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ing or history may well interrupt the routine of the ordinary recitation, as the teacher asks the opinions of the class or of the school on the moral point in question, incites them to think more carefully about it, and indicates the conclusion to which long experience has brought the world the starting point, at least, for the majority of these ethical talks, for, like every other social institution, it has its moral law which must be observed by all its members in order to attain its end. The plainly visible chief function of the public school is to impart the elements of knowledge. To this end there must be full obedience to the natural authority, the teacher; the prescribed conditions of quiet, order, and studiousness must be observed by the pupils. Punctuality in attendance and readiness for all the exercises; truthfulness in regard to absence from school, tardiness, or any other failures to comply the regular order; honorable conduct with respect to methods of passing examinations; polite treatment of the other scholars; attention and courtesy to the teacher, such are some of the moral necessities of the schoolroom to be met by the scholars.

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The pupils have no duties which should not be met by an equal faithfulness to his duties on the part of the teacher, who should not be there teaching unless interested in his work, qualified for it, and industrious in improving his practice of it. He must be just and impartial in his treatment of the scholars; he must, having the authority, exhibit the virtues of a ruler. Teaching politeness and honor, the instructor should be an honorable gentleman. The teacher has no direct influence over the pupil except in the school hours, and his earnest efforts may be rendered almost useless by the indifference, or the hostility even, of parents. But none the less must he strive to connect the morality of the schoolroom, which he can enforce, with the morality of life outside, as resting on the same general principles of reason. While the first rudiments of common sense will keep him from speaking of any vice, such as lying or stealing or drunkenness, in such a way as to proclaim his knowledge that it prevails in any scholar's home, he is still free to enlarge upon the manifold evil consequences of it. Thus his word may help somewhat to keep children pure in the midst of a bad home atmosphere, which he is otherwise powerless to change.

"Words"-this will usually be easy for the teacher to give in attempting moral education; but nowhere else does word amount to so little compared with example. If the word is not reënforced by the example, its influence will be small.

Practice fortified by theory.—George P. Brown, chairman committee of National Council of Education: It is probably evident to all that the writer believes in inculcating morality by practicing it rather than by theorizing about it. But the time comes in the education of the child when the doctrine that has guided the teacher in fixing dominant ideas in the mind of his pupil shall be made known to the pupil. Although, as in many other matters, the theory of morals may well be left until the pupil is well on his way, in the practice of morality this does not preclude the formulating of moral principles and laws which are exemplified in conduct whenever the child is prepared to recognize them in this form, and the organization of these into a system of ethics at a later period would be the culminating act of an ideal method of educating the will. A failure to reënforce the practice of right-doing by a rational theory of one's relations and consequent obligations would be to omit the most effective defense against the ever-recurring attacks of passion and sense.

Moral habits induced by school work.-State Superintendent Richard Edwards, of Illinois: The schools must develop moral power. In this world there is just one thing that has absolute worth, and that thing is character in men and women. These surroundings of ours which we so much value are after all only means to a loftier end. They have worth, these outward things, because they contribute to the good of man; otherwise they are without value.

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What is this child's aim in going through an arithmetical process? What is he seeking for, when, for example, he is attempting to cast the interest on a note or to add up a long column of numbers? He is seeking to know the truth. He is not inquiring what somebody would like. He is not seeking to find an answer that will please a sect, or a party, or advance his own pecuniary interests. What he is seeking is the absolute truth. If he is casting the interest on a note, he desires to know what absolute justice requires to be done. If he is adding up a column of figures he is yearning to ascertain the precise and actual amount which they represent. In the study of history he is striving to ascertain what events have actually occurred, not what someone would like to make someone else believe has occurred. In short, the purpose of all school investigation is

to find the truth. Is not this a good motive? Is not the habit engendered by this work a wholesome habit? Suppose the same motive should govern the actions of all adults. Suppose that every editorial in a newspaper, every speech delivered from the stump, every sermon delivered from the pulpit, should be animated by the same desire. Would it not be something of an improvement upon the existing order of things?

The crowning purpose of education.-George P. Brown, chairman of committee, National Council of Education: The crowning purpose of education is to make the will follow the lead of conviction in all matters involving the idea of duty. The moral will is the significance, so to speak, of all the other activities of the mind. Institutional life is the moral will as it has realized itself. The ethical ideal is actualized in human society to the extent that it is common to the particular members. The principle of conduct in the ethical world is what is known as the moral law. This law is the universal conviction that every act of each particular member of the ethical whole should be such that when universal, that is, becomes the act of all, it will return upon the doer to bless and not to curse him. In this way the institutional world becomes a ministration of grace, each citizen receiving a return for every good deed, the good increased a thousand fold.

