Reveries of a Schoolmaster | Page 8

He was, and probably is, a dull fellow and realized that he could not cope with the other boys in the school studies, and so was but trying to win some notice in other fields of activity. To him notoriety was preferable to obscurity. If I had only been wise I would have turned his inclination to good account and might have helped him to self-mastery, if not to the mastery of algebra. He yearned for the emotion of elation, and I was trying to perpetuate his emotion of subjection. If Methuselah had been a schoolmaster he might have attained proficiency by the time he reached the age of nine hundred and sixty-eight years if he had been a close observer, a close student of methods, and had been willing and able to profit by his own mistakes.
Friend Virgil says something like this: "They can because they think they can," and I heartily concur. Some one tells us that Kent in "King Lear" got his name from the Anglo-Saxon word can and he was aptly named, in view of Virgil's statement. But can I cause my boys and girls to think they can? Why, most assuredly, if I am any sort of teacher. Otherwise I ought to be dealing with inanimate things and leave the school work to those who can. I certainly can help young folks to shift from the emotion of subjection to the emotion of elation. I had a puppy that we called Nick and thought I'd like to teach him to go up-stairs. When he came to the first stair he cried and cowered and said, in his language, that it was too high, and that he could never do it. So, in a soothing way, I quoted Virgil at him and placed his front paws upon the step. Then he laughed a bit and said the step wasn't as high as the moon, after all. So I patted him and called him a brave little chap, and he gained the higher level. Then we rested for a bit and spent the time in being glad, for Nick and I had read our "Pollyanna" and had learned the trick of gladness. Well, before the day was over that puppy could go up the stairs without the aid of a teacher, and a gladder dog never was. If I had taken as much pains with that boy as I did with Nick I'd feel far more comfortable right now, and the boy would have felt more comfortable both then and after. O schoolmastering! How many sins are committed in thy name! I succeeded with the puppy, but failed with the boy. A boy does not go to school to study algebra, but studies algebra to learn mastery. I know this now, but did not know it then, more's the pity!
I had another valuable lesson in this phase of pedagogy the day my friend Vance and I sojourned to Indianapolis to call upon Mr. Benjamin Harrison, who had somewhat recently completed his term as President of the United States. We were fortified with ample and satisfactory credentials and had a very fortunate introduction; but for all that we were inclined to walk softly into the presence of greatness, and had a somewhat acute attack of negative self-feeling. However, after due exchange of civilities, we succeeded somehow in preferring the request that had brought us into his presence, and Mr. Harrison's reply served to reassure us. Said he: "Oh, no, boys, I couldn't do that; last year I promised Bok to write some articles for his journal, and I didn't have any fun all summer." His two words, "boys" and "fun," were the magic ones that caused the tension to relax and generated the emotion of elation. We then sat back in our chairs and, possibly, crossed our legs--I can't be certain as to that. At any rate, in a single sentence this man had made us his co-ordinates and caused the negative self-feeling to vanish. Then for a good half-hour he talked in a familiar way about great affairs, and in a style that charmed. He told us of a call he had the day before from David Starr. Jordan, who came to report his experience as a member of the commission that had been appointed to adjudicate the controversy between the United States and England touching seal-fishing in the Behring Sea. It may be recalled that this commission consisted of two Americans, two Englishmen, and King Oscar of Sweden. Mr. Harrison told us quite frankly that he felt a mistake had been made in making up the commission, for, with two Americans and two Englishmen on the commission, the sole arbiter in reality was King Oscar, since the other four were reduced to the plane of mere