Thoughts on Educational Topics and Institutions

by George S. Boutwell

When George III. was first insane, Dr. Willis was called to the immediate personal charge of the king. Dr. Willis had been educated to the church, and a living had been assigned him; but, becoming interested in the subject of insanity, he had established an asylum, and gained a distinguished position in his new profession. The suffering monarch was sadly puzzled to know why Dr. Willis was with him, and how he had been brought there. The custodian was not very definite in his explanations, but suggested that he came to comfort the king in his afflictions; and, said he, "You know that our Saviour went about doing good."—"Yes," said the king, "but he never received seven hundred pounds a year for it." This was good wit, especially good royal wit, because unexpected. But there is no reason why actual monarchs of England, or coming monarchs of America, should be treated or taught gratuitously. The compensation, the living of the teacher, is one thing; the motive may and ought to be quite different. The teacher should labor in his profession because he loves it, because he does good in it, and because he can in that sphere answer a high purpose of existence. These being the motives of the teacher, he should educate, draw out, corresponding ones in his pupils.

The teacher is not to create—he is to draw out. Every child has the germs of many, and, it may be, quite different qualities of character. Look at the infant. It is so constituted that it may have a stalwart arm, broad chest, and well-rounded, vigorous muscles; but yet it may come to adult age destitute of these physical excellences. Yet you will not say that the elements did not exist in the child. They were there; but, being neglected, they followed a law of our nature, that the development of a faculty depends upon its exercise. Nature will develop some quality in every man; for our existence demands the exercise of a part of our faculties. The faculty used will be developed in excess as compared with other faculties. It is the business of the teacher to aid nature. For the most part, he must stimulate, encourage, draw out, develop, though it may happen that he will be required occasionally to check a tendency which threatens to absorb or overshadow all the others. He must, at any rate, prevent the growth of those powers which tend towards the savage state.

While the teacher creates nothing, he must so draw out the qualities of the child that it may attain to perfect manhood. He moulds, he renders symmetrical, the physical, the intellectual, the moral man. Nature sometimes does this herself, as though she would occasionally furnish a model man for our imitation, as she has given lines, and forms, and colors, which all artists of all ages shall copy, but cannot equal. But, do the best we can, education is more or less artificial; and hence the child of the school will suffer by comparison with the child of nature, when she presents him in her best forms.

In a summer ramble I met a man so dignified as to attract the notice and command the respect of all who knew him. I was with him upon the lakes and mountains several days and nights, and never for a moment did the manliness of his character desert him. I have seen no other person who could boast such physical beauty. Accustomed to a hunter's life; carrying often a pack of thirty or forty or fifty pounds; sleeping upon the ground or a bed of boughs; able, if necessity of interest demanded, to travel in the woods the ordinary distance which a good horse would pass over upon our roads; with every organ of the arm, the leg, the trunk, fully expressed; with a manly, kind, intelligent countenance, a beard uncut, in the vigor of early manhood, he seemed a model which the statuaries of Greece and Rome desired to see, but did not. He had at once the bearing of a soldier and the characteristics of a gentleman. He was ignorant of grammatical rules and definitions, yet his conversation would have been accepted in good circles of New England society. This man had his faults, but they were not grievous faults, nor did they in any manner affect the qualities of which I have spoken.

This is what nature sometimes does; this is what we should always strive to do, extending this symmetry, if possible, to the moral as well as to the intellectual and physical organization. This man is ignorant of science, of books, of the world of letters, and the world of art, yet we respect him. Why? Because nature has chosen to illustrate in him her own principles, power and beauty.

That we may draw out the qualities of the human mind as they exist, we must first appreciate our influence upon childhood and youth. Our own experience is the best evidence of what that influence is. All along our lives the lessons of childhood return to us. The hills and valleys, the lakes, rivers, and rivulets, of our early home, come not in clearer visions before us than do the exhortations to industry, the incentives to progress, the lessons of learning, and the principles of truth, uttered and offered by the teachers of early years. In the same way the lines of the poet, the reflections of the philosopher, the calm truths of the historian, read once and often carelessly, and for many years forgotten, return as voices of inspiration, and are evermore with us.

That the teacher may have influence, his ear must be open to the voice of truth, and his mouth must be liberal with words of consolation, encouragement, and advice. He rules in a little world, and the scales of justice must be balanced evenly in his hands. He should go in and out before his scholars free from partiality or prejudice; indifferent to the voice of envy or detraction; shunning evil and emulous of good; patient of inquiries in the hours of duty; filled with the spirit of industry in his moments of leisure; gathering up and spreading before his pupils the choicest gems of literature, art, and science, that they may be early and truly inspired with the love of learning.

The public school is a little world, and the teacher rules therein. It contains the rich and the poor, the virtuous and the corrupt, the studious and the indifferent, the timid and the brave, the fearful and the hearts elate with hope and courage. Life is there no cheat; it wears no mask, it assumes no unnatural positions, but presents itself as it is. Deformed and repulsive in some of its features, yet to him whose eye is as quick to discover its beauty as its deformity, its harmony as its discord, there is always a bright spot on which he may gaze, and a fond hope to which he may cling. Artificial life, whether in the select school or the select party, tends to weaken our faith in humanity; and a want of faith in our race is an omen of ill-success in life. Teachers should have faith in humanity, and should labor constantly to inspire others with the belief that the true law of our nature is the law of progress.

Those who come early in life to the conclusion that the many cannot be moved by the higher sentiments and ideas which control a few favored mortals, cease to labor for the advancement of the race. They consequently lose their hold upon society, and society neglects them. For such men there can be no success.

Others, like Jefferson and Channing, never lose confidence in their species, and their species never lose confidence in them. When the teacher comes to believe that the world is worse than it was, and never can be better, he need wait for no other evidence that his days of usefulness are over.