautiful, if it is ever borne in mind that education to robust and beautiful man- hood is the end in view, and not the lust of the eye or the pride of life. Luxury and all that goes to weaken life work is absolutely out of place in school, for, as we shall note more plainly below, work, in its broadest sense, work, and the joy of work, is the business of School. While every detail for the accomplish- ment of the perfection of oitr ' ' home ' ' in order to plant in the memory the right kind of ideal, and to give to each and every boy a full measure of its life; while every de- tail for the rounding out of our field in or- der to give play to every faculty that makes for preparation to a world of fellowship; while every detail should be carefully worked up, let us consider the subject in a more general way under two main heads, which we may call " the man " and " the wall." During this inquiry is always the under- lying question of the end of it all. To quote from the great head-master of Up- pingham, Edward Thring: " The practical question is, what process will turn a man out best fitted to do life work, and enable mankind as a race to do their best? As 70 PERSONALITY IN EDUCATION definite a question, as the question, what process is necessary to make a deal-box? And the first answer to this question is equally definite and clear: that process, namely, which best produces power in man himself, and makes him most capable of employing his faculties in the best way. This gives a starting-point at once. Power in a man's self is the work of education; and how to produce it the inquiry." This, naturally brings us to the consid- eration of the man in '^ school." Per- haps no one has better demonstrated the power of the " man " in '' school " than Edward Thring himself. Called to an old foundation with centuries of dead life be- hind, under a board of trustees who wanted nothing else, and vigorously opposed all change; in a part of England most unat- tractive ; in a sleepy and hostile town gov- erned in obstinate ignorance and disregard of the laws of health, — the " man " rose above it all; rose above even a series of fever epidemics which nearly swamped the school ; and he carried off the whole estab- lishment of more than three hundred boys and masters to an empty hotel by the sea. He refused to return till all had been set SCHOOL 71 right. The ' ' man ' ' finally triumphed over every obstacle of nature and stupidity of man, and at his death among his boys left a school the like of which in loyalty and fine manly tone, in scholarship and morals, England has never surpassed. First, then, in the character of any school is the character of the head-master- and of his associates. Every one who has had anything to do with boys in * ' school ' ' knows that the most potent force to rule is public opinion; and it seems fair to say that the private characters of the masters go far, very far, toward moulding public opinion. "We have discussed at some length in a former chapter the '' person- ality of the teacher, ' ' and all that we wish to do here is to recall the conclusions there stated and to apply them to the forming and maintaining of a tone in '' school." The subtle influence of character in the in- dividual is what produces that subtle fac- tor of life in a community which we call ** tone "; and this is the unseen guide of public opinion. The character of the head- master, we might almost say, determines this character and tone of the school. He is the heart. He can perhaps buy the head. 72 PERSONALITY IN EDUCATION but he must be tlie heart which sustains the flow of life all through the school. Inspir- ing fear in the hearts of evildoers, and courage in the hearts of the weak, while he walks alone and above all, his door is open to every kind of boy and man with the surety of justice and mercy. One wrote, at fifty, of his old school and its head : " I suppose I was about as hope- less a boy as any who ever attended — ^but I don't believe that there was ever a boy there who had more loving care and sym- pathy extended to him by . I did not appreciate it then as I should have done, and I was unworthy and ungrateful, but somehow the older I grow the closer to me seems to come his love and never-failing kindness, and, while it did me little appar- ent good at the time, its influence has fol- lowed me through life and always for the making of a better man. was the best man and the truest friend who ever came into my life. His words to me, spoken in his study, fell then upon listless ears, but unwittingly I took them deep into my heart and their echo has come to me in many an hour when I needed just such help." Such a head-master wins the best of men SCHOOL 73 and boys to rally round him for tlie best and liighest interests, and there is no tell- ing how far such an influence goes. He draws his masters around him not only with cords of a common work, but in cords of a common life. He is the one to forge all the links of different metal into a living chain with which to draw his school ever to higher levels. Without this " unity in itself," little definite impression is left on the boy ; and, moreover, power is wasted and perhaps despised. Public opinion, rightly formed and sus- tained, is therefore, perhaps, the chief task of the head-master ; a task, however, which involves many other tasks. I shall never forget the effect upon myself and my com- panions of the finality with which our old master would say, ' ' That is one of our tra- ditions, " or, " That is fixed. ' ' He himself sat before us as the personification of ''tradition," as he said, " We have never given in to that in this place," or, " That was settled years ago." It is also directly through the head- master that the life of a school is impressed upon the individual boy; that the boy is happy and proud to be appealed to as a 74 PERSONALITY IN EDUCATION member of a great school, on whom the privilege develops of handing on what he has received. The power of the solid character of such a * ' man ' ' comes out in every detail of his contact with his boys ; the seasonable word is his readiest tool, not only for influenc- ing the individual directly, but also for creating and sustaining the '^ tone " of the place. Scolding or threats or what boys cair^' jaw," or much talking of any kind, makes boys unresponsive and hard. There is nothing to which a head-master will give greater attention than the spoken word. It is impossible to estimate the force of truth put in a kindly way, whether in private or public. We are all ready to testify, as has been testified above, that, though the ears of our youth would feign have been dull to what seemed hard, cer- tain plain words given to us with looks of love and personal interest have echoed all through our lives. And in the crowd evil will always hide or show its true self when good is outspoken. A school without the ' ' man ' ' to speak may be a ' ' field ' ' for rowdyism or play, or even worse, but not a ** home " with store of honored tradition. SCHOOL 75 When we speak of tradition, we are crossing the bridge from the ' ' man ' ' to the * * wall. ' ' Tradition, tixed as firm as a wall, is as necessary for the true life of a school as the wall of the house in which the boys live. And, moreover, the one is as useless as the other if there is no life within; per- haps worse, as hypocrisy and fraud are only too ready to hire the empty tradition. Blow it up first, for it is sure to crumble and decay with such tenants, and the crumbling process is dangerous. If, how- ever, there is a spark of the old life of truth within, open the windows, let in light and air, and the old friend will revive, and we may save his old home by timely repair ; let fresh bricks be laid into the same old wall to make it fair again. Growing life must be built in with every brick and stone, and laid true with the well-mixed mortar of experience, that both lovers of the old and disciples of the new may freely and willingly give their lives to the building. Such is the ' ' living wall ' ' that protects the *' Field-Home." In other words, with every effort at perfection of material wall and system, the '' personality " of the school should never be lost. Personality, 76 PERSONALITY IN EDUCATION with its growing and expanding life, is as necessary in an institution of education as in the individual man, and there is the same danger in the one as in the other, of the weakening of growth by a too great dependence on system and on all other out- ward appliances which become embodied in the walls of brick and stone. The '' wall," whether of tradition, of system, of natural surroundings, or of buildings, may be the * ' Almighty wall ' ' indeed, both for protec- tion and for direction, but, like any habit for the man, it must be the slave and not the master of the life, if it is to be instru- mental in creating power. Moreover, un- less it is a growing wall, it is sure to be- come a barrier and to turn school to prison. Some words written by George Tyrrell, in regard to the use of system in the life of man, apply so directly to the same sub- ject in school as to make them worth the quoting to a teacher, — we are all so tempted to put too much upon system. He jvrites : ' ' Personality, in the moral sense of the term, means spiritual freedom and self-mastery; and admits of endless measures of depth and extension. So far as we are passively borne along by our feel- SCHOOL 77 ings, our habits and inclinations ; so far as we are but wheels in the great mecha- nism of nature and are governed by physi- cal, physiological, and psychological laws without attempting to use and control them ; just so far are we things and not persons. We are persons in the measure that we oppose ourselves to all this mechanism, and through the understanding of it, are able to subject and use it to spiritual ends. '' ' God made man only a little lower than the angels,' in so far as He ' put all things under his feet '; and man approxi- mates indefinitely to the Divine ideal of personality in the measure that he raises himself higher and higher above nature by knowledge and self-control. * * But it is first wi,thin himself that man comes in conflict with this mechanism ; with uniformities of instinct and habit; with psychological and physiological laws that tend to wrest the government out of the hands of the spirit and to destroy person- ality. For in virtue of his bodily organ- ism, man is a part of nature and continu- ous with nature, — a wheel in the universal machine. He must, then, master nature within himself, as well as outside himself 78 PERSONALITY IN EDUCATION — a mastery that demands difficult self- knowledge, laborious self-discipline. When we remember that virtues and vices are both classified as ' habits,' it is plain that a habit as such is neither good nor evil. A good habit is a psychological mechanism that frees our personality for fuller and wider action, that extends our control over nature within or outside ourselves; whereas an evil habit impedes our free- dom and narrows the possibilities of life. Conditioned as we are, the same mecha- nism of nature or habit which can impede us and destroy our personality is also the necessary means of our spiritual develop- ment. If our struggle is against the domi- nation of dead uniformity, law, habit, mechanism, it is only because such laws or habits, once perhaps useful, have be- come mischievous through changing exi- gencies and the demands of a higher life; because the virtues of childhood may be vices in manhood; or because these laws cross and interfere with one another, and need an adjustment of their claims. But the whole aim of our struggle is the con- stitution of a higher and better system of laws: not the destruction, but the recon- SCHOOL 79 struction of the habit-mechanism. The very inertia and blind persistence which we have to overcome is necessary to the perpetuity and stability of the fruits of victory. That old self which has to be moulded into the new, though blind and dead, has in its day been shaped by life and intelligence, and bears their traces, as a mindless mechanism bears the traces of the mind that devised it. So, too, in the physical world the principle of death is also a condition of life. The determinism of Nature, with her system of fixed laws, of uniformities of grouping and sequence, is itself the work of spirit, — the gathered fruit of its past victories, — and yet its blind conservatism makes it the foe of spirit so far as it not merely retains past modifications, but in doing so resists further developments, yielding only to vig- orous and reiterated onslaughts of the will. Hence the complex character of our senti- ment toward nature as towards something at once blind and intelligent, cruel and kind, coarse and tender, forceful and fee- ble, sublime and. despicable. " As long as life lasts there is need of this work of self-reform. Every new attain- 80 PERSONALITY IN EDUCATION ment involves higher and more complex tasks; just as every industrial invention saves labor in one way only to employ it more extensively and profitably in another. Moreover, we now understand what the old ascetics had ascertained empirically, that not to advance is to recede; that there is no standing still in the moral and spiritual life. For, like machinery, habits quickly become out of date and act as a clog on progress, unless they are continually ad- justed to suit growing exigencies. When virtue gets to routine it is on the road to vice. So far as our conduct is shaped by virtue and habit, it is shaped passively; it is not active in the full spiritual sense. Yet we must deliberately commit a great deal of it to the machinery of habit or second nature, if we are to free our best energies for higher and fuller action and origination. But if we turn the means to an end, and think to rest in habituality and routine, the spirit falls asleep and ceases to be conscious and self -determining. " While every thinking man must acknowl- edge the wisdom of these remarks, they seem doubly interesting and freighted with wisdom for the teacher, who will apply SCHOOL 81 them equally to his own life and that of his school. May the writer again be pardoned if he recalls the early days in which he at times marvelled at the apparent disregard of the ' ' wall ' ' expressed in the life of the head-master of our old school. While none could be more firm about tradition, cus- tom, and the fixity of habit, there was ever going on the making of tradition, the up- building of custom and of habit, with a mistrust of all unalterable method in ma- terial wall or printed rule, with such a ready adaptability to timely devices and quick appreciation of improvement and growth that this man in his great humanity seemed the very antithesis of system in '' wall " or " man." Brimming with life himself, all that he touched sprung to use- fulness in its simplest and most direct form. So far as there was any system, it was to emphasize the personality of boy and man, to make his school a living thing, to ''pass on life from the living to the liv- ing." While we have seen this system work, we have seen the other thing fail: good and able men in their degree apply- ing machinery, forcing habits good in 82 PERSONALITY IN EDUCATION themselves till they have come to be the very coffins for both the men and their boys. Therefore, as a school grows in size, it is necessary to develop a system that al- ways tends to accentuate the responsibility of every master for every boy. The unity of the ' ' home ' ' and the care of the ' ' home ' ' for each and every individual, are charac- teristics never to be lost. When a school becomes, so large that the head-master can- not know, and, in a way, personally direct the life of every boy, it begins to be a mis- take. Edward Thring, in England, and Henry Coit, in America, both built up their own schools, and both concluded that three hundred boys were about the limit for such a school; but it is interesting to note that both allowed the number to grow to three hundred and thirty. Under a great head, the unity of such a number, maintained by personal force and by a '' wall " which as often as possible gathers the whole school into one body, is of great power over the individual. There is a secret force per- vading such a body that is ever at work. The timely word spoken to move the whole body gathers force as the ideal or thought SCHOOL 83 conveyed, like an electric current, flashes through every heart; the influence on the individual of such a body at reverent wor- ship is hardly to be measured; the enthu- siasm that catches the whole school on the playground is directly in ratio to the num- ber. And besides all this, the individual boy has a wider ' ' field ' ' for his talents, as well as a larger body from which to find his friends and helpers among masters and boys. No matter how odd the boy, I have never yet seen one who did not find his own in such a school. There is no danger of one or two boys or any clique of boys getting the upper hand : every boy has, in other words, a better chance for his own individuality in a large school than in a small school. At the same time, the stand- ard of excellence may always be higher, as there are more from among whom to draw the fine scholars, the fine athletes, the fine musicians, and, above all, the fine-hearted, to be leaders. As to the greater number of weak boys and those of evil influence, this is entirely in the hands of the head- master. However, let us remark in pass- ing that the nearer the life can be kept natural, with a chance to meet and over- 84 PERSONALITY IN EDUCATION come the natural temi3tations, the better the school. A place weeded of so-called bad boys, or even poor and backward schol- ars, is no true home or natural field. The tares and the wheat must grow together here, as in the larger field, if the school is to be a place of true education. In a discussion among a body of school- masters, the conclusion was being drawn that Church schools should not attempt to educate the ' ' duffer, ' ' when one quietly asked the question, " What, then, is to be- come of the duffer? " This question put the conclusion in its true light, a conclu- sion which is a disgrace to any Christian school. Such a conclusion is perfectly ad- missible in any special training for partic- ular professions, but entirely contrary to the whole spirit that ought to pervade our school of general education for the young. Now as to the plan of our ' ' wall ' ' in the general organization of a school that, from its size as well as from its unity, is going to bring the greatest good to the individ- ual: it has been well said that the head- master must begin at the top, that he must produce in his masters and older boys a SCHOOL 86 feeling of trust and loyalty, whick should filter down to the bottom. While there can never be too much care in regard to every detail of school management, great men may easily be swamped by petty cares. Keeping school, like any other business, while it depends at one end on the perfection of detail, depends, at the other, on the opportunity of wise men to use their wisdom. The secret is for the man at the top to stay at the top, to have his work so organized as to make his person- ality felt through others all the way to the bottom. It is always the first and last business of the head-master to know thor- oughly his masters and his boys. Other knowledge can be bought, but this must be his own at first hand. Gradations of knowl- edge and gradations of trust naturally sug- gest circles within circles, till the ' ' head ' ' stands firmly entrenched in the hearts of the select from both boys and men. No business enterprise, least of all a school, can be successfully conducted and passed on unimpaired to future generations with- out this mutual confidence between the " head " and his lieutenants. And yet, so all-important is the factor of personality 86 PERSONALITY IN EDUCATION in the work of education, and so engross- ing the call to and for the individual, that this corporate strength has not been gen- erally attained in our schools. Greater appreciation of the power of unity, com- bined with a corresponding stricter self- discipline, is necessary to enable the strong man to throw his strength unselfishly into the personality of the whole family. Be this as it may, the call becomes louder each year for better men to work a better system. The natural selection from among the masters for greater trust and responsibil- ity would be the heads of houses. Here there arises, then, the question of many small houses or a few large houses. It has been my observation that a man, or a man with his wife, capable of properly caring for a house of twenty-five boys in a large school under a head-master, is capable of caring for a house of one hundred boys; and it is easier to find three such men than a dozen. Moreover, all that may be said for a large school may also be said for a large house. There will always be excep- tional cases of boys for whom special ar- rangements should be made in the private SCHOOL 87 houses of different masters. But, both for sentiment and for practical purposes, there is a mysterious virtue in the '' three-in- one." The three heads of houses form an excellent and practical inner council, and each will have ample scope for the use of all his powers. And while the three houses, for all purposes of individual care and house arrangement, are independent, there is always the larger life of the whole as developed in the passing of boys from house to house while they advance in the school ; as developed in the chapel services, on the playground, and in whatever way the personality of the head-master draws his boys together in unity of feeling or action. Under the " three-in-one," while there is equal opportunity for attention to the individual, there is less opportunity for the growth of a small individual spirit to possess a house or the whole school. The system of many houses, where the custom prevails of placing a boy in the same house for his whole course, necessi- tates a household composed of young and old. While this is the natural family rela- tion, yet it is not natural to have a family of twenty-five boys and no girls ; and these 88 PERSONALITY IN EDUCATION boys are not of the same blood and never can live in the natural relation of blood brotherhood. The most evident, if not the most practical, way to work such a house in order to keep it even comparatively pure, is to establish the relation between young and old which obtains in the English schools — fags and their masters. This is manifestly out of the question in America. The unmanly relations between young and older, so likely to grow in large households of boys of no kin to one another, seem to me a very grave evil. On the contrary, a house of one hundred boys of nearly the same age develops an esprit du corps that is not congenial to petting or to bullying. Such a family has its own life of games and fellowship that is a great advantage especially to the little new boy, to whom it gives a stimulus and happiness that are al- most entirely lacking in the other system. In such a building, also, the boy of four- teen or fifteen learns to shoulder a re- sponsibility and leadership among his fel- lows as monitor or captain. In the lower and middle schools those quali- ties of a boy are pretty well tried out, so that when he comes to the top form in the SCHOOL 89 upper school there is small chance to make a mistake in the selection of school leaders. A well-organized system of monitors or prefects is of vital importance in school, if boys are to be properly trained to citizen- ship. Yet such a system uncontrolled by the strong personality of the head-master, such a system when there is not mutual confidence between man and boy, is capable of hatching and protecting some of the worst evils of school-life. Boys easily lose heart and fail miserably in maintaining high standards without constant leadership and inspiration from their elders. Evil organizes without help ; but seldom, if ever, do boys get together for good of their own accord. Eternal vigilance on the part of the teacher is the price of order and tone, under any system where humanity is the subject. As there are great art and tact to be used in handling leaders, so there is room for the best judgment in the manner of selec- tion. The choices that boys make for their various captains, leavened with a scholar here and there from a position of influence, seems the natural line. The rule 90 PERSONALITY IN EDUCATION of sucli boys should rest, first, upon tlieir own personal cliaracters ; second, upon the authority of the whole body of monitors; and, finally, upon the reference by tha,t body of doubtful or bad cases to the head- master. The ordinary channels of punish- ment used by the masters should be avoided by the monitors. A word from a monitor to a lower boy is generally very effective. For a wrongdoer to be haled before the whole body of monitors is more effective. Deprivation of certain privi- leges in games or other departments of school-life under their supervision, would be the means of punishment used by them before sending up a boy to the head-master. All house monitors should be directly re- sponsible to the captain of the school or otherwise designated head of the monitors. Such leaders among boys, catching the tone of loving watchfulness from the head- master, can be fairly trusted to deal suc- cessfully with all that class of underhand mischief or secret badness that is ready to break loose in any school. This digression on the monitorial system crept into our sketch of the house rule sim- ply to note that a house of young boys can SCHOOL 91 well supply its own leaders. It is an excep- tional nursery where the oldest child can- not be both utilized and helped by giving it a position of responsibility over the others. It is the nature and right of the older in any stage to protect and guard the younger. Before leaving the subject of the division of boys into houses according to their ages, let us note the great advantage that comes to a boy by a change from " lower " to ** middle," and again to '' upper." The ambition to go up higher is whet- ted and adds zest to the life, while the boy himself has another chance to improve or to begin over with new men and new sur^ roundings. Old friends, if he has them, are not far away and still frequently meet the boy in class or on the playground or in their studies, while it may be just the new friend, the one who '' understands," that is needful to put a boy on his feet. There is a charm in this sort of house-to- house life, peculiar to itself. A strong community of life between three separate large houses makes also for growth in a remarkably happy and practical fashion. It is another of the many exemplifications 92 PERSONALITY IN EDUCATION of the power of life embodied in the '^ three-in-one." The moral advantages of such a system are akin to the practical and physical ones which come from the con- stant necessity for being in the open air, going from dormitory to school and din- ing-room and library and chapel. Move- ment is the life of the yonng, and boys if not kept going healthfully will go un- healthfully. Breadth and distinctness, the whole body and the individual, are peculiarly served by three families in the one great school. While a man at the head of such a place has ample scope for great powers, the school is not so