LB
1731
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Data
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HULIHINDI
SCIENTIA
ARTES
VERITAS
LIBRARY
OF THE
UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN ||
harmaWMAN INI MAMMA
WRITINN
SENTVI REYES
TIEBOR
A
QUERIS PENINSULAM AMANAN
YAYYATOMYOTA
SNYAYA
EDUCATION
wiesinimin
THTRIHU
החדש
Riverside Educational Monographs
EDITED BY HENRY SUZZALLO
THE IDEAL TEACHER
BY
GEORGE HERBERT PALMER
PROFESSOR OF PHILOSOPHY EMERITUS
HARVARD UNIVERSITY

.
.
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
BOSTON NEW YORK • CHICAGO DALLAS
SAN FRANCISCO
The Riverside Press Cambridge
COPYRIGHT, 1908, BY GEORGE HERBERT PALMER
COPYRIGHT, 1910, BY HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED INCLUDING THE RIGHT TO REPRODUCE
THIS BOOK OR PARTS THEREOF IN ANY FORM

The Riverside Press
CAMBRIDGE . MASSACHUSETTS
PRINTED IN THE U.S.A
INTRODUCTION
On the whole the American people are sincerely
and deeply appreciative of their schools and teachers.
The teachers themselves are for the most part con-
tented in their work, strenuous and baffling as it may
be. And whatever may be said of the shortcomings of
teaching as a life, they stand loyally by it. In spite of
moments of pessimism, they seldom change to an-
other work, so tenacious are its ultimate attractions.
But it would be quite wrong to assume that either
the public or teachers have no just criticism to make
upon the life and the product of schools. The educa-
tional ideals, and consequently the expectations of
both, are too high to permit a smug satisfaction with
things as they are. The layman wants better service
from teaching. The teacher wishes a happier life in his
work. They will probably continue to demand these
till the end of time, though the schools grow con-
stantly better. There is no ungratefulness in this at-
titude; it is part of the idealism that attaches to the
work of schools and keeps them forever progressive.
It is for the body of teachers to strive earnestly to
do their part to achieve both these ends — to increase
the social service of their teaching and to perfect



iv
INTRODUCTION
a
their joy in the work. This is what we mean when
we say that we should make of teaching both a pro-
fession and a fine art.
Teaching will be a profession when we have learned
the need of thorough scholarly equipment, and single-
minded devotion to our daily and hourly duties in
the school-room, under the guidance of those larger
ideals which the world has set up for the protection
of its cherished values. Nothing less than expert
knowledge, tempered by a spirit of reverent ministry
to those placed under our tuition, will ever make us
professional teachers.
Teaching will be a fine art when the situations of
schoolroom life are made to call for the best in teacher
and pupil. In such a soil of noble motivation the
highest powers of human beings thrive. The teacher
who drives or is driven, who forces himself or his
children through stated tasks, without any sense
of their significance, will not find teaching congenial.
He will never know that absorption which is the
essence of art. Half-heartedly he will teach, his other,
more imperious impulses beckoning him away to
another life. And while he stays, he will know only
that pain of conflict which destroys the possibility
of happy work. To achieve real success, teaching
must be kept an interesting business, where the free
impulses of children and teachers are so used as to
accomplish useful things happily.
INTRODUCTION
V
Ideal teaching, then, will be at the same time pro-
fessional and artistic, socially useful and personally
pleasant. It will always be a goal which we con-
stantly approach but never reach, its approximation
whetting our hunger after perfection, and giving us
the satisfaction of a thousand victorious adjustments
in every school day. Such an ideal is not for laggards
or the indifferent. Only the man of fine qualities can
enter the lists and joyously achieve. What these
qualities are, how they are to be developed, and how
used, will be told in this volume.
a
THE IDEAL TEACHER
THE IDEAL TEACHER
In America, a land of idealism, the profession of
teaching has become one of the greatest of human
employments. In 1903–04 half a million teachers
were in charge of sixteen million pupils. Stating the
same facts differently, we may say that a fifth of our
entire population is constantly at school; and that
wherever one hundred and sixty men, women, and
children are gathered, a teacher is sure to be among
them.
But figures fail to express the importance of the
work. If each year an equal number of persons
should come in contact with as many lawyers, no
such social consequences would follow. The touch
of the teacher, like that of no other person, is forma-
tive. Our young people are for long periods asso-
ciated with those who are expected to fashion them
into men and women of an approved type. A charge
so influential is committed to nobody else in the
community, not even to the ministers; for though
these have a more searching aim, they are directly
occupied with it but one day instead of six, but one
hour instead of five. Accordingly, as the tract of
4
THE IDEAL TEACHER
knowledge has widened, and the creative opportu-
nities involved in conducting a young person over
it have correspondingly become apparent, the pro-
fession of teaching has risen to a notable height of
dignity and attractiveness. It has moved from a sub-
ordinate to a central place in social influence, and
now undertakes much of the work which formerly
fell to the church. Each year divinity schools attract
fewer students, graduate and normal schools more.
On school and college instruction the community
now bestows its choicest minds, its highest hopes,
and its largest sums. During the year 1903-04
the United States spent for teaching not less than
$350,000,000.
Such weighty work is ill adapted for amateurs.
Those who take it up for brief times and to make
money usually find it unsatisfactory. Success is
rare, the hours are fixed and long, there is repe-
tition and monotony, and the teacher passes his
days among inferiors. Nor are the pecuniary gains
considerable. There are few prizes, and neither in
school nor in college will a teacher's ordinary in-
come carry him much above want. College teach-
ing is falling more and more into the hands of
men of independent means. The poor can hardly
afford to engage in it. Private schools, it is true,
often show large incomes; but they are earned by
the proprietors, not the teachers. On the whole,

