IN BisAOP JOHM H. VlNCPMT LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. LW/^ . Slielf.^lL7. UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. A STUDY IN PEDAGOGY, A STUDY L\ PEDAGOGY FOR PEOPLE WHO ARE NOT PROFESSIONAL TEACHERS. 3Y ^ BISHOP JOHX H. VIXCEXT. I <^ NEW YORK : WILBUR B. K E T C H A M, 13 COOPER UNION. \", • l.b^1 Copyright, 1890, By WILBUR B. KETCHAM. A FORE-LOOK. Leaders and People must be in Sympathy, 9 ; The People's Clamor To-day, 9, 10 ; All Classes Need Educa- tion, 10; Charles Kingsley's Theory, 11; This not a Scientific Treatise, 1 1 ; A Word of Help for " The Peo- ple," 12; The People and the Public Schools, 12; Edu- cation Defined as an Art and as a Science, 12 ; The Four Subjects to be Discussed, 13 ; The Art of Education, 14 ; Education of Plants, 14; of Animals, 15; Difference between the Education of Plants and Animals and of a Boy, 17 ; The Education of the Will, 18 ; Education Empirical and Scientific, 19; The Element of Freedom in Education, 20; "Look Steadily — Once," 22; Scolding Pupils for Inattention, 24; Certain Important Laws, 24; Teachers and Methods, 25 ; The Educating Instinct, 25 ; The Ancient Pedagogue, 26 ; His Faults, 27. Mother as Teacher, 27 ; Everybody Teaches, 28 ; Emerson on Society as a School, 29; The "Special Agencies " in Education, 29 ; The Picture of the Ship that made Sailors, 30 ; Pictures as Lessons, 32 ; Shams [3] A Fore-Look. in Art, 33 ; Teaching Power of the School-house, 33 ; of Dress, 34 ; of Slang, 34 ; The Street as a School, 35 ; Picto- rial Lessons, 36 ; The Daily Papers, 38. Special Educational Agencies — The Church, 40 ; Edu- cation and Faith, 41 ; Mysteries in Religion, 42 ; True Religious Faith, 45; Soul Value, 46; Matthew Arnold and " Conduct," 46 ; Tyndall and the German Soldiers, 46 ; The False Church Ideas, 47 ; Children and the Church, 47 ; The Pastor, 48 ; The Roman Catholic Pre- tence, 49 ; The Secret of Romish Fear of the Public Schools, 52 ; Formal Religious Recognitions in the Day School Unnecessary, 52 ; Home as a School, 53 ; Laws of Teaching — Desire, 54; Resolve, 55; Definiteness and Accuracy, 55; Moral Conviction, 55; Philanthropic In- tent, 56 ; Expression, 57. On Helping Public School Children to get their Les- sons, 57 ; How to Create an Interest in Knowledge, 58 ; Huxley on Examinations, 58; The True Work of the School, 59; the Press, 60; Books, 61. The Choice of a Home with Educational Intent, 64 ; What may be done in a Crowded City, 65 ; Village Im- provement, d'j ; Home Culture, 68 ; Letting Children Alone, 71; The Local Village Congress for Discussing Educational Topics, 72. BEFORE BEGINNING. Before beginning this practical little tractate — a word of forecast ! Every man and woman in this Nation should have what Montesquieu commends : " The desire lo augment the excellence of our nature and to render an intelligent being more intelligent." Out of this desire must spring every true effort to promote education. And if the desire be intense and steady, and if the effort be guided by wisdom, keen and comprehensive, we shall have as a result a true philosophy working out in true methods. But the people at large must know this phi- losophy, and work it out on a large scale. Thus the true education will come to be the " popular education " which our reformers talk about so much in these latter days. [5] Before Begin^zing. If the people are to be won to these thoughts they must be talked to in a plain and frank way. Fathers, mothers, grandfathers, grandmothers, brothers, sisters, servants, preachers, clerks, editors, merchants, school-teachers, bill-posters, and news boys — a multitude — who help in never so slight a way to make public sentiment, must be stirred to wise desire and then set at work to put wise desire into wise endeavor. Concerning the ''desire " Montesquieu speaks of and the "effort" it must beget, and the "wis- dom " to be consulted, and the " ways " so mani- fold to be employed, and the "multitude" of teachers, professional and non-professional, to be enlisted — all for the promotion of " popular education" — it has been the purpose of the author to write in the following pages ; and so to write as that some indifferent parents and other people may see what a great work is before them, and seeing may approve and perform. This great end is the author's aim — at least so mur^h of the end as he may be permitted to com- pass. His thoughts are not new and they may not reach many readers ; but he hopes that some- how, through this and through the efforts of Before Begin^iing. others, many people may be helped into keener conviction and firmer purpose as to the best education and the means of furthering it. John H. Vincent. Buffalo, N. V. A Study in Pedagogy. A recent lecturer on educational topics in the University of Jena said, "The nationality of the Greeks declined from the moment when the philo- sophically cultivated separated themselves from the mass of the people." Whatever may have been the case, or the necessities of the case, with the Greeks, it goes without saying, that in a republic like our own, those who are known as the thinking men — philosophers, and those who are known as working men — merchants and mechanics, must keep in close proximity, breath- ing the same free air, rejoicing in the same clear light, seeking the same high ends, and giving mutual help. We live in a day of popular uprisings. The people demand a hearing from the influential [9] lo A Shidy m Pedagogy. classes, the leaders of men who have insight, comprehensive knowledge, financial resources, and who for these or other reasons hold respon- sible civil and social positions. The people when they speak, have a right to be heard ; and those who by good fortune, by the wise use of natural talent, or by providential assignment, hold places of power are bound to heed the call of the peo- ple ; to sympathize with and to help them, that the oppressed and neglected mass may not be compelled to cry in Pascal's words of protest spoken in their behalf, against the arrogant philosophers of his day, "Ye pass for the salt of the earth ; wherewith do ye salt our lives ?" Whatever hope may come from capital and legislation, the best help that philosophy can give to labor is — philosophy. What the so-called "lower classes ' need is what the scholars of the highest have — education ; for it is true educcition that puts the individual at his best, increasing his ability for service of every honorable Und, teaching him to know himself, of what qualitv he is, and what are his adaptations ; exalting his standards of life, giving him compensations for misfortune, inspiring companionship in solitude A Study in Pedagogy. 1 1 useful occupation during enforced leisure, and augmenting his worth as a member of the fam- ily, the church, and the nation. "If I had my way," said Charles Kingsley, " I would give the same education to the child of the collier and to the child of the king." In the same spirit and with similar motive would I put the means of education, the power of self-education, and the ability to educate, within reach of the people, and especially of parents whose opinions, max- ims, and habits of every-day life have so large an influence in determining the estimate which their children are to place on education, and in direct- ing the education which is of necessity, to begin so long before professional teachers have access to the subjects of it. It is my purpose, in the following pages, to discuss the general subject of education, both as a science and an art. I use the term " Pedagogy" for a reason which will in due time appear ; but I wish at the outset to disclaim any intention of treating the topic in a formal or scientific way. Nor do I aim at the instruction of those who are or who expect to be professional teachers. I write solely for the helping of the people — the 12 A Study in Pedagogy. people whose children these professional instruct- ors are expected to teach ; the people whose interest and co-operation in education are indis- pensable to the success of teachers and pupils ; the people who may themselves, long after their own school period is ended, continue to acquire knowledge and to cultivate tact in imparting knowledge ; the people who are to settle not only the financial support and social standing of the pedagogical profession, but whose counsels and votes are to determine, and that in the near future, the fate of our public school system. Will my professional and scientific readers, kindly remember the simple, unpretentious, and practical aim I have thus so fully and frankly avowed in advance ? The art of education is the selection, applica- tion, and regulation of the conditions and of the special agencies which act upon human nature in the development of personal and social charac- ter. The science of education is a systematized knowledge of human nature, with a view to the understanding and use of the conditions and A Study in Pedagogy. 