directly dependent on the one man as to grow sick and die if for a time he fails. Each house has its head and its independent life, and may maintain not only its own standard, but brace each one of the others to keep up to high ideals of life. This faculty to perpetuate itself is a very important one for a school. It is difficult to find men with the requisite train- ing for a head-mastership. The house training should provide this very thing. In SCHOOL 93 our ideal school, three men would thus be always " on deck " and available for just such calls. And there should be also, in every large school, provision for the train- ing of under teachers. If a school is what it ought to be, there will be a desire on the part of graduates here and there to return and teach. For these men, as well as for all inexperienced teachers coming to a place, the work taken up should be with a view to break them in without discourage- ment to themselves or loss to the boys. Such men should be assigned as assistants to the older teachers, to attend their classes, correct the written work in class and out, take the backward boys for more individual work, and do many things that would greatly facilitate the labor of the man skilled in conducting a class, so that he might do more of the work for which he is especially fitted. A new hand would thus have not only a chance to review his subject and to learn the names, faces, and ways of boys without friction, but would have the opportunity also of observing the methods of a skilled man, and, from time to time, of teaching the class in the pres- ence of his superior. Why such a system 94 PERSONALITY IN EDUCATION is not universal in our larger schools, I do not see, unless it be that we do not seri- ously believe in our profession. The doc- tor and the lawyer, even after years of special training, humble themselves to just such personal observation and supervi- sion; why not the teacher! I earnestly look forward to the day when teaching will be held in such honor that the best men will be pressing into the ranks, ready to endure hardships, and ashamed to present themselves as responsi- ble teachers till they have won the right to shape and mould the life of man. When schools are manned by the strong of the community, there will be no fear of the future of our country. Under such in- fluences traditions never extend an iron grip ; yet they never grow old nor die, but live on, ever filled with the richest blood of living and life-giving men. SOME QUESTIOT^S OP EXPENSE THE question of many houses or one house in a school, introduces the problem of cost. Good education will always be expensive ; therefore, considered merely as a business venture, no detail is too small to be care- fully scrutinized. But there is a more im- portant reason for such care: namely, the necessity laid upon us, especially at this time, of teaching the young habits of econ- omy. The child who has always re- ceived with a bountiful hand must learn to give. To give, he must have and har- bor resources. The value of money, as well as of time, is, therefore, an all-important lesson, and one that is learned more ef- fectually by example than by precept. All that we can hope to do here is to touch upon a few general lines, and by the way to 95 96 PERSONALITY IN EDUCATION IDoint out some practical methods, both for keeping down the cost of education and for teaching economy to the child. Three or four hundred can be fed more economically in one large dining-hall than in several smaller ones. Yet what is gained in cost does not seem sufficient to wipe out the homelessness of such a plan. Separate dining-rooms are a main feature in the sentiment of separate houses. One hundred young and happy people are about all that can be satisfactorily handled in one dining-room, if the manners of the younger and the nerves of the elder are to have their due consideration. Three houses under one management seem to combine efficiency with the best economy for a large school in America. Too much care cannot be given to the quality of the food, its cooking, and its service. It is a truth often neglected by spiritually-minded men that the needs of the body must come first. Money spent in wholesome, well-cooked, and well-served food; money spent in proper ventilation of buildings; money spent in providing opportunity for ample and life-giving play and exercise will come back in compound SOME QUESTIONS OF EXPENSE 97 interest to the school. These things are all matters of plain business and common- sense, and should be in the hands of plain business and common-sense men. The day is coming when a school will be ashamed to send in huge bills to parents for medi- cal attendance and infirmary charges that arise from poor feeding, poor ventila- tion, and want of a regulated and happy play. But the crux in the cost of education is and always will be the man. Improved sanitary living embodies itself in material appliances, but human nature is always and will be always the same backsliding factor," ever ready to take things easy and to get the most for the least. In edu- cation, perhaps more than in any other industry, men must not only be paid in coin of the Eepublic, but they must be paid in the coin of ''life," lest their manhood fail. The vocation of the teacher is hard and life-destroying unless he himself be looked after and loved. For some the old Italian proverb is only too true, " The teacher is like a candle that burns itself while it lights others." And though the oil that we need for our lamps is not 98 PERSONALITY IN EDUCATION money, yet it flows but slowly through the empty pocket. We have sometimes " to go and buy for ourselves. ' ' Let us consider this a little in detail. The new head-master of a new foundation, in looking over an old school to get points, made the remark that he had money enough at his disposal to provide not only all the material advantages in the market, but also the best men. Plis idea was to man his school with high-priced specialists. The result was not all that he expected, though it was what the old head- master of the old school predicted. He said that he supposed his friend would have to learn by experience that a specialist was about the last man to teach boys ; that al- most any ordinarily gifted and trained man soon acquires enough of his subject to teach it well if he is a teacher; that an all-round man whose specialty is the boy is the kind of man; that, as a class, these men do not demand or want high salaries. Such men generally lead a simple life from choice, and by experience they learn that their power of leadership is weakened by self-indulgence and display. The true teacher never works for *' pay " and can- SOME QUESTIONS OF EXPENSE 99 not be bought. Higli standards and ample fields for work are what hold such men and keep them in a school. That is the *' life " upon which they feed, and, unless that is provided, they will go elsewhere or gradually sink to the dead level of the drudge. At the same time, a teacher should not be pinched, and his salary should be suf- ficient to keep him and his family, if he has one, free from the petty annoyances of poverty, with a chance for those relaxa- tions which are absolutely essential to one of our profession. It is as hopeless to keep a good man on a poor man's salary as it is to expect manly self-restraint and unself- ishness among the boys when they see their masters living even on the borders of lux- ury. As to the expense necessary to main= tain a certain number of married men in a school, I was delighted to notice that Presi- dent Harper shortly before his death de- clared that, in his opinion, married pro- fessors were better than single, that the added expense to an institution of educa- tion was more than repaid by the added usefulness of the man. If in a university, doubly so in a school where the humanizing 100 PERSONALITY IN EDUCATION effect of family life, of women and chil- dren, is of untold benefit. Men who have lived in a school through its early years of bachelorhood will note the change in tone that gradually creeps in with the arrival of another bride and with the appearance of little ones playing about the grounds. By all means the most powerful factor in producing habits of economy among children is the example set by their elders in school and at home. But in addition to example it requires tact and perseverance to train boys into a care for little things, such a care as forbids waste at the table and forbids that disregard of their own and others' property so universal in a crowd of boys. Everything has come to the child without effort, and there is a corresponding resentment against any restraint on his freedom to do what he will with his own. If, moreover, he is al- lowed to do what he will with his own, he does what he wills with what is not his own, for he naturally concludes that the other fellow '' doesn't care." The school is his school and mother — the boys are his friends and brothers ; '' they don't care " is SOME QUESTIONS OF EXPENSE 101 a sentiment not wholly untrue, and in its proper bearing should be made the founda- tion for teaching each boy to care not only for his fellows, but for everything that per- tains to the health and happiness of the whole household. Boys are easily brought to acknowledge the inconvenience to others as well as the wrong of helping themselves to others' pencils, paper, books, grub, clothes, or playthings; and, by a proper organization among themselves, can be taught to put down all that kind of brig- andage which school-masters are often too prone to overlook. The monitors, and others organized to regulate more particularly the undercur- rent of the social life in a school, are the ones to rouse to their duty in this regard. They are materially helped by having con- trol of a certain amount of public money to go toward this side of the boys' life. To give them this ally, as well as to provide a natural outlet for the cash that burns in a boy's pocket, and, furthermore, to help in putting straight the whole question of the loss and waste of property, the older boys should be allowed to have under their supervision the cooperative store. While 102 PERSONALITY IN EDUCATION the bills for breakages in tlie scliool are regularly paid from the treasury of this store, there soon grows the habit of plac- ing the responsibility and the cost upon the right one. A boy soon learns then to pay for his own carelessness. For the same reason, and with a like result, those whose property has been lost or destroyed by unauthorized borrowers, should be reim- bursed out of the common stock, after the case has been passed upon by a committee of the older boys. Such a system is easily worked under the auditing of some careful man, and on trial has given very satis- factory results. Where there was such a plan in operation the janitor was in- structed to gather up any articles left lying about, and these were put in the store for redemption at a nominal price, and periodically there was some fun auction- ing off the unclaimed property to the high- est bidder. Even then, at the end of term, there were always a number of valuable articles suitable for giving away to the needy. Old Bishop Morris, of Oregon, once commenting upon the appearance of such a junk-shop, said, '* Boys, you are all right: you have good authority for gath- SOME QUESTIONS OF EXPENSE 103 ering up the ' fragments that remain that nothing be lost.' " This whole question of education in habits of care as to meum and tuum is, however, such a distasteful one that in many schools it is practically discarded. Hence the failure in honesty of so many educated men. In a good school there should be no leaks except the unavoidable, just enough as we say of a boat, ' ' to keep her sweet. ' ' Every salaried man and woman in the place, from the house-master to the cook, is either a leak or a loyal friend, according as he or she is made to feel that he is part of a great work going on for the betterment of men. Good cooks and good farmers cannot be bought with simple coin of the realm any more than good teachers. The kitchen and the farm must have also the coin of life, the love and the care of a person. " Business is business." But there is more sentiment in business than many of our hard-headed friends will admit. Witness the success of the man who is in the business of politics. He knows the money in the kind word or deed. VI THE PLAYGROUND ^' ALL work and no play makes Jack XJl a dull boy." While this is equally true of Gill, her play comes in lighter ways, and the strenuous life of the play- ground is not such an absolute necessity for her as it is for the average boy. The lack of experience with girls on the play- ground, except to have been occasionally beaten in tennis by some young Amazon, constrains us to drop this side of the sub- ject, and to confine ourselves to the boy's play. The development of manly qualities in the woman does not seem to have pro- duced a corresponding beauty of home life. What does the boy say! Ask him if he likes to have his mother roll up her sleeves and go in for athletics. We say, " Ask the boy," because he is in those respects the natural animal as God made him, un- spoiled by theories of education or prac- tices of society. 104 THE PLAYGROUND 106 But when it comes to the making of a man, if the young one has no pride in his own bodily strength, he must be made to have it. For him, it is the beginning of goodness, the beginning of wisdom. The indolent and slack-twisted boy, if it can- not be brought about in any other way, should be made to exercise. He should be taken in hand by some one who knows his business and ^^ set up " every day, till he can stand and walk and run and jump alone, and till he wants to play. Enforced play is a contradiction in terms. Therefore, the whole atmosphere of the playground should be, as far as pos- sible, one of freedom, the boys being left, on certain well-defined lines, to manage their own games. Play is the thing to be first recognized. If there is not a place for play in every child's life, the results will be disastrous; and if the play is not natural and healthy play, the best results will not be attained. If the playground is turned into a field simply for exercise, so exacting that it ceases to be play but be- comes work, the spontaneous growth of the young child or college boy is spoiled. He is '' coached " and " managed " and even 106 PERSONALITY IN EDUCATION ' ' tricked ' ' out of his rightful heritage. On the other hand, if the playground is en- tirely neglected by the elders and left to the rowdyism that is sure thus to develop, the school is failing to utilize one of its strongest allies in the cause of education. Do not let us say allies, but rather fac- tors; for, whether it be a school in city or country, a private or a public school, the playground should be a part of the school. It certainly is an encouraging sign of the times that from many of our district schools and high schools come invitations to witness play in the field as well as play in the house. Sports and concerts and lit- erary entertainments are all becoming rec- ognized factors of the life of every school. In a free land like ours, these recreations tend to balance one another, so that there seems little cause for alarm that the body will receive too great a worship. However, there does seem cause for alarm in the undue rivalry that is being cultivated among our young people. It is the same old story as in the home : every- thing is done to spoil the baby, and then comes the price to pay to the wilful, high- tempered, spoiled boy. So often in our THE PLAYGROUND 107 schools so much is done to arouse rivalry and the desire to win that it becomes part of the nature of the American boy to win even by doubtful means^ What can we expect in finance and social rivalry of those who have imbibed for so many years the spirit that now commonly per- vades the playgrounds of our schools and colleges? The thoughtful man must think of many things as he sits, one among thirty thousand, in Harvard's Stadium to watch an athletic contest between Harvard and Yale. Among all his questions and con- clusions, one question will not be stilled, '' What effect has all this adulation upon the character of these young gladiators? '* and one conclusion is quite settled : namely, that this is not a playground. The good old games that grew into shape under the demands of natural, healthy play, have had violent hands laid on them by committees of men who have got through the days of play and whose minds are set on business. The problem is to turn the game into a spectacular per- formance which brings in much receipts for gate money and many dollars to the purveyors of defensive armor. A boy must 108 PERSONALITY IN EDUCATION now ask his mother if he may play ; he must think twice himself, and must dress him- self many times before he plays; and his father and his schoolmaster? Why, they are out of it altogether; Now all this nonsense on the playground has arisen from the fact that the school has not done its duty ; it has not duly con- sidered its responsibility for the play of the child, and has allowed those interested in business and glory to order the play- ground. Graduates ought to leave the games alone, and no managers or other professionals ought to be tolerated. Of course such a view is impractical as long as the present system of intercol- legiate and interscholastic sport is in vogue. A wise school will be the absolute arbiter of the games to be played, and will see to it that its boys play, and not solely or principally train a team to down some other team. Men at college will play what they have learned at school. Now the sequence is reversed. Boys at school try to play what graduates arrange for college men to perform. Owing to many causes, however, the result is not wholly THE PLAYGROUND 109 bad; as objects of betting, athletic contests certainly are an improvement on cards and dice; as objects of interest to the great body of men they are an undoubted im- provement on college rows and silly pranks; but as factors in education, they are not what they might be. As an American boy who entered enthu- siastically into all games, and as a school- master who is still playing with boys, my experience is that a spirit of undue rivalry, whether used to create loyalty for school or simply to cultivate in the individual the desire to win, is far too prevalent. It has not only subverted the whole idea of play, but it has tended to breed in our stock an inordinate and impatient desire for immediate success. The expression ** to win " has lost its proper significance, and has degenerated into the vulgar con- ception of ' ' getting the best of ' ' your fel- low. The boy is in the way of being trained into an utterly false standard of life. His eye is fixed on all the little trump- ery prizes by the way; he is ever racing with somebody; he is worn out with the competition, and loses sight of the great prize: to find that place among his fel- 110 PERSONALITY IN EDUCATION lows which is Ms, and which he can fill better than any other man. And every man knows, if he knows anything, that this is found only by that opposite spirit of self-surrender which grows in the long days and nights of work and play without any cups, even of pewter. But what joy in the winning of that prize! as we learn to lose sight of ourselves and our little gains and losses, as we find ourselves fit- ting into, and working with, a higher power expressed in all nature and in our fellow men. This happiness is a natural happi- ness that starts in the nursery for the child brought up in faith; but it is marred be- yond recognition in the rivalries of the school. By a system of rivalry in the class- room and on the playground we deliber- ately educate our children into ways of individualism that require a lifetime of pain and failure to eradicate. We shall have more to say on this head when we treat of the classroom and religion in school. Too much stress, however, cannot be laid upon the influence of play on char- acter. It is when we have lost ourselves, when effort becomes spontaneous, that life leaps within us. THE PLAYGROUND 111 It seems very plain to us, therefore, that the first step in purifying our children's play is to put in its proper place this spirit of rivalry, to bridle it and guide it on the road to good fellowship and play for play's sake. The root of the trouble seems to be in the custom of intercollegiate and inter- scholastic athletics. For a school to de- pend on rivalry with other schools in order to develop esprit de corps is a sad con- fession of weakness. It is true, such rivalry does arouse a kind of loyalty which is a very convenient handle for the master to use for higher purposes. But it is a tonic that is taken at the expense of true vitality. Such a loyalty is largely super- ficial and more of the shouting quality than that which depends on the true worth of the school and runs more quietly and more deeply. A natural and happy rivalry is always manifest, and is no doubt a principal fac- tor on the playground. But the ground should depend on its own attractions to draw out the children, not on any un- healthy or spectacular excitement ; and the school should appreciate the necessity of enhancing this attractiveness in every le- 112 PERSONALITY IN EDUCATION gitimate way. We shall see growing up in our land a better and finer race of men and women, when every school has an ample and attractive playground. All children will play at something, and it needs only the space and appliances and a little steering on the part of the elders to turn the play into its best channels. The man that goes on to the playground with his boys will not only have many chances to do and say the right thing, but he will find the snarls of his own work dropping out by themselves. Let him play sim- ply as a fellow with no authority, and he will experience the sweetness of that fel- lowship where years are forgotten and time is no more. While every chance ought to be given for the individual to choose congenial recrea- tion, such as wandering in the fields and woods or playing games of less violence, the games themselves should be so organ- ized as to discountenance spectators, and to gather in all possible players, whether young or old. The prominent games should be those that call for team work and give exercise to the moral qualities of obe- dience, unselfishness, good temper, and THE PLAYGROUND 113 patient effort, as well as the popular ones of pluck and dash. The playgrounds of England have long stood as the training grounds of her great men ; men not only of profound ability, but men who have ever stood ready to sacrifice themselves, even in the remote corners of the earth, for the good of their fellows, — such sacrifice learned, as they said, on the playing fields of Eton. Let any one to-day spend a quiet week at one of their great schools, or at either of the universities, or indeed among the thousands of artisans playing on the commons or in the parks, and he will at once recognize a spirit quite different from our own ; and the difference not indeed to our advantage. There is still to be found the " friendly game " which, some of us remember, was the form of words used in the old-fashioned challenge. Interscholastic sport is the exception and in no case the raison d'etre. Play for play's sake is the rule. And does this make a man easy to beat? It has not been our experience. It is all give and take in his own ' ' tight little Island, ' ' but let an outsider dare to win from Johnny and he will not have a comfortable time. There 114 PERSONALITY IN EDUCATION his patriotism is stirred, and his long pres- tige in sport has made the Englishman a poor loser. But they certainly can teach •us how to play among themselves. Cricket stands alone as a team game which refuses to be Americanized; and alone as a team game open to young and old with no favor. It is very much to our loss that it is not our principal school game, as it is in England. Ask almost any man who has had a thorough course of cricket, and he will tell you that, for the manly qualities that stand through life, he owes more to cricket than to any one game or to any one study. While its merits be- come thoroughly appreciated only by the trained cricketer, any observer of the game at a school may readily understand its ad- vantages. In the first place, it is not spec- tacular, and so boys are not tempted to sit around and become mere rooters; it is, therefore, not calculated to rouse mere noise and antagonisms in the school. On the contrary, the game has rather a quiet- ing influence on turbulent spirits, and always a steadying effect on the indi- vidual. "\Vhat is more, he does not soon grow tired of it, but, as the season ad- THE PLAYGROUND 115 vances, grows more and more interested: there is so much for the individual to learn in the mere batting and bowling that the appetite is continually being whetted. While any number, from two up, can play endless single wicket matches where the skill of the individual is the principal fac- tor, the regular game offers a wide field for generalship and team play. And not the least that can be said in its favor as a school game is the great number of boys that can get general practice, or play single wicket matches on one field. I have fre- quently counted one hundred and fifty boys all playing on a field of four or five acres. And there is no game in which the simple hour of practice is so engrossing. This game embodies the best instincts of our race, and comes nearer to the game of life than any field sport. Mere rivalry has little to do with its interest, and there is the same balance of individual prowess, team play, and chance that characterizes the every-day life of every man. In no game is there a like reward for mere pa- tient effort. While strength and quickness of body have an ample field, still the weak and awkward boy may surpass the athlete. 