Iowa County democrat. [volume] (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1877-1938, 1883-03-16
The Teachers Conscience.
By Charles W. Elliot, President of Harvard C

by Charles w. Elliot, President of Harvard Col
lege.
In most respects the teachers
conscience should closely resemble
the conscience of other intelligent
and well-trained members of the
community. Thus, it hardly needs
to be said that teachers, like other
people, ought to be just, temperate,
neat, patient, gentle and punctual.
These are duties of universal obi
cations, which are no more and no
less binding upon teachers as in
dividuals than upon other men; but
in view of the publicity and scope
of the teachers function, the COM
muity has undoubtedly a greater in
terest in the practice of these ordin-
airy virtues on the part Gifts teachers
than on the part of most of its
members. The character and con.
duct of most people influence out
side of their own families, only
small number of adult associates;
but the teachers serves as an ex-
ample and guide for large numbers
of observent, susceptible, and imita-
tive youth. The conscience of the
teacher sets standard of conscience
for his pupils; his daily conduct
supplies their most impressive
lesson, and it is his highest function
to develope and train their sense of
duty. The teachers who, as the
result of all his intercourse with his
pupils, has strengthened in their
hearts the authority of the Il
ought" and Il ought not" has
rendered them the best service
which one human being can render
to another.
An important habit which it is
the duty of the teacher to incul-
cate is the habit of exactness of truth
fulness of thought and speech. A
great step has been made in this di-
rection when a child has been
taught that it is hard thing to get
at fact, to prove a proposition, or
to establish a truth. Very few
adults have any idea how hard this
process is in history, language, phil
osophy, aesthetics, natural science,
or indeed any department of
knowledge. 1t is natural tendency
in children and all uninstructed per-
sons to accept manifested facts and
improved conclusions which happen
to fall in with their preconceiyed
notions or prejudices. This ten
dency it is the duty of the teacher
to combat at every turn, and with
it the similar tendency to generslize
hastily from a few instances. All
practice in exact observation and
exact descriptions cultivates truth
fulness, and this practice it should
be the care of the con-
scieutious teacher to provide.
1t is all-important that the teachers
set an example of truthfulness. IF
he pretended to knowledge which
he dose not possess, if he hesitate to
avow on occasion his ignorance or
his need of further study, if be be
loose and slipshod in his own state
ments and descriptions, he must not
expect to succeed in teaching the
children who are exposed to his in
huence to be truthful. Perfect can
dor is an indispensable quality in a
teacher Children are very quick to
detect any lack of this virtue in
their instructors and governors; in
deed, like all inexperienced persons,
they are prone to attribute deceitful
conduct to honest people.
Again it is the duty of the teacher
to cultivate in his pupils from q
very early age the sense that they
cannot live to themselves alone; that
they belong not only to a family,
but to town. a state, and nation;
and that they share in all the worth
and wealth, and all the barbarism
and misery of their race. Biogra-
PIXIES, family histories, local monu-
ments, grave-yards, town annals,
public ceremonies and observances,
and the social and political orginiza-
| ton with which children come In
contact, must be made the vehicles
of these ideas of common interest