The complexity of life.—It is not easy to think life, much less define it. The elements are so numerous as to baffle and bewilder the mind. It looks out at one from so many corners that it seems Argus-eyed. At one moment we see it on the Stock Exchange where men struggle and strive in a mad frenzy of competition; at another, in a quiet home, where a mother soothes her baby to sleep, where there is no competition but, rather, a sublime monopoly. Again, it manifests itself in the clanking of machinery where men are tunneling the mountain or constructing a canal to unite oceans; or, again, in the laboratory where the microscope is revealing the form of the snow crystal. One man is watching the movements of the heavenly bodies as they file by his telescope, while another writes a proclamation that makes free a race of people. Another man is leading an army into battle, while some Doctor MacClure is breasting the storm in the darkness as he goes forth on his mission of mercy.
Manifestations of life.—These manifestations of life men call trade, commerce, history, mathematics, science, nature, and philanthropy. And men write these words in books, and other men write other books trying to explain their meaning. Then, still others divide and subdivide, and science becomes the sciences, and mathematics becomes arithmetic, and algebra, and geometry, and trigonometry, and calculus, and astronomy. Here mathematics and science seem to merge. And, in time, history and geography come together, and sometimes strive for precedence.
Thus, books accumulate into libraries and so add another to the many elements of life. Then magazines are written to explain the books and their authors. The motive behind the book is analyzed in an effort to discover the workings of the author’s mind and heart. In these revelations we sometimes hear the rippling of the brook, and sometimes the moan of the sea; sometimes the cooing of the dove, and sometimes the scream of the eagle; sometimes the bleating of the lamb, and sometimes the roaring of the lion. In them we see the moonbeams that play among the flowers and the lightning that rends the forest; the blossoms that filter from the trees and the avalanche that carries destruction; the rain that fructifies the earth and the hurricane that destroys.
Life in literature.—Back of these sights and sounds we discover men—Cicero, Demosthenes, Homer, Isaiah, Shakespeare, Milton, Dante. We trace the thoughts and emotions of these men and find literature. And in literature, again, we come upon another manifestation of life. Literature is what it is because these men were what they were. They saw and felt life to be large and so wrote it down large; and because they wrote it thus, what they wrote endures. They stood upon the heights and saw the struggles of man with himself, with other men, and with nature. This panorama generated thoughts and feelings in them, and these they could not but portray. And so literature and life are identical and not coördinates, as some would have us think.
Life as subject matter in teaching.—In teaching school, therefore, the subject matter with which we have to do is life—nothing more and nothing less. We may call it history, or mathematics, or literature, or psychology,—but it still remains true that life is the real objective of all our activities. And, as has been already said, we are teaching life by the laboratory method. We are striving to interpret the thing in which we are immersed. We feel, and think, and aspire, and love, and enjoy. All these are life; and from this life we are striving to extract strength that our feeling may be deeper, our thinking higher, our aspirations wider and more lofty, our love purer and nobler, and our own enjoyment greater. By absorbing the life that is all about us we strive to have more abundant and abounding life.
The teacher’s province.—Such is the province of one who essays the task of teaching school. School is life, as we have been told; but, at the same time, it is a place and an occasion for teaching life. If we could detach history from life, it would cease to be history. If literature is not life, it is not literature; and so with the sciences. These branches are but variants or branches of life, and all emanate from a common center. Whether we scan the heavens, penetrate the depths of the sea, pore over the pages of books, or look into the minds and hearts of men, we are striving after an interpretation of life.
Questions and Exercises
- Distinguish between a “school teacher” and a “man or woman who teaches school.”
- Discuss the importance of the following agencies of the school in securing for children “life of a better quality and more abundant”: play; revitalized curricula; vitalized teachers; medical inspection; social centers; moral instruction.
- Discuss both from the standpoint of present practice and ideal educational principles: “More abundant life rather than knowledge is the chief end of instruction.”
- What changes are necessary in school curricula and in the methods of school organization, instruction, and discipline, in order that the chief purpose of our schools, “more abundant life,” may be realized?
- Justify the apparent length of the school day to teachers and pupils, as a means of determining the quality of the work of the school.
- Some teachers maintain that school is a preparation for life, while the author maintains that “school is life.” Is this difference in the concept of the school a vital one?
- How may this difference of concept affect the work of the teacher? the attitude of the pupil?
- What definition of education will best harmonize with the ideals of this chapter?