THE IDEAL TEACHER
5
teaching as a trade is poor and disappointing
business.
When, however, it is entered as a profession, as
a serious and difficult fine art, there are few employ-
ments more satisfying. All over the country thousands
of men and women are following it with a passion-
ate devotion which takes little account of the income
received. A trade aims primarily at personal gain;
a profession at the exercise of powers beneficial to
mankind. This prime aim of the one, it is true,
often properly becomes a subordinate aim of the
other. Professional men may even be said to offer
wares of their own – cures, conversions, court vic-
tories, learning - much as traders do, and to receive
in return a kind of reward. But the business of the
lawyer, doctor, preacher, and teacher never squares
itself by equivalent exchange. These men do not give
so much for so much. They give in lump and they
get in lump, without precise balance. The whole
notion of bargain is inapplicable in a sphere where the
gains of him who serves and him who is served coin-
cide; and that is largely the case with the professions.
Each of them furnishes its special opportunity for
the use of powers which the possessor takes delight
in exercising. Harvard College pays me for doing
what I would gladly pay it for allowing me to do.
No professional man, then, thinks of giving accord-
ing to measure. Once engaged, he gives his best,
6
THE IDEAL TEACHER
gives his personal interest, himself. His heart is in
his work, and for this no equivalent is possible; what
is accepted is in the nature of a fee, gratuity, or con-
sideration, which enables him who receives it to
maintain a certain expected mode of life. The real
payment is the work itself, this and the chance to
join with other members of the profession in guid-
ing and enlarging the sphere of its activities.
The idea, sometimes advanced, that the profes-
sions might be ennobled by paying them powerfully,
is fantastic. Their great attraction is their removal
from sordid aims. More money should certainly
be spent on several of them. Their members should
be better protected against want, anxiety, neglect,
and bad conditions of labor. To do his best work one
needs not merely to live, but to live well. Yet in that
increase of salaries which is urgently needed, care
should be used not to allow the attention of the pro-
fessional man to be diverted from what is impor-
tant, — the outgo of his work, - and become fixed
on what is merely incidental, - his income. When
a professor in one of our large universities, angered
by the refusal of the president to raise his salary on
his being called, elsewhere, impatiently exclaimed,
“Mr. President, you are banking on the devotion of
us teachers, knowing that we do not willingly leave
this place,” the president properly replied, “Cer-
tainly, and no college can be managed on any other
-
-
THE IDEAL TEACHER
7
principle.” Professional men are not so silly as to
despise money; but after all, it is interest in their
work, and not the thought of salary, which predomi-
nantly holds them.
Accordingly in this paper I address those only
who are drawn to teaching by the love of it, who re-
gard it as the most vital of the Fine Arts, who intend
to give their lives to mastering its subtleties, and
who are ready to meet some hardships and to put
up with moderate fare if they may win its rich op-
portunities.
But supposing such a temper, what special quali-
fications will the work require ? The question asked
thus broadly admits no precise answer; for in reality
there is no human excellence which is not useful for
us teachers. No good quality can be thought of
which we can afford to drop. Some day we shall
discover a disturbing vacuum in the spot which it
left. But I propose a more limited problem: what
are those characteristics of the teacher without which
he must fail, and what those which, once his, will
almost certainly insure him success ? Are there any
such essentials, and how many ? On this matter I
have pondered long; for, teaching thirty-nine years
in Harvard College, I have each year found out a
little more fully my own incompetence. I have thus
been forced to ask myself the double question,
through what lacks do I fail, and in what direction
8
THE IDEAL TEACHER
-
lie the roots of my small successes ? Of late years
I think I have hit on these roots of success and
have come to believe that there are four of them,
four characteristics which every teacher must
possess. Of course he may possess as many more
as he likes, — indeed, the more the better. But
these four appear fundamental. I will briefly name
them.
First, a teacher must have an aptitude for vica-
riousness; and second, an already accumulated
wealth; and third, an ability to invigorate life through
knowledge; and fourth, a readiness to be forgotten.
Having these, any teacher is secure. Lacking them,
lacking even one, he is liable to serious failure. But
as here stated they have a curiously cabalistic sound
and show little relation to the needs of any profession.
They have been stated with too much condensation,
and have become unintelligible through being too
exact. Let me repair the error by successively ex-
panding them.
The teacher's art takes its rise in what I call an
aptitude for vicariousness. As year by year my col-
lege boys prepare to go forth into life, some laggard
is sure to come to me and say, “I want a little advice.
Most of my classmates have their minds made up
about what they are going to do. I am still uncer-
tain. I rather incline to be a teacher, because I am
fond of books and suspect that in any other profession

