The Birmingham age-herald., 1924-12-16
The School Teacher
By DIR. FRANK CRANE
THE TROUBLE with the school, if you
 really want to know what is the mat

ter, IS the Iedcner.
 The very word teacher, denotes the whole list of antiquated, exploded, and abandoned ideas in pedagogy.
 In a word, it implies that it is the busi- ness of the adult in charge of the education of the child to tell him things. He is supposed to know more facts than the pupil, or at least to know better where to get the facts, and to guide the young mind in cramming itself full of knowledge.
 Hence, we set examinations for candidates for the teachers position to see if they "know" enough facts to qualify them. Now, in very truth, it makes not the slightest bit of difference how many facts teacher knows; the only question is, does he have the gift of inspiring youth?
 So also we grade" children according to the amount of history, arithmetic, and geogra- phy they have memorized from books.
 The entire out-of-date viewpoint is that there is a body of knowledge, which to know is to be educated This may do for Mahom- metans or Chinese, but hardly for America.
 The rational theory is to send children to school, not to study, but to be studied; not to lay them on Procrustean beds of "the sys- tenn" and to lop them off if they are too long and to stretch them out if too short. When the washlady said to the schoolma' am, 'I send Johnny to school for you to learn him." she unwittingly stated the truth of what ought to be.
 Charles Dickens, who was a sympathetic student of Froebel, in one of his works makes Esther say: q did doubt whether Richard would not have profited by some one studying him a little, instead of his studying Latin verse so much.''
 Instead of Teachers-of- children we need Students-of-children, patient, trained, gifted men and women who try to find out what is in child and to develop that
 m T, ! la AI,o oIs {. ''classes" and gives them dose of geometry much as we use the process of gavage with chickens. The child-student stimulates and influences the child to get his mental food for himself.
 There is no true child training that is not individual The class system is labor saving device for lazy teachers, a money saving scheme for stingy taxpayers But 1t does not worR. A child-trainer should have no more pupils than he can give his personal attention and constant companlonshlp.
 The child-trainer is born, not made as Tn the case of animal trainers One must be endowed by nature for it., as violinists or pub lie speakers are for their professions One must be called of God, as preachers are sup posed to be.
 Child-training should be tie most honorable and the highest paid of all professions. The very cream of the human race should be drawn to it. Think of an actor becoming millionaire by playing the fool while teachers are paid the wages of clerk work!
 We have not yet begun to appreciate the value of child-training to the state. We leave lit to underpaid agents. We manage it by the cheap methods of classes and "exam- nations The whole thing is artificial, un- scientific, and ineffective. Children develop in spite of it. not because of it.
 In the coming democracy there will be no teachers ;" then the "chld-trainers" will take the children in hand and by personal contact cause them to grow in morals, intelligence, and bodily strength
 The child-trainers-these will be regarded as the true Levtes, entitled to a tenth of all our wealth.