'Agassiz's influence on methods of teaching in our community,' said Professor James, 'was prompt and decisive—all the more that it struck people's imagination by its very excess. The good old way of committing printed abstractions to memory never seems to have received such a shock as it encountered at his hands. There is probably no public school teacher now [1896] in New England who will not tell you how Agassiz used to lock a student up in a room full of turtle-shells, or lobster-shells, or oyster-shells, without a book or a word to help him, and not let him out till he had discovered all the truths which the objects contained. Some found the truths after weeks and months of lonely sorrow; others never found them. Those who found them were already made into naturalists thereby—the failures were blotted from the book of honor and of life. "Go to nature; take the facts into your own hands; look, and see for yourself!"—these were the maxims which Agassiz preached wherever he went, and their effect upon pedagogy was electric…. While on the Thayer expedition [to Brazil, in 1865], I remember that I often put questions to him about the facts of our new tropical habitat, but I doubt if he ever answered one of these questions of mine outright. He always said: "There, you see you have a definite problem. Go and look, and find the answer for yourself."' [Footnote: William James, Louis Agassiz, Words Spoken … at the Reception of the American Society of Naturalists … [Dec. 30, 1896]. Pp. 9, 10. Cambridge, 1897.]
IX
OBITER DICTA BY AGASSIZ
[Footnote: The first nine of these utterances were taken down by Dr.
David Stair Jordan at Penikese, in the summer of 1873, from Agassiz's
talks to teachers; see Popular Science Monthly 40. 726-727, and
Holder, Louis Agassiz, his Life and Works, 1893, pp. 173-176.
The next five come from the article entitled 'Louis Agassiz, Teacher,'
by Professor Burt G. Wilder, in The Harvard Graduate's Magazine,
June, 1907, and the last three from Agassiz's posthumous article,
"Evolution and Permanence of Type," in the Atlantic Monthly,
Jan., 1874 (vol. 33).]
Never try to teach what you yourself do not know, and know well. If your school board insists on your teaching anything and everything, decline firmly to do it. It is an imposition alike on pupils and teacher to teach that which he does not know. Those teachers who are strong enough should squarely refuse to do such work. This much-needed reform is already beginning in our colleges, and I hope it will continue. It is a relic of mediaeval times, this idea of professing everything. When teachers begin to decline work which they cannot do well, improvements begin to come in. If one will be a successful teacher, he must firmly refuse work which he cannot do successfully.
It is a false idea to suppose that everybody is competent to learn or to teach everything. Would our great artists have succeeded equally well in Greek or calculus? A smattering of everything is worth little. It is a fallacy to suppose that an encyclopaedic knowledge is desirable. The mind is made strong, not through much learning, but by the thorough possession of something.
Lay aside all conceit. Learn to read the book of nature for yourself. Those who have succeeded best have followed for years some slim thread which has once in a while broadened out and disclosed some treasure worth a life-long search.
A man cannot be a professor of zoology on one day, and of chemistry on the next, and do good work in both. As in a concert all are musicians —one plays one instrument, and one another, but none all in perfection.
You cannot do without one specialty; you must have some base-line to measure the work and attainments of others. For a general view of the subject, study the history of the sciences. Broad knowledge of all nature has been the possession of no naturalist except Humboldt, and general relations constituted his specialty.
Select such subjects that your pupils cannot walk without seeing them. Train your pupils to be observers, and have them provided with the specimens about which you speak. If you can find nothing better, take a house-fly or a cricket, and let each hold a specimen and examine it as you talk.