1 3 special agencies which operate in the develop- ment of personal and social character. In pursuance of this line of definition, it is my purpose to consider, — I. The nature and Aims of true Education. II. The Conditions which affect Education. III. The special Educating Agencies. IV, The Selection and Control of these Con- ditions and Agencies. True personal and social development is the end of education. It is as Ruskin says "The leading of human souls to what is best, and making what is best out of them." The law of growth is the law of life. The growth of the soul begins with the growth of the body, and continues indefinitely. Sometimes physical re- straints limit the intellectual powers, dwarf the moral, and render the executive impotent. Ok. the other hand, we often find that with failing physical energies, the intellectual and spiritual seem to be augmented. Whatever the mysteri- ous relations and interdependence of soul and body, education is the development of the indi- vidual to the end that he may secure a true char- acter, and be able to use his varied powers ; that 14 A Sttidy in Pedagogy. thus he may be prepared for his personal and social responsibilities as a child of the Eternal Father, as a member of the great human family, as a citizen of this world, and as a being endowed with immortality. Education embraces the cul- ture of the man, — physical, intellectual, esthetic, moral, and religious, and the improvement as well, of those executive powers by which he is enabled to express himself in art, in language, and in conduct. We are not without examples of educating zeal and activity in this world. We have watched the putting of human care and wisdom into a plant. To what extent one may see by watching a shrub, vegetable, or tree left to itself, and one of the same character at the beginning, upon which the thought, wisdom, and labor of its owner are expended. He selects the best place and the most favorable conditions. He enriches the soil, digs about and waters the plant, watches its peculiarities, clips and trims, shields it from horses and cattle, protects it from parasites, and in every way that science and experience suggest works into the natural forces and conditions which promote its growth the added elements of A Study in Pedagogy. 1 5 human wisdom and labor. There is a difference in the outcome between the plant neglected, and the plant protected and educated. This human help may turn unpalatable and unwholesome fruit into fruit marketable and valuable. Thus man helps nature by educating it. The same power of education is illustrated in the animal kingdom. Wild animals are subdued and taught by man. The breed is improved. Habits are formed by utilizing the power of instinct. The results in this line are remark- able. Every girl who has petted a kitten, every boy who owns a dog, will readily appreciate this susceptibility to education in the domestic ani- mals. We have seen trained horses whose per- formances seemed like the work of the higher intelligence. We have seen dogs whose move- ments were so wise and skillful as to elicit roars of laughter and rounds of applause. We have watched the " learned pig " pick out letters, spell names, select figures, and combine them in arith- metical results. We have put on our spectacles to follow the operations of "educated fleas," who seem to understand and deliberately to obey the commands of their trainer. They pulled 1 6 A Study 171 Pedagogy. threads which ran over pulleys, took their places as horses in front of a liliputian chariot, marched in procession, carried burdens, and seemed to imitate human actions as though the)' were im- pelled by an intelligent purpose. The students of zoology find many insoluble problems when they inquire into these phenom- ena. The degree of intelligence in the brute creation, the presence of volition and of moral quality, are open questions. The limits of in- stinct are not comprehended. It is, however, certain that much of the action of so-called "educated" animals is the intelligence not of the animals but of those who control them, and that certain movements which seem to be the result of thought and intention are wholly unin- telligible to the brute himself. Given motions of a stick in the keeper's hand cause the pig on exhibition to pick up certain letters and figures. We wonder at the intelligence he displays. But the intelligence is chiefly that of the exhibitor. The whole thing is a pleasant trick, and the edu- cation involved is not so very remarkable. There is, however, an education of animals by which A Study in Pedagogy. 1 7 they are rendered more useful to man, and there- fore more valuable in the market. The directing power in vegetable and animal education comes from without. Rose-bushes and peach-trees become finer in quality of flower and fruit by a force of will in their cultivators, but not in themselves. The dog learns his tricks, not from a will-power of his own, but from that of his trainer. He seems to be responsible for failure, and we strike him. He does well, and we pet and praise him. We know, however, that he is not really blameworthy nor praiseworthy. If we do smite it is to associate pain with certain action that he may be kept from repeating that action. We give him pleasure when his move- ment is according to our intention or desire. But the source and center of the whole move- ment is in man the rational, and not in Fido, the animal being. The education of a boy is a different process. He has, to be sure, a physical and an animal na- ture, and there are conditions of soil, surround- ings, instinct, and habit which are to be studied very much as we consult these things in training plants and animals. But if we train a boy only A Study in Pedagogy. as we train a dog or an elephant, we shall not have an educated boy. The noblest part of him, which is his power of self-direction, will have been neglected. The tree is at its best what we make it. The horse is what we make it. But the boy at his best is what he makes himself. The flower cannot decide what form, color, and odor it will have. The boy is to decide for him- self what aims, spirit, and habits are to control his life. True education is the education of the will. It strengthens a weak will ; makes stable a fickle will ; provides knowledge that one may have wisdom in the use of his will ; and gives practice in self-direction and control that one may have a ready, steady, strong, and unflinching will. Too much of our boasted education is that of the vegetable and the animal. We must educate rational beings to think, choose, and act in a rational way. All this indicates that education comes through forces operating both from with- out and from within ; and that it is promoted by certain conditions and by the operation of cer- tain and special agencies. It is the work of the teacher to select, apply, and regulate these con- A Study in Pedagogy. 19 ditions and agencies, and to secure on the part of his pupils freedom, entliusiasm, a voluntary surrender to wholesome influences, and a perse- vering self-activity in acquisition and expression. Much educational work is empirical. It aims at art without science. It experiments with the intellect before it has studied the laws of the intellect. The basis of true education is science —the science of mind and of method. There must be a careful observation of mental and moral phenomena, and then a theory of soul-life which serves as a key to such phenomena. Ob- servations may be partial and the theory by which they are judged may be false or inadequate, but the process itself— observation and hypothe- ses—is the only one on which the true science of education can be finally founded and framed. It is obvious that there are many difficulties in the way of a sure educational philosophy. The human soul is to most men terra incognita. They are not accustomed to observe and explore it. We are familiar with matter. We keep our thoughts on things outside of ourselves. Tan- gible and visible facts are obtrusive. The sun is bright and the earth solid ; we see and feel both 20 A Study hi Pedagogy. every day. Habits of self-introspection and reflection are not common. We become ac- quainted with the inner world chiefly through its outward forms and activities. Just here we are met by the scientific materialist (a few sci- entific men are materialists), who plausibly ex- plains the mental phenomena on the theory of materialism. He tells you that mind depends entirely on the brain, its size, weight, and the quality of its tissue. He laughs to scorn the idea of independent, immaterial, spiritual exist- ence. Then come the philosophers who do believe in an immortal, separate, spiritual per- sonality, but who differ and discuss among themselves as to the genesis and relations of mental phenomena. The average man may not be perplexed by these diversities of opinion, but they more or less embarrass the search after the basal principles on which to build a science of mental growth and improvement. The complication is increased by one impor- tant fact. The soul being a free personality is subject to forces which belong to its own mys- terious realm of moral being and which are beyond human ken and control. What a drop A Study in Pedagogy. 1 1 of water or a grain of saltpeter will do under the pressure of given forces or in special condi- tions, the scientist can foreknow and foretell. The instincts of a bird may be counted upon with a degree of certainty, but who can predict the voluntary and personal movements of a human soul ? Here science finds her limitation and can only speculate concerning the most radical and important actions of man. There are, however, outside of this unexplored and mysterious center of the most mysterious life with which we have to do, certain well- established facts and laws which render at least a tentative science of education possible. There are many mental and moral operations which we may discover, investigate, and under certain circumstances, to some extent influence. We may reach and inform and inspire a human soul. In the process by which a knowing mind becomes to another a helping mind, we find the art of education. The science begets the art. There are wise ways of winning attention and of awakening a soul to self-activity in observation, and in concentrated and continuous effort. There are ways of holding up before a soul 2 2 A Study in Pedagogy. splendid ideals and inciting to resolve upon their attainment, and to put resolve into patient and untiring pursuit. These wise ways are the ways of teaching. The result is education. Manifold are the methods by which mind may quicken mind to think and to act. It may be done by incidental statement, and as in a conversation. Some wise men can teach you by making you talk most of