Reveries of a Schoolmaster | Page 8

with a fair degree of severity (may the Lord forgive me), and now. I
know that in so doing I was guilty of a grave error. What I interpreted
as misconduct was but a straining at his leash in an effort to extricate
himself from the incubus of the negative self-feeling. 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