¶That college graduate is but a poor creature who does not feel when he has left college that he has received something for which he owes a return. What he thus owes he can as a rule only pay by the way he bears himself throughout life. It is but occasionally that a college graduate can do much outright for his alma mater; he can best repay her by living a life that will reflect credit upon her, by so carrying himself as a citizen that men shall see that the years spent in training him have not been wasted.
¶The educated man is entitled to no special privilege, save the inestimable privilege of trying to show that his education enables him to take the lead in striving to guide his fellows aright in the difficult task which is set to us of the twentieth century. The problems before us to-day are very complex, and are widely different from those which the men of Washington’s generation had to face; but we can overcome them surely if we approach them in the spirit which Washington and Washington’s great supporters brought to bear upon the problems of their day—the spirit of sanity and of courage, the spirit which combines hard common-sense with the loftiest idealism.[[25]]
A Square Deal
and
The School Teacher
The development of the high school, especially during the last half century, has been literally phenomenal. Nothing like our present system of education was known in earlier times. No such system of popular education for the people by the representatives of the people existed.
¶It is, of course, a mere truism to say that the stability and future welfare of our institutions of government depend upon the grade of citizenship turned out from our public schools. And no body of public servants, no body of individuals associated in private life, are better worth the admiration and respect of all who value citizenship at its true worth, than the body composed of the teachers in the public schools throughout the length and breadth of this Union. They have to deal with citizenship in the raw and turn it out something like a finished product. I think that all of us who also endeavor to deal with that citizenship in the raw in our own homes appreciate the burden of the responsibility.
¶The training given in the public schools must, of course, be not merely a training in intellect, but a training in what counts for infinitely more than intellect—a training in character. And the chief factors in that training must be the personal equation of the teachers; the influence exerted, sometimes consciously and sometimes unconsciously, by the man or woman who stands in so peculiar a relation to the boys and girls under his or her care—a relation closer, more intimate, and more vital in its after-effects than any other relation save that of parent and child. Wherever a burden of that kind is laid, those who carry it necessarily carry a great responsibility. There can be no greater. Scant should be our patience with any man or woman doing a bit of work vitally worth doing, who does not approach it in the spirit of sincere love for the work, and of desire to do it well for the sake of the work’s sake.
¶Doubtless most of you remember the old distinction drawn between the two kinds of work, the work done for the sake of the fee and the work done for the sake of the work itself. The man or woman in public or private life who ever works only for the sake of the reward that comes outside of the work, will in the long run do poor work. The man or woman who does work worth doing is the man or woman who lives, who breathes that work; with whom it is ever present in his or her soul; whose ambition it is to do it well and to feel rewarded by the thought of having done it well. That man, that woman, puts the whole country under an obligation. As a body all those connected with the education of our people are entitled to the heartiest praise from all lovers of their country, because as a body they are devoting heart and soul to the welfare of those under them.
¶It is a poor type of school nowadays that has not a good playground attached. It is not so long since, in my own city at least, this was held as revolutionary doctrine, especially in the crowded quarters where playgrounds were most needed. People said they didn’t need playgrounds. It was a newfangled idea. They expected to make good citizens of the boys and girls who, when they were not in school, were put upon the streets in the crowded quarters of New York to play at the kind of games alone that they could play at in the streets. We have passed that stage. I think we realize what a good healthy playground means to children. I think we understand not only the effects for good upon their bodies, but for good upon their minds. We need healthy bodies. We need to have schools physically developed.
¶Sometimes you can develop character by the direct inculcation of moral precept; a good deal more often you cannot. You develop it less by precept than by your practice. Let it come as an incident of the association with you; as an incident to the general tone of the whole body, the tone which in the aggregate we all create. Is not that the experience of all of you, in dealing with these children in the schools, in dealing with them in the family, in dealing with them in bodies anywhere? They are quick to take the tone of those to whom they look up, and if they do not look up to you, then you can preach virtue all you wish, but the effect will be small.
¶I should hold myself a poor citizen if I did not welcome the chance to wish you Godspeed in your work for yourselves and to wish you Godspeed in your work as representatives of that great public body of public school teachers, upon the success of whose efforts to train aright the children of to-day depends the safety of our institutions of to-morrow.[[21]]