the time, they dropping a strong seed-thought only now and then. Mind may be inspired by formal and systematic an- nouncement as in a lecture or sermon ; or the result may be secured by instructional direction as in the methods of the class-room. But the great problem is, How to win for a time, that we may stimulate and guarantee for all time, inter- ested attention. To a restless, rollicking girl in an astronomical observatory the professor said, " Look steadily — once." She had tried, two or three times — tried in her way — to look, "but could see nothing! How foolish to stick your head into that !" And then she turned away with a silly, bantering laugh. She was a frivolous girl who cared no more for Saturn or Jupiter than about the Caro- A Study in Pedagogy, line Islands imbroglio or the United States sur- veys in Northern Alaska. She wanted to leave. " Let's go," she said, " and do something lively. This is stupid." " Come, Hetty," said the professor, " try again. Look steadily — once." Adjusting her eye to the glass and holding still long enough to " look steadily — once," she suddenly exclaimed, '' O how lovely ! How wonderful ! See the rings ! How beautiful ! Let me stay I " After that it was hard work to get her away from the instrument and the tower. She wanted " to see more." And she saw more — another planet, a fragment of nebula here, then there, now a fixed star, now the delicate lines of the new moon. Space, color, splendor, passed before her aston- ished vision. "I'm coming again. May I, professor ? I'm going to read about it ! Isn't it all wonderful !" Not a frivolous speech fell from her lips on her way home that night. Glancing now and then toward the starry vault, she often exclaimed " Isn't it too wonderful for anything !" She had "looked steadily — once." Many of our young people are flippant, and 24 A. Study in Pedagogy. to our more mature judgments foolish, because they have never been trained to "look steadily — once " at some fact or field in science or literature. One look transforms them. They suddenly see a new world. Old delights lose their charm in the presence of the new revelation. If instead of scolding such students for their levity we were to bring them face to face with som.e mystery in nature or some treasure in literature, or best of all some blessed reality in religion, and bid them "look steadily — once," we should demonstrate again the law of " the expulsive power of a new affection." It is therefore clear, and cannot be too often reiterated, that in order to the best results in the work of teaching, the action of teacher and pupil must be reciprocal. The full mind of the one must be met by the ready and receptive mind of the other. Truth to be effective must be taken as well as given. Indeed, it can scarcely be considered as given until it is taken. Whatever the method employed, the teacher must observe the laws of accuracy, careful analy- sis, condensation, simplicity, and illustration ; guiding his pupils in the acquisition of truth on A Study in Pedagogy. 25 their own account, and inciting them to continue their researches in the line, but beyond the limits, of his teaching, and always aiming to have them make a wise, practical, and personal application to the truth apprehended. A writer has well said: "The more you can render teachers independent of any set method, the more you can emancipate them from the bondage of form and bestow upon them the liberty of the Spirit, the better work they will do." He who most prizes the science of teaching and who most carefully studies the subjects which it embraces, will be likely to do the best work. But I must not forget that there are men and women who seem to possess a sort of edu- cating instinct. They have tact as a natural gift. They follow, without seeming to know that they are doing so, all the best suggestions of the profoundest pedagogical philosophy. They are not empirics, but men of genius, hap- pily adjusted to the world in which they live, receiving as by inheritance what other men win only after intense study and protracted experi- ence. The success of such exceptions should 2 6 A Study in Pedagogy. not allow us to depreciate the preparation which is to the vast majority of teachers indispensable. I use in the title of this little volume a term which, although not euphonious, and the pro- nunciation of which has not yet been agreed upon by English speaking educators, is very significant. In Greece and in Rome, it was em- ployed to describe the slave whose business it was to take charge of the child at home and to accompany him to school. He was of the child^ the leader. This child-leader was much more than an ordinary slave. He was to some consid- erable degree an educated man. It was his business to train the boy in the rudiments of knowledge, until he was seven years of age. He taught reading, writing, and numbers. After that this J>aidagogos for ten years or more accom- panied his pupil to the school, serving as his pro- tector on the way to and from the school and probably as his monitor and helper there. The word " pedagogue " has not always been used in the best and worthiest sense in literature. It is not hard to find how a touch of contempt came into the title. The habit of teaching chil- dren is likely to engender certain unfortunate A Shidy in Pedagogy. 27 habits. The pedagogue was accustomed to rule and thus became dictatorial. He looked con- stantly with a critical eye on the deportment, recitations, and casual expressions of his scholars. He became observant and hypercritical every- where. He was an authority on so many mat- ters. His word was a finality. He was egotist- ical and dogmatic. Moving in a little round of thought, reiterating his professional criticisms and decisions on small and elementary subjects, he was dwarfed as a thinker and a man. Mean- while the larger world of real life, of mature thought, and advanced literature remained a sealed book to him, and it is little wonder that he became ridiculous in the eyes of wide- awake, progressive, and busy people, because of his imperiousness, egotism, pedantry, and diminutiveness. The day of the despised pedagogue is over. The office of teaching is ranked among the learned professions. Both Wordsworth and Agassiz were glad to be known as "Teachers." Professional teachers are not the only teach- ers. Mothers teach their children, but how very soon do children teach their mothers. The si- 2 8 A Study in Pedagogy. lent chamber where the newborn babe lies, cling- ing to the new-made mother's breast, is a school- room for her, where without an articulate sound lessons are given and received, which a wise mother never forgets. What an illuminated text- book is baby's face through all the earliest years ! How the lessons in it lay hold of intellect and heart, of imagination and memory ! A great school for mother is the nursery. The first four years of her baby's life have more power in them than the four years of a college course could have. The diversity of mental and executive endow- ment together with the universal law of inter- dependence guarantees the interchange of knowl- edge for mutual restraint and improvement. There are teachers everywhere. Whether one will or not, he must teach. There are teachers at home, and in every part of the home. Some- times the most powerful teachers are servants of the lowest order in kitchens and in cellars. They give lessons that smolder for years, and that later on flash out in fierce and lurid flames. Wise mothers watch their servants lest the child be weakened and corrupted as to his moral na- A Study in Pedagogy. 29 ture by those whose particular business it is to feed and build up the physical. " Society," says Emerson, "is a Pestalozzian school ; all are teachers and pupils in turn." Everybody teaches. Merchants, mechanics, bankers, farmers, loungers on the street — all teach. The work of education goes on contin- ually in field and shop and street as really as in nursery and kindergarten. Mind is perpetually open to receive impressions. It does not close its gate- ways to the outside world when the jan- itor locks the school-house door in the afternoon. While the light flashes through the atmosphere, while the optic nerve is sensitive enough to re- ceive images from the all-surrounding world, — lessons are being given and received ; and when the books are closed and the tired teacher has gone home, the pupils are still at school and the teaching work is continued. In my definition of education I assign an im- portant part to " the conditions . . . which oper- ate in the development of personal and social character." I distinguish between "conditions" and " special agencies." By " special agencies " I mean those persons, methods, and appliances 30 A Study in Pedagogy. employed voluntarily with the direct object of teaching, such as the professional teacher, the school, and the book. By " conditions " I desig- nate those circumstances and states in which we live, and under the influence of which we come or are brought, whether voluntarily or not on our part, or on the part of others. The "special agencies " may be used or they may be neglected ; but the "conditions," although they may and should be watched, " selected, applied, and reg- ulated," are always in operation. They carry more than "a bare, majority " in the count of forces that educate. A story is told of a mother who was filled with trouble because her fourth and youngest son announced that he was going to sea. She had already given up three boys to this adven- turous life. She clung to the fourth, hoping that he would be spared to her home and companion- ship. But, alas, he went the way of the others. She tried to account for it. She had always warned her boys against the sea and the sailor's life. She had read to them stories of storm and shipwreck, thinking in this way to intimidate them. But in boyhood they played at ship life ; A Study in Pedagogy. 