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CHAPTER XII

THE HEART OF THE TEACHER

O THE teacher has been given the most delicate work that God ever intrusted to mortal handsshaping the eternal destiny of little children. In the teacher's hands God has placed the raw materials of his most wonderful creation, and it is her task to shape that material to a destiny worthy of its creator. The teacher has the child at the most plastic period of his life, and what he becomes in life will depend very largely on how she performs her task. Thus her work carries with it the greatest responsibilities, and no one should aspire to the office of teacher unless she is willing to assume these responsibilities seriously. No one is in a position to do more good than the teacher, and likewise no one is in a position to do more harm. Whether good or harm results from her work will depend upon whether her heart is in it.

Thus the heart of the teacher is the important thing. Her knowledge is important, her manners are important, her ability to impart what she knows is important; but most important of all is the heart she puts into her work. She may put into her work all other things, but if she does not put her heart into it, it is largely valueless. The teacher, above all others, should have just one aim in life and she should be willing to sacrifice all else to that aim. The growing life of the child should be everything to her, and she should be willing to sacrifice all, that the child may live.

This is a great age for reforms. The program of the schools never had such a shaking up as it is now receiving,

and it is more than likely that the next ten years will make the school almost an entirely different institution from what it is to-day. In the mechanics of school work we are fast "leaving our outgrown shell" and the "low vaulted past" and are building for ourselves "more stately mansions." We are making most rapid progress in school architecture, school organization, school sanitation, and in almost every phase of school work; but we have not progressed as much as we should in that most needed of all reforms-the reform of the teacher's heart. It is true that the school business has more heart in it than ever before; teachers are guided more by love and sympathy than ever before, and the day of the heartless teacher who ruled the children by fear is almost a thing of the past. But, while much has been done to make the work of the schools a matter of the heart and not of the head only, too many teachers even yet look upon their work as a cold business proposition and deal with their pupils about as the business man deals with stocks and bonds. However, the school is one place where business is not business, and the teacher who does not set the child's life, his feelings and sensibilities, above the geography or the arithmetic lesson will make a serious blunder in the education of that child.

Teachers frequently complain that their task is a hard one, and no one will question that they have some ground for such complaint. However, did they not know before they took up the work that it is no easy task? Did they not know that the life of a teacher is full of annoyances, vexations, and a thousand things that try her patience to the limit? Knowing this, they took up their work, and they have no right to remain in the schoolroom and hold in their hands, as they do, the destiny of their children unless they are willing to

bear bravely the responsibilities that go with that work. Then the hardships of the teacher's work are largely due to a divided devotion. Too frequently she has other ambitions than the growing life of the child. She too frequently thinks more of her own ambitions and desires than she does of the lives of her children. The teacher cannot serve God and Mammon at the same time, and her hardships are a result of her serving herself when she is claiming to serve the child. The only way to happiness for the teacher is for her to make up her mind that she is willing to lose her life that she may have the life that is more abundant. No one can be supremely happy in the schoolroom unless that one is willing to make herself "a living sacrifice" that better things may come to the child. The teacher's work is a joy when there is singleness of devotion; it is drudgery when devotion is divided.

THE SUCCESSFUL TEACHER

There are many elements in the life of a successful teacher which cannot be mentioned here. It is our purpose at this time to call your attention to the more fundamental of these elements and to discuss the importance of heart in the teacher's work.

1. Optimism. One of the most vital elements in the life of the successful teacher is the spirit of optimism. The person who is a victim of despondency and unable to shake off the disease commits a crime every day she remains in the schoolroom. She casts gloom over the lives of the children under her care and does them a permanent injury. They unconsciously assume her disposition and, if they are with her long enough, will absorb the germ of melancholia into their own lives. The unconscious tuition that goes out from the teacher is far more

important than the work she consciously does. The spirit that emanates from her will do more to shape the lives of her children than do the grammar, arithmetic, or geography lessons; hence one of the saddest things in the world is for a gloomy, despondent, sour-faced teacher to have in her charge a room full of little children and to be permitted to poison their lives. The growing child is like the growing flower in the garden in that it loves the sunshine, and it will pine away if it does not get it. You may put into your garden every other element necessary to the growth of the flower, but if the sunshine does not come down upon it, it will never attain its possibilities.

A room full of children where there is no sunshine is impervious to every educational effort of the teacher. The recitation without cheer is a dead recitation, and it is soon forgotten. The recitation without warmth can result only in harm to the children, and there cannot be 'warmth in the recitation unless the teacher has a sunshiny heart and lets enthusiasm for her work flow out from her life. All of us have seen children sit in the class lifeless while the teacher goes through the motion of hearing the recitation. We have also seen recitations where the fire flies, where there was enthusiasm in the heart of the teacher which caused her face to glow and beams to go out to the children and set their souls afire. When you put a grain of corn into the cold ground of winter, it rots, in most cases, and does not sprout; but if you put the same grain into the warm ground of the spring or summer, it will come up in a few days. It was the same grain and the same ground; the only difference was in the warmth. Two schoolrooms may be alike in every other respect, but the difference in warmth will make all the difference in the world. The difference

between the child and the grain of corn is that we can tell when the grain of corn has decayed, but we cannot tell so well when the work of the school ends as disastrously for the child.

Of course, we cannot understand the mysteries of growth. We cannot tell how all these things have come to be. We do not know what it is in the corn that makes it responsive to the warm ground and unresponsive to the cold; but we know that it is so. We do not know why the child will not respond to a cold atmosphere in the schoolroom, but we know that he will not, and one of the greatest crimes of the age is our attempt to make him do so. The cold heart of the teacher which causes the cold atmosphere to pervade the schoolroom has ruined more lives than all other imperfections of the schools combined. In our attempt to reform the work of the schools, it is strange that we have not struck a blow at this the greatest of all their weaknesses.

The importance of cheer, sunshine, and happiness in the schoolroom should be indelibly impressed on the mind of every teacher. She should do all in her power to keep unhappy thoughts from entering her room, and, for this reason, she should refrain from all kinds of criticism of her pupils that will lower their spirits even for a season. If they do wrong, let her remind them of it in love and sympathy. and never in such a manner as to cast gloom over their lives. She should remember that when she lowers the spirits of her children, she renders herself powerless to help them. At the beginning of each recitation she should bring about such a feeling among her pupils that they will be enthusiastic in their work and responsive to the lessons that she would teach them.

This does not mean that the teacher is to turn the pupils loose to follow their own whims. She is to hold