A principal of a high school in one of the prominent New England towns dismisses a highly talented pupil because, to quote verbatim from the original school document, “He is not amenable to the discipline of the school, as his school life has been too short to establish him in the habit of obedience.” “His intellect,” the principal’s official letter goes on to say, “remains a marvel to us, but we do not feel, and in this I think I speak for all, that he is in the right place.” In other words, in the opinion of those remarkable pedagogues, educators and teachers, the school is not the right place for talent and genius!
A superintendent of schools in lecturing before an audience of “subordinate teachers” told them emphatically that there was no place for genius in our schools. Dear old fogies, one can well understand your indignation! Here we have worked out some fine methods, clever rules, beautiful systems and then comes genius and upsets the whole structure! It is a shame! Genius cannot fit into the pigeon-holes of the office desk. Choke genius, and things will move smoothly in the school and the office.
Not long ago we were informed by one of those successful college-mandarins, lionized by office-clerks, superintendents and tradesmen, that he could measure education by the foot-rule! Our Regents are supposed to raise the level of education by a vicious system of examination and coaching, a system which Professor James, in a private conversation with me, has aptly characterized as “idiotic.”
Our schools brand their pupils by a system of marks, while our foremost colleges measure the knowledge and education of their students by the number of “points” passed. The student may pass either in Logic or Blacksmithing. It does not matter which, provided he makes up a certain number of “points”!
College-committees refuse admission to young students of genius, because “it is against the policy and the principles of the university.” College-professors expel promising students from the lecture-room for “the good of the class as a whole,” because the students “happen to handle their hats in the middle of a lecture.” This, you see, interferes with class discipline. Fiat justitia, pereat mundus. Let genius perish, provided the system lives. Why not suppress all genius, as a disturbing element, for “the good of the classes,” for the weal of the commonwealth? Education of man and cultivation of genius, indeed! This is not school policy.
We school and drill our children and youth in schoolma’am mannerism, school master mind-ankylosis, school-superintendent stiff-joint ceremonialism, factory regulations and office-discipline. We give our pupils and students artisan-inspiration and business-spirituality. Originality is suppressed. Individuality is crushed. Mediocrity is at a premium. That is why our country has such clever business men, such cunning artisans, such resourceful politicians, such adroit leaders of new cults, but no scientists, no artists, no philosophers, no statesmen, no genuine talent and no true genius.
School-teachers have in all ages been mediocre in intellect and incompetent. Leibnitz is regarded as a dullard and Newton is considered as a blockhead. Never, however, in the history of mankind have school teachers fallen to such a low level of mediocrity as in our times and in our country. For it is not the amount of knowledge that counts in true education, but originality and independence of thought that are of importance in education. But independence and originality of thought are just the very elements that are suppressed by our modern barrack-system of education. No wonder that military men claim that the best “education” is given in military schools.
We are not aware that the incubus of officialdom, and the succubus of bureaucracy have taken possession of our schools. The red tape of officialdom, like a poisonous weed, grows luxuriantly in our schools and chokes the life of our young generation. Instead of growing into a people of great independent thinkers, the nation is in danger of fast becoming a crowd of well-drilled, well-disciplined, commonplace individuals, with strong philistine habits and notions of hopeless mediocrity.
In levelling education to mediocrity we imagine that we uphold the democratic spirit of our institutions. Our American sensibilities are shocked when the president of one of our leading colleges dares to recommend to his college that it should cease catering to the average student. We think it un-American, rank treason to our democratic spirit when a college president has the courage to proclaim the principle that “To form the mind and character of one man of marked talent, not to say genius, would be worth more to the community which he would serve than the routine training of hundreds of undergraduates.”
We are optimistic, we believe in the pernicious superstition that genius needs no help, that talent will take care of itself. Our kitchen clocks and dollar timepieces need careful handling, but our chronometers and astronomical clocks can run by themselves.