Religious instruction in the schools of Ontario.-Hon. George W. Ross, minister of education: Every school is required to be opened by the reading of Scripture and by prayer, and closed with prayer. In the Roman Catholic separate schools the religious exercises are subject to the direction of the trustees. No pupil is required to attend upon the religious exercises of the public school whose parels or guardians notify the teacher of their desire that he should absent himself. Provision is made for religious instruction by arrangement with the trustees of any denomination at such hours as may be agreed upon.

Reform the home first.-Popular Science Monthly: If the clergy, instead of making futile demands for the teaching of theological dogmas in the schoo's, would try to rouse the minds of their adherents and followers to a sense of their personal responsibility for their childrens' characters, they might accomplish a more useful work. This is something which they should preach in season and out of season; and if they would do so with the earnestness which the cccasion demands, the effect might in a few years be seen in the altered moral tone of a portion of the public-school teachers themselves; and thus, concurrently with the elevation of the home, we should have a notable improvement in the work of moral education as carried on in the schools. Reform the home, and the whole face of society will be reformed.

Catholic views on the right of the state to educate.-Declaration of principles by Cardinal Manning (English): 1. The children of a Christian people have a right by divine law to a Christian education. 2. Christian parents have a twofold right and duty, both natural and supernatural, to guard this inheritance of their children. 3. Christian children are in no sense the children of a state that has no religion. 4. Their teaching and training or formation as Christians is of higher moment than all secular instruction and may not be postponed to it or risked to obtain it. 5. In the selection of teachers by whom their children shall be instructed Christian parents have a right and a duty which excludes all other human authority. 6. To deprive the poor of this right and liberty, which is claimed by and yielded to the rich, is a flagrant injustice.

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These also from Cardinal Manning 1: State education is the worst form of education, fatal to the independence of national conscience, energy, and character. You can force us to pay your rate, but you can not rob our children of their religion. * [The] moral unity of a people drilled by state education and state pedagogues and state policy is spectral and lifeless. * * To compel the parents of a Christian people to send their children to schools where no religion is taught, as in America, or where the Bible is only read, without interpretation, or without its true interpretation, or, still worse, with erroneous interpretation, and by interpreters untrained and incompetent to interpret, is a violation both of natural and political justice. It is an outrage on the natural rights of parents and on the religious conscience of a Christian people. The common-school system in America is a case in point.

Rev. Thomas Bouquillon, professor of moral theology, Catholic University of America: Civil authority has the right to use all legitimate temporal means it

1 Quoted by John A. Mooney in the Educational Review, as are Dr. Becker and Hon. E. F. Dunne, further on.

2 Education: To Whom Does it Belong? p. 12.

judges necessary for the attainment of the temporal common welfare, which is the end of civil society. Now, among the most necessary means for the attainment of the temporal welfare of the commonwealth is the diffusion of human knowledge. Therefore, civil authority has the right to use the means necessary for the diffusion of such knowledge, that is to say, to teach it, or rather to have it taught by capable agents.

John A. Mooney, in the Educational Review, in reply to the foregoing syllogism of Dr. Bouquillon: All that is necessary to the welfare of the State is not within its competence. If it were otherwise, then the State could claim a right to teach religion, for religion is necessary to the welfare of the State. There are legitimate and temporal means necessary for the temporal common welfare, and not within the State's right. The procreation of children, an able critic safely claims, is necessary for the welfare of the State, and a means both legitimate and temporal. Still no one will concede that the State may compel all the citizens to procreate children. Logically the state, in whose behalf the reverend doctor argues, is the socialistic state. The diffusion of human knowledge which he concedes to the State is, as we have seen, that large diffusion possible within the boundless limits of the three R's. One might as reasonably deny that this "education "is sufficient as to claim that it is necessary. And by what authority, some one will ask, does he determine that "the right to use the means necessary for the diffusion of human knowledge" is to be understood as "the right to teach it, or to have it taught?" Why shall not we define the "means necessary for the diffusion of human knowledge" as a something more or less than teaching?" The professor's conclusion agrees with his own views. It is, however, not a logical conclusion, but an assumption added to the various assumptions made in his premises. His critics have called Dr. Bouquillon's attention to these and to other defects in his method of reasoning. Having based himself on premises not true, and on a conclusion doubly illegitimate, was he safe in affirming that the larger number of theologians admit that the State has the right to educate?" With perfect safety it may be affirmed that if the larger number do admit such a right, most certainly they base their admission on some more flawless syllogism. As a matter of fact, no theologian to whom the reverend doctor has appealed admits the right of the State to educate.