116 PERSONALITY IN EDUCATION because of moral qualities which the other lacks. However, it is hardly fair to the public to launch a school cricketer into the arena of the American playground, where the art of ground-making is in its infancy. To enjoy cricket there must be good turf, and for a youngster to enjoy cricket he must be taken in hand early; for some years, also, he will need the coaching of a trained player. Like everything else that claims a high place in its order, it requires cultivation for appreciation. As a mere exercise, of course, rowing cannot be surpassed; but rowing without racing is not much sport to the boy, and it is very doubtful how far races tend to physical development. It is certain, more- over, that for most men rowing is out of the question; and the boy that has rowed assiduously will find in later life his mus- cles incapable of excelling in the lighter work of the playground in which he may wish to indulge between business hours. Jn closing this chapter, let me again draw attention to my theme: namely, (1) that the school playground should depend for its attractiveness, not on rivalry, but on the beauty and practical character of THE PLAYGROUND 117 the ground, both for summer and winter sports ; (2) that the games under the school supervision should be such as, in their sea- son, to give every kind of a boy a chance for healthy, invigorating play that goes to cultivate in him the best qualities of fine manliness. vn DISCIPLINE DISCIPLINE, we may define, as that whicli comes to us in life for pur- poses of correction. To the child untrained at home, school seems to be a place mostly devoted to his correction. To avoid discipline comes to be one of the chief aims of his existence. He is apt to look upon his masters, in a mild way, as his natural enemies. Perhaps he is a lover of music ; yet his life is made wretched by the patient man at his elbow, who seeks to correct his false notes, even to breaking the time and tune of his perform- ance. This must be done, however, if he is ever to realize the harmony, though the raps on his knuckles may fill his hour with nothing but the contemplations of his faults. The man, the man at his elbow, he alone has it in his power to bring music out of it all, to recall the memory of the 118 DISCIPLINE 119 lost harmony, and to rekindle the spark of genius by his own inspiring tonch of the keys. Therefore, in defining the nature of dis- cipline, let us go beyond the mere correc- tion of a fault, and seek for a higher object: namely, correction indeed, but correction in order to attain the fuller expression of the harmony of life. And when it comes to methods, we shall never get far from the personality of the teacher. The harmony of life ! All the notes are there in the child as they are in the instru- ment; the part that education has to play is to bring out the best chords that can be made from these beautiful, though silent, notes. All the natural powers of the child are good; it is their abuse that leads to what we call badness. It is not as if there was something innately bad that had to be killed; it is that the child is to be taught, even by pain, the true develop- ment of all its powers. This, then, is the special work of discipline, the correction of faults in such a way as to bring out all the true qualities of the child that it may sound, each in its true place, those 120 PERSONALITY IN EDUCATION clear notes that produce a life of har- mony. The school is the larger home and the smaller world, and it must combine the elements of both. While, on the one hand, the personal factor is not so predominant as in the home and more is left to what may be called the self-discipline of the world, on the other hand, the teacher takes the place of the parent in the larger home of the school. Some remarks made by B. W. Maturin in '* Self-knowledge and Self-discipline '* are well worth quoting in this connection: " We cannot imagine that . . . the Cre- ator created and placed in man what was evil. Analyze the soul of the greatest sinner and the greatest saint and you will not find in the sinner any single element that is not in the saint. Compare the soul of the Magdalene or of St. Augustine be- fore and after their conversion. There was nothing lacking in either after their conversion that was there before. As saints they were not weakened or emascu- lated. Who would have cared to read their history if they had not been converted? Who, on reading their history, does not DISCIPLINE 121 feel that their lives after their conversion were the lives of those who had * come to themselves,' that they were then their real selves, that somehow they got the power of self-expression in the fullest and highest sense? They lost nothing, destroyed noth- ing, but were in full possession of all their powers. There was much in the Magda- lene which she had never used, perhaps never dreamed of, till she came to our Lord ; He revealed to her the secret of true self-development, which is another word for sanctity ; and she found under his guid- ance that everything in her had henceforth to be used, and used in a fuller and richer way than she had ever imagined before. It was in no narrow school of self-limita- tion, in no morbid school of false asceti- cism, that this poor sinner was educated in the principles of sanctity, but in the large and merciful school of Him who has been ever since the hope of the hopeless, the friend of publicans and sinners, who knows full well that what men need is not to crush and kill their powers, but to find their true use and to use them; that holiness is not the emptying of life, but the filling; that despair has wrapped its dark cloud round 122 PERSONALITY IN EDUCATION many a soul because it found itself in pos- session of powers that it abused and could not destroy and did not know how to use, and who taught them the great and inspir- ing doctrine, * I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil.' . . . Mortification, therefore, is not an end in itself, it is but a means to an end, and the end is the truest and fullest use of everything that we have. * 'Tis life, not death, for which we pant ' — the death is a death unto sin as the means of entering into a larger life unto righteousness. . . . ' For the joy that is set before us we endure the cross ' — we do not endure it merely for its own sake, but for what lies beyond it. And we bear those acts of self-denial and self-restraint be- cause we feel and know full well that through such acts alone can we regain the mastery over all our misused powers and learn to use them with a vigor and joy such as we have never known before." Thus writes the priest, and thus sings the poet : ** I held it truth with him who sings To one clear harp in divers tones That men may rise on stepping stones Of their dead selves to higher things. DISCIPLINE 123 " But who shall so forecast the years And find in loss a gain to match ? Or reach a hand thro ' time to catch The far-off interest of tears? " Let love clasp both, lest both be drowned." Ah! there again is the magic wand that alone can " forecast the years and find in loss a gain to match. " As we teachers look into the hearts of the children committed to us, may we see there the image of per- fection striving to come to realization, and may we love it as part of the inspiration of our own lives! Then the iron tool of discipline will be held with steady hand, and, bit by bit, we shall see the form grow- ing from the rough block to the perfection of true manhood. This tool must hurt, at times severely, but we are assured that we are working on the plan of the Creator and Saviour and Sanctifier of men. He chastens all whom He loves. The attempt to bring up children without chastisement is not only unchristian and unwise, in the light of the flabby results which we see about us, but it is cruel to the child; it is deferring what is sure to come, in some form or another, when the nature is less pliable and requires a discipline more se- 124 PERSONALITY IN EDUCATION vere. A few sharp pains to tlie child save hours and perhaps years of suifering. The longest lives are hardly long enough for any of us to learn completely the wisdom of submission, which is the art of guiding our wills into the channels of true life. The child that learns honor and obedience to father and mother gets such a start as to have almost the monopoly of the best that this world can give, the long life : that is, the large and full life that comes only to him that has learned the lesson of order. It is in this sense that the meek inherit the earth; in direct ratio to genuine humility is a man's power to absorb all the joy and beauty of life. What a solemn duty, then, awaits the man who takes upon himself the dealing out of God's discipline to the young in order to bring each child to the fulness of his life, as we say, to his better self! And what a solemn duty to organize in a school a system of discipline that tends to bring about this result! There are so many different selves that the mere men- tion of the word system seems out of place. There is, in wholesale education, a constant danger of levelling all up or DISCIPLINE 125 down to a common standard, and this dan- ger is at its height when we are deal- ing so directly with the habits and mo- tives of the young, as we are in the case of discipline. However, we cannot escape a certain amount of machinery in the school. A teacher requires it to steady him and to counteract his own mistakes in judg- ment and temper. But, while a teacher has a right to expect this help, he has no right to throw his own personal responsibility upon a machine. Therefore, any school system of discipline should tend to the cultivation of personal responsibility on both sides. It is only in this way that, in the first place, true standards of right and wrong are constantly kept before the child, and that, in the second place, the punish- ment results in bringing him to his better self. Let us not forget that in bringing a child to the full appreciation and use of his own powers, the first duty of the school is to set and maintain the highest stand- ards of life; and, therefore, an all-impor- tant part of discipline is the training of the conscience to recognition and appreciation of these standards. Order and good feel- ing bought at the price of poor manners 126 PERSONALITY IN EDUCATION and the lowering of the boy's ideas of right and wrong, are too dear. Every feature of a system of discipline should tend to correct every failure from true righteousness. No merely formal standards, or merely formal corrections reach the hearts of children: both must have expression in their elders in order to be effective; here example is not only better than precept, but it is absolutely indispensable. To set up stand- ards of truth, unselfishness, justice, and purity without the living and working leaders at hand is the surest way to de- stroy. By any impersonal or automatic system of discipline the conscience of the child is trained to admit the legality of wrong, so long as the legal penalty is paid ; the whole thing becomes a sort of a game; and automatic disorder, and worse, become the playfellows of automatic discipline ; as Edward Thring used to say, " A regula- tion punishment soon creates a regulation offence." What is worse, in the excite- ment of the game, habits of evasion and self-excuse are formed to the injury of truth and manliness. It will always be one of the incomprehensible facts presented to a teacher, working in such a system, that DISCIPLINE 127 otherwise fine and manly boys seem to lose all sense of truth and good breeding when they can clothe themselves with the customary garments of the systematic schoolboy honor arising from the system- atic working of school discipline. No, indeed ! Our plan should be anything but automatic ; it should be as flexible and hu- man as the heart of man. Punishment? The severest punishment a boy can experience is the thought that he has done wrong, and that there is no ex- piation for him except in the manly en- deavor to do better. The experienced teacher has learned how to produce that thought without recourse to any means but his own personality. He rarely falls back upon authority. He takes his pro- fession as seriously as does the doctor who studies every individual case in all its bear- ings in order to apply the medicine that will give the man every chance for health and happiness. A mere reference to au- thority is at once a display of personal weakness or ignorance; such reference should be used only as a last resort, and as standing behind or as a part of the man himself. That authority no doubt is in- 128 PERSONALITY IN EDUCATION dispensable. No man can safely and wisely use his own personality unless he knows that right is going to prevail, and stands, so to speak, at his elbow in plain sight of all his charges and embodied in the whole system of the school. And no school can do its duty without a definite and final ap- peal as the spirit of the whole body. And what is this appeal 1 Let us say again, and most distinctly, never any automatic pun- ishment; but somewhere in the institution a man whose word is final. Boys who are the ' ' pickles " of a school must come very soon to a wall of practical prohibition, and no such wall can be effectual that is not personified in the firm will of a man. Boys with a better earlier training or naturally more docile are in their own way just as much in need of a personal leader. To this one alone belongs the power of bring- ing all the forces of the school to bear upon the child. These forces, the final one of which is expulsion, will be differently worked by different men. An automatic system of merits and demerits, ending on one side with entrance into college and on the other with expulsion from school, is not worthy of consideration by any man DISCIPLINE 129 who calls himself a teacher; yet a system of merits and demerits can be made a great help as a practical channel for the exer- cise of his power and personality. One who knew from long experience the necessity for the quick punishment of a fault as well as the necessity for always keeping plainly before the child the stand- ard of right and wrong, and one who knew the practical difficulties in the way of pun- ishments at schools, writes : " Punishments which exact much addi- tional work from the master are as impos- sible in a good school as punishments which exact much additional labor from the boy. The true solution of the great difficulty appears to lie finally in a school having many privileges, as long as work and behavior are good. Every privilege is a possible punishment, as it can be taken away. This is sometimes a severe inflic- tion." However, in some cases, this '' de- privation often lacks the one chief need in punishing: it is not quick enough. *' Quickness and certainty soon reduce the number of faults. Uncertainty and de- lay breed culprits. But something can be done. If bad marks carry punishment, 130 PERSONALITY IN EDUCATION good marks should cancel it. . . . Not what the fault deserves, but what will work best, is the teacher's problem. Many times a wise forgiveness has cured where punish- ment would have made worse. The over- matched man and the fool have their pun- ishments cut and dried, of the regulation pattern, and apply the official stamp with- out regard to anything but the actual fault. ... A dead level of punishment is a griev- ous mistake. It leads boys to think that, however much they try, there is no escape, and accordingly they lose heart, and cease to try. Glimmerings of better things should be taken advantage of, and when honest praise can be awarded the battle is half won. ' ' Whatever the system, it should be, as far as possible, alive; while correcting each fault with patience by some timely device, at the same time always meeting half-way every effort on the boy's part. While per- sonal vigilance is absolutely necessary, tact in knowing just when to notice a fault is absolutely necessary in order to make the high standard held up by the system a standard to win adherents. The ordinary, every-day boy is to be trained to high DISCIPLINE 181 ideals of work and conduct, and the ex- ceptional boy is not to be worried out of those peculiarities which, properly di- rected, become the source of future power. This exceptional boy is often the one most worth educating. Any place of education working a system that excludes the duf- fer or the pickle, or even the eccen- tric, can hardly be said to come up to the ideals of a Christian school. The centuries, if they have proved anything, have proved the unfairness as well as the foolishness of the world's ready esti- mate of what constitutes power in life. The slow and practical James, the trouble- some and even false and cowardly Peter, may have forces within them which any, school should be proud to educate, though it be with pain and travail. The growth of mental and moral vigor is as illusive and unsteady as the growth of the boy's body — more so ; it goes by fits and starts : that is, it seems to do so, though we get to know, after a time, that all the while in the dormant spirit are gathering forces of amazing power waiting only for some sig- nal gun. Therefore, while we must have a system, 132 PERSONALITY IN EDUCATION let us take care that it is not one that tends to neglect or expel the apparently weak or troublesome, but, on the contrary, one that patiently builds up the weak, and one that turns the active spirit to better things than teasing and mischief; in other words, a system that arouses the personal interest of every teacher for every child, and one that centres responsibility on re- sponsible men, narrowing gradually to the one father of the family ; a system that dis- courages appeals to authority — a system, however, that has the authority at hand; a system in which regulation punishments are reduced to a minimum — a system in which these punishments are wisely and justly and quickly administered in such a way as to build up a child and strengthen its good resolves, rather than to brow- beat its half-formed bad ones into final adoption. Let us sketch the practical details in such a system. As a preliminary to such a sketch, and also that we may at no time lose sight of our theme, I shall quote again from Thring's book, " The Theory and Practice of Teaching " : ' ' What you command, DISCIPLINE 133 obey yourself most. Perhaps there is no more unsuspected source of misdeeds than the unconscious way in which many mas- ters break small laws, and disregard small observances. How often unpunctuality is fostered by a want of precision in the at- tendance of a master. Or his absence on some school occasion suggests that such public occasions are not worth coming to for their own sake, but are things to escape from if possible. ' ' The boys extend the principle to things they wish to escape from; and no one sus- pects, least of all the delinquent master, that the heavy case of shirking which is tormenting him in his class is only an hum- ble but too successful copy of himself." If a man appreciates the force of his own example, if, in other words, he is fit to be a teacher, the most important feature in a system of discipline should be the en- couragement it gives a man to handle his own children without falling back upon authority. The more swing the teacher is allowed, the better is he able to do his own work. All men are bound to diif er in minor methods, and this fact should be candidly recognized so long as the results 134 PERSONALITY IN EDUCATION are in harmony with the ideals and gen- eral plan of the scheme. The main lines, however, on which to keep order and to get work out of children have been pretty well laid down in years gone by, and inex- perienced men will do well to note them. *' An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. ' ' To avoid the cause or the occasion of disorder is, as a rule, far bet- ter than any remedy for correction. Love of fun, love of teasing, love of a fight, mere animal spirits, or, the more serious cause, vanity, are among the principal grounds for trouble. Therefore, we shall do well to avoid the occasions for the wrong dis- play of these various gifts of nature; or the occasion having arisen, to meet the cause of the trouble rather than the trouble itself. We shall meet love of fun by our own sense of humor; in fact, a quick and good-natured humor is a marvellous weapon in the hands of a teacher. To laugh with a boy is the next best thing to making him laugh with you. We shall meet his love of teasing by never rising to the bait; his love of a fight by never lowering ourselves even to argue or dis- pute; his animal spirits with a ready out- DISCIPLINE 135 let on interesting work; his vanity by a well-tliouglit-out plan of denying the occa- sion for its display. Most disorder can be headed off by guarding the approaches and by providing beforehand for all possible emergencies. Is a man calling in a great body of boys to a schoolroom? After his manner of standing and ringing the bell — personal characteristics — come, first, the order and ventilation of the room itself; then, his own preparedness: that is, his care to have noted combinations and posi- tions of possible disturbers, so that his eye naturally and quietly lights on the first movement of the kind. Nothing so takes the spirit out of disorderly boys as to find the master always easily ahead. If a man cannot cultivate that habit of leadership which puts him and keeps him ahead of boys on their own lines, he had better never try to handle them in large bodies. Any self -disciplined man of ordinary abil- ity and presence can cultivate this habit of leadership. It only requires great care in details and wise following up of each fail- ure. *' John, you did not obey the signal promptly," or: ''You wasted your time last hour. When I come into this room 136 PERSONALITY IN EDUCATION again, you come straight to me and tell me that you remember what I have just said." And if he fails to remember, don't fail to remind him before you ring in again. Such ways of personal attention to the faults of individuals, to bring out their own better sides, pay for the trouble many times over in the consequent freedom from disorder. There is, even in the best ordered rooms, a chance for a spasmodic outburst, which may become more or less general accord- ing to circumstances and the preparedness of the master. A real joining in the laugh or a cool and quiet gesture or word will always restore order, unless some restless spirits have planned a little fun or a trial of a man's pluck and presence of mind. In this case, if there is danger of the whole body of boys getting out of hand, avoid threats and bullying, but quickly do some- thing ; pick out a leader here and there and tell him to take his books and study in your own room. I have sometimes quietly left the master's desk and stood about in different places and spoken in low tones to this one and that till the storm gradu- ally subsided, a storm which, if met by DISCIPLINE 137 temper or irritation, would have wrecked a master's authority. One evening when the school was in very bad shape, there was a determined effort to turn the hour into bedlam. Not a word did I say, but I quickly took the floor and moved about ap- parently as carelessly as if everybody was hard at work, occasionally encouraging a boy to stick to his work. By the time the evening was over I had a very good idea of the different storm centres, and could have given with certainty the names of twenty-five boys who deserved punishment. However, before dismissal I said: '* I feel ashamed for the school that some of you have seemed determined to spoil the good order of the room, and I know that the larger number of you are also ashamed to see some fellows persistently annoying. Not one of you now in this room would be here if this sort of thing prevailed; you would not come to such a school; and I know that we can always count on the stronger fellows, when they come to their senses, to put down this kind of bad blood. I have been obliged to note the names of a number of fellows, who I know do not really believe in any sneaking disorder; 138 PERSONALITY IN EDUCATION and I should feel mucli relieved if they would come up and tell me that they have made a mistake." This brought a good- natured apology from almost every sus- pect, and also from many others. To one suspected boy leaving with no such ex- pression: " John, why don't you speak up? I don't like your carrying yourself off as if you did not care." *' I did not mean anything, sir." '' Then do not be afraid to say so. We must pull together, and trust each other." This episode is recalled simply to point out the application of the personal factor even in the little details of handling a large body of boys. There were about one hun- dred and seventy-five boys in that room, mostly all ready to take fire at anything, a crowd impossible to keep effectually at work unless a proper tone prevailed throughout. Absolute and fearless truth and square dealing is sometimes very hard to use on the spur of the moment when a man realizes that a mob is trying to rush him off his feet. But this same straight- forward truth is his only salvation as well as his duty to his charges; it will always win. Whether in the privacy of a man's DISCIPLINE 139 own room or in tlie publicity of the school- room, boys will always respond to truth and bravery. It is remarkable how ready a boy will be to tell on himself. He will sometimes come and request to be allowed to stand a punishment. And, furthermore, boys of all ages will rise to a sense of re- sponsibility in putting down and, if need be, exposing meanness and trickery. If they are treated as " thieves," none are more careful in maintaining " honor among thieves." On the contrary, if they are treated in a perfectly honorable and open way, they are capable of exposing a thief and driving him from the community, not only a thief, but any pestilent fellow. The bell for afternoon study has rung. As the boys, one hundred little fellows, be- tween the ages of twelve and fifteen, come pouring into the room, fresh and lively from their afternoon play, it is soon evi- dent that something is up. A great blow- ing of noses and various noises indicative of disgust preannounce to the master the present arrival of a disagreeable odor. When it floated as far as his desk it cer- tainly proved its right of announcement. A few minutes quiet and good-humored 140 PERSONALITY IN EDUCATION repression brought study order. But be- fore dismissing the various classes, the master remarked : ' * Some one has spilled a very disagreeable concoction, and he owes us all an apology. He will please make his excuses to me at the end of the hour. ' ' As no excuse was forthcoming, the same master said, in the evening, before the good-night: " No one has spoken about that nasty smell; some stuff must have been spilled on purpose. "Will the monitors of the house please take up the matter at once. We do not like to be treated that way." After a short meeting, conducted entirely by themselves, the four or five monitors reported that it was their opinion that the fellow should be sent up at once. *' Very well, I am perfectly willing to let the matter drop or not, just as you decide, but it seems to me wiser, as you say, to have the boy come and explain himself." Accordingly, sorely against his will, a boy, new to the house and the ways of the place, was ushered into the master's study to '' explain himself." At first he was very sulky, but when he found that it was not for the sake of punishment, he gradually thawed out and confessed that he was the DISCIPLINE 141 importer of a species of German toy, a kind of pellet, made on purpose to throw and burst with this peculiar odor. When required, he frankly delivered up his sup- ply and nothing more was said on the subject. Now this may seem a very trivial matter, and it is ; but unless these trivial matters, by which sneaking mischief upsets the whole body, are promptly and effectively disposed of, certain boys will find their greatest pleasure in such pranks. The ex- citement becomes all the greater if there is a * ' to do, " and an effort to discover and punish the perpetrator. A master is ut- terly helpless if the mob instincts of a body of boys are aroused. In a school poorly governed it may happen that a man has no alternative but some kind of general punishment. Of course, it is always bet- ter not to pit oneself against the whole body; if it is possible, make a division, pick out a section or a class. Yet the prin- ciple is a true one, that in the same way as the result of the honor or good behavior of the few is to be shared by all, the result of the dishonor or bad behavior of a few should be shared by all. If, moreover, it 142 PERSONALITY IN EDUCATION comes to the exacting of punisliinent from a body of boys for