a
THE IDEAL TEACHER
9
I can give them but little time. Business men do not
read. Lawyers only consult books. And I am by
no means sure that ministers have read all the books
they quote. On the whole it seems safest to choose
a profession in which books will be my daily com-
panions. So I turn toward teaching. But before
settling the matter I thought I would ask how you
regard the profession.” “A noble profession,” I
“
answer,“but quite unfit for you. I would advise you
to become a lawyer, a car conductor, or something
equally harmless. Do not turn to anything so peril-
ous as teaching. You would ruin both it and your-
self; for you are looking in exactly the wrong
direction.”
Such an inquirer is under a common misconcep-
tion. The teacher's task is not primarily the acqui-
sition of knowledge, but the impartation of it, — an
entirely different matter. We teachers are forever
taking thoughts out of our minds and putting them
elsewhere. So long as we are content to keep them
in our possession, we are not teachers at all. One
who is interested in laying hold on wisdom is likely
to become a scholar. And while no doubt it is well
for a teacher to be a fair scholar, — I have known
I
several such, -- that is not the main thing. What con-
stitutes the teacher is the passion to make scholars;
and again and again it happens that the great scholar
has no such passion whatever.

10
THE IDEAL TEACHER
But even that passion is useless without aid from
imagination. At every instant of the teacher's life
he must be controlled by this mighty power. Most
human beings are contented with living one life
and delighted if they can pass that agreeably. But
this is far from enough for us teachers. We inces-
santly go outside ourselves and enter into the many
lives about us, - lives dull, dark, and unintelligible
to any but an eye like ours. And this is imagination,
the sympathetic creation in ourselves of conditions
which belong to others. Our profession is therefore
a double-ended one. We inspect truth as it rises fresh
and interesting before our eager sight. But that is
only the beginning of our task. Swiftly we then
seize the lines of least intellectual resistance in alien
minds and, with perpetual reference to these, fol-
low our truth till it is safely lodged beyond ourselves.
Each mind has its peculiar set of frictions. Those
of our pupils can never be the same as ours. We
have passed far on and know all about our subject.
For us it wears an altogether different look from that
which it has for beginners. It is their perplexities
which we must reproduce and — as if a rose should
shut and be a bud again — we must reassume in our
developed and accustomed souls something of the
innocence of childhood. Such is the exquisite busi-
ness of the teacher, to carry himself back with all his
wealth of knowledge and understand how his sub-
THE IDEAL TEACHER
11
>
ject should appear to the meagre mind of one glanc-
ing at it for the first time.
And what absurd blunders we make in the process!
Becoming immersed in our own side of the affair,
we blind ourselves and readily attribute to our pupils
modes of thought which are not in the least theirs.
I remember a lesson I had on this point, I who had
been teaching ethics half a lifetime. My nephew,
five years old, was fond of stories from the Odyssey.
He would creep into bed with me in the morning and
beg for them. One Sunday, after I had given him
a pretty stiff bit of adventure, it occurred to me that
it was an appropriate day for a moral. “Ulysses
was a very brave man," I remarked. “Yes,” he said,
"and I am very brave." I saw my opportunity and
seized it. “That is true,” said I. “You have been
gaining courage lately. You used to cry easily, but
you don't do that nowadays. When you want to cry
now, you think how like a baby it would be to cry,
or how you would disturb mother and upset the
house; and so you conclude not to cry.” The little
fellow seemed hopelessly puzzled. He lay silent a
minute or two and then said, “Well no, Uncle, I
don't do that. I just go sh-sh-sh, and I don't.”
There the moral crisis is stated in its simplicity;
and I had been putting off on that holy little nature
sophistications borrowed from my own battered life.
But while I am explaining the blunders caused by

12
THE IDEAL TEACHER
self-engrossment and lack of imagination, let me
show what slight adjustments will sometimes carry
us past depressing difficulties. One year when I was
lecturing on some intricate problems of obligation,
I began to doubt whether my class was following
me, and I determined that I would make them talk.
So the next day I constructed an ingenious ethical
case and, after stating it to the class, I said, “Sup-
posing now the state of affairs were thus and thus,
and the interests of the persons involved were such
and such, how would you decide the question of right,
- Mr. Jones.” Poor Jones rose in confusion. “You
mean,” he said, “if the case were as you have stated
it? Well, hm, hm, hm, - yes, - I don't think I know,
sir.” And he sat down. I called on one and another
with the same result. A panic was upon them, and
all their minds were alike empty. I went home dis-
gusted, wondering whether they had comprehended
anything I had said during the previous fortnight,
and hoping I might never have such a stupid lot of
students again. Suddenly it flashed upon me that it
was I who was stupid. That is usually the case when
a class fails; it is the teacher's fault. The next day
I went back prepared to begin at the right end. I
began, “Oh, Mr. Jones.” He rose, and I proceeded
to state the situation as before. By the time I paused
he had collected his wits, had worked off his
super-
fluous flurry, and was ready to give me an admirable

