Serenity
Serenity does not mean either stolidity or lethargy; far otherwise. Nor does it mean sluggishness, apathy or phlegmatism; quite the contrary. It does mean depth as opposed to shallowness, bigness as opposed to littleness, and vision as opposed to spiritual myopia. It means dignity, poise, aplomb, balance. It means that there is sufficient ballast to hold the ship steady on its way, no matter how much sail it spreads. When we see serenity, we are quite aware of other spiritual qualities that foster it and lift it into view. We know that courage is one of the hidden pillars on which it rests and that sincerity contributes to its grace and charm. It is a vital crescent quality as staunch as the oak and as graceful as the rainbow. It evermore stands upon a pedestal, and a host of devotees do it homage. It is as majestic and beautiful as the iceberg but as warm-hearted as love. It has reserve, and yet it attracts rather than repels. A thousand influences are poured into the alembic of the spirit, and serenity issues forth in modest splendor.
This quality of the spirit both betokens and embodies power, and power governs the universe. Its power is not that of the storm that harries and devastates, but rather that of the sunshine that fructifies, purifies, chastens, and ripens. It does not rush or crash into a situation but steals in as quietly as the dawn, without noise or bombast, and, by its gentle influence, softens asperities and wins a smile from the face of sorrow, or discouragement, or anger. Its presence transforms discord into harmony, irradiates gloom, and evokes rare flowers from the murky soil of discontent. Whatever storms may rage elsewhere and whatever darkness may enshroud, it ever keeps its place as the center of a circle of calm and light. It is Venus of Milo come to life, silently distilling the beauty and splendor of living. In its presence harshness becomes gentleness, hysteria becomes equanimity, and sound becomes silence. From its presence vaunting and vainglory and arrogance hasten away to be with their own kind. By its power, as of a miracle, it changes the dross into fine gold, the grotesque into the seemly, the vulgar into the pure, the water into wine. Into the midst of commotion and confusion it quietly moves, saying, “Peace, be still!” and there is quiet and repose. Like the sun-crowned summit of the mountain, it stands erect and sublime nor heeds the cloudy tumult at its feet. In the school, the teacher who exemplifies and typifies this quality of serenity is never less than dignified but, withal, is never either cold or rigid. Children nestle about her in their affections and expand in her presence as flowers open in the sunshine. She cannot be a martinet nor, in her presence, can the children become sycophants. Her very presence generates an atmosphere that is conducive to healthy growth. There is that impelling force about her that draws people to her as iron filings are drawn to the magnet. Her smile stills the tumult of youthful exuberance and when the children look at her they gain a comprehensive definition of a lady. Her poise steadies the children in all the ramifications of their work, her complete mastery of herself wins their admiration, and her complete mastery of the situation wins their respect. They become inoculated with her spirit and make daily advances toward the goal of serenity. Knowledge is her meat and drink and, through the subtle alchemy of sublimation, her knowledge issues forth into wisdom. She does not pose, for her simplicity and sincerity have no need of artificial garnishings. Her outward mien is but the expression of her spiritual power, and when we contemplate her we know of a truth that education is a spiritual process.
To the teacher without serenity, the days abound in troubles. She is nervous, peevish, querulous, and irritable, and her pupils become equally so. She thinks of them as incorrigibles and tells them so. To her they seem bad and she tells them so. Her animadversions reflect upon their parents and their home life as well as themselves and she takes unction to herself by reason of her strictures. Her spiritual ballast is unequal to the sail she carries and her craft in consequence careens and every day ships water of icy coldness that chills her pupils to the heart. She has knowledge, indeed much knowledge, but she lacks wisdom, hence her knowledge becomes weakness and not power. She has spiritual hysteria which manifests itself in her manner, in her looks, and in her voice. Her spiritual strength is insufficient for the load she tries to carry and her path shows uneven and tortuous. She nags and scolds in strident tones that ruffle and rasp the spirits of her pupils and beget in them a longing to become whatever she is not. She is noisy where quiet is needful; she causes disturbance where there should be peace; and she disquiets where she should soothe. She may have had training, but she lacks education, for her spiritual qualities show only chaos. The waters of her soul are shallow and so are lashed into tumult by the slightest storm. She lacks serenity.
The test of a real teacher is not whether she will be good to the children but, rather, whether she will be good for the children, and these concepts are wide apart. If our colleges and normal schools could but gain the notion that their function is to prepare teachers who will be good for children they might find occasion to modify their courses radically. Unless she has serenity the teacher is not good for children, for serenity is one of the qualities which they themselves should possess as the result of their school experience and it is not easy for them to achieve this quality if the teacher’s example and influence are adverse. We test prospective teachers for their knowledge of this subject and that, when, in reality, we should be trying to determine whether they will be good for the pupils. But we have contracted the habit of thinking that knowledge is power and so test for knowledge, thinking, futilely, that we are testing for power. We judge of a teacher’s efficacy by some marks that examiners inscribe upon a bit of paper, “a thing laughable to gods and men.” She may be proficient in languages, sciences, and arts and still not be good for the children by reason of the absence of spiritual qualities. None the less, we admit her to the school as teacher when we would decline to admit her to the hospital as nurse. We say she would not be good for the patients in the hospital but nevertheless accept her as the teacher of our children.
