The Vitalized School | Page 3

nature. This panorama generated thoughts and feelings in them,
and these they could not but portray. And so literature and life are
identical and not coördinates, as some would have us think.
=Life as subject matter in teaching.=--In teaching school, therefore, the
subject matter with which we have to do is life--nothing more and
nothing less. We may call it history, or mathematics, or literature, or

psychology,--but it still remains true that life is the real objective of all
our activities. And, as has been already said, we are teaching life by the
laboratory method. We are striving to interpret the thing in which we
are immersed. We feel, and think, and aspire, and love, and enjoy. All
these are life; and from this life we are striving to extract strength that
our feeling may be deeper, our thinking higher, our aspirations wider
and more lofty, our love purer and nobler, and our own enjoyment
greater. By absorbing the life that is all about us we strive to have more
abundant and abounding life.
=The teacher's province.=--Such is the province of one who essays the
task of teaching school. School is life, as we have been told; but, at the
same time, it is a place and an occasion for teaching life. If we could
detach history from life, it would cease to be history. If literature is not
life, it is not literature; and so with the sciences. These branches are but
variants or branches of life, and all emanate from a common center.
Whether we scan the heavens, penetrate the depths of the sea, pore over
the pages of books, or look into the minds and hearts of men, we are
striving after an interpretation of life.
QUESTIONS AND EXERCISES
1. Distinguish between a "school teacher" and a "man or woman who
teaches school."
2. Discuss the importance of the following agencies of the school in
securing for children "life of a better quality and more abundant": play;
revitalized curricula; vitalized teachers; medical inspection; social
centers; moral instruction.
3. Discuss both from the standpoint of present practice and ideal
educational principles: "More abundant life rather than knowledge is
the chief end of instruction."
4. What changes are necessary in school curricula and in the methods
of school organization, instruction, and discipline, in order that the
chief purpose of our schools, "more abundant life," may be realized?

5. Justify the apparent length of the school day to teachers and pupils,
as a means of determining the quality of the work of the school.
6. Some teachers maintain that school is a preparation for life, while the
author maintains that "school is life." Is this difference in the concept of
the school a vital one?
7. How may this difference of concept affect the work of the teacher?
the attitude of the pupil?
8. What definition of education will best harmonize with the ideals of
this chapter?
CHAPTER II
THE TEACHER
=Teachers contrasted.=--The vitalized school is an expression of the
vitalized teacher. In the hands of the teacher of another sort, the
vitalized school is impossible. Unless she can see in the multiplication
table the power that throws the bridge across the river, that builds
pyramids, that constructs railways, that sends ships across the ocean,
that tunnels mountains and navigates the air, this table becomes a
stupid thing, a dead thing, and an incubus upon the spirits of her pupils.
To such a teacher mathematics is a lifeless thing, without hope or
potency, the school is a mere convenience for the earning of a
livelihood, the work is the drudgery of bondage, and the children are
little less than an impertinence. The vitalized teacher is different. To
her the multiplication table pulsates with life. It stretches forth its
beneficent hand to give employment to a million workers, and food to a
million homes. It pervades every mart of trade; it loads trains and ships
with the commerce of nations; and it helps to amplify and ennoble
civilization.
=Vitalized mathematics.=--In this table she sees a prophecy of great
achievements in engineering, architecture, transportation, and the
myriad applications of science. In brief, mathematics to her is vibrant
with life both in its present uses and in its possibilities. She knows that

it is a part of the texture of the daily life of every home as well as of
national life. She knows that it pertains to individual, community, and
national well-being. Knowing this, she feels that it is quite worth while
for herself and her pupils, both for the present and for the future. She
feels that, if she would know life, she must know mathematics, because
it is a part of life; that, if she would teach life to her pupils, she must
teach them mathematics as an integral part of life; and