The daily morning journal and courier., 1897-01-26
PROFESSOR SUMMERS ADDRESS
Sentiment--"TheT Teachers Unconscious
 Success"

Sentiment--"TheT Teachers Unconscious
 Success"
 Onr respected friend, in honor of whom we are met to-day, furnishes me the first illustration of the sentiment you have offered me. I remember him as he used the schools of Hartford forty-five or fifty years ago when l was boy in one of them. The school bows were familiar with his figure and I recall him distinctly as we used to see him. Our teachers honored him and taught us to honor him. In some way which we did not understand he em- bodied the care and providence which was giving us our schooling. We then attributed to him more patriarchal dls- nity perhaps, than he deserved. We know now that he first introduced some system of regularity, some econ omy of time and money, into the old happy-go-lu lucky system of the district schools. but my mind goes back with more affection and reverence still to the man who in my childhood seemed to be the responsible moving agent Of the whole school system. We thought that he would not work for us unless he loved us, and he seemed to have fath- erly care for all the school children in the state. He never spoke to me, and I presume never let his eyes rest on me, but I have to thank him for part Of the inspiration which has entered into my life and work. l am part or HIS unconscious success.
 rr1tf. Js-,, +o- nal hnya this kind of success every faithful worker in the cause of education wins without knowing it, and is it not the best success of all? We warn ourselves and we are warned by all our critics that education is something far differ ent from schooling. Unfortunately they do not necessarily go together. Unfor- tunately also our people are pinning their faith on schooling. The faith in book learning is one of the superstitions of the nineteenth century and 1t enters for large part into the bequest which the nineteenth century is about to hand over to the twentieth. On the walls of our school room our teacher had pasted up in large letters, Knowledge is Power" Yes, that is what knowledge IS, It IS pOWtI eLtlo uOlLlh6 Lh0h S' ~hs' a power, 1t is like wealth, talent or any power: that is, it is without any moral element whatever. The moral question always comes in when we ask, in re- spect to the man who has power, What will he do with it? It is so of wealth. The man who has it can realize pur- poses which are entirely impossible to the man who has it not. What pur- pose will the holder of wealth choose? If he chooses one set of purposes he may bring things to pass which the rest of us can only dream of and wish for. If he chooses another set of purposes, he will only be so much greater curse to himself and all around him than he would be if he was poor. The same is true of talent The same is true of any other power. It is true of knowledge. The man who has it is equipped for ac- ton both with tools and weapons. What will he do with it? He may sim- ply be a far more efficient and harmful rascal than he would be without it. If he so chooses he may be, by virtue of it, far more useful to himself, his children and his country than he would be with out it. This is why it is simply q crude and empty superstition to believe that knowledge of reading, writing, arithmetic and geography makes good husbands and fathers and citizens. It does not. There is no con- nection of cause and effect. In truth half-culture is one of the great curses of our times. Half-culture makes men volatile and opinionated. It makes them the easy victims of fads and fal- lacies and makes them stubborn in adhering to whims which they have taken up It makes them impervious to reason and argument because they hold to their pet ideas with a perti- Eacity which has a great deal of vanity in it. It makes them quick to talk and slow to think or study. We sometimes rejoice in the amount of reading that our people do in newspapers, magazines a. q light literature, and we are multi plying libraries and reading rooms in an easy confidence that it is all in the rigft direction. It is like other human devices, however; it is in the main good but it is not all good. There is one disturbing reflection which We must take earnestly to heart. If peoples de- sire for literary food is met by light literature, it is satisfied and put at rest by light literature, and then there is no