concerted disorder, the wise master will detain himself with the crowd rather than allow any punishment to fall on the few who refrain from " lying out of it," or to fall unshared on wholly innocent boys. ' ' I am innocent, but I shall serve this detention with all those whom I keep in, as I know that some of you are innocent. All sitting in that section where the disturbance arose will meet me for a quiet half -hour together after dinner. Do not come to me with any excuses. I do not wish to hear who did or who didn't. We are all hurt by that kind of underhand dis- order, and we shall all take the conse- quences. ' ' But when they have assembled : * ' Now, I suppose at least twenty boys were implicated in this tr'ouble; what fifteen boys will take the punishment and let the others go? " With a few furtive glances about, by degrees fifteen hands are cau- tiously displayed. When the half-hour is up, ' ' Now you may go, but if it would ease any one's mind, I should be pleased to hear from each just what he did. ' ' ** I groaned, sir." " I made a noise with my feet." DISCIPLINE 143 And so on till every hoy liad made liis confession, and gone out smiling. So ready are boys to lie in concert, yet indi- vidually to tell the truth and to take the consequences. But this kind of way of making a tone would never be necessary in a well-ordered school. In a place where the best boys are marked as leaders, under men who love their work, I cannot con- ceive of an occasion arising where it would be necessary to force in this way the crea- tion of proper public spirit. Though a large schoolroom is a difficult problem in which to work the personal factor, as it is a sort of open sea for the play of storms and squalls originating under the torrid or freezing atmosphere of other channels of school-life, yet the personal factor, even there, is an absolute necessity. And, no matter how well ordered the school at large, the continued order of a large schoolroom is absolutely dependent on the personality of the man in charge. Lots of men who do well in class and in other parts of the school cannot keep their heads among so many. Sometimes the whole body will be so charged as to explode at the smallest spark. Then there must be 144 PERSONALITY IN EDUCATION somewhere the iron door to hold the fire in check, or there willbe loss of life, — and that door must be a person. The classroom is a more satisfactory place for the use of personal methods in discipline. Let us see: the person, of course, is again the main thing. Next to the person comes the room, its ventilation, and the convenience and order of its ar- rangements. A class entering a room should not only see, but breathe cleanli- ness and order. Dishonor to the room and its furniture soon begets dishonor to the work. Occasions for confusion, especially at the beginning of the hour, should be avoided, and the work be so arranged as at once to win attention. A famous Ger- man teacher used to say, " Unless I can command perfect order by the interest of my lesson, I am not fit to be a teacher." Notice the word '' command." The atten- tion of the lazy, inattentive, or playful boy is commanded simply by a cunning appli- cation of the work in hand. A thorough study of individuals and a command of one 's own voice and manner will insure for a teacher the handling of his work in such a way as eventually to command perfect DISCIPLINE 145 order. An air of confidence coupled with unremitting attention to the lesson goes far toward making every boy feel that his interruptions are a nuisance to his fellows. As the laggards trail in, they will find the lesson already well started, or the master at the board demonstrating something with interest and apparent oblivion of their tardiness. Questions scattered around among the careless soon pull things to- gether. Perhaps the master's back is turned and he is writing or figuring, ex- plaining as he goes; he knows the spirit that is making a small disturbance or the voice that is persistent with untimely ques- tion, and he remarks quietly, as he writes, " Jack, I don't really believe that you want me to stop to attend to you." Perhaps Jack needs a further and more distinct snub. Turning and pointing to a part of the board as much as possible out of sight of the class, ''Go to the board and do ex- ample 10 as well as you can," or, " Write for us your best translation of lines 75-80." " I can't do it, sir." " I am sorry; then, just make a clear copy of the Latin," — anything to cool his 146 PERSONALITY IN EDUCATION vanity, and give the general impression of the necessity for work. A few words after class to one who has been troublesome dur- ing the hour often give a boy just the necessary turn. Eeproof that interrupts the work or calls the attention of others to a restless, vain, or nervous child is a mistake. Any kind of collision where the love of opposition is gratified should be relegated to those opportunities where the culprit can be dealt with quietly, swiftly, with little chance of failure, and, if possi- ble, in such a spirit as to win him from be- ing an opponent to being a friend. A word in season, that is, at a time when the child's defences are down, appealing to some higher motive; a kind reproof coupled with words of help and encourage- ment — all such means are far superior to any show of authority. Argument and scolding are as worthless as they are wasteful of good fire. Threats and de- mands for promises of reform are worse. Before a man has come to that point he had better turn over his charge to the next in authority. A set meeting in one 's study is generally the signal to the boy for a complete putting on of his armor; an DISCIPLINE 147 under-master must be very sure of himself and of his boy before lie dare hale a culprit to his sanctum. Let him keep that for his friends and for those whom he is sure to make his friends. A lecture ending with- out mutual understanding, within the four walls of a man's own room, with all his home pictures and other personal fringes hitting a boy in the face, is a pretty sure way to place a permanent barrier to his heart. When severity is necessary, the empty classroom is a more fitting place. As the class is leaving: '' Tom, stay in your seat." Then a few minutes of absolute disre- gard of the boy by the man, who is busy correcting work, may bring forth this conversation : ^' Why, Tom, what are you doing here? " *' You told me to stay, sir." " Why did I tell you to stay? " '^ Because I spoke out, I suppose." " Is that all you did? " '' Yes, sir." ' * Would I keep you in just for speaking out? " *' You did, sir." 148 PERSONALITY IN EDUCATION ^' Have I not told you a great many times that you interrupt our workf " " Yes, sir." *' Then it seems as if you did not care.** " I do care." *' I know you do. I just want you to stop and think a minute. Good-bye ! ' ' The cunning devices that a man may use to win attention and bring a child to his right mind are as varied as the characters of men and children. The time comes, however, now and again, when a man may feel that patience can no longer do her perfect work. Do not then delay, but promptly turn the whole matter over to your superior, with no strings to your report; let the bare facts of the case suffice, so there may be no chance for the exercise of personal resent- ment. How common it is to hear a teacher admit that he is having trouble with a certain boy! A man should never allow himself to be in such a position with any child. Such an admission on his part com- pels his abdication from the position of master. When a case is referred to a su- perior, again it is to win the boy, not to enforce a punishment; and the teacher DISCIPLINE 149 should show this by his whole manner. The head-master, from his position, should know many things about the boy unknown to his assistants, and also has it in his power to bring forces to bear on the boy other than a regulation punishment. But, after all is said and done, it is hardly conceivable that a school should be able to dispense with some regular, recog- nized form of punishment. Such punish- ment, however, should evidently be under the direct control of the head of the school, and never allowed to drift into a merely automatic system. Every report for mis- conduct or failure in duty, emanating from an under-master, should go to one in direct authority over the boy, to the one who knows as far as possible all the circum- stances of the child's life. In a large school the labor of inspecting every report might be very great ; therefore, the system should be such as to enable the head-master so to delegate this work to house-masters that not only might he spare himself un- necessary labor more easily done by others, but might be enabled to leave the school for a time with no appreciable difference in the working of the system. 150 PERSONALITY IN EDUCATION The subject of excuses deserves careful consideration in any system, sucli careful consideration that children may learn not to make excuses. The effort to be perfectly just, and the temptation to win good will, dictates generally too great leniency in granting excuses. The ideal would be such care on the part of masters before sending in reports that no excuses would be con- sidered. Furthermore, such a harmful thing for a child is the habit of seeking to excuse himself, and so necessary for us all to learn to take manfully even apparent injustice, that of the two evils to be avoided, the excuse habit is worse than the occasional miscarriage of justice. While it is worth while to meet half-way a boy's own sense of justice and truth, it is our bounden duty to educate his sense of jus- tice and truth to the highest level, and also to teach him to suffer, if need be, unjustly for the sake of others. A small boy, stand- ing in front of me and his eyes flashing defiance, says: " I won't do it; it isn't fair.'* " Just sit down a minute ; there is a book to look at while I finish a few lines that I am writing." DISCIPLINE 151 After a pause of, say, five minutes, while my pen is moving, but my heart praying that I may win that boy : '' No, it does not seem fair to you, nor is it fair to me to stay in during this beauti- ful day because others have failed. The little thing which you did arose simply from the wrongdoing of several other fel- lows; a man cannot see and know every- thing; your master did the best he knew how. I want you to learn to take a little injustice now and then, and to bear with me some of the troubles of other fellows. You know how often you deserve punish- ment and do not get it; in the long run, the well-mannered, square boy gets his due.v " All right, sir, I'll do it, but it isn't fair," will almost surely come from his lips; and you have taken one step nearer your goal with that youngster. It is won- derful how a few minutes' quiet with a man who is a friend will give the best side of a boy a chance to assert itself. This brings us to the consideration of the forms of punishment to be used by those in authority. Whatever task is set for a punishment should be one worth 152 PERSONALITY IN EDUCATION while in itself. Experience bears me out in asserting that only two kinds of penalty are practical in a school other than mili- tary: namely, writing lines and walking. The latter, of course, is the better theo- retically, but practically a combination of both is advisable. When a stated punish- ment is resorted to, it makes little differ- ence in its deterrent effect what that pun- ishment is, so long as the child's liberty is absolutely curtailed. Walking is a good set punishment, because it keeps the child in the air and should put him in better shape, if the exercise is carefully guarded and made disciplinary. A great many boys can be kept walking in a line around a quad or back lot, with the under- standing that a certain number of times around at a fixed pace constitute the stint : a half -hour is about the limit during which to make this a successful punishment. Boys who have longer detentions should then turn into the schoolroom to do copy: that is, to copy neatly so many lines in such a time from a history or English book. This is practical and in itself a helpful exercise; and I do not believe any higher mental exercises practical. One DISCIPLINE 15S hour, however, of indoor detention should be a limit. If further detention is required, it should be done again in the open air. In all regulation punishment or regula- tion demerits, it is helpful to have regu- lation credits given for periods of entire freedom from reports for misconductj Yet here again, to obtain the best results the personal factor is important — that the boy should be obliged to face duty in the person of a superior for every demerit or credit. These things should not be allowed to pile up for future settling. The child who requires much discipline does little reasoning. Nothing is accomplished by holding over him future punishment, or by assuming that such and such results are ' ^ up to the boy ' ' to foresee and guard against. He should arrive as quickly as possible up against a wall. Discipline at boarding school will al- ways be a problem. The ideal professional parent can never expect to attain to the ideal natural parent. But do not let any of us think that it can be settled by ma- chinery. ' ' Life for life ; ' ' the heart can be won only by heart's blood, never by blows and browbeating. I once heard a 154 PERSONALITY IN EDUCATION noted school-master speaking in praise of his detention system, '' Oh! it is a great system, it breaks a boy down in the end ' ' ; and another, '^ My plan is just to keep his nose to the grindstone." Yes, these are ideas still held and practised in our Chris- tian schools, greatly to our shame and dis- grace. There are cases, I suppose, where the animal must be broken, but I do not recall the successful application of school discipline in such a case during an expe- rience of over twenty-five years. The forceful, loving will of a patient man or woman standing for truth and justice, is the only thing that I have ever seen able to produce salutary fear. VIII THE CLASS IN his class the man is king, or the teacher must flee. '' I am looking for an under-teacher. I want first a man, and next a man to teach," remarked a head-master; of such impor- tance in the classroom is the personality of the teacher. Dean Briggs, who reports this remark, says, in another place : ' ' In the best teacher, also, is a personal force that in- spires some boys with the desire to work and compels others to work, till working becomes a precious, even a priceless, habit of their lives. He is not full of devices and patent appliances for interesting his pu- pils; he is not full of theories and fads: he does his own work, even the drudgery of it, with enthusiasm for it and for his calling. He corrects, chastens, guides, kindles the love of learning; and con- 155 156 PERSONALITY IN EDUCATION stantly he gives to eager eyes some glimpses of that high enjoyment to which learning and discipline may lead: but he never sacrifices the discipline to any royal road of pleasure." In the class there is a peculiar force to personality, inasmuch as there are all the different personalities to be dealt with in such a way as to cause the force exerted on each to be equal to the sum of the best of all the parts. A man who can get the good will and attention of his class is ex- erting on every boy the force of truth not only through his own personality, but through that of the several and combined personalities of all the others; not only that a truth is turned and looked at on many sides, but it is as if twenty voices were appealing to each boy's mind to open, to hear, and to work. A word spoken to a whole body of peojjle, when their minds move in comparative concert, makes an impression far stronger than the same word spoken to one alone. Call it what you please, hypnotic power or magnetism in the leader that starts the thought trans- ference, the larger the number held by the spell the more imx^elling the call to every THE CLASS ' 157 mind. The whole equation, therefore, is the resultant of the unifying of these many forces into one line of thought and work by the skilled teacher. And this fact is very important for every teacher to grasp, for these separate minds and wills, with- out any leader, naturally unify into a hope- less mass of inattention and laziness, if not of absolute rebellion. For the child, the class training should be one of great value in many ways, not the least of which should be the gain in power not only to get for himself the best that is given broadcast, so to speak, but also to add his share to the general good. Some children with excellent abilities seem to require the constant eye and personal attention of the teacher to be centred on them, or they fail to take in the explana- tion. The effort should be to turn this vanity, or dependence, or whatever it may be, into the kind of self-respect that is ashamed to be the exception, and glories in being an addition to, instead of a sub- traction from, his class. We come, therefore, to the consideration of the real object that the teacher sets be- fore himself and his class: namely, the 158 PERSONALITY IN EDUCATION training to think and to work with others and for others in such a way as to stimu- late thought. '' The teacher and the trainer has to make his pupil strong, and skilful in himself, to direct existing pow- ers, and call new powers into existence. The learner does not want to be made a receptacle of other men's words and thoughts, but to be made a thinker of thoughts, and a wielder of words himself. It is true that material must be collected or there can be no thought; and that the thinker, as Aristotle says, must learn to become a skilled workman by working at that in which his skill is afterwards to be shown; so far knowledge is necessary." Thus writes the great Thring, and he con- tinues in the same connection: " To ap- proach the question from another side : the possession of great knowledge is given but to few. The average of general efficiency is alone worth considering in dealing with what teaching and training can do. Here there neither is, nor can be any doubt. Workmen are wanted. The work of the world cannot get on without worlanen. . . . The need of the world at any moment is not wealth — that is the result of work fin- THE CLASS 159 ished and done; but work and workers — that is the living power and skill that con- tinue to produce; . . . without the pro- ducing power, how poor, how impossible prolonged possession becomes. . . . The ordinary mind with the ordinary memory cannot accumulate wealth of knowledge, and is but a poor shop; whilst it can be trained to do very good work, and turned out in the world-market a skilled workman at high wages. Few have time at their command to pile in knowledge. And there is little room for many such accumulators. In fact, a great memory is a great maker of common-place, unless overmatched by much original power; and the attempt to load the mind with knowledge often means crowding out all originality and freshness, and putting very little in. ' ' Yet this same attempt to impart knowledge beyond neces- sity is a great temptation to a teacher. Children are naturally alive to anything new; they love to listen to the man who tells them things. A class may easily be turned into a mutual admiration society, where the teacher displays his knowledge and his art at imparting this knowledge, and where the children sit in rapt atten- 160 PERSONALITY IN EDUCATION tion at the display. One is tempted to wonder at the quality of work done in a classroom from which comes daily the al- most uninterrupted flow of the teacher's voice. Lecturing is not teaching, no mat- ter how interesting to young and old. Lis- tening to explanations and dissertations goes far toward training children to mental imbecility, unless absolutely necessary as ground for work. Most of the lecturing in the class, whose duty is training in effi- ciency, can better be done by drawing out explanations from the children and by leading them, as far as possible, to dis- cover and deduce the necessary knowledge for themselves. " All the world knows Socrates," to quote again from the same inspiring teacher. '' Many schools of philosophy, and a countless number of paths of re- search, and a countless number of learned men/, owe their existence to Socrates. Soc- rates was a great teacher; but in moderr> phrase he taught nothing. Socrates is judged to be the greatest teacher the secu- lar world ever had; but he poured no knowledge in, whether by pumping on kettles open or shut. Socrates gave a de- THE CLASS 161 scription of himself as a teacher. He describes himself as a man-midwife for mind; who assisted other people to bring into the world new births of mind. What a noble, yet simple, definition of what all teaching should contemplate — new births of mind. He created a science of question- ing, which to this hour bears his name; but the answers were theoretically already in the persons questioned. His system pre- supposed material gathered, but material gathered in order to make the after-struc- ture of thought." Now this temptation to the teacher to pump knowledge on his class has its friend and follower: namely, the temptation to prepare a class for an examination. No apology is necessary for continuing the quotation, as will readily be admitted, when viewed in its bearing on some of our modern methods. ^' His questions have been searching the world ever since they were put into it, and have quickened the perception of all generations ; but Socrates could not have produced a single pupil able to show a modern examiner what he had gained; or to satisfy (satisfy, we call it) an examiner's demand for knowledge in a 162 PERSONALITY IN EDUCATION modern examination paper. In the first place, Socrates imparted no knowledge at all; and examinations have knowledge as their work and aim. Socrates, therefore, would be nowhere in an examiner's speci- men list. Socrates again scornfully re- jected everything of the Manual type, and all cut and dried rules and formulas, but these are the stock in trade of competitive examinations. Socrates therefore would starve in the enlightened nineteenth cen- tury as a teacher; there is no room for teachers." (We are hoping better things for the twentieth century.) '' He would have to wear shoes, and make them for a livelihood. On the other hand, Socrates the teacher, not the shoemaker, applied so subtle an instrument of mind by his ques- tions to all he met that he forced them to sift and arrange their ideas. Socrates the teacher sent a plough into the hearts of men, and broke up the ground, and then followed with living breath of strange efficacy, like a spring wind, and called out into new existence all the latent germinat- ing power, all the push of life within. Socrates sent new longings, and new ca- pacities for satisfying longings, into his THE CLASS 163 disciples, not new knowledge in the modem sense: and the receptive mind gathered strength and clearness, felt its want, and eagerly set about supplying it. So it came to pass that Socrates, who taught nothing, produced disciples that learnt everything." The teacher, therefore, is the sower of seed, not the feeder of ripened fruit; the cultivator of the soil, to make the mind eager and receptive; the happy workman, who by the contagion of his own example wins his pupils to work with him. Though we believe that the true work of a teacher is better appreciated than in the days of Thring, yet the very helps be- ing put forth in these days in the way of text-books are a constant temptation, and teachers need to be on their guard against the same old enemy that would feed us direct from the Tree of Knowledge. New and perfected text-books are all very well if they are taken, first, as aids to the teacher to think himself, to get his own hand firmly on the Tree of Life, and to lift each child just far enough to get hold and climb for himself; and, then, as aids to teach his pupils to think. But I have seen a good and conscientious man almost kill 164 PERSONALITY IN EDUCATION the desire for any real intellectual life on the part of his pupils ; turned, as it were, into a kind of clerk of the works, ^ ' whose main business it is to make the workers tie up little packages of rules, label them neatly, docket them, and pack them into the pigeon-holes of memory, to be brought out whenever asked for, pat! This state of things produces grammars also bris- tling with technical terms, labels for every- thing, endless lists of endless usages, all with their separate names; because a name, whether understood or not, can be produced at call, when the simple princi- ple, by which the thought takes shape in words, would very often explain them all without the need of names; but then this cannot be learnt as a lesson by rote by forty boys at a time. . . . *' As soon as individual minds are not the province of a teacher's work, nor each separate difficulty his care, as soon as knowledge, rules, and memory engross at- tention, numbers are immaterial. There is the prescribed packet to be learnt; if a boy does not learn it, it is no business of the clerk of the works, beyond punish- ing him for not doing it. This soon passes THE CLASS 165 into a neglect of those who cannot, or will not, pigeon-hole the daily quota; this nat- urally advances to finding them very much in the way ; the next step is that in the in- terest of the better boys (so runs the story) they must be got rid of. So the school failures are turned out, and great authority quoted to support the practice; and all the energy of the place is ex- pended on the strong and active, who will distinguish themselves in the knowledge scramble. ' ' The examination certainly has its legiti- mate place in the school, as has the ac- quiring of knowledge,. but the teacher must ever hold before himself that the one thing for which the class is assembled before him is to learn, collectively and individually, to think. Even accuracy is at times to be sacrificed to progress in thought. We have seen this progress paralyzed by a wrong stress on accuracy. To think is the first thing, even though the thought be hardly intelligible; and then comes the training in accuracy, when the child is taught to express the thought. The same authority as quoted above remarks in this connection: " There is something so wise, 166 PERSONALITY IN EDUCATION so unanswerable, in tlie modest, yet firm, requirement that the lessons must be done thoroughly, and a boy not advance till he has mastered what he is doing, that the request commands assent at once; there is also so real a truth underlying the dic- tum that the fallacy involved in it easily escapes notice. The fallacy is, — it cannot be done. There is no power in the minds of the young to master a subject thor- oughly. Thorough mastery is the result of trained skill, and it is absurd to demand the perfection of trained skill from the untrained beginner. The map-work which transfers to the mind a complete plan of the country belongs to men; it is enough, and more than enough, if the boy can find his way about fairly well, and appreciate the landscape. Any attempt to linger too long over the same work will only end in weariness and deadening the interest. Words and work, when stale, become to the young mere empty sounds, meaningless rote-work. There must be change. Loose- ness indeed is fatal. What is known ought