The Manitowoc pilot. [volume] (Manitowoc, Wis.) 1859-1932, 1913-02-27
EDUCATIONAL.
(BY c. W, MEIsNEsT.)

Teachers are needed, so broadly train
ed, so professionally in earnest, SO as
sured of public support, that they viii
he true leaders, getting youth really
ready to meet the new demands of to
morrow.
A person who adopts the work Of
teaching must have something of the
martyr spirit; for it has an element O
seIf-sacrifce which the other high
vocations do not demand. But this sac
rlfice meets with immediate and tangi
bic reward in the uplifted lives of the
children for whom the sacrifice is made
and the compensation of q high pur
pose makes drudgery divine"
Nothing less than expert knowledge
tempered by spirit of reverent minis
try to those placed under their tuition
will ever make professional teachers.
For teaching is properly profession,
when one has learned the need of thor.
ough scholarly equipment and single
minded devotion to the daily and hour
ly duties in the schoolroom under the
guidance of those larger ideals which
the world has set up for protection of
its cherished values.
Ia the order of possible efficiency and
results, the relation of the teacher and
pupil is excelled by only one other,
namely, the relation of parent and
child. Indeed, when the home life is
so disturbed, as much of the home life
has come to be, the teacher has GER
tain advantages over the average par
ent, in respect Of his personal rela-
tions to the development of the youth
ful life. The teacher is not only the
pupils ideal, hut he acts as powerful
incentive in drawing the pupil to that
ieal. In fact, the teacher is the pu-
p is other self, the better self, the
ideal self, and should assist that self as
he would help himself
1t is no slight privilege to be able to
take child by the hand and to lead
him, if only a little way, and to get
hlm Interested, if only slightly, in
path that tends where all perceptions
are rendered more keen, all apprehen-
sion more thorough, all activities more
inventive, and all sympathies more
universal.
To be great teacher one must be n
great personality, with ardent and in
divdual tastes. An attractive person
ality is most potent factor in the
makeup of a teacher; his attitude to-
ward work, life itself, his general at
mosphere OF health, saneness and
wholesomeness can never be replaced
by any academic qualifications. how
ever great or satisfactory. The essen
tIaI characteristics to be desired in the
teacher are aptness, skill, tact, insight,
enthusiasm, sociablty, kind PERSONAL
ity, ethical refinement and knowledge,
academic and professional. There
should always be vital communication
between the teacher and the taught.
IL was saying of Confucius that "the
relations of reverence and love between
the pupil and the teacher stand next
to that of the child to the parent"
The true teacher loves the profession,
loves child life, and aspires to the abil-
ity and power to inspire the pupils to
higher life by training them to study,
to think, to learn, to grow. We may
apply to a really good teacher what
Wordsworth says of the poet; in his
work he must neither
Lack that first great gift, the vital
soul,
Nor general truths, which are them
selves sort
Of elements and agents, under-powers,
helpers Of the living mind"
But alas! the "vital soul'' is too Oft
en- crushed 10y excessive routine labor,
and then when general truths" both
moral one, his own education stops
and he becomes incapable of fulfilling
the highest and most important part
OF his ty in educating others. II
therefore behooves the teacher to re-
sist he gravitation into this state, no
less Tor his pupils sake than for his
own. The ways and means of doing
this it is difficult to point out, bat it
may be stated as safe postuate, that
the teacher should not be overworked.
The teacher must remember that his
business Is not so much to teach the
pupil all that is movable, as to raise
in him love and esteem for know
ledge, and to put him in the right way
of knowing and improving himself,
when he has mind to do 1t. An in
terest in study is the first thing
which teacher should endeavor to ex-
cite and keep alive. Thers are scarce
ly any circumstances in which a want
of application in children does not pro-
ceed from a want of interest, and there
are perhaps more in which the want of
interest does not originate In the
mode OF teaching adopted.
There Is u remarkable reciprocal re-
lation between the interest which the
teacher takes and chat which he com
municates to his pupil. II he is not
with his whole mind on the subject, II
he does not care whether he Is under
stood or not, whether his manner is
liked or not, he will ALLEVIATE the affec-
tions Of his pupils and render them in
different to what he says. Kind words,
gentle feelings, the very expressinn of