THE IDEAL TEACHER
13
answer. Indeed in a few minutes the whole class was
a
engaged in an eager discussion. My previous error
had been in not remembering that they, I, and every-
body, when suddenly attacked with a big question,
are not in the best condition for answering. Occupied
as I was with my end of the story, the questioning
end, I had not worked in that double-ended fashion
which alone can bring the teacher success; in short,
I was deficient in vicariousness, — in swiftly put-
ting myself in the weak one's place and bearing his
burden.
Now it is in this chief business of the artistic
teacher, to labor imaginatively himself in order to
diminish the labors of his slender pupil, that most
of our failures occur. Instead of lamenting the im-
perviousness of our pupils, we had better ask our-
selves more frequently whether we have neatly ad-
justed our teachings to the conditions of their minds.
We have no right to tumble out in a mass whatever
comes into our heads, leaving to that feeble folk the
work of finding in it what order they may. Ours
it should be to see that every beginning, middle, and
end of what we say is helpfully shaped for readiest
access to those less intelligent and interested than we.
But this is vicariousness. Noblesse oblige. In this
profession any one who will be great must be a
nimble servant, his head full of others' needs.
Some discouraged teacher, glad to discover that

14
THE IDEAL TEACHER
his past failures have been due to the absence of
sympathetic imagination, may resolve that he will
not commit that blunder again. On going to his
class to-morrow he will look out upon his subject
with his pupils' eyes, not with his own. Let him at-
tempt it, and his pupils will surely say to one another,
What is the matter to-day with teacher ?” They
will get nothing from that exercise. No, what is
wanted is not a resolve, but an aptitude. The time
for using vicariousness is not the time for acquiring
it. Rather it is the time for dismissing all thoughts
of it from the mind. On entering the classroom we
should leave every consideration of method outside
the door, and talk simply as interested men and
women in whatever way comes most natural to us.
But into that nature vicariousness should long ago
have been wrought. It should be already on hand.
Fortunate we if our great-grandmother supplied us
with it before we were born. There are persons
who, with all good will, can never be teachers. They
are not made in that way. Their business it is to
pry into knowledge, to engage in action, to make
money, or to pursue whatever other aim their powers
dictate; but they do not readily think in terms of
the other person. They should not, then, be teach-
ers.
The teacher's habit is well summed in the Apos-
tle's rule, “Look not every man on his own things,
THE IDEAL TEACHER
15
-
but every man also ” — it is double — “on the things
of others.” And this habit should become as nearly
as possible an instinct. Until it is rendered in-
stinctive and passes beyond conscious direction, it
will be of little worth. Let us then, as we go into
society, as we walk the streets, as we sit at table,
practice altruistic limberness and learn to escape
from ourselves. A true teacher is always meditating
his work, disciplining himself for his profession,
probing the problems of his glorious art, and seeing
illustration of them everywhere. In only one place
is he freed from such criticism, and that is in his
classroom. Here in the moment of action he lets
himself go, unhampered by theory, using the nature
acquired elsewhere, and uttering as simply as pos-
sible the fulness of his mind and heart. Direct human
intercourse requires instinctive aptitudes. Till al-
truistic vicariousness has become our second nature,
we shall not deeply influence anybody.
But sympathetic imagination is not all a teacher
needs. Exclusive altruism is absurd. On this point
too I once got instruction from the mouths of babes
and sucklings. The children of a friend of mine,
children of six and four, had just gone to bed. Their
mother overheard them talking when they should
have been asleep. Wondering what they might need,
she stepped into the entry and listened. They were
discussing what they were here in the world for.
16
THE IDEAL TEACHER
That is about the size of problems commonly found
in infant minds. The little girl suggested that we are
probably in the world to help others. “Why, no
indeed, Mabel,” said her big brother," for then what
would others be here for?” Precisely! If anything
is only fit to give away, it is not fit for that. We must
know and prize its goodness in ourselves before
generosity is even possible.
Plainly, then, beside his aptitude for vicariousness,
our ideal teacher will need the second qualification
of an already accumulated wealth. These hungry
pupils are drawing all their nourishment from us,
and have we got it to give? They will be poor, if we
are poor; rich if we are wealthy. We are their source
of supply. Every time we cut ourselves off from
nutrition, we enfeeble them. And how frequently
devoted teachers make this mistake! dedicating
themselves so to the immediate needs of those about
them that they themselves grow thinner each year.
We all know the “teacher's face.” It is meagre,
worn, sacrificial, anxious, powerless. That is exactly
the opposite of what it should be. The teacher should
be the big bounteous being of the community. Other
people may get along tolerably by holding whatever
small knowledge comes their way. A moderate stock
will pretty well serve their private turn. But that is
not our case. Supplying a multitude, we need wealth
sufficient for a multitude. We should then be clutch-

a
18
THE IDEAL TEACHER
and she answered, “Arithmetic in the third grade."
But where is the third grade found? In knowledge,
or in the schools? Unhappily it is in the schools.
But if one would be a teacher of arithmetic, it must
be arithmetic she teaches and not third grade at all.
We cannot accept these artificial bounds without
damage. Instead of accumulated wealth they will
bring us accumulated poverty, and increase it every
day. Years ago at Harvard we began to discuss the
establishment of a Graduate School; and I, a young
instructor, steadily voted against it. My thought was
this: Harvard College, in spite of what the pub-
lic imagines, is a place of slender resources. Our
means are inadequate for teaching even under-
graduates. But graduate instruction is vastly more
expensive; courses composed of half a dozen students
take the time of the ablest professors. I thought
we could not afford this. Why not leave graduate
instruction to a university which gives itself entirely
to that task? Would it not be wiser to spend ourselves
on the lower ranges of learning, covering these ade-
quately, than to try to spread ourselves over the en-
tire field ?
Doubting so, I for some time opposed the coming
of a Graduate School. But a luminous remark of
our great President showed me the error of my
ways. In the course of debate he said one even-
ing, “It is not primarily for the graduates that
a
a