to be known with exactness; but a gap is no harm, unless it is in the middle of the main highway. Monotony is the greatest THE CLASS 167 enemy a teacher has to deal with. There is much danger, where all is new, as it is with beginners, lest a boy find a dead level without landmarks to guide. Where all is new, all cannot be mastered, and in the first confusion, unless he moves on, there is nothing to show what is intended to be done, or where he is to go. . . . Many dif- ficulties in learning cannot be mastered by standing still over them; they can only be got rid of by movement." In teaching to think, one cannot begin too early to encourage and train to prac- tical expression the power of originality. Many of the present-day systems, both in work and play, discourage initiative on the part of the child. Without entering into a discussion on the true balance of indi- viduality and the sinking of individuality in the common good, we may here take it for granted that the best interests of all men demand the highest development of each; and this, of course, demands the training of initiative in every child. Great patience and tact on the part of the teacher are required in order to train some children in originality and, at the same time, in proper submission to and 168 PERSONALITY IN EDUCATION consideration of others ; but if that is what the man is looking for rather than perfec- tion in set work, his joy at the discovery of great possibilities in children, and in training such rare ones to usefulness, is not the least part of his reward. More- over, their self-expression becomes an ex- ample and an incentive to every member of a class. The plodder and the genius must learn to work side by side, to respect one another, and to add, each his share, to the common good by patient toil. We have touched upon all these points in earlier chapters, but their great impor- tance is a sufficient excuse for their repeti- tion. The classroom, as well as every other part of the school, should teach close application, not to the mere acquiring of set lessons or to the * ' putting in " of cer- tain hours, but directly to the formation of habits of industry. It is evidently, therefore, the first duty of the teacher, in season and out of season, by precept and example, to teach his children how to work; and this can be done in some cases only at great personal sacrifice. In the class, gossip of any sort, references to discipline or to any matter not bearing THE CLASS 169 directly on the work in hand, should be avoided. The attention of every indi- vidual is what the teacher should aim at; and this comes only to the man who is giv- ing his best attention to every individual. '^ The boy mind," says Thring, " is much like a frolicking puppy, always in motion, restless, but never in the same position two minutes together, when really awake. Naturally his body partakes of this unset- tled character. Attention is a lesson to be learned; and quite as much a matter of training as any other lesson. A teacher will be saved much useless friction if he acknowledges this fact, and instead of ex- pecting attention, which he will not get, starts at once with the intention of teach- ing it; being well assured that it would be just as sensible to look for the Latin Grammar to be spun off the reel by the light of nature, without book, as for atten- tion to be got without training. A teacher will teach this as a lesson, and will exer- cise all his skill in teaching it, and be pa- tient with beginners, and command it by life, good-humor, and go. ... A sleepy manner, however strong the real interest taken by the master may be, produces in 170 PERSONALITY IN EDUCATION the taught either laziness and apathy in the lazy, or tricks in the puppy section. It is most disastrous in anything belong- ing to discipline to overlook beginnings. No leak ever broke up a dyke more cer- tainly than trifles passed over break up the order of a class. There is, however, a worse fault still, a fault which is almost universal: this is, to legalize insubordina- tion by having a set of small routine pun- ishments, and imposing them regularly. This makes a regular crop of the fault; and the fault becomes an established insti- tution, and what began as a bit of careless- ness ends by being a tolerated crime. Lit- tle breaches of order ought to be met by the personal authority of the teacher's words and influence. If that is not enough, they should be promptly stamped out by real severity. " Inattention creeps in at another door. The operators are apt to forget the class, which is their real work, and to be ab- sorbed in the book and the boy doing it, whilst the rest are comparatively disre- garded. The rest accordingly are inat- tentive, for the operator is teaching them inattention by being inattentive to them. THE CLASS 171 They are his main care, and not to care for them brings its own punishment in not being cared for. First one, then another, takes advantage of the absent eye, and dis- order begins, and in spite of spasmodic severity becomes the rule. Instant, watch- ful — if need be, pitiless — repression of the first sign of inattention is the only law of discipline. Nothing ought to escape a teacher that the boys do, for he is there to train the boys in what they do. ... As mind has to be dealt with, mind must be there. And however clever the performer may be, he might as well stand up, and solemnly set about giving a lesson to the clothes of the class hanging round his room on pegs, while the owners were play- ing cricket, as to the so-called class, if the boys are careless, playing, or noisy. Cul- pable inattention in the boys is above all things a master's fault. Able, earnest men, who attend to the class, will always find the class attend to them." The diiference between sitting over books and an eager desire to make the most of his time must occasionally be plainly pointed out to a boy. How to learn must be drilled into him to the destruction 172 PERSONALITY IN EDUCATION of his delusions about work. We often see a fine conscientious boy making himself stupid and unhappy over work that he can be taught to do easily and happily. There are what may be called mechan- ical agencies which are a great help; a well-lighted and well-ventilated room in which the best appliances are found for work: the class so arranged as to have every boy as nearly as possible face the teacher, so that he can keep them well be- fore him in a compact body, thus easily looking into each boy's face to see if he is following the work: the position of every boy while supposedly at work. A teacher will not neglect this law of nature, that position of body is not only an index of mind, but a decided influence in itself. *' Few suspect," as has been well said, ** how much the waters of Helicon are contaminated by the slime which oozes in through this unguarded sluice." Finally, too long detention, either in school or out of school, completely unfits a boy for attention. Let any candid teacher test his own ability to stick closely at work which requires push for the length of time for which even our children of ten THE CLASS 173 and twelve are detained at school; let any candid teacher ask himself if he has found it possible to train children to attention who are kept over their books eight hours a day. Every man of experience knows the answer to these questions, and yet what is the remedy that we see applied to the inattentive, slack- twisted boy? More detention! Our schools will continue to turn out their crop of formal dunces and men looking for '' easy snaps," till every teacher fairly faces and works over the problem, '' How am I going to teach that child attention and love for his work? " There is another phase of classwork which does not, as a rule, get its true val- uation: that is, the work assigned to be done outside the class by the boy himself. It is evident, no amount of precept for an hour a day will counterbalance the force of habit acquired in the other hours. The pressure brought to bear on both teacher and pupil to produce ' ' the tale of bricks, ' ' forces good, square, honest study out of the market. The boy will gather his '* straw " anywhere and everywhere from the handiest source — friendly teachers, companions, or even on the sly from an- 174 PERSONALITY IN EDUCATION other's stock. A friend of mine, who was a great stickler for all the work perfectly, done, received a Greek exercise one day, beautifully and on the whole correctly written, but the last sentence consisted of another boy's name written in Greek char- acters. Even this incident failed to con- vince the teacher that he himself was the one most in error. The daily habit of facing work to be done with no help except what his own master has given him, and the doing his best on that work, is half, if not all, the battle for a teacher to win in behalf of the child. By constantly keep- ing that before the young, and by skilful arrangement of the work to be prepared, and by following up and exposing all the crutches that the lame ones will seize, the pupil himself soon learns to appreciate the power that he is gaining, and a strong spirit of self-help will take possession of a class. If there is one thing that appeals to the best side of a boy, it is his ambition not to be a lame player or a quitter or a sneak. Young people need to have their sense of honor as well as their desire for work to be diligently trained. The ideal which each boy has in his mind, if we are THE CLASS 175 to judge by the standards they invariably apply to their elders, is strong enough and fairly clear; the task of the teacher is to train the child in the application of this standard to himself. The man who allows those under his direction to form the habit of doing their outside work by any method but that which is most conducive to their advancement in power to work and think, is manifestly not doing his full duty. It would be just as wise for a doctor to pre- scribe his medicines without making any real effort to get at the seat of the trouble in the daily life of his patient, and to see that his remedies were conscientiously used. Encourage a child, therefore, to come to class with his work done by himself as well as he is able; then he will be keen to discover his mistakes and to note their cor- rection. He will be learning not only how to work, but learning the kind of child he actually is, and also that other inestimable lesson of standing squarely on his own work. When a child needs outside help, his teacher should be the first to know it and to offer the help. "■ Prevention is better than cure;" it is better as a rule to give 176 PERSONALITY IN EDUCATION the necessary help before class and accus- tom the boy to come prepared, than to allow him to waste his time and then pun- ish him afterwards. There are, however, instances of inattention that are better to punish by refusing further help and allow- ing the boy to suffer for a day or more while he flounders in darkness. Some- times nothing is so good for the careless child playing on the edge of thin ice as to allow him to fall in, and to know him- self temporarily out of the game and at length dependent for his life on taking ^ firm hold of the proffered stick. The sort of boy that needs outside help needs mostly to be shown how to study, and sometimes requires to be made to study. Of all boys, this one needs the personal supervision of his teacher. If the garden- er's apprentice is lazy and slovenly in his work, he would never learn as simple a thing as sticking at his own row till it was clear of weeds, root and vine, unless at times the gardener came and worked be- side him. Perhaps it is not more direction which he needs, but just the influence of a little personal fellowship. It is no use say- ing to him, *' Unless you learn to work, THE CLASS 177 you will starve." Let the starving proc- ess be at once judiciously yoked with the fellowship. To the discouraged or lazy and obstinate boy, if we wish to make him a hopeful, energetic, and amenable man, we shall not say, ^' Go and do that work," but we shall rather say, " Come and let us do this work." See that the work is done and that the boy, as far as in him lies, does it himself. A friend of mine, a man who had much experience on certain lines of work in the business world, said: " I shall not send niy boy to college. I want him to know not books, but men and things; and this knowledge he will get to more advantage by dealing directly with men and things." Such a conclusion is perfectly justified from the results of school and college on many men; boys do not learn ^' men and things "; and, putting it on a business basis, that is what they go to school and college for, if we may insert three words, so as to make the phrase read, *' to work with men and things." School and college may be called the grammar of '' men and things." Now, to teach boys any subject, it is generally admitted that '' dealing di- 178 PERSONALITY IN EDUCATION rectly " with tlie subject in what is called the '' natural method " is the best way, if the teacher is a good teacher, and has the opportunity to give his undivided atten- tion to one or two boys at a time. In other words, principles and rules derived by the child himself from concrete experience stand him in better stead than the same principles and rules learned out of a book. Although this may be the best way to learn a subject, still this method may be employed to the complete extinc- tion of the faculty of the imagination and of faith, and so defeat one of the main objects of all true education. Moreover, such a thoroughly deductive method is not practical in classes. Grood teachers will always use this method as far as circum- stances allow, in verifying the grammars which represent the condensed learning of many generations put into convenient form for transmission. Even the best teachers with the most interested children would find their grammars to some 'degree indispensable. For teaching classes, there- fore, the grammar method must prevail; and yet the grammar must constantly be shown to be alive: that is, the true work THE CLASS 179 of '' men and things," a sort of a handy compendium of work done and still doing; an introduction as well as an incentive to direct contact with the life itself. Looked at in this way, the school and the college are the places for learning the true princi- ples and rules of life as being worked out by *' men " in the great realm of ** things." England is a fair example of what may be accomplished in the world by a nation whose method of education and whose method of government have been con- ducted throughout on an established order, constantly applied, to the everchanging circumstances of men and things, and, therefore, constantly tested and modified by facts. rs CLASSWOEK WHEN we descend from these broad applications to the teacher and his class, and we ask ourselves, What are the best studies to give the young and what are the. best ways of presenting these studies? we are getting to the point that must interest every teacher. No doubt, language is the study which prepares us best for knowing men. The way a man thinks is the thing we wish to know for ourselves and to teach the child, in order that he may think in the best possible way ; and language is the path of man's thinking. The English language, therefore, is the first and principal study of the child. The best method of teaching a child to think in the use of his own language will be partly determined by the conditions of his life, whether in his surroundings he hears cor- rect or incorrect English. The child learns to talk entirely by what we call the ' ' nat- 180 CLASSWORK 181 Tiral method "; his wants will seek ex- pression, and he catches the expression largely through the power of mimicry and memory, with reason in almost total abeyance. The number of impres- sions that the child is storing up in its earlier years is not often appreciated by the elder. Memory is at its best, and then it is that memory should be wisely used to stock the mind with the most beautiful thoughts conveyed by the words of our na- tive tongue. As the reason dawns, the con- struction of the language may be gradually brought in. But grammar, as a study in itself, seems to me to be much more effec- tually taught in the Latin for those who are to study Latin. For mental drill, a so-called dead language is better than a modern language, chiefly because of its greater abundance and regularity of in- flections; and quite truly, also, because it is a dead language, and has no market value. A boy talking to his father about his studies in college, said, " I am going to drop Latin and take only those studies which will help me in law." His father replied : ' ' Then you had much better come to the office at once. I can teach you more 182 PERSONALITY IN EDUCATION law in a month than you will learn in a year at college. No, indeed ! you are not going to college for law, you are going for yourself ; to learn how to think, to learn how other men have thought, and to take a wider look at life for your own profit and happiness "; — good and sound advice, coming from a man who knew what he was talking about. Many men of that kind of sound sense in this land bring their boys to school, and say, '' Here I am, a slave to business; but I want my son to have an education and to be somebody when he grows up! " Let us be assured that the best men of the land, educated or uneducated, are with us in all our efforts to teach chii'^ren to think, not only as our fathers thought, but, if possible, to "go one better." We seem to have digressed from our consideration of the English class; yet let us hope that this digression bears dis- tinctly on the subject of teaching English in a class. Our language is so full of beautiful literature suitable for children that I should turn the English class largely into the practice of reading and other ex- ercises suggested by the reading, rather CLASSWORK 183 than on the practice of grammar. To hear some of our college boys read and speak one would think that English was not their mother tongue. The carelessness in the use of their own language is but an index of their general carelessness in thought. Eight here, therefore, in speaking, writing, and reading English does the battle begin. The child having conquered the first diffi- culties of reading, let us choose carefully as the centre of our work in the class an interesting and well-written book, either one of the many readers suited to the ages of our pupils, or some standard book. If the latter, care should be taken to handle the book quite differently from the way in which we handle the ordinary school-book. It seems to me wiser never to put the standard authors which one wishes to lead the children to read and discover for them- selves, never to put such authors into school binding to be kept on the same shelf with other school books. It is hard enough to treat Virgil and Horace in that way. The child will take his cue from the master ; he does not easily forget the tender hand and friendly manner with which his teacher took his Scott or his Shakespeare into 184 PERSONALITY IN EDUCATION class, and neither will he forget the beauty of the unexpected passage as read by a true lover; it will act as a challenge for him to discover this author for himself. The higher flights of the mind are in se- cret, and spontaneous; the teacher's prov- ince is humbly to point the way, by going there himself alone, and decoying his little ones to explore for themselves these new and ever- widening fields. Let a whole- some dread be upon him of vulgarizing these fine sj^iritual things to the level of the grammar and the blackboard. In any case, such books to be used for a reading exercise should be put into the boy's hand only in the classroom, and not be carried to the schoolroom desk. " John, do you begin with Chapter I." Then let John have full swing till he has finished a certain portion. For purposes of correction, sometimes, the last sentence read again by the teacher reproducing tone of voice, colloquial pronunciation, and any other peculiarities or mistakes, will have a good effect in bringing home to a boy his inefficiency. Or, " Who noticed a mis- take? " Thus, one by one, hunting out the errors made in the passage, at the same CLASSWORK 185 time testing tlie attention of each boy, this exercise is made the occasion of teaching care not only in reading the printed word, but also in the use of the voice and in intelligent expression. Let the teacher, from time to time, read aloud himself that he may set a standard of accurate and de- sirable reading to the class. One may see in such an exercise a wide field for teach- ing all manner of things, as well as for cultivating a proper taste in the choice of books. Say that this reading exercise has pro- ceeded for about half an hour; *' now close your books "; and then quickly examine the class on the spelling of any words which you may choose from the text, keep- ing some one at the board to write a list of the words misspelled; this list should be copied by each child in a special note-book, and learned as a spelling lesson for the next recitation. Such practice trains him to observe the spelling of words while he reads, just as the oral spelling lesson is important to train the ear and the enuncia- tion. Or else, ' ' Now we shall have fifteen minutes in which to write rapidly what you can remember of the reading." It is 186 PERSONALITY IN EDUCATION very important to train younger children at school in the art of putting down on paper rapidly what they have in their minds; and to this end I should always -have such writing done in the class under the master's eye, that he may keep them at work, and occasionally, by demonstra- tion on the board, show them how first to outline their subject and so arrange their paragraphs. Dictation exercises, gradu- ally leading in higher forms to practice in taking notes, all to be carefully reviewed out of class and presented at a following recitation, are the very best incentives to concentrated and rapid thought and to ac- curate expression. Nothing should be given for outside preparation that would offer an excuse for wasting time, or say- ing, ** I didn't know how." All first cop- ies of work should be corrected by the child himself, and then written in a book to be presented fresh and clear for the master's inspection. Too great stress can- not be laid upon the careful personal cor- rection of such second copies in the pres- ence of the boy himself, requiring him either to rewrite or to make good every error, adding all misspelled words to his CLASSWORK 187 own list to be learned. From the earliest years such original work, based on read- ing in class, should be varied by calling occasionally for short compositions on all manner of subjects either set by the mas- ter or chosen by the boy. Whole hours should be given to the hearing of composi- tions read by their composers, from which sentences here and there should be chosen to be written on the board for analysis, if the class has begun Latin, or the study of any grammar. When a class enters the room, a sentence on the blackboard copied from an unknown composition, orthog- raphy and all, gives a man a great chance to rivet attention on certain kinds of errors, and forms an excellent exercise in analysis and reconstruction and general grammar work. Grammar note-books I have found helpful. Let me note here that the assigning of analysis of sentences, or of correcting sentences outside class, is a wretched practice, not only because chil- dren learn very little in that way of how to construct or write a sentence, but most of those whom one especially wishes to work will not do it for themselves, but simply get " pointers " from the brighter 188 PERSONALITY IN EDUCATION boys or kindly elders, who, from lack of time, answer their idle question in the most direct way. If there is no convenient work to assign for a preparation hour, give as a lesson a page of good prose or poetry to be copied; this is an excellent English exercise for the younger children. However, if a teacher realizes the necessity of stocking the child's mind with high thoughts and noble forms of expression, there will be a constant training in learn- ing and reciting memoriter from great authors in prose and poetry. Another exercise in the classroom which may be used in connection with the read- ing is to require different members of a class to give orally the substance of dif- ferent paragraphs, concluding each such effort with a kindly criticism. Great in- terest may be aroused by these oral efforts which may be branched off into discussions with all the rules of parliamentary order. As children get older, set debates with ap- pointed speakers make a delightful change, and give a teacher much chance for very helpful work. The English class in a school should be the one above all others looked forward to CLASSWORK 189 with pleasure. Every hour's work may be so varied as to keep alive attention and interest. If a teacher realizes that what he is after for his pupils is to promote their power in thought and love of work by putting into them high thoughts and by teaching them the power to express these thoughts in fitting language, he will for- sake the grammar drill for reading, writ- ing, and speaking. I venture to say that all those who have attained success, and so joy in their use of the English language, would agree that they had not learned it from the English Grammar, but that they had learned it by absorbing the spirit and style. of great English writers and by pa- tient practice in the art of writing and speaking. The grammar, no doubt, is necessary, but it comes best through imitation and incidentally, as has been sketched above. The speech and pen of the average child trained on the English Grammar seems to me proof conclusive of its poverty in the true elements of mental training, as well as of its failure to teach English. It requires the more mature mind to grasp and to benefit by the science of Grammar. 