3 1 they drew pictures of ships ; they made and sailed miniature ships ; they were wild to see ships ; and first of all the oldest ran away that he might serve before the mast, and then the second secured reluctant parental consent that he might not go clandestinely. The third entered the navy, and now the broken-hearted mother found the fourth bound to embark on a mer- chant-ship. In her trouble she sent for her min- ister and laid the case before him. " It is too late now to prevent it," she said, " but how can you account for this singular freak of the whole fam- ily of boys ? It is not an inherited taste. It is in direct opposition to all my teachings and warnings." The minister pointed out to the sad woman a large and remarkably fine picture of a ship in full sail, hanging in the best light on the wall of the " living room," 'v\ which they were at the time seated. " How long have you had that picture ?" he asked. "For twenty-five years," she replied. "It was the gift of a foreign friend and is considered an unusually good painting. We prize it high- ly." 32 A Study in Pedagogy. The minister answered, " That picture has sent your sons to sea. They have looked at it and admired it from childhood. It is, indeed, a superior picture. Watch the life and motion in that water. See the pride and stateliness with which that high prow faces and defies the break- ing wave. Look at the sails, the clouds, the blue sky beyond the rifts, the movement, the power in the picture. No wonder that your boys were captured by it, their tastes formed and their lives controlled by that rare bit of art." I cannot vouch for the literal truth of this story, but I can answer for its fidelity to human nature. Pictures educate. Inartistic pictures that violate every canon of taste, every law of color, and every line of truth, corrupt the tastes of those who look at them from day to day. Weakness and silliness expressed in a foolish picture tend to produce their kind. Thus pictures true to finest art refine ; pictures of heroism and virtue ennoble ; and thus also the portraits of our ancestors tend to increase or diminish family and personal self-respect. Thus drapery, furni- ture, carpets, wood-work, articles of vertu and bric-a-brac, have a tendency to refine or other- A Study in Pedagogy. 33 wise. Sham makes children familiar with sham. And familiarity with sham of any kind weakens the sense of truth. There is power in this par- ticular in the architecture of a town. Public halls, church interiors, city parks, buildings that are of costly or carved stone in front and that on the hidden sides and in the rear are of brick or uncut stone, — these all give unsyllabled lessons concerning truth and falsehood, which are weightier than sermons about morality or the tasks from books on ethics in the high school. I never see a church with imposing facade, and with " cheap " side and rear walls, that I do not as a Christian have a sense of mortification. Again, the school-house teaches as effectually as the school-teacher. There are some school- rooms where it would be impossible for the most skillful art-teacher to give lessons in proportion, color, and tone, or for a sensible school-mistress to talk about neatness, cleanliness, and taste in the keeping and the furnishing of a house. Conditions are not sufficiently appreciated by those who seem most earnest in the advocacy of popular education. Therefore, this emphasis in dealing with the people whose children are to be 34 ^ Study in Pedagogy. educated. I commend to you the school-teacher who cares for atmospheres, impressions, and tone, quite as much as for text-books, tasks, and accur- acy in recitation. I ask you to help him when he tries to make his school-room a place of neat- ness and brightness, with plants, flowers, pictures, statuettes, window and wall hangings, and what- ever beside may give a child ideas of taste, of purity, of restfulness, and which will fill his soul with images and memories to go with him to the end of life, a source of inspiration and a safe- guard against evil. Dress and manners have teaching power. Slovenly habits and tawdry garments corrupt the tastes of children. Coarseness begets coarseness. Here is a mother who has a high keyed, strong, and ungoverned voice. She employs extrava- gant expressions, prides herself in the use of slang and takes delight in defying the usages of good society. What wonder that her daughter grows up to the same indelicacy and uncouthness, and to aggravate an already aggravated evil, glories in what is really her shame. Bishop Huntington says, "A beautiful form is better than a beauti- A Study in Pedagogy. 3 5 ful face, but a beautiful behavior is better than a beautiful form." None but true ladies and gentlemen should ever be employed as teachers. Boards of in- struction should require of all candidates, that they be polite, neat, gentle as well as accurate in speech, and competent to teach by manners, tones of voice, and personal character as really as by direct class instruction. The streets of every town and village teach. The town council may not have this fact in mind, but it is nevertheless a fact. Mother does not think of it. She kisses her young daughter "good morning" as the innocent and frolicsome thing starts down the street. The school is a good one. The teachers are of the best that judgment and money could select and secure. Mother's parting embrace implies what she does not express in so many words : " Good-bye for the morning, my child ! How dear you are to us ! And how innocent ! What good care we take of you in the selection of school and teachers ! How sure we are of your security and of good teaching for the next three hours ! Good-bye, my darling !" 36 A Study in Pedagogy. But mother has not thought of the school on the way to school ; of the lessons on the way there ; of the lessons on the way back ; of the lessons at recess. What lessons ! And what teachers ! Of all these father and mother take no account. Education, they have been taught to think of as a matter of teachers and of tasks, of books and of hours. They have not given much thought to the teaching power of the school- house itself ; nor have they thought at all of the street-lessons. Alas for the girls and for the boys, because of the street-school ! The pictures that are placed in the show- windows of book-shops and art rooms, that hang at news-stands and on walls and other advertis- ing spaces produce impressions that are as lessons imparted and received. They are mute indeed. No voice is heard while they teach. But they speak as no tones or articulations of the human voice can speak. They hold close attention. They rivet eyes and thought. They out-teach the best professional teachers. They may undo in five minutes some other teacher's work of an hour or a day. They hold their pupils still — so still. The jolly, skipping girl has A Study in Pedagogy. 37 been arrested by them. Watch her beautiful eyes, and that fixed gaze ! Wonderful girl — what possibilities are in thee ! What power abides in the picture that can capture thus, this bit of incarnate loveliness. She leaves their presence, perhaps reluctantly, but carries away with her, lines, colors, shadings, attitudes ; and these again awaken in her mind older or indis- tinct impressions, give a meaning to some hints she never before fully understood ; move upon her feelings, and start ideas and impulses which most effectually sweep away all the best words of the morning's lesson in school. Happy for her, if the kiss of welcome on her return at noon, finds as clean a young life as kissed a good-bye at the gate three hours before. By the public street exhibition of pictures, low standards of character are presented to children, already dragged far enough down by the ordinary home and play-ground life. They are drawn to the picture. They look and think. They look again and go away to remember and — to think. Here are pictures which present the church or religion in some unfair or ridiculous light. They commend to favor senseless hilarity, 38 A Study 171 Pedagogy. profanity, vulgarity, or disrespect for parents. They represent nude or semi-nude women, the favorites of the theatre or the marvels of the cir- cus — standing on running horses, leaping into the air from bar to bar — hardening every girl who looks with interest on them, and often kin- dling in boys the beginnings of a passion, which ends in foul thoughts and often in deeds of secret and of deadly sin. Dare I speak of the lewd and bestial pictures, the coarse rhymes, the inexpressibly filthy jokes which are drawn or written by brutes, on walls of secluded places to which the purest children must go, and where are sometimes given the first lessons in a whole chapter of sin ? Dare I speak of the close alliances formed by young girls, without mother's knowledge, in which innocence is inoculated with dangerous informa- tion and fires are kindled which burn for years and leave more than ashes ? The daily papers of the times are a great educating agency — for good and for evil. Both results come even to those who themselves never read ; for the periodical press produces a great body of oral utterance and influence, of general A Study in Pedagogy. 