THE IDEAL TEACHER
17
ing at knowledge on every side. Nothing must es-
cape us. It is a mistake to reject a bit of truth because
it lies outside our province. Some day we shall need
it. All knowledge is our province.
In preparing a lecture I find I always have to
work hardest on the things I do not say. The things
I am sure to say I can easily get up. They are
obvious and generally accessible. But they, I find,
are not enough. I must have a broad background
of knowledge which does not appear in speech. I
have to go over my entire subject and see how the
things I am to say look in their various relations,
tracing out connections which I shall not present
to my class. One might ask what is the use of this ?
Why prepare more matter than can be used ? Every
successful teacher knows. I cannot teach right up
to the edge of my knowledge without a fear of falling
off. My pupils discover this fear, and my words
are ineffective. They feel the influence of what I
do not say. One cannot precisely explain it; but
when I move freely across my subject as if it mat-
tered little on what part of it I rest, they get a sense
of assured power which is compulsive and fructify-
ing. The subject acquires consequence, their minds
swell, and they are eager to enter regions of which
they had not previously thought.
Even, then, to teach a small thing well we must
be large. I asked a teacher what her subject was,
a


THE IDEAL TEACHER
19
I care for this school; it is for the undergraduates.
We shall never get good teaching here so long as our
instructors set a limit to their subjects. When they
are called on to follow these throughout, tracing
them far off toward the unknown, they may become
good teachers; but not before."
I went home meditating. I saw that the President
was right, and that I was myself in danger of the
stagnation he deprecated. I changed my vote, as
did others. The Graduate School was established;
and of all the influences which have contributed to
raise the standard of scholarship at Harvard, both
for teachers and taught, that graduate work seems
to me the greatest. Every professor now must be
the master of a field of knowledge, and not of a few
paths running through it.
But the ideal teacher will accumulate wealth,
not merely for his pupils' sake, but for his own.
To be a great teacher one must be a great personality,
and without ardent and individual tastes the roots
of our being are not fed. For developing personal
power it is well, therefore, for each teacher to culti«
vate interests unconnected with his official work. Let
the mathematician turn to the English poets, the
teacher of classics to the study of birds and flowers,
and each will gain a lightness, a freedom from
exhaustion, a mental hospitality, which can only
be acquired in some disinterested pursuit. Such a
a
20
THE IDEAL TEACHER
a
private subject becomes doubly dear because it is
just our own. We pursue it as we will; we let it call
out our irresponsible thoughts; and from it we ordi-
narily carry off a note of distinction lacking in those
whose lives are too tightly organized.
To this second qualification of the teacher, how-
ever, I have been obliged to prefix a condition simi-
lar to that which was added to the first. We need not
merely wealth, but an already accumulated wealth.
At the moment when wealth is wanted it cannot be
acquired. It should have been gathered and stored
before the occasion arose. What is more pitiable
than when a person who desires to be a benefactor
looks in his chest and finds it empty ? Special know-
ledge is wanted, or trained insight, or professional
skill, or sound practical judgment; and the teacher
who is called on has gone through no such discipline
as assures these resources. I am inclined to think
that women are more liable to this sort of bankruptcy
than men. Their sex is more sympathetic than ours
and they spend more hastily. They will drop what
they are doing and run if a baby cries. Excellence
requires a certain hardihood of heart, while quick
responsiveness is destructive of the larger giving.
He who would be greatly generous must train him-
self long and tenaciously, without much attention
to momentary calls. The plan of the Great Teacher,
by which he took thirty years for acquisition and

THE IDEAL TEACHER
21
three for bestowal, is not unwise, provided that we
too can say, “For their sakes I sanctify myself.”
“
But the two qualifications of the teacher already
named will not alone suffice. I have known persons
who were sympathetically imaginative, and who
could not be denied to possess large intellectual
wealth, who still failed as teachers. One needs a third
something, the power to invigorate life through learn-
ing. We do not always notice how knowledge nat-
urally buffets. It is offensive stuff, and makes young
and wholesome minds rebel. And well it may; for
when we learn anything, we are obliged to break up
the world, inspect it piecemeal, and let our minds
seize it bit by bit. Now about a fragment there is *
always something repulsive. Any one who is nor-
mally constituted must draw back in horror, feeling
that what is brought him has little to do with the
beautiful world he has known. Where was there
ever a healthy child who did not hate the multipli-
cation table? A boy who did not detest such ab-
stractions as seven times eight would hardly be worth
educating. By no ingenuity can we relieve knowledge
of this unfortunate peculiarity. It must be taken in
disjointed portions. That is the way attention is
made. In consequence each of us must be to some
extent a specialist, devoting himself to certain sides
of the world and neglecting others quite as important.
These are the conditions under which we imperfect