190 PERSONALITY IN EDUCATION One is tempted to go beyond limit in discussing the English class with all its possibilities to promote fine thought and helpful work; these suggestions, how- ever, may be of use to younger teach- ers as lines on which to form their own methods. The history and geography classes also should be full of interest under a live teacher, and should act as adjuncts to the English class. By the aid of maps and wise notice of passing events, both of these studies can be made very stimulating to observation and thought, and afford ample incentive for expression. Boys should be encouraged to give vivid descriptions of places and events, both in writing and speaking. Here again short essays are in order, especially from those who have themselves seen places or events of inter- est, to be read before the whole class ; while a young artist should be utilized to draw map outlines on the board, in preparation for use in quizzing the class on names of places. The eye and the ear must both bear their due share of the work in receiv- ing impressions to memorize, as matter for the reason and the imagination. CLASSWORK 191 Many cliildren miss a great part of the benefit to be derived from mathematics be- cause they begin wrong. They are not made to acquire thoroughly their tables, nor practised sufficiently in simple mental arithmetic. A boy, or more often a girl, will say, ** I can't do arithmetic "; but the teacher will soon find the difficulty to be a simple distaste for the work necessary to get things done accurately, bred largely through early neglect. I have had hun- dreds of children to teach mathematics, and I have yet to find one not able to do arithmetic, algebra, and geometry. Drill them well in mental arithmetic at every stage on all the different kinds of prob- lems reduced to the simple cases, and the power to solve the harder ones will come in due order under a teacher who will study each child and set himself to remedy his defects. '^ I do not understand that problem, sir. ' ' *' Have you read it over carefully! " *' Yes, sir." ** Eead it again." Several mistakes will probably be made in the reading. Therefore, require the 192 PERSONALITY IN EDUCATION problem to be read again and again till the boy has corrected his own mis- takes. '' Now, what do you not understand about that problem? " ^' I don't understand anything at all about it." << Why, that is odd; it is very simple English. Eead the first sentence. . . . Do you understand that ? ' ' *' Yes,. sir." '' Then you do understand something; tell me in your own words what that sen- tence means. . . . Very good. Now read the next sentence. ... Do you understand what that means? . . . Yes! Now what are you asked to find in that problem? . . . Yes, that is right : what must you know in order to find that ? . . . Yes ! Do you know that, or does the problem tell you? . . . Yes, that is right ; so what do you do with this fact in order to obtain that? "... And so on, till you have convinced the boy either that he has the knowledge and the power to do the problem, or as to just where he is wanting. Other boys brought into the discussion, with certain estab- lished results put plainly on the board, CLASSWORK 193 tend to make this Socratic method interesting and helpful to the whole class. The problem is the goal, and all pro- ficiency in figuring should constantly be brought to the test of usefulness in the solution of problems. When the funda- mental arithmetical problems in fractions have been mastered, it is easy to show how much more readily the same problems can be solved by using a letter, such as X, for the unit and then writing the problem in the form of an equation. A boy soon learns with proper leading how to express the relations of various quantities in this way, and, to my mind, there is no better mental training than this in order to ac- quire facility in dealing with the affairs of life. The power to see the true rela- tions of things, and to express those rela- tions, is true wisdom. The beginning and end of preparatory algebra is the equa- tion; and all the different processes should be taught simply as aids to solving equa- tions; and the equation should be taught simply as a means for solving problems. It always gives an added appetite to the boy for his work if he can be led to see 194 PERSONALITY IN EDUCATION its practical bearing on the business of manhood. *' I know it, but I can't say it " should never pass unnoticed. Insist on correct use of language in accurate definition and stating of principle. The English vocabu- lary is not to be curtailed simply because certain words are used inaccurately. We are so pressed to finish the tale of ex- amples necessary to produce for an exam- ination on which there are no principles called for and few, if any, problems that the teacher in mathematics is tempted to drive desperately on and to cut out all but the everlasting '^ tom-tom " of mere fig- ures only to find that in the end all his pa- tient labor is liable to go for nothing. Un- less a boy is taught to say plainly and cor- rectly what is in his mind, the chances are that what he has there will evaporate. To this end great care should be taken to train would-be mathematicians in the use of their own language. When called upon to give a demonstration, especially in geometry, a boy should never be inter- rupted by the teacher or by his fellows, so that he may have full swing to go his own way. Meanwhile, the whole class CLASSWORK 195 should be kept on tlie watcli, and, while they give respectful and quiet attention, required to note mistakes to be corrected when the demonstration has been com- pleted. A teacher has his own powers, he has a text-book, he has a subject, and he has perhaps fifteen or twenty boys before him, each with different degrees and kinds of perception. He will therefore in mathe- matics, as in any other class, use all these different things in all possible combina- tions to keep his class awake and to reach each individual from all possible points of vantage. So much may be accomplished by a careful study of all these forces in order to play brightly and freshly new chords of harmony. A teacher in mathe- matics soon settles down to his oivn waif, if he is not careful, so that after his chil- dren get used to him, there is nothing new or bright in his class, a state of things much to be deplored for all concerned. Before the child comes to Latin, free- hand drawing seems to me to be one of the very best subjects for class-work. I have seen a practical man with a grasp of the object of the work keep a room full of one hundred young boys interested and 196 PERSONALITY IN EDUCATION busy for a half-liour daily. The class was divided into two or three divisions, and by means of models at different parts of the room, and a blackboard on which the master demonstrated how to go about the work, and on which also he set the exer- cises for the beginners, every boy had a chance to learn the rudiments of drawing and to go on also to work designed to give scope to special genius. This practical ap- plication by the hand of what is observed by the eye goes much further than the mere training of proficiency in handling a pencil; it is an excellent mental drill for all young children, and personally I am amazed that some schools have so far given in to the examination grind for col- lege as to omit drawing from their sched- ules. Edward Thring puts it down as among the necessary subjects of class- work. My own observation leads me not only to endorse this idea, but to go even still further and to bewail the general failure in most of our schools to have any regu- lar instruction in art. An artist who is an artist at heart and loves children, though he fail to produce marketable work CLASSWORK 197 himself, would fill a place in our schools which we would soon come to consider in- dispensable to a general education. Un- told good would be accomplished for all that artistic class of children whose minds need such ^an outlet to wake them up to the ioy of work, besides the benefit to the whole school in having true standards in art constantly to the fore. Manual training also has the same im- portance in the application of hand to brain and eye, and it also serves as a mind- opener to some boys who have a special gift that way. These facts are becoming widely recognized by educators all over the land. The danger is that their educa-' tional value should be lost in the con- sideration of their value in the money market. Laboratory work for older boys who can really appreciate its value seems to be about the starting-point for one who is to look more to scientific than to classical training. But for the young it is worse than waste of time, for it becomes a mere idle satisfying of curiosity. Unless all this kind of laboratory work is producing food for thought and requiring careful 198 PERSONALITY IN EDUCATION study and hard mental work, it is plainly a mistake. Modern languages seem now to be hav- ing their day ; yet, in the first place, owing to their construction, and, in the second place, owing to their market value, they cannot stand with either Latin or Greek as subjects for a mental drill in class. Do not let fond mothers think that Jimmie will ever learn to speak fluently French or German in the ordinary school class. If it were possible under our present sys- tem, it would still be a waste of time. The picking up of the speech of a modern lan- guage requires very little but verbal imi- tation and memory, and does not provoke much thought and reason or give ground for hard class-work. The grammar as taught by reading, writing, and recitation, and the study of forms, should provide the main object of study. All that one can hope or even desire from the class study of French and German is a facility in cor- rect reading and translating. This ac- quired not only opens vast fields of litera- ture, but gives one the power to pick up more easily the speech if the occasion should arise. The class drill, however, is CLASSWORK 199 the main thing, and this is brought about in the same way as drill in Latin or Greek. Let us note here that Greek, owing to its greater range of flexibility, seems at this age a little too much for the ordinary boy, a little too much of the same kind of thing that he gets to more advantage in Latin. I confess that, for my own part, the shades of distinction in meaning in the use of the Greek moods and particles were not always clear, not from want of study, but from want of power to see the delicate distinctions apparently clear to the Greek mind. But, for all that, I would not ex- change my drill in Greek grammar, and the vision of the Greek world through its poets and teachers, and the power to read the New Testament in the original, — I would not exchange these things for what I could have gotten at school from the German language and literature. Greek not learned at school is seldom, if ever, learned afterward, whereas a modern lan- guage may be fairly mastered, grammar and all, as the pastime of a year abroad, if there is the Latin training at the bottom. It is, however, ludicrous for a boy with little or no aptitude for language to at- 200 PERSONALITY IN EDUCATION tempt to get any useful knowledge or training from tliree or four languages all going on at once. It certainly is an ad- vance in education to be able to adapt the amount of language study to the evident capabilities of the boy. Now and then one presents himself at our schools who is apjjarently unable to get anything from the study of Latin. These cases, however, are very rare; if a boy can learn anything in the way of lan- guage, it is my experience that he can learn enough Latin to read the school classics ; and for such a boy the discipline of the task is undeniably beneficial. How he hates those endings ! Did it ever occur to you, my fellow-teacher, that the boy's salvation depended on the pronunciation of the last syllable? Not at a suggestion from you, but of his own accord, the full and perfect articulation of every syllable of a word to the very last. I confidently maintain that a boy taught to articulate his Latin words perfectly to the last syl- lable is in a fair way to attain to full perfection at his own last end. One of the main advantages, as we have noted be- fore, in using an unspoken language for CLASSWORK 201 training purposes, consists in the number of its inflected forms ; these are especially noticeable in the final syllables. There- fore, the intelligent observation of all these changes requires an intelligent enun- ciation. This requires work. By all means, let there be real down- right work, things to be learned and re- membered; but let there be a careful se- lection of such things. To quote again from Thring's " Theory and Practice of Teaching " : ' ' There is a grand capacity in the youthful memory of accumulating with little effort mere sounds, without understanding. This prescribes that the most useful drudgery should be got through early. And it may fairly be said that if under present circumstances this was interpreted to mean that an absolutely infallible accuracy of declensions and con- jugations was acquired, years of after-toil would be saved, and in many instances life- long incapacity be turned into healthy activity of mind. No tongue can tell the hopeless state of muddle which is produced by scrambling into the word- quagmire without a single bit of solid knowledge to rest the sole of the foot on. 202 PERSONALITY IN EDUCATION Nature, therefore, in giving tlie young a youthful memory lays down its own laws, if any one would heed them. First, fill the great receptacle with everything that in- spirits and interests, all treasures of me- lodious verse, all thrilling narrative of daring deeds, all simple pathos of touch- ing endurance, mingled with the weird, wild truths of the wonders of the animal and physical world. And, secondly, all drudgery necessary to be known, which is not better learned in the practising it, word-forms, and everything belonging to word-forms and their meaning, may well be stored up at once. But rules and tech- nical terms should be avoided as much as possible. They pass for understanding without being understood; and not unfre- quently are the cause of all entanglements of after-years; when the stock names are answered to the stock questions ; and often- times neither teacher nor learner has the least idea of the real purport of the words they use so glibly. It is easy to learn books of rules, and never apply them. It is easy to answer them correctly and be quite ignorant why the answer is correct. Eules are the refuge of the brainless ; and CLASSWORK 203 the instrument of those who have to pro- duce some show without the time or ma- chinery necessary for true work." Such remarks are a fitting introduction to the Latin class. Fortunately our mod- ern text-books for beginners in Latin are of the same mind, and, in a very skilful way, work in the forms to be memorized with their practical application. If the text-book does not supply a little reading lesson, I should manufacture one out of the simple forms at hand, in order to give zest to the mere drilling in forms and sen- tence construction. The more interesting such a little chapter might be, the better; some short forms putting into Latin the occurrences of the school, frequently used in a playful way, make the whole thing more human and enlist interest. As soon as reading has fairly begun, the composi- tion work should be on sentences formed from the reading lesson of the day. This may now be found in special text-books, though personally I prefer to give my own sentences. Such a practice enables a teacher to lighten up parts of the advance lesson, by giving the English, though with some change of tense or construction, to 204 PERSONALITY IN EDUCATION difficult passages in the text. In other words, he gives the English to be turned into Latin in such a way as not only to be an aid to the thinking boy in working out his translation, but in such a way as to promote thought and impress certain forms of construction on the mind. Let us sketch the work of a class in Latin or Greek. The well-aired, the well-lighted, and or- derly room, plenty of blackboard space, and a cheery teacher are all taken for granted. First, the review sentences in composition are rapidly recited, the mas- ter giving the English, and the boy the Latin or the Greek, as the case may be. These should have been so well learned as to require no prompting or hesitation, and to consume not more than three min- utes. That is something the boy must be made to do outside class : familiarity with the sound of properly constructed sen- tences is a necessity for first-rate work. In the second place, the advance sen- tences are called for, written on the board and corrected, while each boy follows on his own exercise and makes his own corrections. Here is one good chance CLASSWORK 205 for grammar questions. These exercises, written in ink outside class, and corrected with pencil in class, should be handed in, looked over or not as the teacher has op- portunity, and returned in time to be copied in correct form in a book and learned before the next recitation. Of course, with beginners, this, with recita- tion of paradigms, constitutes the chief work of the hour, and the reading lesson is a sort of reward. But for those em- barked on Caesar's expeditions or more advanced reading, the whole composition exercise should be finished in ten minutes, and then the review reading lesson should be rapidly translated by one or two boys into fair English ; hesitation in this should not be tolerated; the perfection of the re- view is something to which every boy can approximate, and he ought to be made to do it. Two or three minutes in class is enough to hear the review properly read. Then follows the careful construing of the advance, the Latin order being maintained, so far as possible, both for convenience and for teaching a boy readiness in get- ting out his own translation. When the Latin order becomes natural to a boy, the 206 PERSONALITY IN EDUCATION terrors of translation have largely van- ished. Grammar questions in order to light up the text, or information elicited about allusions to passing events or myth- ical history, are all a necessary part of this drill on the advance; but the one point for the teacher is to press and teach the *' necessity " and the ** how " of plain, straight thinking on the part of every member of his class. Inattentive, sleepy boys will be roused by questions and board work; the best scholars will be given a chance to show their proficiency by sug- gesting better translations, and every boy's recitation should be closed by the master's reading of the passage in the best English at his command, while the mem- bers of the class should be encouraged to make notes of and to reproduce in the re- view these felicitous translations. While this oral translation is going on, the black- boards should be covered by written trans- lations, so that every hoy shall be kept as busy as possible. If there is time at the end of the lesson, comments should be called for on these written translations. No boy should escape his share of the hour's work; and the skill of the teacher is CLASSWORK 207 shown in his power to awaken the ambi- tion of the dullest, while he gives play to the ambition of the brightest. One of the noticeable things in the class of a success- ful teacher is the way in which the quick and the slow are trained to help one an- other and to appreciate one another. The so-called stupid boy has always got something to give to the genius, and a class can be made to see that real abil- ity after all is the faculty of patient application. Perhaps the most notable advance made in teaching for the last twenty-five years has been in Greometry. The total abandon- ment of Euclid has been followed by a steady movement toward greater freedom in demanding more original work. The mere sketches of propositions, and the multiplicity of exercises, have stimulated thought and reason. Now it is impossi- ble for a boy to make too much use of his memory. The remark made by the pro- fessor to a high-stand man in my class at college after a perfect demonstration, could not be made in these days: *' Mr. A., you remind me of an old goat I saw in the campus this morning eating a copy 208 PERSONALITY IN EDUCATION of Euclid. Eeally, all of that must rest very heavily on your mind." Class-work, let us repeat, has two main objects in view: first, to prepare a child to work alone; and, second, to prepare a child to work in concert, that he may learn how to use his own powers without looking for a helping hand, and that he may learn to use those powers in connection with and in behalf of his fellows. To the lover of the young, no work will give greater satisfaction than class-work. Year by year we go back perhaps to the same old hackneyed subject, but still ever new, because the ever-changing boy, with all his possibilities for good and evil, for advance and for waste, is our subject ; and to handle a class so as to bring each boy to his best is a task large enough for any man. The failures but give sweetness to the successes, and the close contact with surging life keeps one's sensibilities alive and his heart young. '' Failures " and " successes "? What do we know about them? It is the " working with God " that brings to us some small share of His love and wisdom and breeds in us that faith which leaves results to Him. EXAMINATIONS B OYS! They are spoiling your girls.' We are growing old ; it is a sure sign of this sad fact when our memories persist- ently keep travelling back to the days of our youth. In this case, however, there is some excuse; for what man who ever sat as a boy before that sometimes grotesque and always lovable man, Dr. Hudson of Shakespeare fame, could forget either his words or his figure? " If I cannot make them laugh with me, I shall make them laugh at me," he would say in justification of his extravagancies in expression and gesture. And when he stopped amid a very fireworks of invective against exami- nations, and opened and shut his almost toothless cavern of a mouth in solemn mockery, and then delivered himself of the above remark, you may be sure that every 209 210 PERSONALITY IN EDUCATION boy in tlie room was ready to endorse any- thing and everything that followed. A ** dressing down " of the examination sys- tem is sure to find ready sympathy from the boy, and the little ruse to hold us was hardly necessary. " Our girls? " Yes, and ourselves, too. We were quite ready to cry '' good " to every hard word against the system. It is now thirty years ago since that evening in June when three hundred or more boys and men hung in rapt atten- tion while we listened to this talk on *' Eeading," and I venture to say that hardly one has forgotten the occasion and the substance of the remarks. His thesis was that education was growth, which, to be healthy, must be more or less spon- taneous. We grow most when we are en- joying ourselves most, when we are ab- sorbed in some game or book, carried along almost without exertion of will; hence the tremendous influence on mental growth and on the growth of character exerted by the books we read for pleasure. Recite growth? Examine growth? All exami- nations and recitations at once became al- most absurd in our eyes. The old gentle- EXAMINATIONS 211 man then went on to show in a most mas- terful way, masterful enough for any au- dience, the false standards of education that were set up by the tendency to resort to frequent examinations. This was all, however, by the way, and was only to make clear to us the great importance in our lives of the things we chose to do of our own sweet wills. "Weeks of toil over our grammars and text-books seemed to leave us pretty much where we were at the be- ginning, while one hour with the book of our choice seemed to make us new and to open our eyes to a new world. While the drudgery and the work are nec- essary to give one the power of absorbing the life of the book, and necessary also to shape the tools by which the life may be used, yet how true this is, and what a danger for the teacher to fall into the pit of examinations and recitations ! It is no excuse for a man to say '' I must get my boys into college," and so put the blame on the University. It would be just as wise for a man in his own household to draw regularly on his capital for his din- ner with the excuse that he must have his dinner. Indeed it would be nearer the 212 PERSONALITY IN EDUCATION truth to say that the teacher who delib- erately made it his profession to prepare his children to pass examinations was liv- ing not on his own, but on somebody else's capital. The man that dwarfs the power of growth in his charges and weakens their own power of initiative, is more than an unwise teacher; he is robbing them to a degree of their capital, that germ of life which grows of itself, and that broad heri- tage of the world to which every man has his natural claim. Whereas his daily and hourly work is to teach them hoiv to grow, and to use to the best advantage what is already theirs by inheritance — this is edu- cation; the other is driving oxen to the fair grounds to be ranked by some fashion of the day. Let us put these two questions frankly to ourselves in the light of our own pro- fession. First, are we ready to assert that, even with all our modern breadth of cur- riculum, we have yet exactly hit the true measure of a man in fulfilment of the image in which he is made? We have but to look around us in the work-a-day world to see the failures of high-stand men and the successes of duffers, and to force EXAMINATIONS 213 from every fair-minded teacher an em- phatic '' No." By failures, we mean men who do not fit in to make the world a better place to live in. The discrepancy in the ranks between those of the examina- tions of the schools and those of later life are not all due to premature develop- ment. But such discrepancy emphatically means that the examinations of the schools are not true measures of the youth or of their growth. It happened that but a few hours before penning these words the writer was occupied in marking a set of examination papers: A was marked one hundred, not a mistake or a slip in a fairly hard paper on percentage and interest. B received forty-five. Now A stands be- fore me, with small head and eyes and low forehead, perfectly delighted at his suc- cess; B, with a twinkle of amusement in his large blue eyes, with a beautiful clear skin and splendid head with high forehead, shrugs his shoulders and supposes that he had " got everything all mixed up." He comes nearer the truth than he knows : im- pressions have come to his high-strung soul so fast that there seems to be no room for this tiresome profit and loss: he is 214 PERSONALITY IN EDUCATION all ' ' mixed up ' ' because he is so full of a great diversity: notMng as yet has begun to take definite shape : the world and him- self in it are great and amusing puzzles. Then comes the driver with his grammar or his rule of percentage, and in his fever- ish desire to get the boy ready for an ex- amination, spoils the whole of his beautiful kaleidoscope by trying to turn it at once into a microscope, or, better still, into a telescope where the child stands at the big end while the small end is completely filled by his master and his percentage, — they look so small and so far away. As I gaze into the eyes of that high-souled cliild, with the simple sight that is mine by nature, I feel humbled at my bungling methods, and wonder how I could have dared to talk to him at all about examination marks and percentages. And, moreover, owing to the limited area covered by a written examination, and to the elimination of the personal fac- tor, only certain limited amounts of tech- nical knowledge can be displayed, and no real estimate of the Jiow of a child's at- tainment can be reached; and the hoiv, after all, is the main thing in the process EXAMINATIONS 215 of education. The acquirement of habits of independent thought, of application, of insight, and of expression are vastly more important than the mere readiness to an- swer questions put by another. The second question suggested is this : — Does not the frequent examination with its passing mark of fifty or sixty tend quietly to produce a false standard of work as well as a false estimate of work? The writer remembers a time when the only accepted standard in his school was, " Are you do- ing your best? " Examinations came but once or twice a year, and the marks were so lost sight of in the general standing that there seldom was any question of a pass- ing mark. The school was full of customs and traditions that exalted 'the scholar as well as of traditions against squeezing out the failures. '' The best you can do " was