39 information overheard, of gossip about people and things, about lawsuits and criminals, which affects even those who never read. Father may not take the daily of this city or that, be- cause he does not want his sons and daughters to read the vile reports of some great criminal suit. But before ten o'clock every morning his sons and daughters have had all the worst of the story from those who heard it from others. The press publishes, and far away from the reach of paper or pamphlet "a little bird telleth the whole tale." Thus do shop-windows, fences, news-stands, school-houses, young companionships, and the oral echoes of the press teach. And the lessons are free and fascinating. They constitute " con- ditions " in which lies a power educational, a power little understood by parents or professional instructors. We prolong life and grow by the food we eat at stated times and in formal and conventional ways. But it is not only by the processes of table-life that we live and grow. There are beside our meals, the air we breathe every moment, sunlight, sleep, clothing, and the artifi- 40 A Study in Pedagogy. cial heating of the atmosphere which we keep up. After the same manner are we educated, not by specific acts of appointed teachers, but by every hour we live, by every breath we draw, by every object we see, by every word we hear, and by the intellectual, moral, social, yea, even the physical atmosphere which surrounds us. It is a serious problem in the true pedagogy : How shall we select, apply, and regulate the educating " con- ditions ?" And it is a question for the people rather than for the pedagogues to answer. First and foremost among the special educa- tional agencies, I place the church. And by the church, I mean the church of Jesus the Christ, which in simple and wise forms of worship and instruction, works by the Spirit which animated Him ; which Spirit He imparts to the individuals who thus possess the secret of His own character and life. I speak here of no ecclesiastical or dogmatic standards which are not embodied in the person, life, and work of Jesus Christ, and which are not found on the surface of the New Testament. The " assembly " of His followers for prayer, praise, preaching, the study of His Word, and A Stitdy in Pedagogy. 4 1 the observance on occasion of the two simple forms of commemorative, symbolic and sacra- mental service He established, is the essence of the outward church. Men may add to these, but they are the substance. And every child should be brought into contact with this substance as a necessary part of his education. "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom." There is a profound philosophy in that statement. Dr. Charles L. Dana, in a recent discussion of the question as to whether or not society would be justified in disposing of " certain defective, de- generate criminal and invalid classes " by the administration of carbonic acid baths, concludes with this most significant sentence : " Life is only worth saving because it represents some- thing more than mortality ; and only from this higher and spiritual standpoint can preventive and curative medicine in all its applications be justified." True education is founded in true religious faith. The mystery is no hindrance. The world is full of perplexing problems. Children begin life asking questions. They wonder at the won- ders about them ; and wonder more that no one 42 A Study in Pedagogy. seems able to remove the mystery that invests every thing. Wise men break through outer shells to find new and harder problems within. The deeper down and the farther in they go, the more do questions multiply. Nature answers question by question. The earth, the air, the sky, the soul, the past, the present, the future, are covered with interrogation points. This is a world crowded with mystery. We see facts and forms, and we call them by certain names. We know them by their names and talk familiarly about them, as when we speak of "air," of "electricity," of "gravitation." We ascertain by observation and experiment certain ways or laws that these things have, and finding out what they have done before, or what has been done with them, we are able to lay our plans for their use. Depending upon the stead- iness of nature we project theories, and we work in harmony with these theories, as when we fly kites, build houses, insulate wires, and build up batteries of great power for sending sounds or other signals across vast distances. But beyond that we cannot go. We name and use these mysteries. That is all. When a child asks, A Study in Pedagogy. 43 " What are air and electricity and gravitation ?" the wisest man must say, " I do not know." When the child asks, " How did they begin ?" the philosopher must answer, " I do not know." He does not know. He may trace heat and light and electricity back to motion — but the problem of motion is as hard as any he had before en- countered. Mystery — everywhere ! Both child and philosopher, however, make use of the forces they cannot comprehend. The boy cannot, to save his life, tell of the wind, whence it cometh, or whither it goeth, or what it is, and yet he gives his kite into its keeping, and lets out cord at the bidding of its pressure. He gets fun and exercise out of the mysterious force, and does not mope and scold because he cannot understand its source or nature or the final cause of its various phenomena. In the same way tele- graph companies invest millions of money, stretch wires, sink cables, and build offices, hav- ing perfect faith in a force about which they know but little. Men send messages day and night, over the land, under the sea, reckless as to cost, through men who handle the machinery which controls an energy which the machinery 44 ^ Study in Pedagogy. itself could explain about as well as the men who manipulate it. The impenetrable mystery in- vesting a power does not prevent sensible men from using it if thereby they may get gain or do good. And this is highest wisdom. The work to be done is necessary to the order and pros- perity of society. The knowledge of the philos- ophy is not necessary. A message will go as certainly and as rapidly where electrical condi- tions are observed as if the operator could explain the prime cause and hidden secrets of the elec- trical agent. And what is true of the world of nature is true of the world of grace — that other realm of being, of observation, of experience, and of practical adaptations. We live in the body, sustaining certain relations to the visible world and performing certain acts which these relations require and make possible. The prob- lems do not deter us. The absolute uncertainty as to the causes and relations of things does not hinder us. So do we live in the spirit, sustaining certain relations to the invisible world, and we should in a wise way perform the acts which these relations require and make possible, the problem and the uncertainties not deterring or A Study in Pedagogy. 45 hindering us. This is common sense in matters of religion. Let us, therefore, as educators, heed these practical counsels and teach them to our pupils : Acknowledge the first great Cause who created all things, even if we cannot find him. Reverence the great Providence who governs all things, even though he hides himself from our bodily vision. Trust and love the great Father of all men, even though we do not see his outstretched arms of in- vitation and welcome. Imitate the Spirit and life of Jesus Christ, even though we are perplexed to understand how he came to be born and how he wrought his great miracles or how he rose from the dead. Accept the inward impulses and lead- ings of the Holy Spirit as we study the Word of God, even though it be beyond our power to explain the existence of such invisible influence, or tell how the Scriptures were inspired. Pray with true desire for the real blessings of the spiritual world, although we be as ignorant of the processes of prayer as we are of telegraphy. Find the conditions, conform to them, and secure the results, even if all the causes be hidden in hopeless uncertainty. Let us have common 46 A Study in Pedagogy. sense in matters of religion and spiritual life. And if we do not teach theology to our pupils, leaving that work to their parents and pastors, let our teaching in other lines always recognize the reality of the religious faculty in man, and the importance of its cultivation. Again, it is the church of Jesus Christ which exalts the doctrine of intrinsic soul value. And this recognition is at the basis of all educational work. Mathew Arnold says truly that "conduct is the end of life, and a man who works for conduct, therefore, works for more than a man who works for intelligence." It is the church of Jesus Christ which exalts the doctrihe of conduct, and of the true character which produces it. Tyndall says, that in response to the question as to how the Germans behaved in going into battle, a Prussian officer replied *' They exclaim, ' Wir miissen unsere Pflicht thun ' " (We must do our duty). It is the church of Christ which exalts this essential element in conduct — absolute surrender to duty. It is the mission of the church to teach the spiritual value of man, the supreme value of conduct, and the root of con- duct — a character which is loyal to duty. A Study in Pedagogy. 