BoletiÌn mercantil de Puerto Rico. (San Juan, P.R.) 18??-1918, 1902-10-04

treat them with utmost respect. Fog
said he, II do not know what future
Shakespeare or Milton may at pres
ent have under my charge"
Real success in teaching is proper
tionate to the extent to which the in
ssructor gets the pupils point of view,
unds rstands his individual needs and
participates in his hopes. The ne
Carnegie University will be great
boon to one class OF college instructors,
viz, to those engaged in research work.
But there is LARGE class of instructors
whom it will fail directly to help; for,
as President ihwing puts it, they are
teachers and "the first duty of the
teacher is to teach; his second duty is
to teach. Failure in teaching is funda-
mental" One Of the officers of Har-
ward College says: .'The more l see Of
personal work among students, the
greater I believe its power to be; the
only drawback is the shortness of life
and the necessity that all instructor
should have some time for study"
To instruct ",5ood' students is an al
together easy matter; but it is also ex-
cessively monotonous. Hegel, for ex-
ample, was spoken Of as the unilter-
esting good boy in his class. who to *
all the prizes, including that of bei'g
the good boy.
It is perfectly easy to understa I'd the
point of view oil class compose1 enti-
rely of good boys like Hege1. The ms
tructor takes them seriously because
they are serious although prematurely
so. Yet even such students complain
sometimes that their instructors will lot
come do WI to, them, either because the
instructor does not care to do so, or
does not wish to '4alk shop, or has
never felt the nsce5sity Of personal in
tercourse with the student How much
greater the difficulty, then, of taking
young men seriously who have never
taken themselves seriously Nothing
but deep intuition of human nature,
knowledge of the physiological and
psychological disturbance that is going
on in youth between the ages from ten
to twenty-five, can help college or pub
lie school teacher with the majority Of
students.
Public instructors have charge of
pupils when the most important physi-
illogical changes are in process. A
physiological revolution is taking place
and the majority o. every class Of young
men do not know themselves to be
serious-.ninded. They do not know
their own capacity, they have no in
ward guidance toward their vocation,
they are as yet unadjusted to society.
The kind of teacher that the American
school from the college down needs is
a person, male or female, that will be
sympathetic with such young life-who
will accept pupils thus constituted as
inevitable facts and do the best he can
with the situation George Eliot has
pointed out that the popularity in a
childs grief lies in the fact that the
child has no other griefs against which
the magnitude of its present sorrow can
be measured, Indeed, this is the serious
fact about all youthful experience
they have no background by which the
youth can get their perspective and
therefore their place and size. This
! should be accepted seriously by all but
the youth himself. Nothing can take
the place of this sympathetic attitude
on the part of the teacher. 1t is abso-
lutely essential, There is good deal
of fault finding with the American school
system, and many faults exist. The
future of the republic depends upon the
answer that is given to this question:;
Are American homes and American
schools and all persons having the care
of pupils considering them as the com
ing generation For the. future of any
country lies in its educators rather than
in their pupils.