Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1918-04-17
The GoWnsman

OCCHooLMEN's WEEK" was in session
~ at the University during the tedious
ana protracted April storm Of few days
ago. There is no connection between the
storm and the schoolmen. such is popu-
Iarly supposed to exist between the Yearly
Meeting OF the Friends and the habitual In
clemency of the weather at that time tedious
and protracted weather only happened TO
come then. "Schoolmen's Week Is a well
come innovation of latter years in the tedium
of the teachers life Of this State and vicinity.
The conclave is species Of educational fair
TO which those possessed Of educational
wares-that is, Ideas on specific points In the
trade OF teacher--resort to barter and eN-
change the same for other ideas likely to
prove helpful in the business. This is per-
haps to present the matter too commercially.
The GownSman has only n hearty approval
ior every means by which current OF fresh
ideas on any subject may be set blowing any
where current or draft II the reader Will,
by means of which to ventilate the over
breathed air of the schoolroom, the labora-
tory even the courtroom or the church.
THERE was at one time prevalent a gem
l. eral notion that teachers are like poets
born, not made. Either Ga man or woman
could teach or he could not, and there was an
end of the matter. No, unfortunately there
was not the end Teaching is at great dis
advantage as compared with aeronautiCs In
he does not fly When you have once dropped
him he is not likely to fly again. The teacher
who cannot teach habitually goes on teach
mg ana in this paradox lies more than haSf
of our pedagogical troubles In the older
time persons learned how to teach-so far
as they did learn--as boys learn how TO swim
by swimming. Very few boys drown in the
process and you cannot learn to swim by
padding in the shallow water of practice
schools. much less by shivering on the bank
NRnlN Nt1H gaN NfsV, ,1NHn
fingers. However, the Gownsman anticipates.
We have lately made great discovery:
teachers are not like poets born, not made:
teachers are merely the product Of a highly
specialized training: teachers are made, not
born
Az OMINOUS development of our own
"A time is the upgrowth Of the parasitic
sciences" And a parasitic subject is one
which has no material peculiarly and prop
erly its own, a thing which lives some
thing else and, like "a confirmed bankrupt
can only keep up by borrowing or worse.
The elements Of which a substance is made,
the way in which one thing acts and reacts
upon another the nature and relations of
numbers; knowledge about these things we
call physics, chemistry and mathematics.
And history has to do with the political
affairs Of men language has to do With
the instrument by which men communicate
70 each other their thoughts Not to be lost
in the gown, much less to widen into Contro-
versy, Dean Swift once ContraSted the litera-
ture of the ancients with that of modern
times under the figure Of the spider and the
bee. The spider spins his dainty and perfect
fabrics out of his own vitals the bee buzzes
about rifling every likely flower of its sweets,
returning heavily laden with material both
honey and wax, none of Its own. Actual
science Is eager to learn by deeper study
more fully its own material; the parasitic
subjects, whatever they are, beg, borrow and
pillage from any gay source, flying whittier
they will, hiving and living on wealth which
they cannot produce themselves. However,
I'VE must confess that they are busy; but
even among them there be drones,
L critical, but he is possessed of convic-
tons. And one of them is that the Science"
of how to do it in the classroom is of the
parasitic order because there is no part of il
which Is in any wise important which is not
a derivative of the material of history biog-
raphy psychology, philosophy or some other
branch. of speculation. Moreover "how to do
it. can never he in any true sense a science A.;
1t is scarcely so much an art as a collection
of precepts and one cannot but ask the per-
tnent question: If a mastery of knowledge
as TO how to do it, in the classroom is really
SO lnportant-So much more imperative we
are even told at times, than "a mere knowl-
edge of the subject"-why are master peda-
gogues not more commonly actually master
teachers?