Middletown transcript., 1897-03-27
The Trials
of Teachers.

4 VA ASo&11SA 0s
Is there any other class on which the
community makes demands so severe as
in case Of teachers, public or privatep
No physician is expected to cure all his
patients. There comes a time when
every one Of them, no matter how care
fully tended, passes beyond his reach.
No lawyer saves all his clients; no
clergyman or revivalist exhibits an un-
broken phalanx of saints. Yet the
teacher. who constantly has to COM
pete with the influence of the streets,
often with that Of the home, Is expee-
ted in his Eve or six hours day to ac-
complishmore than all the sources of evil
can undo, aid to bring out all hispupils
blameless and comrlete-soul, body,
and grammar. Madame Roland once
defined marriage an institution where
one person was expected toprovids hap
piness for two; but school is on insti-
tuition where one person is expected to
provide-joy, peace, and the multipli-
cation table for at least forty. Surely
this is cruel requirement. No max
ium is more formidable than that
German proyerb, brought home many
years ago by Horace Mann, ''As is the
teacher, SO is the school," 1t would
be quite as true to say, ''As are the
parents, SO is tie school," or. .'As are
the grandparents, 30 lis the school,"
since these relatives created the BRAIN
cells and the moral fibre of each set of
pupils, and the teacher takes these in
gradients and makes the best he can of
them.
Take the simple test Of language. A
speaker of the United States House of
Representatives, not now living. once
said to me in his own sacred desk, 81
ought to have went to that lecture"
He had been reared in the public schools
and had all his life been editor, public
speaker, or ofiice-holder, yet with this
grammatical-or ungrammatical-re-
suit. have heard an eminent profess
sor of English say to his own pupils in
the recitation.room, many years since,
81 have spoke of. These sins against
good grammatical morals do not prove
that these distinguished persons had
not attended good schools or paid at
tention to the instruction; they simply
showed that other influences had
counterbalanced these. Probably these
Influences were in the home. AS a rule,
the child of well-taught mother, even
if never going to school, will speak
better English than the child of an un-
grammatical mother, going to school
steadily up to the age Of fifteen. Why,
then, lay all the blame for errors upon
the unfortunate teacher2
On the other hand, the teachers have
doubtless often sins of there own, worse
than the merely grammatical, for
which to answer. Much of the dead.
ness, the lifelessness, which we observe
in schools is doubtless due to the |
teachers. The little boy whose story |
is now familiar, the child who was
driven to despair in the effort to unite
Johns two red apples and Charles two |
red apples-and this because, while he |
knew perfectly well that two and two
made four, he yet could no grasp "the
process" Of applying that principle to
the apples finds companions every day
Professor Alpheus Crosby, of Dart
mouth College, an admirable school-in-
spector. used to say that be could be-
wilder almost any school by profound
ing this simple question. ''If you
should set out from the school
door, walk five miles north,
then turn round and walk three miles
south, bow far would you be from the
school doorW The very simplicity of
the question perplexed their mi nds;
there was nothing like it in their arith-
metics, and they were not used to
for themselves. Sometimes,
though rarely, the child got the better
Of the questioner 10 this sort of game,
rs when the little girl who was asked
by the teacher whether she would pre-
Ter to have two-thirds of a pie orthree-
quarters, replied, boldly, "Two-thirds. /"
Then ensued long and indignant
discourse by the examining officer, be-
'ore the school, holding up to shame
he ignorant child, who at length held ,
Up her hand and said, quietly" But, if j
Tou please, l don't like pieI'' The logic
vas all on her side. The teacher. in | {
lis haste to condemn, had omitted to =
'stablish the fact that the larger piece i
t pastry was the hing to be desired;
q her case it was the smaller piece. i
1t must always be remembered, if j
'ossible, that In dealing with children ,
dull or We are not dealing with =
tupid class, wanting in activity or in .
he love Of knowledge. The dullest II
oy is alive enough when b runaway o
orse is TO seen through the window. :
he slowest girl is only too simpetuous