St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1878-09-20

pering with a process Misunderstood
thwart its progress and mar its results
Shame upon the ignorant presumption
which so often intrudes its meddling
marplotting mischief into this most in
tricate and most delicate of organisms
Looked at from this, the true point of
view, teaching is the most difficult, the
most responsible of all human un-
dertakings, involving the profoundest
knowledge, the rarest skill, the most
anxious conscientiousness. One thing
is certain: the more experience we get
in the work, the more difficult and try
ing does the work appear to us. The
boy half way through his preparatory
studies, the little miss not out of her
teens, are ready to step jauntily into
the position of teachers, without sus
picion that they lack any qualification
for the office. We who are veterans,
or growing to be such, tremble almost
when we think how large and how
subtle our knowledge of the human
mind ought to be to justify our under
taking to control its development, and
howdittle we know of our work And
here again let me say that although the
work of teaching is difficult and exact
ing along its whole extent its most diff
ficult and exacting part falls to the
primary teacher. To be good primary
teacher requires, in my judgment,
rarer combination of talents than to be
good teacher in the higher depart
ments, and especially it requires
clearer perception of the way the mind
works, and the different ways different
minds work. Very few persons within
my acquaintance know enough to be pri-
mary teachers, and have their knowledge
sufficiently at commandment nearly so
many as know enough to be professors
in college. 1t is said that the Jesuits
put their new teachers in charge of their
highest classes, then select from them
those who show the greatest capacity
for teaching and put them in charge of
lower classes, and so on down, giving
the children in charge of the most ca
pable and most experienced teachers.
In this usage we find recognized, at
least, this correct principle: that the
main thing to be regarded in teaching
is the person who is taught, and not the
subject in which he is taught; that al
though it may be a more difficult thing
to teach philosophy than to teach rudi
ments, it is more difficult to teach chill
dren well than to teach men. Let it
be understood that we do not educate
children in order that they may acquire
knowledge of certain scholastic sub
jects, but we require them to get
knowledge of those subjects in order
that they may be educated. In other
words, an educated person is not one
who has a good knowledge of arith-
metic, grammar, geography, higher
mathematics, the languages, history,
philosophy, but one who has a good
memory, good reasoning powers, a good
taste, a good command of language,
and a good fund of available knowledge
on which to exercise his powers. The
objective point of teaching is not
knowledge. or not knowledge merely,
but increased quantity and improved
quality of mind. The teacher, there
fore-the good teacher-understand
that his field of work is mind. The
sciences are but his tools which he uses
to work and shape mind. The teacher
is of necessity and perpetually student
of mind-a practical psychologist. He
has opportunities for making discoveries
which no one else has. The primary
school teachers of the world know
enough about the growth of mind, if
| tuCiI COuiu oC
and systematized, to add chapter to
mental science more valuable than any
thing this century has contributed. And
l am strongly of the opinion that what
teaching now needs more than anything
else is a few lessons from psychology
profound and true psychology, not
this gross materialistic stuff that now
usurps the name. The Germans have
Il IL, Ill
pedagogy-thep philosophy of teaching.
1t cannot be claimed for this new science
that it has passed beyond the expert
mental stage as yet. 1t has not estab-
lished beyond question any principles
of education. But the questions upon
which it is at work are such as these ::
what is the natural order of studies,
and what studies are adapted to the
successive ages of children and youth ?
Under what condition is the memOriter
or rOte system to be followed Should
the study of numbers or of forms pre-
cede7 Should a foreign language be
learned as the mother tongue is learned,
or in a different way7 The hopeful
thing in the outlook for this science is
that its students and writers are largely
practical teachers-not mere theorists.
The shallow and false notions on these
points, based on false psychology,
which have vitiated much of our teach
} ing for the last generation, were i'm
posed on us teachers by wiseacres from
: outside, educators, as they called them
selves, not teachers. These men gain
, ed great prominence in institutes and
: conventions twenty or thirty years ago,
and have left us legacy of un-wisdom
; in a false philosophy of education. One
Of its tenets was that pupil should
: be required thoroughly to understand
, everything that he learned. Plausible,
!; but, as universal principle, utterly
philosophical. Every pupil should
, be required thoroughly to understand
everything that he ought to understand
| but every primary teacher knows
that there are many things which are
: to be learned now in the age for learn
r ing, and understood by and by when
| the age for understanding comes. But
l have said enough to show that good
teacher must know how to deal with
mind must be an interested student OF
: his pupils minds; must know how to
: stimulate curiosity. how to gain and
, keep attention, how to rouse ambition
how to keep the mind occupied enough
to be interested, but not enough to be
} wearied; how to make variation OF
work restful /; how to cultivate taste
for good things in short, the teacher
in order to make creditable proficiency
! in the work he has undertaken, mus
) be an adept in that profoundest o.
l sciences in which many famous phil.
} osopher is but sciolist in comparison
: in the laws and workings of the human
mind.