Reveries of a Schoolmaster

by Francis B. Pearson

I think my trouble is (and it is trouble), that I proceed upon the agreeable assumption that my pupils can "catch" English as they do the measles if only they are exposed to it. So I expose them to the objective complement and the compellative, and then stand aghast at their behavior when they make all the mistakes that can possibly be made in using a given number of words. I have occasion to wonder whether I juggle these big words merely because I happen to see them in a book, or whether I am trying to be impressive. I recall how often I have felt a thrill of pride as I have ladled out deliberative subjunctives, ethical datives, and hysteron proteron to my (supposedly) admiring Latin pupils. If I were a soldier I should want to wear one of those enormous three-story military hats to render me tall and impressive. I have no desire to see a drum-major minus his plumage. The disillusionment would probably be depressing. Liking to wear my shako, I must continue to talk of objective complements instead of using simple English.

I had watched men make a hundred barrels, but when I tried my skill I didn't produce much of a barrel. Then I knew making barrels is not violently infectious. But I suspect that it is quite the same as English in this respect. My behavior in that cooper-shop, for a time, was quite destructive of materials, until I had acquired skill by much practice.

If I could only organize the activities in my English class so that they would function in such behavior as Lincoln's "Letter to Mrs. Bixby," I should feel that I might continue my teaching instead of devoting all my time to my cherry-orchard. Or, if I could see that my pupils were acquiring the habit of correct English as the result of my work, I'd give myself a higher grade as a schoolmaster. My neighbor over here teaches agriculture, and one of his boys produced one hundred and fifty bushels of corn on an acre of ground. That's what I call excellent behavior, and that schoolmaster certainly knows how to organize the activities of his class. My boy's yield of thirty-seven bushels, mostly nubbins, does not compare favorably with the yield of his boy, and I feel that I ought to reform, or else wear a mask. Here is my boy saying "might of came," and his boy is raising a hundred and fifty bushels of corn per acre.

If I could only assemble all my boys and girls twenty years hence and have them give an account of themselves for all the years after they left school, I could grade them with greater accuracy than I can possibly do now. Of course, I'd simply grade them on behavior, and if I could muster up courage, I might ask them to grade mine. I wonder how I'd feel if I'd find among them such folks as Edison, Burbank, Goethals, Clara Barton, and Frances Willard. My neighbor John says the most humiliating experience that a man can have is to wear a pair of his son's trousers that have been cut down to fit him. I might have some such feelings as that in the presence of pupils who had made such notable achievements. But, should they tell me that these achievements were due, in some good measure, to the work of the school, well, that would be glory enough for me. One of my boys was telling me only yesterday of a bit of work he did the day before in the way of revealing a process in chemistry to a firm of jewellers and hearing the superintendent say that that bit of information is worth a thousand dollars to the establishment. If he keeps on doing things like that I shall grade his behavior one of these days.

I suppose Mr. Goethals must have learned the multiplication table, once upon a time, and used it, too, in constructing the Panama Canal. He certainly made it effective, and the activities of that class in arithmetic certainly did function. I tell my boys that this multiplication table is the same one that Mr. Goethals has been using all the while, and then ask them what use they expect to make of it. One man made use of this table in tunnelling the Alps, and another in building the Brooklyn Bridge, and it seems to be good for many more bridges and tunnels if I can only organize the activities aright.

I was standing in front of St. Marks, there in Venice, one morning, regaling myself with the beauty of the festive scene, and talking to a friend, when four of my boys came strolling up, and they seemed more my boys than ever before. What a reunion we had! The folks all about us didn't understand it in the least, but we did, and that was enough. I forgot my coarse clothes, my well-nigh empty pockets, my inability to buy the many beautiful things that kept tantalizing me, and the meagreness of my salary. These were all swallowed up in the joy of seeing the boys, and I wanted to proclaim to all and sundry; "These are my jewels." Those boys are noble, clean, upstanding fellows, and no schoolmaster could help being proud of them. Such as they nestle down in the heart of the schoolmaster and cause him to know that life is good.

I was sorry not to be able to share my joy with my friend who stood near, but that could not be. I might have used words to him, but he would not have understood. He had never yearned over those fellows and watched them, day by day, hoping that they might grow up to be an honor to their school. He had never had the experience of watching from the schoolhouse window, fervently wishing that no harm might come to them, and that no shadows might come over their lives. He had never known the joy of sitting up far into the night to prepare for the coming of those boys the next day. He had never seen their eyes sparkle in the classroom when, for them, truth became illumined. Of course, he stood aloof, for he couldn't know. Only the schoolmaster can ever know how those four boys became the focus of all that wondrous beauty on that splendid morning. If I had had my grade-book along I would have recorded their grades in behavior, for as I looked upon those glorious chaps and heard them recount their experiences I had a feeling of exaltation, knowing that the activities of our school had functioned in right behavior.

CHAPTER XXI

FOREFINGERS

This left forefinger of mine is certainly a curiosity. It looks like a miniature totem-pole, and I wish I had before me its life history. I'd like to know just how all these seventeen scars were acquired. It seems to have come in contact with about all sorts and sizes of cutlery. If only teachers or parents had been wise enough to make a record of all my bloodletting mishaps, with occasions, causes, and effects, that record would afford a fruitful study for students of education. The pity of it is that we take no account of such matters as phases or factors of education. We keep saying that experience is the best teacher, and then ignore this eloquent forefinger. I call that criminal neglect arising from crass ignorance. Why, these scars that adorn many parts of my body are the foot-prints of evolution, if, indeed, evolution makes tracks. The scars on the faces of those students at Heidelberg are accounted badges of honor, but they cannot compare with the big scar on my left knee that came to me as the free gift of a corn-knife. Those students wanted their scars to take home to show their mothers. I didn't want mine, and made every effort to conceal it, as well as the hole in my trousers. I got my scar as a warning. I profited by it, too, for never were there two cuts in exactly the same place. In fact, they were widely, if not wisely, distributed. They are the indices of the soaring sense of my youthful audacity. And yet neither parents nor teachers ever graded my scars.