22
THE IDEAL TEACHER
creatures work. Our sight is not world-wide. When
we give our attention to one object, by that very
act we withdraw it from others. In this way our
children must learn and have their expansive natures
subdued to pedagogic exigencies.
Because this belittlement through the method of
approach is inevitable, it is all-important that the
teacher should possess a supplemental dignity, re-
placing the oppressive sense of pettiness with stimu-
lating intimations of high things in store. Partly
on this account a book is an imperfect instructor.
Truth there, being impersonal, seems untrue, ab-
stract, and insignificant. It needs to shine through
. a human being before it can exert its vital force on a
young student. Quite as much for vital transmission
as for intellectual elucidation, is a teacher employed.
His consolidated character exhibits the gains which
come from study. He need not point them out. If
he is a scholar, there will appear in him an august-
ness, accuracy, fulness of knowledge, a buoyant
enthusiasm even in drudgery, and an unshakable
confidence that others must soon see and enjoy what
has enriched himself; and all this will quickly con-
vey itself to his students and create attention in his
classroom. Such kindling of interest is the great
function of the teacher. People sometimes say, “I
should like to teach if only pupils cared to learn.”
But then there would be little need of teaching.
THE IDEAL TEACHER
23
Boys who have made up their minds that knowledge
is worth while are pretty sure to get it, without regard
to teachers. Our chief concern is with those who are
unawakened. In the Sistine Chapel Michael Angelo
has depicted the Almighty moving in clouds over
the rugged earth where lies the newly created Adam,
hardly aware of himself. The tips of the fingers
touch, the Lord's and Adam's, and the huge frame
loses its inertness and rears itself into action. Such
may be the electrifying touch of the teacher.
But it must be confessed that not infrequently,
instead of invigorating life through knowledge, we
teachers reduce our classes to complete passivity.
The blunder is not altogether ours, but is suggested
by certain characteristics of knowledge itself: for
how can a learner begin without submitting his
mind, accepting facts, listening to authority, in
short becoming obedient? He is called on to put
aside his own notions and take what truth dictates.
I have said that knowledge buffets, forcing us into
an almost slavish attitude, and that this is resented
by vigorous natures. In almost every school some
of the most original, aggressive, and independent
boys stand low in their classes, while at the top
stand “grinds,” — objects of horror to all healthy
souls.
Now it is the teacher's business to see that the on-
slaught of knowledge does not enfeeble. Between the
24
THE IDEAL TEACHER
two sides of knowledge, information and intelligence,
he is to keep the balance true. While a boy is taking
in facts, facts not allowed to be twisted by any fancy
or carelessness, he is all the time to be made to
feel that these facts offer him a field for critical
and constructive action. If they leave him inactive,
docile, and plodding, there is something wrong with
the teaching. Facts are pernicious when they subju-
gate and do not quicken the mind that grasps them.
Education should unfold us and truth together; and
to enable it to do so the learner must never be allowed
to sink into a mere recipient. He should be called
on to think, to observe, to form his own judgments,
even at the risk of error and crudity. Temporary
pne-sidedness and extravagance is not too high a
price to pay for originality. And this development
of personal vigor, emphasized in our day by the elec-
tive system and independent research, is the great
aim of education. It should affect the lower ranges
of study as truly as the higher. The mere contempla-
tion of truth is always a deadening affair. Many a
dull class in school and college would come to life
if simply given something to do. Until the mind
reacts for itself on what it receives, its education is
hardly begun.
The teacher who leads it so to react may be truly
called “productive," productive of human beings.
The noble word has recently become Germanized


THE IDEAL TEACHER
25
and corrupted, and is now hardly more than a piece
of educational slang. According to the judgments
of to-day a teacher may be unimaginative, pedantic,
dull, and may make his students no less so; he will
still deserve a crown of wild olive as a “productive”
man if he neglects his classroom for the printing press.
But this is to put first things second and second
things first. He who is original and fecund, and
knows how to beget a similar spirit in his students,
will naturally wish to express himself beyond his
classroom. By snatching the fragments of time
which his arduous work allows, he may accomplish
much worthy writing and probably increase too his
worth for his college, his students, and himself. But
the business of book-making is, after all, collateral
with us teachers. Not for this are we employed, de-
sirable though it is for showing the kind of mind we
bear. Many of my most productive colleagues have
printed little or nothing, though they have left a deep
mark on the life and science of our time. I would
encourage publication. It keeps the solitary student
healthy, enables him to find his place among his
fellows, and more distinctly to estimate the contri-
butions he is making to his subject. But let him never
neglect his proper work for that which must always
have in it an element of advertising.
Too long I have delayed the fourth, the disagree-
able, section of my paper. Briefly it is this: a teacher
26
THE IDEAL TEACHER
-
son.
must have a readiness to be forgotten. And what is
harder? We may be excellent persons, may be daily
doing kindnesses, and yet not be quite willing to
have those kindnesses overlooked. Many a man is
ready to be generous, if by it he can win praise. The
love of praise, - it is almost our last infirmity; but
there is no more baffling infirmity for the teacher.
If praise and recognition are dear to him, he may
as well stop work. Dear to him perhaps they must
be, as a human being; but as a teacher, he is called
on to rise above ordinary human conditions. Who-
ever has followed me thus far will perceive the rea-
I have shown that a teacher does not live for
himself, but for his pupil and for the truth which he
imparts. His aim is to be a colorless medium through
which that truth may shine on opening minds. How
can he be this if he is continually interposing him-
self and saying, “Instead of looking at the truth, my
children, look at me and see how skilfully I do my
work. I thought I taught you admirably to-day. I
hope you thought so too.” No, the teacher must
keep himself entirely out of the way, fixing young
attention on the proffered knowledge and not on
anything so small as the one who brings it. Only
so can he be vicarious, whole-hearted in invigorating
the lives committed to his charge.
Moreover, any other course is futile. We cannot
tell whether those whom we are teaching have taken
a
>

