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THE TEACHER

ESSAYS AND ADDRESSES ON EDUCATION


BY GEORGE HERBERT PALMER AND ALICE FREEMAN PALMER


  BOSTON AND NEW YORK
  HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
  The Riverside Press Cambridge
  1908

  COPYRIGHT, 1908, BY GEORGE HERBERT PALMER
  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
  _Published November 1908_

  SECOND IMPRESSION




PREFACE


The papers of this volume fall into three groups, two of the three being
written by myself. From my writings on education I have selected only
those which may have some claim to permanent interest, and all but two
have been tested by previous publication. Those of the first group deal
with questions about which we teachers, eager about our immeasurable art
beyond most professional persons, never cease to wonder and debate: What
is teaching? How far may it influence character? Can it be practiced on
persons too busy or too poor to come to our class-rooms? To subjects of
what scope should it be applied? And how shall we content ourselves with
its necessary limitations? Under these diverse headings a kind of
philosophy of education is outlined. The last two papers, having been
given as lectures and stenographically reported, I have left in their
original colloquial form. A group of papers on Harvard follows, preceded
by an explanatory note, and the volume closes with a few papers by Mrs.
Palmer. She and I often talked of preparing together a book on
education. Now, alone, I gather up these fragments.




CONTENTS


                                                                  PAGE
          I. PROBLEMS OF SCHOOL AND COLLEGE
     I. The Ideal Teacher                                            3
    II. Ethical Instruction in the Schools                          31
   III. Moral Instruction in the Schools                            49
    IV. Self-Cultivation in English                                 72
     V. Doubts About University Extension                          105
    VI. Specialization                                             123
   VII. The Glory of the Imperfect                                 143

          II. HARVARD PAPERS
  VIII. The New Education                                          173
    IX. Erroneous Limitations of the Elective System               200
     X. Necessary Limitations of the Elective System               239
    XI. College Expenses                                           272
   XII. A Teacher of the Olden Time                                283

          III. PAPERS BY ALICE FREEMAN PALMER
  XIII. Three Types of Women's Colleges                            313
   XIV. Women's Education in the Nineteenth Century                337
    XV. Women's Education at the World's Fair                      351
   XVI. Why Go to College?                                         364




I

PROBLEMS OF SCHOOL AND COLLEGE




I

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 formative. Our young people are for long
periods associated 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 knowledge has widened, and the creative opportunities
involved in conducting a young person over it have correspondingly
become apparent, the profession of teaching has risen to a notable
height of dignity and attractiveness. It has moved from a subordinate 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 repetition 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 income carry him much above want.
College teaching 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, 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 employments more satisfying. All over the
country thousands of men and women are following it with a passionate
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
victories, 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 coincide; 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 according to measure. Once engaged, he gives his best, 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 consideration, 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 guiding and enlarging the sphere of its activities.

The idea, sometimes advanced, that the professions 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 professional man to be diverted from what is
important,--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,
"Certainly, and no college can be managed on any other 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
predominantly holds them.

Accordingly in this paper I address those only who are drawn to teaching
by the love of it, who regard 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 opportunities.

But supposing such a temper, what special qualifications 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 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 vicariousness; and second, an
already accumulated