Goldsboro weekly argus. [volume] (Goldsboro, N.C.) 1885-1909, 1901-06-27
THE RESPONSIBILITY OF
THE HIGH CALLING AS
A LIFE o
The Average Child Is AS Clay In
The POtter's Hands, And The
Teacher Has Much to Do
With Forming His
Character.

AVN UAUV UAO t0O0UAOA Az ~
the children and summer schools
are open for the instruction and
training of teachers, it may not be
amiss to indulge a few ethical e
Elections as to the duties and respon-
sibilities of teaching, as a life work.
Few persons except those who
have made the matter a study real
ize how much Charles Dickens did
for childhood. Everybody knows
that Dickens wrote a "Child's His
cory of England;" and that it is ref
garded as of the best books of
the kind ever published, but that
was only a small part of the work
that this great man did for the little
folks. In almost every n OF his
novels something was developed
which corrected an abuse on the one
hand, or which tended to stimulate
child culture on the other.
In Nicholas Nickleby, David Cop
perfeld and others of his works,
Dickens showed up a class of school
masters who were ignorant and bru-
tai men, Grading on the avarice, in
difference or imbecility of parents
and the helplessness of children"
On the other hand, in Old. Curiosity
hop he pictures the ideal school
master, who taught the children to
love the true and beautiful and good
by teaching them first to love him
self-the representative Of those
things. Eve hear something" says
Dickens, "of an action for damages
against the unqualified medical
practitioner who has deformed a
broken limb in pretending to heal it,
but what about the hundreds of
thousands Of minds that have been
deformed forever by the incapable
pedagogues who have pretended to
form them?" The average child is
"as clay in the hands of the potter, y
and the teacher has much to do with
forming his character. Teaching is a
noble calling and none but noble
men and women should dare take it
up as a life work. It is a terrible re
sponsibility to shape character, and
in order, that the teacher discharge
his Office well he must himself have
character and the ability to impress
it upon his pupil.
In his description of DR.. Strong's
school, David ~Copperfeld is made
to say, that the Doctor "was the
kindest Of men, with a simple faith
that might have touched the stone
hearts of the very urns upon the
wall" There is the secret to success
full teaching. Faith and love will al
ways win a child, while suspicion
and GOODNESS will as surely repel. a
child is not an automaton to be
worked by a set mechanism of rou-
tine. In order to secure the best re-
suits it is necessary that each child
be made to feel that the teacher feels
q personal interest in him or her
we will not say "1t"-and that he or
she is of individual Importance, not a
mere atom in a great school.
There would be fewer sullen,
quarrelsome, dull-witted men and
women" quoting again from Dick
ems, "if there were fewer children
starved or fed improperly in heart
or brain. To improve society-to
make men and women better-it is
requisite to begin at the beginning
and to secure for them u wholesome
education during infancy and child
hood"
The boys and girls of to day will
be the men and women of the next
generation. What greater question
before the people than the training
of them for their coming RESPONSE
bilities? May Dickens work for child
hood inspire every teacher in the
land.