Right Rev. Thomas A. Becker, D. D., Bishop of Savannah: We do not doubt that the time is fast approaching when the State will confine herself to her legitimate duties, of the which there are enough, and those sufficiently onerous, without undertaking to supply us with a secular instruction which we do not want in any other manner than as a handmaid to religion, and with which, so accompanied, no government can furnish us. Were it even possible, such a power is too liable to abuse to be left in any governmental hands; and finally, upon parents, as such, devolves the responsibility for the souls of their offspring, and we dare not, even if we could, shift it from where the Almighty has placed it.

Hon. E. F. Dunne (in an address at the Catholic Congress, Baltimore, 1889): Morality is the only foundation of order. Therefore the State not only may but must assist in the production of morality. It must do it or die, for without morality order is impossible, and without order the State can not live. There can be no morality without religion. Therefore the State which wars upon religion undermines its own foundation-precipitates its own destruction. Moral culture is of more importance to the State than any other; instruction which does not give it is not education. Therefore the State should encourage education full and complete. To aid in education the State may endow schools and assist teachers, but itself to teach? No! That is beyond its charter, beyond its rights, beyond its power.

Compulsory teaching is of inferior quality.--The School Journal: That teacher who is throwing out the strongest moral influences in her school is the least conscious of it. It is unconscious radiation, as flowers fill the air with fragrance. There is a certain benefit to a school, from carrying out a programme of morals—that is, a programme that has certain times and occasions and ways laid down for the imparting of moral instruction. But like all compulsory teaching it is of inferior quality compared with that which flows out naturally from every pore of the teacher's soul.

Not new.-H. C. Hardon, master Shurtleef School (Boston): That old lie that there is no religion in the schools.

XIV. SCHOOL MANAGEMENT AND DISCIPLINE.

Uniformity and freedom.-F. W. Parker, Cook County Normal School: Uniformity may be a necessity in the evolution of a school system, or any other system; but there comes a time when this rough staging should be torn away. The next period of evolution must be a period of liberty, that liberty so restricted that it will lead to freedom. Merit in fixing uniformity is complete skill in routine duties, a strict compliance with conventional demands, the order that keeps pupils still; the teaching that complies with the letter of a course of study; the drill that passes classes on bloc from grade to grade; the spirit that humbly bows to dogmatic rules. Under uniformity, teaching is a business and not an art. A business is governed by fixed rules; an art by eternal principles.

Think for a moment of a great corps of teachers, each imbued with a divine enthusiasm of study and a firm devotion to the highest interests of humanity; each striving to find more and more of truth, and to apply it for the weal of the child. Think of each giving freely to all the treasures and truths that he finds, and receiving as freely from all, their discoveries. Under such circumstances we would not have to search with a Diogenes lantern for a first-class teacher.

XV.-SECONDARY EDUCATION.

Free high schools unwise.-James P. Munroe, in the Educational Review: The maintenance of free high schools is unwise; first, because it obliges a whole community to pay for what only a limited number can enjoy; second, because, necessarily expensive, it robs the lower schools of funds essential to them; and, third, because it offers to boys and girls wholly unfit for secondary education a temptation to exchange the actual benefits of remunerative work at 15 years of age for the doubtful advantage of a training that can have no direct bearing upon their life work, and which, at the time of life it occurs, may do decided harm. The State must, of course, take the initiative in providing secondary schools separate from or in connection with those already established by private enterprise, and it must maintain such course of study as the needs of the community demand; but for these courses there should be a graded system of fees, regulated by the nature and extent of the studies pursued, and, while a certain proportion of the cost of their support might be assessed upon the taxpayers, the larger share should be borne by those in attendance. When such a school ceases to be mainly self-supporting, the town or school district should have power to suspend it until the demand for reopening justifies its revival. In this way only can the high school do the work that should be required of it; only by such a pruning can the primary and grammar schools receive the money and attention they deserve; and after such a bold first step can a real reform of the public-school system be begun.

Public high schools vs. academies.-Intelligence: The public high schools, especially those of New England, are steadily coming to the front as the schools which give the most thorough and useful preparation for college. Three times within a few years the valedictory at Yale has been awarded to a student whose preparatory studies were in the New Haven High School.

The rise of the public high school as the crowning feature of the system of common school education is a most interesting fact. In several of the New England States these schools have caused the delay of most of the old-time academies which were once flourishing institutions, or at all events their relative decay. Except a few which, by reason of their large endowment or some especially favorable condition, have grown with the growth of population, they have fallen into comparative obscurity.