THE IDEAL TEACHER
27
our best points or not. Those best points, what are
they? We shall count them one thing, our pupils
another. We gather what seems to us of consequence
and pour it out upon our classes. But if their minds
are not fitted to receive it, the little creatures have
excellent protective arrangements which they draw
down, and all we pour is simply shed as if nothing
had fallen; while again we say something so slight
that we hardly notice it, but, happening to be just
the nutritive element which that small life then
needs, it is caught up and turned into human fibre.
We cannot tell. We work in the dark. Out upon
.
the waters our bread is cast, and if we are wise we
do not attempt to trace its return.
On this point I received capital instruction from
one of my pupils. In teaching a course on English
Empiricism I undertook a line of exposition which
I knew was abstruse. Indeed, I doubted if many
of the class could follow; but there on the front seat
sat one whose bright eyes were ever upon me. It
seemed worth while to teach my three or four best
men, that man in particular. By the end of the term
there were many grumblings. My class did not get
much out of me that year. They graduated, and a
couple of years later this young fellow appeared at
my door to say that he could not pass through Cam-
bridge without thanking me for his work on Locke,
Berkeley, and Hume. Pleased to be assured that

28
THE IDEAL TEACHER
a
my questionable methods were justified, and unwill-
ing to drop a subject so agreeable, I asked if he
could tell precisely where the value of the course lay.
“ Certainly,” he answered. “It all centred in a single
remark of Locke's. Locke said we ought to have
clear and distinct ideas. I don't think I got anything
else out of the course."
Well, at first I was inclined to think the fellow
foolish, so to mistake a bit of commonplace for gos-
pel truth. Why did he not listen to some of the pro-
found things I was saying? But on reflection I saw
that he was right and I wrong. That trivial saying
had come to him at a critical moment as a word of
power; while the deep matters which interested me,
and which I had been offering him so confidently
day by day, being unsuited to him, had passed him
by. He had not heard them.
To such proper unthankfulness we teachers must
accustom ourselves. We cannot tell what are our
good deeds, and shall only plague ourselves and
hinder our classes if we try to find out. Let us dis-
play our subjects as lucidly as possible, allow our
pupils considerable license in apprehension, and be
content ourselves to escape observation. But though
what we do remains unknown, its results often awake
deep affection. Few in the community receive love
more abundantly than we. Wherever we go, we
meet a smiling face. Throughout the world, by
THE IDEAL TEACHER
29
a
some good fortune, the period of learning is the
period of romance. In those halcyon days of our
boys and girls we have a share, and the golden lights
which flood the opening years are reflected on us.
Though our pupils cannot follow our efforts in their
behalf, and indeed ought not, - it being our art to
-
conceal our art, — yet they perceive that in the years
-
when their happy expansion occurred we were their
guides. To us, therefore, their blind affections cling
as to few beside their parents. It is better to be loved
than to be understood.
Perhaps some readers of this paper will begin to
suspect that it is impossible to be a good teacher.
Certainly it is. Each of the four qualifications I have
named is endless. Not one of them can be fully at-
tained. We can always be more imaginative, wealthy,
stimulating, disinterested. Each year we creep a
little nearer to our goal, only to find that a finished
teacher is a contradiction in terms. Our reach will
forever exceed our grasp. Yet what a delight in
approximation! Even in our failures there is com-
fort, when we see that they are generally due not to
technical but to personal defects. We have been put-
ting ourselves forward, or have taught in mechanical
rather than vital fashion, or have not undertaken
betimes the labor of preparation, or have declined the
trouble of vicariousness.
Evidently, then, as we become better teachers we
30
THE IDEAL TEACHER
also become in some sort better persons. Our beau-
tiful art, being so largely personal, will at last be
seen to connect itself with nearly all other employ-
ments. Every mother is a teacher. Every minister.
The lawyer teaches the jury, the doctor his patient.
The clever salesman might almost be said to use
teaching in dealing with his customer, and all of us
to be teachers of one another in daily intercourse. As
teaching is the most universal of the professions,
those are fortunate who are able to devote their
lives to its enriching study.