47 This spiritual and ethical teaching lies at the basis of all true education. Every individual soul needs the church in this simple and divine sense. In her human and hierarchical forms, in which sacraments and ceremonies are unduly and unwisely and absurdly emphasized, and made to mean what the Founder of the church never intended, there are so many puerilities and tyran- nies that we do not wonder at the repugnance and protests of men of common sense. It is not of this church in caricature and corruption that I speak ; but of the pure church with the Bible as its only authority, the Christ as its only Head, the believers — lay and clerical, who have the spirit of Christ, as constituting its only priest- hood, the building of genuine character for time and for eternity as its only mission. This church is the mightiest educational factor in the world. It recognizes man's real value and dignity. It rightly adjusts the multiplied activities and powers of the soul. It applies the true test for determining the relative values of all other edu- cating agencies. Children should be brought under the public and pastoral care of the church in the sanctuary, 48 A Study in Pedagogy. the Sunday-school, and at the fireside. They should be required by parental authority to attend its solemn services, si-ng its songs, hear its ministers, study its one divine text-book, and enlist in its mission of divine worship and human help. They should go by compulsion until they go from a sense of duty and then until they find it a delight. What a great teacher a pastor may be ! He has the world of observation, history, and science to draw from in illustration of the world of grace. He may teach while he preaches. He may know and watch the day school which the children of his church attend. He may neutralize the apathy or the proper silence of secular teachers as to religious teaching, by his Sabbath-day instruc- tions. He may teach in and through his Sunday- school by means of superintendent, teachers, chorister, librarians, and platform speakers. He may make his church an institute of theology, of church history, biblical exposition, and Christian ethics for young and old. He may organize bible classes for all grades of his adult members and supplement the most direct and vigorous religious teaching by evening classes, in all A Study in Pedagogy. 49 branches of learning, for those who want educa- tion but who cannot go to the schools to get it. He may organize popular lecture courses in his own church in science and in art, in history and political economy ; debating societies ; circles for home reading ; magazine clubs ; recreative evening classes ; and any number of useful devices which would tend to make his church a school. I am not especially anxious about religion in the day schools, that is in the way of formal teach- ing, if we can have good ethical and religious teaching through the church and the family. When Roman priests talk about the "godless schools " of America we well understand their meaning. We well know what they seek when in lachrymose tones they plead for the privilege of educating their "own children " in their " own way." We know what their " own way " is. Have they not had free opportunity for a thousand years in Italy to show what their own way is ? Is there a more ignorant, debased, idolatrous, and crim- inal population on the planet than the lower classes of Italy brought up under Romish con- trol ? What specimen has the Romish church to 50 A Study in Pedagogy. offer in the line of popular education ? Are they to be found in south Ireland? In Portugal? French Canada? Spain? Mexico? South America ? Away with these sophistical assaults upon the public school system of our great republic ! In our day we are in danger of yielding to a prevailing good-nature which is hurt at the thought of saying anything against anybody. It is the weak mercy of the traditional grand- mother who is too kind to be just. It grows up with and increases indifference, both to truth and righteousness. It says, " O, well, never mind ; people will differ, and people will do this or that — never mind. It really makes no differ- ence what people believe." This is both a weak and a wicked way of looking at life. It does make a difference what people think and do. There is truth and there is error, and it makes a difference which you hold and pro- mote. There is right and there is wrong, and it makes a great difference which you practice. Between narrow and bitter personal antagonism, because of a difference of opinion, and the mod- ern "happy-go-lucky" carelessness about doc- A Study in Pedagogy- 5 1 trine, there is a wise and golden niean, where, in loyalty to truth and charity toward all, all wise men stand. For every conceivable reason we should feel justified in doing all that we can against the insidious policies of that ancient and dangerous institution, the Church of Rome. It has in it, perhaps, as a system, less good and more evil, less truth and more error, than any other thing that bears the name of Christian. I say nothing against the humble people who have been vic- timized by the wily scheme. I suppose there are devout priests, as there may be deluded and honest bishops, in the Church of Rome. But we must not be deceived by a false charity until we find, too late, that the organization we have fostered has won what it aims at, namely, the balance of power in the republic. Withered be the hand that would interfere with the rights of a Romanist to worship whom he will, when he will, where he will, as he will ; but let us keep our eyes fixed on the history of the Church of Rome, the record she has made, the curse she has been to every nation on earth in which she has had supreme power, and the 52 A Study in Pedagogy. blight which she has brought upon the common people everywhere. All honor to independent men who are more American than Romanist, and who, knowing better than we can know the danger from " the Church," are willing to defy the priest and sup- port the Nation. These men have no fault to find with the fidelity of wise patriots who know the peril of the plot and who have no smooth words with which to conciliate the plotters. The Roman Catholic church is afraid to have her children taught standard and trustworthy history. Hence her effort to keep them away from the public schools and her hypocritical objections as to the religious or non-religious public school system of America. If the church and the family are faithful, the school may be silent on religious subjects and yet will every child be religiously educated. The closing of the day school on Saturday and Sabbath is a monumental tribute to religion. The act calls attention to Saturday as a "holi- day " and Sabbath as a " holy-day." The silence of the public school and the closing of its doors on Sabbath is an imposing and eloquent reference A Study in Pedagogy. 53 of the whole question to the church and to the home. The day school, even without a word of direct religious instruction, becomes a testing place of the work done at home and in the church. We need ot be afraid to excuse the day- school teacher from the use of the catechism or Bible, if we do our work well elsewhere. Re- ligious power will tell in railway car, shop, and market without a formal religious service. If the teacher lack religious faith, the formal teach- ing of Christianity will avail little. If he be filled with it, its power will be felt in a score of ways. Of course, where practicable, let us have relig- ious services in the day school. But where it is deemed best to omit them, do not let us lose heart. And, above all, we must not allow the Romanists through weak sophistries and bold misrepresentations to divide the public school funds, and thus destroy our system of education and our republican institutions. In connection with the church, and under certain conditions organically a part of it, is the home. Erasmus pleaded for more private schools. That is what the home should be. 54 ^ Study in Pedagogy. Home is a school full of object lessons, setting forth in simple, comprehensible ways the wider world and the larger life. It should train chil- dren to self-respect, the habit of self-support, dig- nified views of life, and steadiness of purpose Home should constitute itself a right-hand helper of the public school. It should insist upon reg- ularity and punctuality of attendance, carefulness of preparation at home, and frequent reviews of lessons taught. Mother and father should follow the chil- dren into the field of literature and science where as students they wander, looking into their text- books, giving additional aid by conversation, questioning and readings. Mother especially should try to become acquainted with the general principles and method of teaching. She should know and observe a few of the simplest laws of teaching. For example : First. The law of desire^ which is so effective in binding a child to his books and his teachers. Curiosity may be excited. A sense of need may be awakened. Ambitionalsoministers to it. As Professor Cook of Harvard College says, " Every American boy cannot be President of the United A Study in Pedagogy. 55 States, but if, as our English cousins assert, he believes that he can, the very belief makes him an abler man." Parents can do so much toward developing this craving of the conditions which create knowledge. Second. The law of resolve. The training of a very little child to the frequent exercise of will-power has more to do than most people sup- pose with success in study later on in the years of a boy's school life. Third. The law of defintte?iess and accuracy. And here home may do much nobler work by promoting every day observation of facts and by testing the child's knowledge to make sure that he really knows what he thinks that he knows. Professor Cook, whom I may quote once more, says that " success in the observation of phenom- ena implies three qualities at least, viz. : quick- ness and sharpness of perception, accuracy in details, and truthfulness." Home has opportu- nity to accomplish more in these lines than the school itself. Fourth. The law of moral conviction. It is a great thing to feel that truth is worth having for its own sake ; that knowledge gained but not 56 A Study in Pedagogy. prized as truth is of little benefit ; that we should study for moral as much as for intellectual ends. It is here that mother's influence can most effect- ually be exerted, and many a man who has come to prize truth for truth's sake, owes this grace, which cannot be too highly estimated, to his own mother's words and life. Fifth. The law of philanthrophic ititent. We should know that we may help. Education may develop a species of pride and of self-righteous- ness. It may promote a spirit of caste and of exclusiveness. I have been pained to find among scholars of a certain class, an unwillingness to allow to the mass of the people larger education- al privileges. "It is not well to educate them above their business." " They cannot appreciate these things." "They will be less willing to serve, and less easy to be controlled." These are the reasons assigned by a few social and intellec- tual aristocrats of the day, for limiting the oppor- tunities of "the people," or for refusing to lend liberal aid in multiplying such opportunities. All such views are as unchristian as they are unrepublican. Every man has a right to be all that he has power to be, and every other man A Study in Pedagogy. 