The herald., 1895-03-10
HUTCHINSON STILL KICKS
He Now Has Something to Say
M of the Art of Teaching
PLATITUDES AND PEDAGOGY
A Somewhat IconocIastic View Of SCHOOL,
mems Duties
'LATITUDES AND PEDAGOGY
The Matter Was Looked Upon as Heterodo,
by School Magazine Editor
The Correspondence

To the Editor of The Herald In orde
to show something of the depth, bread til
height and other possible dimensions o
some things appertaining to educatlol
and educational journals hereabouts,
submit the enclosed article and CORE
spondence relating thereto.
Some time ago, at the urgent request o
the editor of the Normal School Exponent
published by the Normal School in thi
city, l sent that journal an article OIL
teaching. When first approached on tn
subject. l informed the editor that m,
views on teaching were not popular among
Normal School people. He persisted
however, and stated that something pun
gent would be very acceptable. sent hin
the following article. That and the cor
respondence are self-explanatory.
The paper read before the teachers o
Los Angeles city in April, 1884, is as fol
lows: "In these modern, and what ar,
sometimes called degenerate days we ar
prone to have many talks on teaching
Every teacher has his method, and ever,
person who never did teach has half {
dozen methods infallble in every detail
Yet, as if with presentiment that nobod.
else could be induced to adopt his method
son neglects to take out a patent thereon
There are hundreds of journals called
mediums of aids, methods and devices
There are even few persons with aids
methods and devices, shams and decisions
makeshifts and lodges. l, who never die
believe much in aids and devices, have
lost the little faith | had in them ano
have come to believe in very different
thing. l have even begun to object to
40 olfnppfhpr
ing, and therefore inappropriate to our
calling and to ourselves.
- The world seems to look to teachers as
to masters of mysteries, as to alchemists
who are to transmute few abstract facts
and very little brain matter into boys
and girls of genius, of producing capacity
that shall astonish the generations that
are yet to come.
II object to the word teacher for sew
eral reasons, the chief of which is the
growing belief that one person can mould
the mind of another by making a variety
OF sounds with the organs OF speech, OF
with the aid of black marks on paper.
object to Webster's definition of the word
teach. According to him, to teach is to
impart knowledge of, to give intelligence
concerning, to inculcate as true, to tell
and lastly, and apparently least of all, to
show.
Webster calls knowledge clear and GER
tain apprehension of, cognition, cogniz-
ance. To inculcate is to teach by fire.
quent admonition. A teacher is one who
imparts knowledge TO another; that is,
one who imparts a clear and certain APP
prehension to another. So says Noah
Webster.
Il object to all this as false, misleading,
and puerile. The idea that knowledge
can be impaired to anyone by anyone is
absurd. Ii knowledge could be impaired
a teacher would be but a negative with
which to print so many pictures, in SC
many days at so much per day, and child
rem would be no better than copying
paper, or prepared films.
"a fairy tale may be told, but fairy
tale is not knowledge. Ideas may be
called up before the mind; the magma
ton may be excited, but the result of such
excitement is not knowledge. | b lieve il
to be true that, if there be any such thing
as knowledge, which l really doubt as
doubt the existence of evil, such knowl-
edge can come from com arison of ideas
already in the mind and in no other way.
With the possible exception of mathe-
NAUTICAL work. prefer to call the result OF
all instruction by the name of opinion.
The world pretends to have a contempt
for those who borrow opinions. Ii a
teacher be one who imparts knowledge to
another, he is without doubt conveyor
of opinions also, men are agreed that
opinions result from comparison
of ideas and that ideas result
from sense impressions. Opinions vary
as sense impressions vary, and sense i'm
pressions vary as the senses and causes OF
sensation shift and change and vacillate
For all this l am at total loss for any
means of knowing anything. l am also
at a total loss for any reason why finite
creatures should know anything, save that
they are and, perhaps, that they are in
finite. There may or may not be abso-
lutte truth. Perhaps things are for us as
they seem to us. 1t seems absolutely true
that we are; whether we always were we
know not. 1t seems to me that Christ
said: Before Adam was to me, | am,
and | am the beginning and the end, 20
me-
Il regard each man and each woman
as universe of planetary thoughts, peo-
pied with infinite ideas which NAV come
in sight of others, but which may never
clash with them. AS an evidence OF this
individuality and utterly lonely and hope
less isolation | offer the following: No
this child will do so and so, or give me
a child and will train him so, or that
child knows this and can do this No
man can say, if trained so, this child will
be a poet, the other will be an orator. or
if taught SO, this child will believe SO.
Think Of all the myriads who have
said: 1 will make my son to be the thing
| have so longed to be. | will give him
the fruit of all my toll and experience
he shall start from the middle round OF
the ladder where | now am after all these
years of patience, and toll and misery.
And the son started from the bottom OF
the ladder and went his own way always.
1t is well that it is so. Parents are not
teachers we are not teachers we are but
imperfect demonstrators of things as they
appear to us, or OF what seem to US to be
things entities, realities.
The children may look where we point
and see nothing. Perhaps nothing is
there. We may but dream, and should not
be angry If the spirits we have called up
are invisible to other eyes. 1t may be that
the things one seems to see are realities,
and that the children have no motive for
looking closely where we point.
1T seems to me that we spend too much
time trying to point out abstract facts to
concrete children. We live in land
where motives are little noticed in con-
nection with education where childrrn
have the greatest liberty consistent with
their parents ability to provide for
them, and where many children
are absolute monarchs of the
homes they condescend to survey at meal
time, or when the rain drives them out of
the street. Every few years we humbly
entreat our boys and girls to stamp i'm
proyement on the wings Of time, or
kindly inform them that the early bird
catches the worm.
We never take the trouble to inform
them that the stamping is to make time
= more attractive bird with decorated
wings, Or that the early worm is more
palatable than the belated crawler. We
hope they will do something in the world.