Suggestions as to the curriculum of the preparatory school.-President D. C. Gilman (in the Cosmopolitan): Whenever the time comes for a revision of the curriculum of the preparatory school, three subjects should receive much more attention than is now given to them. The study of science should be so pursued that the habit of close observation and of reasoning upon ascertained facts should at least be initiated. Nature should be approached by the schoolboy as a willing and ever-present teacher. Her lessons should be the delight of every adolescent. When we remember that in contemplating the heavens, in watching the life of plants and animals, in the observation of the modes of motion and in studying the inorganic world there are innumerable and infinitely varied opportunities to awaken curiosity, to train the eye and the hand, to exercise the judgment, to reward investigation-how strange that so little progress is made in the introduction of scientific studies in elementary education! Modern lan

guages also, especially French and German, are nowadays indispensable in a liberal education; and they are much more readily acquired in childhood than maturity. How are they to get just recognition in the preparatory schools? An acquaintance with the Bible should also be required of every school boy. College professors have lately been showing how ignorant the youth of America are of the history, the geography, the biography, and the literature of the sacred books. I do not now refer to its religious lessons, but I speak of the Bible as the basis of our social fabric, as the embodiment of the most instructive human experiences, as a collection of poems, histories, precepts, laws, and examples, priceless in importance to the human race. These Scriptures have pervaded our literature. All this inheritance we possess in a version which is unique. Its marvelous diction, secured by the revisions of many centuries, and its substantial accuracy, the care of many generations of scholars, are beyond our praise. But how little study does the schoolboy give to this book in secular or sacred hours; how ignorant may he really be of that which is supposed to be his daily counselor! Science, modern languages and the Bible have been so long neglected in preparatory schools that it is extremely hard nowadays to find effective teachers for these subjects. There is no consensus as to books, no tradition respecting methods. Perhaps we are waiting for the waters to be disturbed by the angel of deliverance, but we shall wait in vain unless we put forth efforts of our own to reach the true remedies. The day will come for better things; we can see its approaches.

XVI.-TEACHERS.

Is special preparation for teaching indispensable?-Superintendent Henry Sabin. (Iowa): Shall we say that special preparation for the teacher's work is not desirable? Certainly it is very desirable, but it is not indispensable. There are only four indispensable requisites-knowledge of subject-matter, uprightness of character, a desire to improve, and common sense. With these as a foundation we may build an Arnold, an Agassiz, or a Philbrick. If any one of these requisites is wanting, no amount of professional study or reading of educational books can supply the deficiency. There has broken out lately a mania for high intellectual development, which the teacher expects to attain by reading a book a month. Teachers sometimes become gormandizers of books. Dickens says of one of his schoolmaster characters, after enumerating a long list of his requirements: "Ah, rather overdone, Mr. Choakumchild. If he had only learnt a little less, how infinitely better he might have taught much more!"

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Superintendent J. M. Greenwood (Kansas City, Mo.): It might be as well to state clearly that all this talk about making good teachers without professional training is of little value to the schools. There is no equivalent for professional training. Let us understand it, and not beguile ourselves into longwinded discussions in the vain search for temporary substitutes. Superintendent Draper, of New York, remarked on this subject that he was sorry to note a disposition on the part of one or two speakers to disparage professional training altogether. It wastoo late in the history of educational progress to do this. Such sentiments are outlawed-are back numbers. It was not worth while to argue with men who had been enjoying a Rip Van Winkle slumber and were out of touch with the general educational sentiment of the country. Four propositions worthy of consideration.-Superintendent Henry Sabin (Iowa): 1. Pedagogical research, educational inquiry, the study of methodology alone, can never constitute a man a teacher. The machine which makes the teacher a mere automaton is already producing alarming results in this direction. In many of our schools we are approaching the danger line of killing off individuality, of crushing out spontaniety, of dwarfing the teaching ingenuity by reducing everything to the dead level of certain so-called philosophical methods. We are training the teachers to follow the ruts.

2. There is a failure with teachers, if I may use the expression, to distinguish between an individual method and a representative method; between an arrangement which is the invention of the person using it, partaking largely of the nature of a device, and a method which is typical in its nature-which exemplifies the essential characteristics of all related methods. A device is the creation of the teacher-a method is based upon eternal truths.

Our schools of methods are very often only schools of devices.

3. The school which gives its students power of thought, clearness of expres sion, aptness of illustration, and a desire to grow, is a good fitting school for its teachers. What branches are taught there is of secondary importance.

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