ever on the lips of our leader both in pri- vate and public, with great patience for those who were slow in going on ^' from strength to strength." As I now look back upon it, growth was the aim and object of it all. '' What is to be gained by drop- ping John? You say that he knows his work as well as he is likely to, but that 216 PERSONALITY IN EDUCATION he is so inaccurate that lie cannot get tlirougli the examination. Accuracy will not come through repetition of work known well enough to be stale, but rather through new work more likely to arouse the interest : you must be patient and love him and try and get him to be more accu- rate. Let him work a little in your study ; your mere presence will give him encour- agement and help him to keep his attention fixed." We have heard something like this from men who have proved themselves great educators. Further, let it be said, the best work is not done under a rod of any kind, whether it be a birch or the fear of failure in an examination. '' Oh, that I had been made to work ! " is the righteous complaint of the man who has been al- lowed to idle away his youth. Yet, in the process of making there is always the danger of marring. What makes one, mars another. Make him study? Yes. But this can be generally avoided and al- ways included by making him want to study. Thring has some spicy words on the use and abuse of examination which he sums EXAMINATIONS 217 up thus : ' ' Examinations are very efficient for judging neglect or idleness; are also efficient in a very few well-defined in- stances in determining a certain kind of merit, but they break down utterly from many reasons over a wider field. They are also most fascinating exercises of power to those who believe in them. If memory, rules, and neatly packed knowledge make men, up with the flag, enlist our workers under the banner of Examinations. '* But if education and training are the true aim of mankind, and power in man's self the prize of life, then no superstition ever ate into a healthy national organism more fatal than the cult of the Examiner. Better in its degree the negro bowing down before the ghastliest fetich, than the civil- ized Mumbo-jumboism which thinks it can award over a whole kingdom the palm of mind. Examinations in that case are but another name for death to originality, and all improvement that is original." Let us repeat : the problem is to win the boy, and in such a way as not to spoil the ideals or the spontaneous efforts of others already won. The levelling up of the *' duffer " is no excuse for the levelling 218 PERSONALITY IN EDUCATION down of the " scholar." The cutting off of the liberty of a teacher filled with love for his subject and his children in order to bring all his scholars under the hammer, is a grave mistake. For forming scholar- ship, for educating children, no system, however perfect, can take the place of the teacher, and every system should tend not to lighten the responsibility, but to give further weight to the responsibility of ^ every teacher for every child. On the other hand, examinations have a legitimate place in the process of educa- tion, if it is understood that they are rather one of the steps in education than a measure of growth. Colleges must have entrance examinations; and schools must have examinations; both as definite tasks to be accomplished and as aids to teachers in determining the ability of children to go on to advanced courses. It is an im- portant thing for a child to learn to have some tangible results of its work at its fingers' end, and so well tabulated as to pass an examination on whatever can be embraced in a paper. Also it is a great matter for a child to learn to do its best under trial. Though it is true that some of EXAMINATIONS 219 the finest scholars have confessed to a panic even at the sight of an examination paper, and though we must admit that such panic arises often from the extreme sensitiveness and shrinking modesty of such high-strung natures, still, in the main, it is a weakness to be overcome. The power to do one's best at an examination is a good thing in itself, and a thing to be cultivated in the process of education. This, then, seems to be the place of the examination in the school: not so much a measure of advance in education, but as part of the whole mental training, and to be used by the teacher not as the final ap- peal of efficiency, but only as an important factor in that appeal. To this end the custom of averaging an examination mark with the daily marks is a good thing. In marking papers, every teacher has experienced the difficulty of doing justly. Certain classes of mistakes are a particular bugbear to certain men, and it is quite possible that their mark- ing of a paper would be so hard on a par- ticular boy or class of boys as to defeat the whole end of the examination and to discourage excellent hard-working boys. 220 PERSONALITY IN EDUCATION Again, every man who has had experience in this unpleasant duty knows how varia- ble his own marks will be for the same mis- take in different papers or at different periods of his own digestion. It is truly laughable to hear a body of masters in a school laying down the law about accuracy, and sagely talking about the results to fall upon the head of the luckless chap who has received fifty-nine for an examination, and the congratulations due to another who has received sixty. One is sometimes re- minded of the fact that even Eoman civili- zation had arrived at the point where two examiners could not meet without laughter. Perhaps we take ourselves and our work more seriously, — I hope we do; but still it is my experience that careful review of any set of marks for an examination re- veals a number of inconsistencies and in- accuracies that for a lajTuan would vitiate the whole result. It is perfectly evident to this plain lajTuan that if justice is to be done to those boys who find examinations difficult, their papers should go through the hands of several men. If the system is used at all as an aid in determining the proficiency of a scholar on any piece of EXAMINATIONS 221 work, it ought to have a fair and just application. After having carefully re- viewed the papers and marking of a cer- tain form, I sent four of the papers to four different men in different parts of the Eastern States, all men of long experience in marking examination papers, and in every case the marks assigned were much higher than those given by men of less ex- perience in that particular science of marking. The layman's rating of a paper is more likely to approach that of the sci- entific marker than that of the teacher who always has his pet mistakes to watch for and does not easily throw off his role as teacher in favor of that as examiner. A professional man, a teacher who can- not get out of his rut and stand with the layman on the roadside for a look, is not only liable to lose some of his load, but to get tired himself, and to be run over by the march of live men and women who are now thronging our tracks. Every one of us must be able to get a fair look at the child himself, and absolutely refuse to measure him by any standard which we do not ap- ply to ourselves, or his work by any stand- ard but that of absolute justice. No child 222 PERSONALITY IN EDUCATION ought to be dropped from a class or made to go over old work unless by a consensus of the opinions of all his teachers. And it does seem as if the Universities might al- ways give due weight to such an opinion when delivered in writing along with a boy's examinations for entrance. The per- sistent consideration of the individual is always hard, the hardest part of the teacher's work, especially when brought into connection with the written results of an examination; and yet such considera- tion must always stand as one of the dis- tinctive marks of a good school and of a good teacher. In pursuance of this idea, in connection with the subject of examinations, the old- fashioned '' orals " were not lightly to be esteemed. One such examination in the middle of the winter term is of unique advantage in many ways, not the least of which is the examination of the teacher and his methods by trustees, visiting alumni, and brother teachers. A well- planned oral examination, where every boy has a chance to write as well as to" recite, is not only suggestive of the general results of a teacher's work for a class in EXAMINATIONS 223 manners and mind, but it is also an occa- sion where every boy is brought in bis per- sonality face to face with a body of inter- ested lay elders. These occasions, in my own experience, used to furnish the very thing that was necessary to enable a just measure to be dealt to the individual through the results of written examina- tions. Moreover, the benefit to the school at large accruing by the visitation of so many ^'reverend and grave seniors " was greatly enhanced by the chance that we all had to hear good and sometimes great speakers. This style of examination, how- ever, does not appeal to the business meth- ods of the day; it is thought too cumber- some, too much trouble for the results im- mediately tangible. Let it be written in letters of fire — sooner or later it will be burned into the teacher's heart — that in our profession there are no short-cuts, except the cutting of red tape. Life is trained, educated, led out, only by the spending of life; edu- cation proceeds in direct and compound proportion as the life of the teacher is worth giving and as he gives it through toil and devotion. 2M PERSONALITY IN EDUCATION A great educator, one of whose texts was, '^ Examine yourself,"- wrote to his pupils, '' Yea, gladly will I spend and be spent for you, though the more I love you, the less I be loved." XI RELIGION IN THE SCHOOL TO put it concisely, religion in the school begins and ends with religion in the teacher ; begins with the teacher, be- cause no child can get a true conception of religion if his elders show him a false one ; and ends with the teacher, because no amount of technically correct teaching or worship in the school can have a healthy effect on the child if it does not manifestly go to mould the heart and will of the teacher. This, after all, is but circumlocu- tion for the plain statement that religious men and women in a school are more im- portant than religious forms and cere- monies. The whole question seems to turn on the teacher's attitude toward the child and toward his profession. If we ourselves do not believe in the sacredness of our call- ing, and, as the way opens, are not ready 225 226 PERSONALITY IN EDUCATION to give our whole life to it, we have made a grave mistake. We have no right to experiment with the roots of the lives of our fellows. To play with stocks and bonds, to scratch the soil, to buy and sell, may not work serious harm to our fellow- men, that is, harm which does not tend to right itself ; but to teach for hire or merely for amusement is really a dreadful and insidious crime. The criminal may go on his way undetected, but the generation to come is sure to reap from these seeds of selfishness a harvest of all sorts of poi- soned weeds. Eeligion in school, therefore, begins with religion in the teacher. And the real test of religion in the teacher is his attitude toward the child. What is the attitude that the Christian teacher should assume toward every child? We have suggested the answer to that question in former papers ; suffice it, there- fore, to say here briefly, *' that attitude from which the teacher sees in the child the desire for perfection and which con- strains the teacher to continual effort to bring that desire to a measure of fulfil- ment." Let us add, in this paper on reli- EELIGION IN THE SCHOOL 227 gion, '* that attitude from which the teacher sees the child as the child of God. ' ' Such an attitude on the part of its teachers will make any school a kind of re- ligious school and one from which no child could go away unimproved. The begin- nings of all conversions to God grow in such an atmosphere. Yet if they are to go on to perfection, if the child's will is to be finally won, in spite of failure, to rest in the strength and love of God, there must be some definite objective picture firmly fixed in mind and heart. Sad experience has taught us that even the contemplation of the life of a good and holy mother without definite teaching and training in methods of thought and action is utterly futile to make a religious man out of a simply nat- urally good boy. Of course we mean by a religious man one who is trying to do the will of God in the world and sustained by his faith in God. Nature may go a long way on the reli- gious road if there are always in sight those who have filled their nature with something additional. If history has proved anything, it has proved over and over again that unassisted nature cannot 228 PERSONALITY IN EDUCATION find God, but, on the contrary, tends to degenerate and get farther from Him. There are, it is true, a longing for God and a predisposition to accept reasonable proofs of His existence and of His power to lift man higher. But every great movement in religion has arisen from what we call a revelation. In such an article as this we are not at- tempting to do more than deal with this vital subject in a way to produce some practical results for the teacher. It is merely, therefore, from the standpoint of a teacher that we remark that those who deny such a revelation as a necessity in religion and consider that what we call the ' ' natural man ' ' is sufficient in himself to evolve all the religion that he needs, that such philosophers either are giving meanings to the words " objective " and *' revelation " which are too refined for the average mind, or that they do not make sufficient account of the fact that they themselves are the direct outcome, men- tally and spiritually, of long ages of what we shall call objective teaching and the belief in a revelation. It seems to me that Newman's argu- RELIGION IN THE SCHOOL 229 ments on revealed and natural religion are peculiarly convincing to those of us wlio have spent our lives trying to teach, and that they enforce with unerring clearness the necessity for teaching revelation as an objective fact to be grasped by the intel- lect. How simple and how true is the fol- lowing from the Apologia! In speaking of the Church, he writes: '' She has it in charge to rescue human nature from its misery, but not simply by restoring it to its own level, but by lifting it up to a higher level than its own. . . . Such truths as these she vigorously reiterates and per- tinaciously inflicts upon mankind; as to such she observes no half-measures, no economical reserve, no delicacy or pru- dence ; ' ye must be bom again, ' is the simple, direct form of words which she uses after her Divine Master ; ' your whole nature must be reborn; your passions and your affections and your aims and your conscience and your will must all be bathed in a new element and reconsecrated to your Master, and, the last not the least, your intellect.' " In another place he says : ' ' Christianity is simply an addition to nature ; it does not 230 PERSONALITY IN EDUCATION supersede or contradict it; it recognizes and depends on it, and that of necessity; for how possibly can it prove its claims ex- cept by an appeal to what men already have? " Therefore, in the school let there be, first, that which is natural; then, that which is spiritual. First, that which is natural. As there can be no true religion in a school where its teachers are not religious men and women, so let it be thoroughly understood that there can be no true religion where the daily life of the place is not so ordered as to teach truth, good fellowship, and re- spect for authority. These fundamentals, wrought happily into the life of the whole family, are easy to teach and easier to neg- lect in a great company of boys: easy to teach, for the chances for their display are lurking in every feature of the life of such a community; and easier to neglect, for the strain of maintaining high standards among the young, who are ever ready and persistent in going the shortest and easiest way, is a great weariness to the teacher, and presents a strong temptation to be satisfied with mediocre results and greater RELIGION IN THE SCHOOL 231 peace. Thus far day schools and boarding schools stand on common ground. And there is one other factor in this common religious ground, in which the high schools are far ahead of anything yet developed in the boarding school: that is, the im- portant factor of fellowship; not the ex- clusive fellowship which is too apt to grow up among boys in our expensive boarding schools, but a fellowship which ought to be the heritage of every boy and girl in this great democracy, a fellowship for all sorts and conditions of men. No phase of modern education can be more unhappy for the individual or more dangerous for the Eepublic than that which produces the kind of snob that is sometimes said to be the product of our boarding schools. What shall we do to make the boy of wealth and refinement know his place in God's world? Missionary work, whether in summer camps or settlements, only makes matters worse, unless there is the very wisest guid- ance. Patronage toward the less fortu- nate is worse than neglect. From one end of the school to the other let the influence of some strong man be felt who loves all men as his brothers, and who 232 PERSONALITY IN EDUCATION in season and out, by word and example, is educating his children to live lives of service. The careful teaching of religious truth as found in the life of Jesus Christ goes a long way to solving this as well as other difficulties. Therefore, in schools which are to sup- ply not only the '' field " which we have spoken of in our paper on ' ' The School, ' ' but also the '' home," there is manifestly a further duty, that which is spiritual. These principles of natural religion can- not be called Christian till we bring in the Person; till we bring home to the child's heart its responsibility to this Per- son. Eight here begins the distinctive work of the Christian school. Somehow or other, the laws of the school are to be so administered as to commend themselves to the children as being in accord with the laws of God. To do this, the Law of Love must be written beneath and above and around and all through the law of the school. And this law can be traced only by the human hand. The Person of God can be made true and winning to men and children only through the person of man. It is not to bring God down to the common RELIGION IN THE SCHOOL 233 life, but to bring the common life up to God in such a way as to win each child to the realization of its birthright into God's life. This takes indeed a magical hand in the school, but a hand which any humble- minded man may claim as his, whose own right hand holds God's, and whose left holds the child's. Let us consider how such a person goes about his work of making the Person of God attractive to the child. Though his children know intuitively that God is in all his thoughts, they never hear him preach in the schoolroom. There he never mentions God or Heaven; his words are his own to his own children. His words of appeal are to the hearts and con- sciences as he knows them before him, and they ring true from his own heart. The wisdom of the serpent and the harmless- ness of the dove call out every device to awaken the better side of the nature to reason and to common-sense, illustrating from the daily life of work, play, and prayer. He is his children's friend, and believes in them and they in him. This is his opportunity to draw out all that is 234 PERSONALITY IN EDUCATION best in nature and wliet the intellect and the heart for something higher. Therefore, when this man stands in his pnlpit in the House of God, he never shocks the natural reverence of the child by straight references to schoolroom or playground. There the Life of God is set forth in all Its majesty of saving power and justice and mercy, in such a way as to throw Its light on all around and into every crevice of^the heart, in such a way as to lead each one to know God and to know himself in all his relations to God and his fellow-men. Parables of their own lives at work or play, stories with hidden mean- ings, parables of the lives of rich and poor in the great world beyond, parables of the purely spiritual life to come are as plenti- ful as from the Great Teacher himself, but never the pointing of the finger too plainly at this or that sore of which all are ashamed; they are only antagonized and shocked or even amused by the refer- ence. ** He that hath ears to hear, let him hear." Why shock his ears to arouse the wilfully deaf? The Gospel loses both charm and power when the preacher be- comes a scold. It is not only our colored EELIGION IN THE SCHOOL 235 brethren tliat sneak out wlien the hen roost is mentioned, nor only the boy that laughs in his sleeve when his ' ' cribs ' ' are raked over. Is it not a plain inference that the ser- mon is an intrinsic part of the service of worship and so should always be primarily an instruction based on the Scripture read at such a service? If this were more ap- preciated by all preachers, there would grow the habit of attention to the Scrip- ture, and also our boys and girls and men and women would be better instructed Christians. Young people are easily * ' worked up, ' ' but just as easily react, and soon cease to be moved by either oratory or appeals to the feelings. Whereas a good instruction quietly given, even if it is not wholly understood, does no harm, and if threaded with heart and good sense and even a shade of humor, is sure to win more and more attention and to train the child to expect something worth while and so to sit with the hearing ear. But we must be sure, if possible, that our children are getting hold of something definite. Therefore, there must be the class instruction with occasion for ques- 236 PERSONALITY IN EDUCATION tion and answer, as well as for examina- tion. Now as to this instruction, as in every other, there will be the diversity of method, ranging all the way from the purely natural to the purely dogmatic. The Unitarian proposes simply to open the child's mind and heart to experience God in his own character. With the ob- jective teaching of the character of Jesus Christ, transmitted to him by the beautiful lives of his teachers, there is no doubt that the individual Unitarian has attained to a great degree of godliness. It is not worth while here to discuss the evident limita- tions of such a character any more than it is worth while to discuss the evident limi- tations of certain phases of the charac- ter of the Catholic. What we are after is to find a way of teaching religion to children that is practical for all kinds of children, giving great scope to strong individualities and at the same time giving all the leading that human nature at large will always crave. There is also in this question the same element that we discover in all mental training : namely, the element of faith as a path or method of thought; whether more practical results are ob- RELIGION IN THE SCHOOL 237 tained by training the child to accept with- out question the results of another's expe- rience and then to put these accepted facts to a practical test in his own experience, adding and subtracting therefrom and giv- ing new interpretations as occasion arises, or rather by training the child to accept nothing beyond what it verifies itself. In teaching a language or a science, all agree that the object is to know the language or the science, and as far as methods go, the grammar seems to be the practical method or path by which the every-day child is personally conducted to this knowledge. We are training our children to think first on lines laid down by others, as a stimulant and a safe guide to their own thoughts. Why not the same dogmatic method in reli- gion! There can be no real reason except the one boldly asserted by some teachers : namely, that there is no such thing as a science of religion. Nothing of impor- tance, they say, has been revealed to men or discovered by men that is not revealed to every man or discoverable by every man. Or, to state it in another way, all agree that the object is to know God, but there is a sharp disagreement on the pos- 238 PERSONALITY IN EDUCATION sibility of acquiring any part of this knowledge as a simple mental acquire- ment. There is nothing to be acquired, some say, but a certain subjective experi- ence which will take care of itself and find its own mental fodder. I respectfully submit that as a method for training children in religion this has been a dismal failure. The only thing that has saved the day at all has been the old spirit of Orthodoxy that has stalked like an avenging ghost of Catholicity through the Protestant world. No! Let us be frank. We do believe that there is a science of Theology in the same sense of the word ' ' Science ' ' as when we speak of Natural Science. We do believe, more- over, that God has revealed Himself to man in many ways, but most directly in the Person of Jesus Christ; and we do, therefore, set before us the task of teach- ing our children to know God and Jesus Christ whom He has sent, — to know God with all the fulness of knowledge that we mean by the Master's phrase,** with all thy heart, with all thy soul, and with all thy mind." And the question is not, how are we to train those few chosen souls who RELIGION IN THE SCHOOL 239 from birtli and early association have had their ears opened to this revelation and take its precepts as naturally as the born musician takes music; but the question is, how are we to train that vast number of young people who take it as a hardship to learn anything that requires effort ; and while we are doing this, not to deaden the keen ear of the religious genius? In the first place, let us dismiss from our minds the fallacy that anything up- lifting can be learned without work on the part of the child. And while the teacher is dismissing this fallacy, let him not fall into the other of considering that work is helpful simply in the ratio of its difficulty and distastefulness. In the study of theol- ogy more than in that of any other study, the aim of the teacher is to make hard work a thing to be desired, for the range of theology always embraces the heart and soul as well as the mind. As to the method, we have nothing new to offer. It seems to me that the Master's method was clear and sufficient: first and always, an appeal to authority; second, *' the works that I do," and, third, an ap- peal to the result in man himself of accept- 240 PERSONALITY IN EDUCATION ing Him. Never was the Person to be lost. Such a method seems to pervade all the teaching of Jesus. He Himself sums it up in the words of St. John v:19, 20, 21:— ** Verily, verily, I say unto you, the Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do: for whatsoever he doeth, these also doeth the son likewise. For the Father loveth the Son, and sheweth him all things that himself doeth: and he will shew greater works than these, that ye may marvel. For as the Father raiseth up the dead and quickeneth them; even so the Son quickeneth whom he will." The Father, the Son, and the quickening Spirit among men; Authority, Personified in Jesus, quickening the life of men. St. Paul but began to demonstrate the possibilities of such a method which has ever since