OUTLINE
TEACHING AS A PROFESSION
.
1. Teaching a great human employment
2. Its central place in social influence
3. Teaching as a trade is poor
4. It is a satisfying profession
5. Its great attractions.
6. The usefulness of all human excellences
7. Four characteristics which every teacher must possess .
. 3
3
4
5
.
OOOOOOO
6
.
.
7
8
.
.
.
THE APTITUDE FOR VICARIOUSNESS
8. Teaching is not primarily the acquisition of knowledge. 8
9. It is the impartation of knowledge
9
10. It follows the lines of least intellectual resistance in alien
minds..
10
11. Two cases of defective vicariousness
. 11
12. The teacher's imagination must be full of others' needs. 13
13. Not a resolve but an aptitude is needed
.. 13
14. Teaching should pass beyond conscious direction and be-
come instinctive
14
.
AN ALREADY ACCUMULATED WEALTH
15. Teaching is generous when it gives what we prize in our-
selves
15
16. The teacher should be the bounteous being of the com-
munity
16
17. He cannot teach right up to the edge of his knowledge . 17
18. He will accumulate wealth for his own sake
.. 19
19. He will gather and store knowledge in advance of the
teaching occasion
20

.
.
.
.
32
OUTLINE
THE POWER TO INVIGORATE LIFE THROUGH
LEARNING
20. Knowledge naturally buffets the learner
21
21. The kindling of interest is the great function of the
teacher
22
22. The onslaught of knowledge must not enfeeble
23
83. The productive teacher must lead the mind to react for
itself
24
THE READINESS TO BE FORGOTTEN
•
24. The teacher must keep himself out of the way
25. He cannot know the worth of his work
26. He should accustom himself to a proper unthankfulness
25
26
28
.
THE IDEAL TEACHER
27. The qualifications of a good teacher cannot be fully
attained
29
28. The teacher grows as a person in approximating the quali-
ties of the ideal teacher
29
RIVERSIDE EDUCATIONAL
MONOGRAPHS
General Educational Theory
COOLIDGE'S America's Need for Education.
DEWEY's Interest and Effort in Education.
DEWEY's Moral Principles in Education.
ELIOT's Education for Efficiency.
Eliot's The Tendency to the Concrete and Practical in Modern
Education.
EMERSON's Education and other Selections.
FISKE's The Meaning of Infancy.
FULLER's Scientific Evaluation of Textbooks.
HYDE's The Teacher's Philosophy in and out of School.
Judd's The Evolution of a Democratic School System.
MEREDITH's The Educational Bearings of Modern Psychology.
PALMER's The Ideal Teacher.
PALMER's Trades and Professions.
PALMER'S Ethical and Moral Instruction in Schools.
PROSSER's The Teacher and Old Age.
STOCKTON's Project Work in Education.
STRATTON'S Developing Mental Power.
TERMAN's The Teacher's Health.
THORNDIKE's Individuality.
TROW's Scientific Method in Education.
Administration and Supervision
BETT's New Ideals in Rural Schools.
BLOOMFIELD's The Vocational Guidance of Youth.
CABOT's Volunteer Help to the Schools.
COLE's Industrial Education in the Elementary Sc ol.
CUBBERLEY's Changing Conceptions of Education.
CUBBERLEY'S The Improvement of Rural Schools.
DOOLEY'S The Education of the Ne'er-Do-Well.
GATES's The Management of Smaller Schools.
HINES's Measuring Intelligence.
Koos's The High-School Principal.
Lewis's Democracy's High School.
MAXWELL's The Observation of Teaching.
MAXWELL'S The Selection of Textbooks.
MILLER and CHARLES's Publicity and the Public School.
PERRY's The Status of the Teacher.
(continued on next page)

HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
2003 a
RIVERSIDE EDUCATIONAL
MONOGRAPHS
Administration and Supervision (continued)
RUSSELL'S Economy in Secondary Education.
SMITH's Establishing Industrial Schools.
WEEKS's The People's School.
Method
ANDRESS's The Teaching of Hygiene in the Grades.
Atwood's The Theory and Practice of the Kindergarten.
BAILEY'S Art Education.
BETTS's The Recitation.
COOLEY's Language Teaching in the Grades.
DOUGHERTY's How to Teach Phonics.
EARHART's Teaching Children to Study.
Evans's The Teaching of High School Mathematics.
FAIRCHILD's The Teaching of Poetry in the High School.
FREEMAN'S The Teaching of Handwriting.
HALIBURTON and SMITH's Teaching Poetry in the Grades.
HARTWELL'S The Teaching of History.
HAWLEY's Teaching English in Junior High Schools.
HAYNES's Economics in the Secondary School.
HILL's The Teaching of Civics.
JENKINS's Reading in the Primary Grades.
KENDALL and STRYKER's History in the Elementary School.
KILPATRICK'S The Montessori System Examined.
LEONARD's English Composition as a Social Problem.
Losh and WEEKS's Primary Number Projects.
PALMER's Self-Cultivation in English.
RIDGLEY'S Geographic Principles.
RUEDIGER's Vitalized Teaching.
SHARP's Teaching English in High Schools.
STOCKTON'S Project Work in Education.
SUZZALLO's The Teaching of Primary Arithmetic.
SUZZALLO's The Teaching of Spelling.
SWIFT's Speech Defects in School Children.
TUELL's The Study of Nations.
WILSON's What Arithmetic Shall We Teach?
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
2603 b
THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
GRADUATE LIBRARY
DATE DUE
.
MAR 2 2 1978
APR 8 1981
2
MAY 3 1 1996
UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
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