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ild is passing frangi al opment, is andained he fe work is intrusted to the hands American parents from this Efrom their own shoulders wher school with somewhat the same feelith which they lead their family physiof the little girl, for whose indisposition ce summoning him, anxiously endeavored e is only one difference: in the case of

the physician, they relate to him fully all the symptoms and previous treatment; they remain by the bedside after he has gone, in the capacity of nurses, and they see to it that his prescriptions are obtained and administered, and his suggestions in every respect exactly followed, while, in the case of the teacher, they send the child, leaving her to make her own discoveries as to previous symptoms and treatment, and they do not inquire into the directions given, the nature of the work prescribed, or the effect. Having thus, as they think, placed the whole matter in the hands of the teacher, they are often surprised and annoyed at the result. I am taking it for granted here that the teacher is qualified for her part of the work, as to method; and, if not working under a course of study laid out for her, as in the public schools, is herself able to arrange and plan. This is the most favorable aspect of the subject. But there is indisputably another side. If mothers would only work with the teachers, so that the home influences brought to bear on the girls in matters already discussed, especially in the direction of the reading of their daughters, should be healthful and strong, the teachers would be saved much time and energy, which could be far more usefully applied for the benefit of the child. I speak from the midst of a profession which often suffers in reputation, nay, even in actual character, from this very cause.

To go in detail through the part of intellectual education which belongs especially to the teacher, is impossible here, nor would such a discussion be in place in these pages. It has its place properly only in professional literature, just as the details of the treatment of a case placed under medical care, whether preventive or curative, belong only in the pages of a medical journal.

A few suggestions only will be added in this depart

ment.

It is evident to the most superficial observer that a vast amount of time is spent over such studies as grainmar, geography and history in our schools, with but little perceivable result. This is due in great measure to the fact that the manufacture of text-books has become in America a profitable business in a money point of view, and that, consequently, what text-books shall be used in our schools, both public and private, is decided more by the publishers than by the educators. Hence the graded series of School Geographies, for instance, through some five or six of which the pupil is obliged to wade, one after another, to find in each, only the same. matter in sentences of a somewhat greater length. Hence, to go one step farther, the stupefying of so many minds in our schools. Nothing is more deadening to all mental activity than unmeaning repetitions, a fact easily verified by any one who, wakeful through mental disturbance at night, will take the trouble to repeat and re-repeat any meaningless thing. It is the lounging, deadening brain-work of which we have too much, not the active, vivifying brain-work of which we have too little, that does injure the system. The whole healthy tone of the mind is destroyed, and evils, mental and physical, follow in rapid succession.

From the process of text-book manufacturing also spring the endless number of compendiums and abstracts with which our schools are deluged, mental power diluted, and the pockets of the parents unnecessarily taxed for the support of large publishing houses, not for the education of their children.

Another cause of this stupefying process is the rigid

system by which most large schools are conducted, where promotions, from one class to another, can take place, say, once a year, the pupil who, on examination, falls short of the required per cent of correct answers, being forced to review the work of the entire previous year before going on. More elasticity, more fluidity, as it were, is sadly needed in our system of public school education before this evil will be to any great extent modified.*

It would be a waste of time to say that one ought not to be overworked, were it not that some persons always seem to imply that any intellectual work is over-work. It would seem equally superfluous to say that for intellectual health there ought not to be any surplus energy, for the latter statement seems as axiomatic as the former.

The problem with which educators are chiefly concerned is that of fully employing the energies without overtasking them. If the dividing line between enough and too much could be determined as exactly as the Mississippi River marks the series of lowest points where the eastern slope of the Rocky Mountains meets the western slope of the Alleghanies, our work as teachers were easy indeed. Teaching, however, is not the only profession where such unsolved problems exist, for individual cases, and we teachers are thus but a part of a noble army of professional workers, so we take heart of grace, and are not ashamed.

But the fact remains to be considered that the work of school education is, as the result of unavoidable destiny,

*For a full and masterly discussion of this subject, its evils and remedies, I must refer to the report on the St. Louis Public Schools for the year 1871-2, by Wm. T. Harris, Superintendent, p. 80 et seq.

in America, passing very rapidly into the hands of women. We may deplore this, but we cannot prevent it. The last census showed that the number of women teachers in the United States stands already to that of the men as 123,980 to 78,709, and the ratio is daily increasing. There is no other country in the world, then, where it is so all important that the girls should receive a complete education. In one view, this tendency of the times is of great value. The years spent in teaching are often the most valuable training for the work of the mother. No other employment calls for a greater exercise, and hence, a greater development, of the directive power, and of the knowledge of human nature which will enable her well and wisely to direct her children, successfully to grapple with the "servant problem," and to sweep a large circle of details within the compass of generalized rules. She has learned what industry means, not, as was said by a Christian writer of the thirteenth century, only “to pray to God, to love man, to knit and to sew." She has not " everlastingly something in her hand, though no one profits by her labor, and she is reduced to look for her sole reward in civil speeches made for useless gifts, or insincere praise of household ornaments that are in everybody's way," covers, and covers for covers, and covers for covers of covers.

Many women "are busy, very busy; they have hardly time to do this thing, because they really wish, or ought to do that, but with all their driving, their energy is entirely dissipated, and nothing comes from their countless labors," and I ask, in the words of a Russian woman, "Is it not a great loss to the economy of society when such an amount of strength is wasted and leaves behind it no good work?"

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