pre- vailed wherever Christ has been truly and fully taught. As he states distinctly in the fifteenth chapter of the First Epistle to the Corinthians : ' ' I declare unto you the gospel which I preached unto you, which also ye have received, and wherein ye stand. . . . For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the EELIGION IN THE SCHOOL 241 scriptures: and that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures : and that he was seen of Cephas," and so on through a whole list of persons, credible witnesses still alive; " and last of all he was seen of me also as of one born out of due time; " — ^' last of all; " — yet his own spiritual vision of the risen Christ ranked in the same cate- gory with those of the others who saw Him in the flesh with their natural eyes. And then follows that strong appeal to the result of his preaching upon their own lives. " If Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain, . . . ye are yet in your sins," — ra straight and bold appeal, but one that must ever go along as part of the trinity of witness to our faith in God. So we have to face our children, first, with authority to de- liver what has been delivered to us; sec- ond, with our own personal witness to the verity of what we teach plainly evident in our lives ; and, third, with the wise and convincing appeal to their own experience. Let us not be misunderstood to teach that true faith arises by the accumulation of a 242 PERSONALITY IN EDUCATION multitude of particulars in experience ; not at all ; it rather grows from a root of vital intercourse, such as we have tried to out- line. All this seems undeniable, though the history of Christian teaching has shown wide divergence in its application. Yet I venture to say that no good and last- ing results have ever been attained where the balance of this trinity of witnesses has been neglectd. The question for us is, therefore, how best can we maintain this balance in teach- ing theology to the child ? We surely have something to hand down; not merely the sacred writings with their wide applica- tion to all life, not merely that application made in the Person of Jesus Christ, as worked out from a study of His historical life, but also the application of all God's Word as personified in Jesus and as lived by men in the world from the days of St. Paul to this day, " Jesus risen from the dead and alive for evermore," alive now in the hearts of believers. We have a priceless heritage slowly and painfully accumulated during all these centuries, consisting not only of the visions of those few hundred men in Palestine, but now also of many RELIGION IN THE SCHOOL MS millions, handed down to ns in words of prayer and praise and action. This life, this quickening power of the Spirit among men, has from time to time taken shape not only in the lives of Saints so suitable for children to read, but it has flowed, as it were, into forms of speech and action. These forms, like our Book of Common Prayer, have been handed from one gen- eration to another as sacred vessels to be kept full and ever garnished into new beauty. When I give the Book of Common Prayer into the hands of my child without teaching him how to use it, I might as well give a lump of gold without teaching him how to use that. How shall I begin this teaching? The book itself gives me the clue, in what is called the Catechism. Now the Catechism is nothing but simple dogma, the simplest and most concise form of the collected truths of the ages, put into shape to hand on from one child generation to another. As we all know, the child has little power of reason or of the philosophical faculty necessary to evolve or fix in mind princi- ples worked out from the Life of our Lord 244 PERSONALITY IN EDUCATION or from the lives of history. We do not give as a lesson to be learned by the child the account of its father's or mother's life, or even of that of some great ancestor. They learn the results of these lives by living with them or with what they have produced. We say to the child '' Thou shalt " or " Thou shalt not " on our own authority, thus training the conscience and habits of thought and action by simple dogma ; and then, as the reason and under- standing expand, we win both and set high ideals by stories of great men and pri- marily of the Saviour of men. Is not this the accredited method all through all branches of education? First, to make all possible use of the memory and the plia- bility of youth, and gradually, more and more, to bring in the training of the rea- son and the constructive faculty. In their religious instruction, the Apostles were eminently dogmatic. And with all our advance, human nature seems to require and expect the same general leading from those who know. The Catechism is indeed wonderful in its simplicity, in its breadth, in its direct- ness, and in its adaptability to the young, RELIGION IN THE SCHOOL 245 as an introduction to the fuller teaching of the Prayer Book. Let it stand verbatim in the memory as a background and guide to all that is to come. Scripture story, hymns, and parables from nature provide endless illustration. But the Saviour's life set as a lesson tends to vulgarize what should ever be treated with the greatest reverence. This Life is the natural light along the road. The road without it is dreary indeed, as the light without the road serves but to dazzle the sight and block advance. Let uS then have a plain and distinct line of teaching from the beginning, to serve not as a wall to circumscribe thought and action, but as a path to lead straight on into that paradise of God's love where each must explore treasures for himself. Dogma, then, is not to be a curtailment of individual freedom, but a safe and well- tried road to lead to the widest possible freedom. The Catechism treats in the most straightforward way of the funda- mental truths of God's dealing with men. Beginning with His choice of the child to be His child and the receiver of His Life, at once it calls for faith, and trains con- 246 PERSONALITY IN EDUCATION tinually by dogmatic teaching that natural gift of faith so strong in the child to prin- ciples of action and prayer and sacrament. The memory at its most susceptible age is stored with simple forms of expression that, lightened by Bible illustrations and parables of daily life, give the child just the necessary stimulant and guide to its own thoughts. The dogma alone is sure to lead to disaster, but the dogma repre- senting the authority, personified in the living teacher, and fitted with his living hand to the living child before him, is sure to produce thinking men and women able to give a reason for the faith that is in them. Very soon the child begins to use its own Prayer Book and takes its own intelligent part in the common worship. "When the Catechism is thoroughly committed to memory, and from time to time short verses of Scripture or of hymns added by way of illustration, the next memoriter ex- ercise is the Collect or short prayer which sums up the Gospel lesson of each Sunday. Here again the greatest care should be taken to avoid the tediousness of mere for- mality. If the teacher cannot or will not RELIGION IN THE SCHOOL 247 find the spirit of the lesson and make the words of the prayer his own so that he can give something of it in a simple and at- tractive way to the child, let him not think that husks will taste any better to the child than to himself. The effort in private and in public is to teach the child to pray, to speak to God in God's language. The talks on the Collects between the teacher and the child provide fruitful ground for such teaching, and give occasion for instruction in private prayer. Then as to the common worship, how well some of us remember the dreary hours of our childhood spent in what seemed a meaningless restraint ! And, too, some of us remember how even a dumb reverence grew upon us in the long hour, simply through the close proximity of one we loved evidently filled with something we did not understand. And further, how changed sometimes the whole process would become by the strong personality of some leader! Now these dumb hours seem to me a great mistake. Much of the irreligion of men and women has come straight from these horrors of childhood. It is a very simple matter to modify our 248 PERSONALITY IN EDUCATION public worship to the understanding and powers of the child. When the Bible is so full of interest, why ever read before a body of boys a long, uninteresting chapter from the Old Testament or even some of the chapters from the Epistles that convey absolutely nothing to the average boy? Why indeed, except it be to train the child in ways of inattention! A school should have great liberty in the arrangement of its services, in order to train its children to a hearty response and reverent partici- pation in all parts of the worship. The Holy Communion is ever to be held before children as the crown of common worship, and their anticipations of their own part in that service should ever be kept alive. To a reverent child occasional attendance at this service in the presence of devout communicants is a great stimu- lus, I am sure, to its own devotion; but the practice of what is called by some non- communicating attendance, and by others Eucharistic Worship, seems to me out of tune with the robustness and sincerity of our whole Anglican system. The line of teaching and practice is clearly laid down in our book of Common Prayer, and loy- RELIGION IN THE SCHOOL 249 alty to this is both practical and wise. Here we have distinctly enforced the prin- ciple of true worship: namely, after due self-examination, confession, and prayer, in conjunction with the memorial of the Sacrifice of Christ, the offering of our- selves, our souls and bodies, to be a rea- sonable, holy, and living sacrifice unto God. Here formality, carelessness, and hypoc- risy are brought face to face with the real- ity of the threefold witness of God, and are shown their true relation to this witness in unmistakable signs of life or death. One's experience in school and out of school all goes to prove the reliability of the faithful communicant. Children, in order to become and remain faithful communicants, need continual teaching, leading them on step by step to a fuller appreciation of the greatness of the sacrifice which God requires of them in return for the perfectness of His One Sac- rifice. Special hours of preparation for the Holy Communion, with definite instruc- tion both in public and private, are an absolute necessity to start our children on healthy growth into Christian life. Moreover, the wise teacher will not 250 PERSONALITY IN EDUCATION shrink from the personal sympathy and direct fatherly counsel where it is mani- festly needed. Great personal purity and sincerity are an absolute requisite for this close personal touching of souls, else un- told harm may result. But the wise teacher will shrink from what is called Sacra- mental Confession. A long experience with boys coming from all kinds of homes, under all sorts of religious influences, leads me to be very sceptical as to the wis- dom of this form of dealing with the souls of American boys at school. Again the great wisdom of our book of Common Prayer is evident: it is only in the office for the visitation of the sick, when mind and body are both less active, that the priest is directed to use his power of Ab- solution after private definite confession. Eeligion in the School, thus beginning with the teacher and ending with the teacher, has its beautiful and inspiring echo in the hearty rendering of the com- mon worship of prayer, praise, and thanks- giving, in psalms and hymns and spiritual .songs, making melody in all hearts. Music! Oh, surpassingly wonderful Music! How divine thy power to lift earthly man to the EELIGION IN THE SCHOOL 251 very doors of Heaven ! No words are too strong or too beautiful for thy wings. We have seen hard men weep at sound of thy voice, and weak women become strong under thy spell, and great crowds of happy, careless boys sobered and carried with reverent, adoring hearts to kneel be- fore God's altar. Is this the end? Not yet. The boy be- comes a man ; and how is he to be prepared to meet not only the moral temptations of life, but the movement of the worldly thought as it is going on to-day? As the whole school-life must tend to build up his moral character, to send him out, as far as may be, a man in moral strength, so our religious instruction must aim to send him out first with religious convictions; and, second, with the equipment to win more convictions for himself. Let us be sure that we do not let the boy go from our doors as a mere inquirer. ' ' We are not a society of inquirers, but a so- ciety of men of conviction, "has been well said by the Bishop of Stepney. We have a possession and a heritage which it is the most arrant folly to abandon or to give our children an excuse for abandoning. 252 PERSONALITY IN EDUCATION The boy goes out from his school ready to speak with no uncertain sound of the surety of the historical facts of his reli- gion; with no uncertain sound of the great corporate ever-accumulating experience of the Christian Church, as demonstrated in the secret recesses of the human soul and shared by all kinds of men of every age and nation, an experience too old, too deep, too wide to be explained away; with no uncertain sound of the practical applica- tion of the truths of his religion to the present needs of himself and of every sane man and of the great brotherhood of man. He will not be afraid of the truths of science: he treats them with respect, for he knows that when they have ^ proved themselves to be true, the interpretation of religious dogma will be sounder and more practical, as it has proved to be all through these advancing centuries of the Christian era. He will not be afraid of historical criticism, for he respects all true scholar- ship and hails all proven facts as allies to strengthen in the future what they have always strengthened in the past, the faith once delivered. He will not be afraid with his great heritage to join hand in hand RELIGION IN THE SCHOOL 253 with Jews, Turks, infidels, and heretics in all that goes to the uplifting of his fellow-men and to making this world a better place to live in, for he knows that '' The Earth is the Lord's, and all they that dwell therein." xn COLLEGE A DISTINGUISHED college president , is reported to liave said to a distin- guished head-master, " I wish that you and your wife would come down to and look after your boys." Just so! Boys fresh from our homes and from our home-schools need looking after; they miss that personal friendship and fellowship with high-souled men and women which is their due. If there ever is a time when a boy needs such influence, it is between the ages of seventeen and twenty-two, as he is passing from boyhood to manhood. But what is our plan? These young fellows, full of the first rush of virility, are herded together, — no, not even that, — are allowed to herd themselves together in great and luxurious dormitories and in small eating clubs behind closed doors, with none of the natural restraints of the 254 COLLEGE 255 society of their elders, often with not the smallest recognition, on the part of the college, of any responsibility for those es- sential habits of a man's life which are just then taking shape. The same distinguished president has taken pains, from time to time, to have prepared tables of statistics comparing the results of entrance examinations and the subsequent college careers of boys from high schools with those of boys from what purport to be home-schools, or, more par- ticularly, boarding schools under church influence. On their face, such statistics are entirely misleading: first, because only the best high-school boys, while nearly all from these boarding schools, try for college; and, second, because statistics of examina- tions and behavior are by no means the final word as to a boy's career at the col- lege or university. None know this better than the boys at College, who, as they grow there into manhood and have a fair view of the whole system from the inside, are going home in increasing numbers to send their brothers and sons to the well- ordered home-school. 256 PERSONALITY IN EDUCATION We suppose, also, that tlie authorities of our universities are as fully alive to the real truth as ourselves, despite statistics; there are abundant signs that these gen- tlemen are not perfectly satisfied with the cumbrous development of the American college into the American university. Ef- forts are not wanting all along the line to bring order out of chaos in the direction of personal supervision and fellowship owed by the older to the younger in the whole process of education. The American college was naturally the outgrowth of the American school, and the school of the American home. Parents in America, perhaps more than in any other land, have felt and carried the responsibility of fellowship with their children. We use this word advisedly, for no one will claim that we, as a nation, have shown in our home-life any great desire for the careful training of our children. On the contrary, at a very early age the child in our land has the run of the streets, as well as the run of his home, and he develops a power of taking care of him- self that is amazing to the foreigner. Yet there are homes in America where the chil- COLLEGE 257 dren are treated as children, and, both by fellowship and by authority, are guarded in their earlier years from the roughness of life; homes where care is taken to develop the fine traits of childhood, reverence, obe- dience, and the power of the imagination with the appreciation of beauty in all its forms, — those very qualities which are early knocked out of the street child. There are still some parents in America who are not willing to sacrifice the broader and fuller and so slower development of their children to a precocious so-called manliness, and who think that a truer and stronger manhood depends on something else than '* learning to take care of one- self." The average American boy, however, when he comes to the college age, is a man in knowing how to take care of himself and in knowing the necessity laid upon him to make the most of his time. But does the College owe nothing to this im- poverished life, as well as to that of the big boy, in the way of personal contact with men whose love and enthusiasm may still give him what otherwise he will proba- bly never get unless he marries a large- 258 PERSONALITY IN EDUCATION hearted, fine woman'? But, alas! she, too, may be college bred, brought up in the same American (?) way. I must confess that personally I am awfully disappointed at this typical product of the American college, whether of man or woman. Their world is one of the survival of the small things of life, with much of the fuller and finer side entirely blotted out. The fit- test will not always survive amid uncon- genial surroundings. Surely it is the part of education from beginning to end to pro- vide soil for the growth of the best things in man. To return to the tables of statistics above mentioned: they take no account of the vast waste that goes on under a sys- tem which ignores so much to the exalta- tion of mere pluck and hardihood. The tables for this waste are found in the hearts of our settlement workers and lonely priests in orders and out of orders, who rise in protest against an education that seeks to measure itself by written ex- aminations and a money value, in protest against an education that does not pro- claim the whole truth, in protest against an education that in any way tends to COLLEGE 259 divorce the apparent good of the individual from his usefulness to the community. In this land of liberty, it seems, the final battle between light and darkness is to be fought out, and, in view of this, our land can ill aif ord to have her children grow up in comparative ignorance of the relative values of truth and falsehood, of love and hatred, of purity and lust, of patriotism and individualism; of the relative values of life and the meat of life, of the body and the raiment. Lectures and courses in college will never teach these rela- tions, the knowledge of which is the only true wisdom. It certainly is a disgrace- ful fact that so many of our young men get a more true and helpful education in four years of the rough life of a miner's camp, or even in a business house, than in the same four years at college. "Why? Because any natural struggle with the real forces of nature and of man comes nearer to impressing on a man the true relation of things than the exotic life of our large American university. The wisdom em- bodied in the knowledge of the relation of man to man, of man to the rest of crea- tion as well as to the Creator Himself, can 260 PERSONALITY IN EDUCATION come finally only through close personal touch with men and things. That is the way we are made. Life passes on only through personal touch, and without this, it is sure to waste and decay. Two men, well known in their respective professions, were talking over college days, and one said to the other: '' Well, Bill, after all, what we got at college came mostly through old Tom. He was great." Let any mature man look back on what is called his education, and the chances are he will say the same of some friend of his youth. It is, after all, the men that we get to know in those days who start us on our ways with faces set to the light. In the plan now being developed in our large colleges and universities, such a per- sonal relation between instructors and undergraduates is largely chance. No tu- torial system developed in this country, so far as the writer knows, approximates in value to the system of the English uni- versity. This is what may be called the natural or home system carried from the great public school. And is there any- thing in this system that makes it, in prin- COLLEGE 261 ciple, unsnited to our American life? On the contrary, it seems to the writer to sup- ply the very thing that we most need in our American education: namely, a stronger personal element, a closer relation between teacher and student. The small college of an English Uni- versity, with its dormitories, dining-hall, and chapel, organized under a head with assistants and graduates all living to- gether in a natural way, makes it possible and convenient for every undergraduate to be on intimate terms with older men who are directly responsible for him, while the great life of the University pervades the whole and tends to break down sec- tional and sectarian prejudices. If we examine the lists of the world's great men, we find very few who have not developed on lines quite different from those of the large American university or college. Indeed, it is surprising how com- paratively few of the most useful men of our own land, either in letters or science or affairs, have had what is called the ad- vantage of coming from one of our large universities. Not so in England; their great leaders in all departments of life are 262 PERSONALITY IN EDUCATION mostly university men. And we are con- strained to confess that for general schol- arship and usefulness the world has never yet produced such a race of men as the university-trained Englishmen. Now, is it too late for us to organize our colleges and universities more on the lines of personal fellowship between older and younger men! I believe not. Much can be done at once to infuse more of this element. To begin with the entrance examina- tion, that which strikes the school-master straight between the eyes: the personal element in the school should follow the boy through and beyond this examination in the shape of a general certificate of fit- ness from his school. If the university could make it practical uO lay a great deal of stress upon this certificate, and then take the trouble to publish the records of boys admitted to college, and also the rec- ords of graduates, all listed according to their preparatory schools, it would not only open the eyes of schoolmasters to possible defects in their methods in a very effective way, but it would have a tend- ency to lay more stress on the personal COLLEGE 263 factor throughout. Open discussion of such full statistics would be sure to have a beneficial result. The standard of entrance struck between the papers done by a boy and the estimate of his preparedness in character and schol- arship from his school would gradually tend to draw attention to the most im- portant requisites for a successful course in college. Furthermore, is it not possible to make the papers in all subjects more an exami- nation of the man and less an examination simply of his knowledge of facts? More an examination of his scholarship than of his memory? To be more specific, why set papers in mathematics that examine almost solely a boy's memory and his power to do fairly accurate figuring, when everybody knows that the test of his mathematical scholarship is his power to solve problems and exercises that involve all the principles and methods covered in his work? Why set papers in English that require a certain kind of technical cramming of the great English classics that generally spoils any real appetite for their beauty, ^64> PERSONALITY IN EDUCATION when all that is really required is that a boy should be able to write and speak his own language in a scholarly way? An hour's essay, and a few minutes' oral de- scription of some event would provide an ample test of such ability. The writer remembers very well the ex- aminations set by his old school-master on advanced school work in Latin and Greek. They were marked by careful selections in composition and translations that gave occasion for a full display of one's ability in handling the language. And the ques- tions put on the paper invariably required thought as well as knowledge in order to answer them satisfactorily ; and they were formed in such a way as to bring out a great deal more than what lay on the surface. And as to the examinations in foreign living languages, let them not be lowered to the dead level of grammar and translation, but require some oral work that will test pronunciation and facility in speech. In the second place, it is not too late for our colleges and universities in coun- try towns to begin to develop more on the English plan of separate families directly COLLEGE 265 under the personal influence of wise and experienced men. Princeton is doing much to clear the air of fog on this important question. The West and Middle West have ample opportunity to make use of all that we have hammered out here in the East, and some of their young universities are laid down on such broad lines as to insure a saner life for their manhood and age than seems possible now to obtain in Harvard or Yale without great expense and uprooting of tradition. Mr. Ehodes has started the shuttle across the Atlantic on a new garment. The examinations set for his scholarships, and the residence of so many of our best young men in Oxford, are surely weaving into our garment of education some fair, strong thread from the looms of the old land. Every teacher is watching the ex- periment with interest, and we are expect- ing far-reaching results from a plan which seeks to break into the wholesale factory for scholars with a new article marked '' personal." THE END ^ C^al^ "V i-iDnHnT v-ir uuMlaMtbb. 021 344 378 1