57 is in duty bound to help, or at least not to hinder him in his effort. Our children should be edu- cated to sympathize with all men and to help all men. An education that lacks this spirit is one- sided and deficient. Into every cultivated home may be brought occasionally or regularly children of the public school who lack home help in their day school studies and who could be thus prepared for their recitation. Every teacher appreciates the advan- tage which those pupils whose parents are inter- ested in their school life, and who give them testing and training to supplement the profes- sional teacher's work. What if the children of poor and illiterate homes could have this very same help? What if the church should do the same work though voluntary teachers, going from house to house, or in a room of the church set apart for such gracious and holy purpose ? Sixth. T\i&\2i^ oi expression. Children should be taught to tell what they know. They should be trained from the beginning in the art of re- producing — of telling, by tongue, by crayon, by pen, by action — the things they have observed and acquired ; and this not in the ordinary 58 A Study in Pedagogy. routine of examination. "Examination," says Mr. Huxley, " is an art, and a difficult one, which has to be learned like all other arts." Concern- ing its abuse in our system of education, he says that scholars "work to pass, and not to know ; and outraged science takes revenge. They do pass, and they don't know." Whatever the formal teacher may do in the school-room, parents at home may promote natural expression on the part of their children, by conversation, by letter writing, by drawing and painting, by recreative devices of various kinds. They may order the free conversation of the table and the fireside with educational intent. Collections of speci- mens in natural science, classifications of pictures, compositions on the common articles of daily use, — where they come from, how they are brought to us, or how they are made for us, what they cost, and who are the people whose services combine to place them within our reach — these and like methods would enable a family to accumulate useful knowledge, to take delight in observation and reading. A distinguished teacher of chemistry once said, " To arouse a love of study in any subject (I care not how sub- A Study in Pedagogy. 59 ordinate its importance, or how limited its scope) is to take the first step toward making a man a scholar." The professional teacher need not be alarmed at this plea for the development of the teaching work of the home. Parents will never do that work so well as to be able to excuse the school- master. They may require better work at his hands, and be better able to judge of it and of him. The success of the physician depends on the co-operation of nurse, housekeeper, cook and children. The more they know and the more they can do, the more successfully will he be able to treat his patients. So will intelligent homes help intelligent teachers, and exalting the pro- fession render its services indispensable to the well-being of society. This brings me to another special agency — the school. Of it I may not speak at any great length. It must supplement the best work of the best parents, and be a substitute where pa- rental effort is lacking or defective. Its tasks must not be so easy as to require neither resolve nor effort, nor so difficult as to 6o A Study in Pedagogy. paralyze with discouragement ; nor so general as to render concentration impracticable. It should teach the rudiments of knowledge so well and make them so familiar that they need never be formally reviewed in the later years. It should cause children to distinguish be- tween the mechanical processes of reading, wri- ting, ciphering, and those more important pro- cesses by which they acquire power to think, to reason, to accumulate, and to use information. It should ensure during the early years a broad view of the universe of truth, and cultivate in children a taste for knowledge which shall grow to be a hungering and a thirsting after it. It should establish habits of daily observation, the power of intellectual concentration, and tlie wisest use of language in the expression of one's ideas, desires and determinations. A great work is that of the school, and thrice blessed is the pupil whose teachers duly appreciate the power of their office. Of another special agency I must speak briefly. The press is one of the mightiest forces for good and for evil in this world. It contributes to every cause — good or evil. It furnishes arms for A Study in Pedagogy. 61 friend and foe alike. The church, the home, and the school must learn to appreciate and to employ the press. Carlyle says, "All that a university or final highest school can do for us, is still but what the first school began doing — teach us to read." We are educated that we may be able to read ; that we may know what not to read ; what to read in haste and in frag- ments, and what to wade through with slow, deep, cautious, critical thought ; what to mark ,for reading, and what to reproduce as seed in soil for one's own harvesting. Parents cannot keep their children from the knowledge of the evil that is in the world, but they can repudiate a daily paper that is filled with prurient reports of crime. They can and they should make such bold appeal and protest against filth and corruption, that editors will come to know that there is an element in society, the moral sentiment and courage of which they cannot afford to ignore. Bring books into the homes, the churches, and the schools — good books, wise books, immortal books, remembering their value as the " life- blood " of great spirits, and considering well the 62 A Study in Pedagogy. words of Ruskin : " We may by good fortune obtain a glimpse of a great poet and hear the sound of his voice ; or put a question to a man of science, and be answered good-humoredly. We may intrude ten minutes' talk on a cabinet minister, or snatch, once or twice in our lives, the privilege of throwing a bouquet on the path of a princess, or arresting the kind glance of a queen. And meantime there is a society con- tinually open to us, of people who will talk to us as long as we like ; talk to us in the best words they can choose ; and this society, because it is so numerous and so gentle, and can be kept waiting round us all day long, not to grant audience, but to gain it, kings and statesmen lingering patiently in these plainly furnished and narrow ante-rooms, our book-case shelves, we make no account of that company, perhaps never listen to a word they would say all day long." The man who is ill sends for a physician, and then under his physician's direction, takes certain medicine and adopts a prescribed diet. This is not all. He has his window opened from time to time to let in the light and the fresh air. If possible he takes a journey for change of air and A Study in Pedagogy. 63 of scenery. He regulates the permanent condi- tions and depends as much upon them as upon food and pliysic. He is wise thus to control the special, or direct, agencies and the equally important but incidental conditions. This two- fold work is equally necessary in the science and art of pedagogy. I have thus far in these pages tried to define the nature, end and process of education ; to indicate the educating conditions of our modern civilization ; to define the four leading educating agencies, — the church, the home, the school and the press ; and now I hope to show how both the " conditions " and " agencies " may be selected, applied and regulated. It was difficult to intro- duce these teaching factors without anticipating to some degree the more specific and practical counsels which properly belong to this branch of the treatment ; and I need not apologize for the didactic form which the final pages of necessity assume. If one live for " conduct," which according to Matthew Arnold, and according to Solomon also for that matter, "is the end of life," and for *' character," which is the only root that can vield 64 A Study tn Pedagogy conduct worth producing, then everything of an external sort in life should be subordinated to this attainment and deportment. Wealth achieved by crime, or at the expense of " high thinking " and true living, is so much a loss and so much a curse to him who wins it, and to his children as well. Better, far better to be poor in property and rich in mental gain and spiritual character ; for this is the only enduring posses- sion. Assuming that these high educational aims have been adopted by my readers, I will turn Mentor and try to tell how parents may become teachers ; and how the church and the home may be great schools of training, preparing the way for the other schools and supplementing their more formal and elaborate methods. It is a good thing to choose a home with as much care as one chooses a school. Indeed the former is the more important choice. It is a great matter of surprise that so many people pre- fer the city to the country, or the great metropo- lis to a rural town. There are thousands of families crowded into the most limited and unwholesome quarters in great cities, who could live less expensively and far more comfortably A Study in Pedagogy. 