The Vitalized School

by Francis B. Pearson

The principle illustrated.—In the presence of this mountain the tourist gains an ideal of grandeur which becomes his standard of estimating scenery throughout life. A boy once heard “The Dead March” played by an artist, and when he was grown to manhood that was still his ideal of majestic music. A traveler asserts that no man can stand for an hour on the summit of Mt. Rigi and not become a better and a stronger man for the experience. A writer on art says that it is worth a trip across the ocean to see the painting of the bull by Paul Potter; but that, of course, depends upon the ideals of the beholder. All these illustrations conform to and are in harmony with the psychological dictum that in the educational process the spirit reacts to its environment.

The teacher as environment.—But the environment may include people as well as inanimate objects, mountains, rivers, flowers, and pictures. And, as a part of the child’s environment, the teacher takes her place in the process of education by absorption. A city superintendent avers that there is one teacher in his corps who would be worth more to his school than the salary she receives even if she did no teaching. This means that her presence in the school is a wholesome influence, and that she is the sort of environment to which the pupils react to their own advantage. It might not be a simple thing to convince some taxpayers of the truth of the superintendent’s statement, but this fact only proves that they have not yet come into a realization of the fact that there can be education by absorption.

The Great Stone Face.—The people of Florence maintain that they need not travel abroad to see the world, for the reason that the world comes to them. It is true that many thousands visit that city annually to win a definition of art. There they absorb their ideals of art and thus attain abiding standards. In like manner the child may sojourn in the school to gain an ideal of grace of manner and personal charm as exemplified by the teacher, and no one will have the temerity to assert that this phase of the child’s education is less important than those that are acquired through the formal processes. The boy in the story grew into the likeness of the “Great Stone Face” because that had become his ideal, and not because he had had formal instruction in the subject of stone faces, or had taken measurements of or computed the dimensions of the one stone face. He grew into its likeness because he thought of it, dreamed of it, absorbed it, and was absorbed by it, and reacted to it whenever it came into view.

Pedagogy in literature.—Hawthorne, in this story, must have been trying to teach the lesson of unconscious education or education by absorption, but his readers have not all been quick to catch his meaning. Teachers often take great unction in the reflection that they afford to the child his only means of education, and that but for them the child would never become educated at all. We are slow to admit that there are many sources of education besides the school, and that formal instruction is not the only road to the acquisition of knowledge. Tennyson knew and expressed this conception in the quotation already given, but we have not acquired the habit of consulting the poets and novelists for our pedagogy. When we learn to consult these, we shall find them expressing many tenets of pedagogy that are basic.

The testimony of experience.—But we need not go beyond our own experiences to realize that much of our education has been unconsciously gained, that we have absorbed much of it, and, possibly, what we now regard as the most vital part of it. We have but to explore our own experiences to discover some person whose standards have been effective in luring us out of ourselves and causing us to yearn toward higher levels; who has been the beacon light toward which our feet have been stumbling; who has been the pattern by which we have sought to shape our lives; and for whom we feel a sense of gratitude that cannot be quenched. The influence of that person has been a liberal education in the vital things that the books do not teach, and we shudder to think what we might have been had that influence not come into our lives. This ideal is not some mythical, far-away person, but a real man or woman who has challenged our admiration by looks, by conduct, by position, and by general bearing in society.

The one teacher.—This preliminary part of the subject has been dwelt upon thus at length in an effort to win assent to the general proposition that unconscious education is not only possible, but an actuality. This assent being once given, the mind feels out at once for applications of the principle and, inevitably, brings the parent and the teacher into the field of view. But the parent is too near to us in time, in space, and in relation to afford the illustration that we seek, and we pass on to the teacher. In the experience of each one of us there stands out at least one teacher as clear in definition as a cameo. This teacher may not have been the most scholarly, or the most successful in popular esteem, or even the most handsome, but she had some quality that differentiates her in our thinking from all others. Others may seem but a sort of blur in our memory, but not so this one. She alone is distinct, distinctive, and regnant.

Her supremacy.—The vicissitudes of life have not availed to dethrone her, nor have the losses, perplexities, and sorrows of life caused the light of her influence to grow dim. She is still an abiding presence with us, nor can we conceive of any influence that could possibly obliterate her. She may have been idealized by degrees, but when she came fully into our lives she came to stay. She came not as a transient guest, but as a lifelong friend and comrade. She crept into our lives as gently as the dawn comes over the hills, and since her arrival there has been no sunset. Nor was there ever by pupil or teacher any profession or protestation, but we simply accepted each other with a frankness that would have been weakened by words.

The rôle of ideal.—But the rôle of ideal is not an easy one. It is a comparatively simple matter to give instruction in geography, arithmetic, and history, but to know one’s self to be the ideal of a child, or to conceive of the possibility of such a situation and relation, is sufficient to render the teacher deeply thoughtful. Once it is borne in upon her that the child will grow into her likeness, she cannot dismiss the matter from her thinking as she can the lesson in grammar. The child may be unconscious of the matter, but the teacher is acutely conscious. When she stands before her class she sees the child growing into her image, and this reflection gives cause and occasion for a careful and critical introspection. She feels constrained to take an inventory of herself to determine whether she can stand a test that is so searching and so far-reaching.

The teacher’s other self.—As she stands thus in contemplation she sees the child grown to maturity with all her own predilections—physical, mental, spiritual—woven into the pattern of its life. In this child grown up she sees her other self and can thus estimate the qualities of body, mind, and spirit that now constitute herself, as they reveal themselves in another. She thus gains the child’s point of view and so is able to see herself through the child’s eyes. When she is reading a book, she is aware that the child is looking over her shoulder to note the quality of literature that engages her interest. When she is making a purchase at the shop, she finds the child standing at her elbow and duplicating her order. When she is buying a picture, she is careful to see to it that there are two copies, knowing that a second copy must be provided for the child. When she is arranging her personal adornment, she is conscious of the child peeping through the door and absorbing her with languishing eyes.

The status irrevocable.—Wherever she goes or whatever she does, she knows that the child is walking in her footsteps and reënacting her conduct. Her status is irrevocably fixed in the life of the child, nor can any philosophy or sophistry absolve her from the situation. She cannot abdicate her place in favor of another, nor can she win immunity from responsibility. She is the child’s ideal for weal or woe, nor can men or angels change this big fact. Through all the hours of the day she hears the child saying, “Whither thou goest I will go,” and there is no escape.