Craftsmanship in Teaching | Page 4

struggle,--then comes the period, be it long or short, when you will work
with your eyes upon the clock, when you will count the weeks, the days, the hours, the
minutes that lie between you and vacation time. Then will be the need for all the strength
and all the energy that you can summon to your aid. Fail here, and your fate is decided
once and for all. If, in your work, you never get beyond this stage, you will never become
the true craftsman. You will never taste the joy that is vouchsafed the expert, the efficient
craftsman.
The length of this period varies with different individuals. Some teachers "find
themselves" quickly. They seem to settle at once into the teaching attitude. With others is
a long, uphill fight. But it is safe to say that if, at the end of three years, your eyes still
habitually seek the clock,--if, at the end of that time, your chief reward is the check that
comes at the end of every fourth week,--then your doom is sealed.
III
And the second vow that I should urge these graduates to take is the vow of fidelity to the
spirit of their calling. We have heard a great deal in recent years about making education
a profession. I do not like that term myself. Education is not a profession in the sense that
medicine and law are professions. It is rather a craft, for its duty is to produce, to mold, to
fashion, to transform a certain raw material into a useful product. And, like all crafts,
education must possess the craft spirit. It must have a certain code of craft ethics; it must
have certain standards of craft excellence and efficiency. And in these the normal school
must instruct its students, and to these it should secure their pledge of loyalty and fidelity
and devotion.
A true conception of this craft spirit in education is one of the most priceless possessions
of the young teacher, for it will fortify him against every criticism to which his calling is
subjected. It is revealing no secret to tell you that the teacher's work is not held in the
highest regard by the vast majority of men and women in other walks of life. I shall not
stop to inquire why this is so, but the fact cannot be doubted, and every now and again

some incident of life, trifling perhaps in itself, will bring it to your notice; but most of all,
perhaps you will be vexed and incensed by the very thing that is meant to put you at your
ease--the patronizing attitude which your friends in other walks of life will assume
toward you and toward your work.
When will the good public cease to insult the teacher's calling with empty flattery? When
will men who would never for a moment encourage their own sons to enter the work of
the public schools, cease to tell us that education is the greatest and noblest of all human
callings? Education does not need these compliments. The teacher does not need them. If
he is a master of his craft, he knows what education means,--he knows this far better than
any layman can tell him. And what boots it to him, if, with all this cant and hypocrisy
about the dignity and worth of his calling, he can sometimes hold his position only at the
sacrifice of his self-respect?
But what is the relation of the craft spirit to these facts? Simply this: the true craftsman,
by the very fact that he is a true craftsman, is immune to these influences. What does the
true artist care for the plaudits or the sneers of the crowd? True, he seeks commendation
and welcomes applause, for your real artist is usually extremely human; but he seeks this
commendation from another source--from a source that metes it out less lavishly and yet
with unconditioned candor. He seeks the commendation of his fellow-workmen, the
applause of "those who know, and always will know, and always will understand." He
plays to the pit and not to the gallery, for he knows that when the pit really approves the
gallery will often echo and reëcho the applause, albeit it has not the slightest conception
of what the whole thing is about.
What education stands in need of to-day is just this: a stimulating and pervasive craft
spirit. If a human calling would win the world's respect, it must first respect itself; and the
more thoroughly it respects itself, the greater will be the measure of homage that the
world accords it. In one of the educational journals a few years ago, the editors ran a
series of articles under the general caption, "Why I am a teacher." It reminded me