65 in a suburban neighborhood, where their chil- dren could have plenty of fresh air to breathe, and ample ground for frolic and for useful exer- cise. Even the residents on the great avenues are a wonder to me for the same reason. Whether in the city or the country, one should select a home for his children with an eye to their permanent good, rather than to present pleasure or future financial gain. Once in a while I meet a man whose residence is deter- mined by this educational idea. " It will be better for my children to live here," he says. He is determined to control the atmosphere. "Alas, alas," moans one poor soul, a mother, " I cannot go where I would, and here in thi:s squalid and confined neighborhood I must bring up my children. What good will your law of atmosphere do me and mine ?" Good woman, I have seen a lily grow in the mire. You may not go to the best and freshest, but much of the best and freshest you may bring to you and yours. The broom is a magic wand. It makes little folks fairies to wield it. Soap is so cheap, and water docs its work as well in an alley as on an avenue. You can have clean floors, 66 A Shidy in Pedagoj^y. a clean door-step, whitewashed walls, vines that creep and flowers that bloom. Inexpensive appliances, a little tact and a good deal of indus- try, in which your children may be the principal actors, will make your badly located quarters a place of beauty and full of the influence that teaches without voice or tongue. Occasionally an evening or a holiday ramble into the nearest park or into the country will give air and exer- cise and chance for saying some things that will never be forgotten by those you love best. Another thing you can do. The church and the school are open to you and to your children. Sermons and lessons may be had for the going to the place in which they are given. You can send, or, better still, take Tom and Kate, and all the rest to the sanctuary and let them hear the preaching and join in the singing and bow rever- ently during the prayers. You can put them into Sunday-school and into day school, and by a little wisdom (which plenty of people nowadays are glad to supply you with) you can buy cheap books that are good books. Thus you may get all the great educational agencies at work on and A Study in Pedagogy. 67 in behalf of your children. And your home life may add power to all of them. What is true of this poor woman and good for her children will be equally true and good in the case of the well-to-do and the " middle " class people. We may all unite in building up great enterprises religious, and educational, and at the same time make our homes helpers of these enterprises. When twenty families on a street keep clean sidewalks and put the street in order in front of their own houses, a work that amounts to a pub- lic benefaction has been well begun. The com- munity that rightly estimates the teaching power of "conditions" will have its "village improve- ment society" for the planting, training and trimming of trees, the setting in order of streets, the sweeping of sidewalks, the cultivating of public parks, the erection of monuments, and the following of true art in the erection of public buildings. How much one good well-kept hotel in a town will do toward improving the rest ! A display of taste in the show window of a shop will stir up to similar enterprise all the other 68 A Study in Pedagogy. shop-keepers in the same line of business or in the same neighborhood. Shop windows are text-boolcs in art. A joint protest by the leading ladies of a town would cause the removal of corrupting pictures from the windows, and a similar effort would promptly induce the town authorities to prohibit the posting of show bills of an objectionable character. Combination, persistency, kindness, could in numberless instances develop an anti-saloon and possibly a prohibition spirit even among our foreign fellow-citizens, who have never seriously considered the question of the rum traffic from the American Christian point of view. In secur- ing such an end what an important educating "condition " would be promoted ! Before every other institution, and determin- ing its power for good, is the home. We start out with that when we talk about church and school. We come back to that again almost immediately. The strong cold wind cometh out of the north ; soft blow the breezes from the south ; but the all pervading atmospheres that bless or curse the community come from the homes of the community. A Study in Pedagogy. 69 Would you help the church ? Begin with the home. Let authority send every member of the family to the sanctuary. Always speak of the church, its services, its pastor, its Sunday-school, with reverence and charity. Supplement sermons and lessons with home instruction. The best direct work of the church demands the perpetual influence of the home. Would you help the day school ? Begin with the home. In what way I have shown on the previous pages. Would you develop a well-balanced character and make your children truly refined and culti- vated men and women ? Begin with the home. Table manners, three times a day, on all the days, whether you have company or not, have educating power. Gladstone attributes his present vigor (he is over eighty) to the fact that he has practised a homely little hint which he heard in his boyhood, to the effect, that he should chew each mouthful of meat at least twenty-five times before he swallowed it. What a blessing if this rule were suddenly and permanently to go into operation in American homes. Politeness at the table, the right use of fork JO A Study hi Pedagogy. and napkin, the avoidance of all uncomfortable themes in conversation, the habit of cheerful talk and, at times, of hearty laughter, would promote digestion and help on the day's work and study. Criticism, fault-finding, worrying at meal time, have caused many a poor recitation in school and many a blunder in business. So much power lies in "conditions." Pleasant evenings at home, spent in recreative rest, are an education for society. There one is taught to talk and to listen, to play and to sing, to make others happy and to be made happy by others, which last is a great gift and a rare one. And what is all the education of the schools worth if one who has it, is not able with it to bless society and thus to brighten the lives of people ? In controlling the social educating force in the family, great discrimination and much independ ence are necessary. Bad people, although accom- plished and attractive, are dangerous. Frivolous people are almost as harmful. They weaken the self-respect of those who entertain them and set a pernicious example before children. Better let the parlor be cold and dark than occupied by A Study in Pedagogy. Ji other than people of heart and character. After this condition is met, the more brains and the more taste the better. It is important in the work of education, wheresoever and by whomsoever carried on, to give freedom to the pupil. He must be let atone a great deal. Too much reining in is bad for him. Bring the law to bear on him at stated times and then let it bear with full pressure. But give him a colt's freedom. If he gets soiled hands and muddy boots and trousers "not fit to be seen," let him come home to a hearty " Glad to see you my boy." A boy who does not soil fingers, boots and trousers now and then, is not " of much account " as we Americans say. When you find him in the midst of his muddy exploits cheer him on with a sympathetic " Isn't that fun ?" But when the time comes for the end of his play, see that it ends promptly and that the washing up is thoroughly done, so that he may learn the relations between restraint and freedom, and cheerfully submit to the one because he finds such unqualified delight in the other. We should somehow secure the occasional coming together of all those whose special 72 A Study in Pedagogy. responsibility is to give direct instructions and control social conditions. I have in mind a semi- annual meeting in a small town or city of all the school teachers, pastors, editors, and city mayor and council to discuss in a frank way some of the educational topics. Political and denomina- tional complications would arise, local prejudice would sometimes be excited, but I believe that on the whole great good would be the result. This then is the problem of pedagogy : How make life in all its parts, through all its agencies, and under all of its conditions a unity tending toward the education of the whole people ? The school has power but its power is slight unless it co-operates with other educating forces. And these other forces are all about us. A young barrister once said to the great Mason, " I keep my room to read law." Mason answered : " Read law ! It is in the court room you must read law." Bulwer Lytton somewhere says practically the same thing : " A man on the whole is a better preceptor than a book." Let us have books and teachers and schools, but let us have churches and homes, a pure jour- A Study in Pedagogy. jt, nalism, libraries, pictures, laws, social customs, popular sentiment, — all of which will combine to commend to our people "the True, the Beauti- ful, and the Good." "Sunshine forDarkHonrs," By CHIRIES F. DEEMS, D.D., ILD., Atiihor of *' Weightt and Wings,'" "Home Altar," etc., "md Editor of " Christian Thought.'" A book for invalids. The matter of this book is drawn from a wide range of reading, observation and experience, and is a genu- ine aid to contentment, comfort and relief. The tone of the book is indicative of strength gained by submission, an entire and hearty acquiescence in the will of God. It will brighten dark hours. If you have sick friends brighten their rooms and hearts by sending a copy of this good and helpful book. It is printed in large type and clear page, and is particularly adapted to the in- valid. Price, 25 Cents, By Mail, 30 Cents. 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