In Ephesians we read, “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance,” and such an array of excellent spiritual qualities should attract the attention of all the agencies that have to do with the preparation of teachers. We need only to make a list of the opposites of these qualities to be convinced that the teacher who possesses these opposites would not be good for the children. Now serenity embodies all the foregoing excellent qualities and, therefore, the teacher who has serenity has a host of qualities that will make for the success and well-being of her pupils. Again, quoting from Henderson: “My whole point is that these spiritual qualities in a boy are infinitely more important to his present charm and future achievement than any amount of academic training, than the most complete knowledge of reading, writing, arithmetic, history, geography, grammar, spelling, classics, and natural science. For charm and achievement are of the Spirit. It is very clear, then, that we ought to make these spiritual qualities the major end of all our endeavor during those wonderful years of grace; and that we ought to allow the intellectual development, up to fourteen years at least, to be a by-product, valuable and welcome certainly, but not primarily sought after. In the end we should get much the larger harvest of intellectual power, and much the larger man.”
We cannot hope to achieve the reconstructed school until our notion of teaching and teachers has been reconstructed. When we secure teachers who have education and not mere knowledge, we may begin to hope. We must look to the colleges and normal schools to furnish such teachers. If they cannot do so, our schools must plod along on the path of tradition without hope of finding the better way. There are faint indications, however, here and there, that the colleges and normal schools are beginning to stir in their sleep and are becoming somewhat aware of their opportunities and responsibilities. We shall hail with acclaim the glad day when they come to realize that the preparation of teachers for their work is a task of large import and goes deeper than facts, and statistics, and theories, and knowledge. If they furnish a teacher who has the quality of serenity, we shall all be fully alive to the fact that that quality is the luscious and nutritious fruitage of scholarship, of wide knowledge, of much reading, of deep meditation, and keen observation. But these elements, either singly or in combination, are but veneer unless they strike their roots into the spiritual nature and are thus nourished into spiritual qualities. Excavating into serenity, we shall discover the pure gold of scholarship; we shall find knowledge in great abundance; we shall find the spirit of the greatest and best books; and we shall come upon the cloister in which meditation has done its perfect work.
The machine that is run to the extreme limit of its capacity splutters, sizzles, hisses, and quivers, and finally shakes itself into a condition of ineffectiveness. But the machine that is run well within the limits of its capacity is steady, noiseless, serene, effective, and durable. So with people. The person who essays a task that is beyond his capacity is certain to come to grief and to create no end of disturbance to himself and others before the final catastrophe. If the steam-chest or boiler is not equal to the task, wisdom and safety would counsel the installation of a larger one. Here is one of the tragedies of our scheme of education. The spirit is the power-plant of all life’s operations and in this plant are many boilers. Instead of calling more and more of these into action, we seem intent upon repressing them and thus we reduce the capacity of the plant as a whole. When we should be lighting or replenishing the fires under the boilers of imagination, initiative, aspiration, and reverence, we spend our time striving to bank or quench these fires and in playing and dawdling with the torches of arithmetic, grammar, and history with which we should be kindling the fires. Thus we diminish the power of the plant while life’s activities are calling for extension and enlargement. We seem to be trying to train our pupils to work with one or but few boilers when there are scores of them available if only we knew how to utilize them.
Hence, it must appear that reserve-power and serenity are virtually synonymous. The teacher who has achieved serenity never uses all the power at her command and, in consequence, all her actions are easy, quiet, and even. She is always stable and never mercurial or spasmodic. She encounters steep grades, to be sure, but with ease and grace she applies a bit more power from her abundant supply and so compasses the difficulty without disturbing the calm. She is fully conscious of her reservoir of power and can concentrate all her attention upon the work in hand. The ballast in the hold keeps the mast perpendicular and the sails in position to catch the favoring breeze. We admire and applaud the graceful ship as it speeds along its course, giving little heed to the ballast in the hold that gives it poise and balance. But the ballast is there, else the ship would not be moving with such majestic mien. Nor was this ballast provided in a day. Rather it has been accumulating through the years, and bears the mark of college halls, of libraries, of laboratories, of the auditorium, of the mountain, the ocean, the starry night, of the deep forest, of the landscape, and of communion with all that is big and fine.
Socrates drinking the hemlock is a fitting and inspiring illustration of serenity. In the presence of certain and imminent death he was far less perturbed than many another man in the presence of a pin-prick. And his imperturbability betokened bigness and not stolidity. While his disciples wept about him, he could counsel them to calmness and discourse to them upon immortality. He wept not, nor did he shudder back from the ordeal, but calm and masterful he raised the cup to his lips and smiled as he drank. His serenity won immortality for his name; for wherever language may be spoken or written, the story of Socrates will be told. History will not permit his name to be swallowed up in oblivion, not alone because he was the victim of ignorance and prejudice but also because his serenity, which was the offspring and proof of his wisdom, did not fail him and his friends in the supreme test. It is not a slight matter, then, to set up serenity as one of the goals in our school work. Nor is it a slight matter for the teacher to show forth this quality in all her work and so inspire her pupils to follow in her footsteps.
We hope, of course, that the boys and girls of our schools may attain serenity so that, even in their days of youth, urged on as they are by youthful exuberance, they may be orderly, decorous, and kindly-disposed. We would have them polite, as a matter of course, but we would hope that their politeness may be a part of themselves and not a mere accretion. They will have joy of life, but so does their teacher who is possessed of serenity. Joy is not necessarily boisterous. The strains of music are no less music because they are mellow. We would have our young people think soberly but not solemnly. And when all our people, young and old, reach the goal of serenity they will extol the teachers and the schools that showed them the way.