The machinery of school work has become so complex, there is so much red tape, so many reports and examinations, and so much talk about lessons, textbooks, grades, etc., that the child has almost passed out of sight in the average school. His individuality is lost sight of, and he becomes a victim upon whom we make our displays and administer our tortures. We use him for the good of the system, instead of the opposite, as it should be. The teachers go to the normal schools and colleges, fill their heads with the lore of past ages and latest fads in methods of instruction and supervision, and then go out to find the victims through whom they can show what they know and what they can do. These victims are often unaware of their fate, and, like a lamb dumb before his shearers, they open not their mouths. THE LECTURE METHOD One of the greatest evils in teaching and one that is doing most to crush the child is the so-called lecture method. This method is resorted to frequently because of an erroneous conception of the learning process. Teachers seem to feel that there is a certain amount of information they must force upon the child and that they can best accomplish this result by lecturing to him, when, as a matter of fact, they are, by such a method, taking the most direct course to quench his enthusiasm and to render him impervious to their every effort. If the child is to learn, he must be made the center of gravity in the school, and the teacher must have as her aim, not the filling of his head with the customary quantum of information, but the arousing of his dormant powers. The lecture method may do very well when the teacher wants to arouse the child's emotions and put inspiration into a certain lesson, but it is the most wasteful method imaginable when extended effort is required. Such a method will have but a small part in the work of that teacher who is closely in touch with the child and with the needs of his growing nature, and who has the patience to labor and wait for his development. The teacher should always remain in the background in the school and put the child in the lead. She should conduct her work with a view to arousing him and inducing him to use his faculties. She should let the child do most of the talking; when she talks, she should do so only to arouse him to effort and never merely to cram into his head some information. Sometimes by the lecture method the teacher will appear to be obtaining results and by it she can make a greater show for a time, but such seeming results are most disastrous to the child's future progress. The lecture method will have but small part in the work of that teacher who is inspired with a genuine love for her work and for the child and is willing to sacrifice her own good for his development. In training the little child the teacher must never grow impatient and try to force results. Such a course would prove as disastrous to the growing life of the child as it would to the tender plant. The teacher must be sure that she has done her part and then wait for results. She must lose sight of her own ambitions and be willing to sacrifice herself that the best things may come to the child. THE PUPIL AN ACTIVE INQUIRER Closely allied to what we have been saying is the next point, namely, that the child should be made "an active inquirer instead of a passive recipient." He should be made to feel that he is the center of gravity in the school and that he grows only by what he does for himself. The teacher very well knows that she can no more do the child's school work for him than she can do his eating, but, in spite of this, in the great majority of cases, she takes the rôle of chief importance in the school and makes the child become a mere passive recipient. Right at this point the teacher can learn an important lesson from the physician. The good physician is interested primarily, not in the medicine nor in his methods of administering it, but in the effect it will have on his patient, and we should regard him as a very poor physician who thinks more of the medicine and the way he gives it than he does of the patient's progress toward recovery. We do not think much of the physician who gives his dose and goes about his business, feeling that he has done his duty, regardless of the effect it has on the patient. Yet it is the common practice among teachers to do this very thing. They give their medicine hour after hour, day after day and sometimes pretty bad medicine it is, too-without ever stopping to see what effect it is having on the child. They forget that the real purpose of their work is to arouse the pupil to effort, and seem to think that their chief aim is to cram into his head the facts of grammar, geography, and arithmetic. The teacher should feel that the information she gives the pupil is but a sample, a taste, as it were, of the good things that are in store for him if he will but become an active inquirer. As the purpose of the physician's medicine is to arouse his patient's bodily organs to perform their natural functions, so the purpose of the information the teacher gives the child is to arouse him to perform his natural functions, physically, mentally, and morally. How blind we are not to recognize and act upon this important truth; yet we go on day after day trying to force upon the child the information, contained in textbooks, and the only activity he displays, in many cases, is his determination not to receive it. Often he absolutely refuses to respond to the efforts of the teacher, but she goes on just the same, content with the meager results, and never dreaming of the great possibilities in her work if she would only make the pupil an active inquirer. If the teacher accomplishes adequate results in the schoolroom, she must study the child's nature more than she has done in the past and adapt his work more to his individual needs. She must possess a broader vision of his work and resort to no stereotyped method of procedure. If one method will not arouse her pupil, she must try another, and another, her aim being to arouse him at any cost. When the teacher has found the bent of the child's mind, what his natural interests are, and adapts her work to his needs and capacities, he will no longer be the inactive creature that he is, but he will be as alert in his school work as he is in his play. Before the child comes to school his natural interests are active and lead him to learn many lessons of the things about him. In fact, during no similar period of his life is there such growth, such acquisition of knowledge, as during these years before the child enters school. It is only after he enters school and is tied down to the cold formalities of textbooks that he appears indifferent to his work, and the trouble begins. Even at school on the playground he is not the same fellow he is in the schoolroom. On the playground he is active, alert, full of enthusiasm, and courageous; but in the schoolroom he closes himself up like a clam and seems to have little desire to take part in the work. There is no reason why there should not prevail the same healthful condition in the schoolroom as prevails on the playground, and such conditions will prevail when the teacher takes cognizance of the child's natural interests and instincts and transfers playground methods to her work in the schoolroom. For the accomplishment of such results, there must be brought about a closer relationship between the teacher and the child, and freedom must take the place of the cold formalism that we find in so many schoolrooms. The teacher must throw off the mask, be her real self, and let her pupils feel that she is not a master whose word is law, but that she is their friend, ready to help them wherever she can. When teacher and pupil stand in the relation of friend to friend, and the pupil feels that the work of the schools is really conducted for him, that he is the center of gravity, he will become an active inquirer, new zeal will characterize him, and he will go about his work with a joy and accomplish results that will amaze us. FUNDAMENTAL ELEMENTS There are certain elements in the lives of successful men and women that will not grow in the cold formalism of the average schoolroom. Initiative and adaptability will grow only in the soil of freedom, of love and sympathy, and where the child is made an active inquirer in his work. In the remaining portion of this chapter it is our purpose to show the importance of these elements in the lives of men and women and to point out how they grow out of the conditions in the schoolroom which we have been discussing before. 1. Initiative. One of the most important elements in the character of men and women is initiative, the habit of outlining their own plans and executing them without direction from others. In a government like our own, where every individual is a sovereign in name, it is very |