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[[Left page]] 140 THE CRISIS said he had been advised to get rid of him as a hindrance to the other pupils, but he would not. Because there was no other such boy in the school this one had become his most fascinating problem and he was giving to him more intense thought than to any other. He was studying every trait, every movement, every whim, to get at some hidden spring of wish or inclination which might offer solid ground for the improvement of conduct and the rebuilding of character. As I went away from that school I felt that I had seen a real teacher, real because he was groping for the good things in his worst boy. 2. Faith in effort-effort for the pupil and by the pupil. When Dr. Howe took in charge those unfortunates in Boston he began by playing with their impulsive and aimless movements till he had shown them that one thing was unlike another and had taught them to chose between the two, then to remember, to think and to learn simple lessons, from which they were led on step by step to a wider intelligence. Dr. Howe was a man of eminence and had already done great service in many lands, but I suppose that he never had put into any undertaking such intense and tireless exertion as he bestowed on these poor children. It required such effort to bring their sleeping power into exercise and exertion. This is the spirit for the dealing with the unpromising pupil in any school. The others are likely to do well without the teacher's taking extra pains, but here is a task to try his patience and his resources. How can he wake up the dunce? It is a case for expedients and experiments. What is the key? What does the boy care for? If he dislikes reading he may take to figures, or to drawing or music. If he has no interest in these he may be attracted by the tools in a shop or the plants and flowers in a garden. He may be brought to love the trees in the woods and to learn their names and uses, to watch the birds and catch their notes to study the bees hanging on a thistle blossom and follow them to their hive, to look at a mosquito under a glass and to hunt for his breeding places. Other things all failing, doubtless he may be made to take interest in the playground to do some vigorous thinking, as well as pitching, batting and running in a baseball game. I have in mind a man who has in a certain city a night school into which he wants to attract the boys and young men that no other good influences are reaching, the very vagabonds and desperadoes who are on the road to a penitentiary or the gallows; and one of the things that he does is to teach his pupils boxing-boxing with gloves, but rough and bloody. He is ready to drill them in the rules and manners of the prize ring as the only drill that they can appreciate, and he hopes thus to get a foundation of discipline on which later they can be taught the higher lessons of obedience to the laws of the State, self-control, manliness and honorable industry. Endeavors such as these mean effort by the teacher, constant and untiring, and it is in this way that the greatest teaching is done. By such courses the tightly locked doors of many a darkened life are opened to the light of intelligence, ambition and growth into a noble manhood or womanhood. 3. Faith in personal example The teacher's greatest power is not in what he says, but what he is; in the illustration he gives from day to day of a strong, true, winsome life. The Divine Master said to his pupils: "Take my yoke on you and learn of me," and again, "I have given you an example, that ye also should do as I have done to you." The apostle Paul on more than one occasion said: "Be ye imitators of me." This is the law of the highest teaching. Put the lazy, listless child under a teacher of animation and energy; it will do more for him than many lectures on laziness. Give to a selfish child an example of thoughtful care for the happiness of all around you; to the deceitful an example of transparent sincerity; to the vicious and lawless an example of spotless purity and superiority to every unworthy self-indulgence. The teacher who keeps himself under healthy discipline will make this the most effective discipline for his school. But what of the teacher who is lax with himself? One has said: "Your conduct speaks so loud I cannot hear anything you say." What is the use of lecturing on sincerity if one is himself insincere? What will talk about self-denial and the control of appetite and freedom from debasing habits amount to if the very breath with which one speaks if odorous from his own self-indulgece? An example which does not re- [[Right page]] THE FAITHS OF TEACHERS 141 inforce instruction is apt to nullify it. That is why certain injurious practices are so prevalent among the boys and young men of our times. What else could be looked for when so many who are supposed to be eminent in morals and religion habitually indulge themselves in these practices? With all these forces in opposition the clear-eyed teacher guards his own example with unwavering constancy. What better can he do for his boys? And however those boys may go on their way and perhaps vary from the path laid out before them, it will not be without value that they have once known so fine an illustration of the higher things of life. The power of such a teacher does not cease with graduation day; it goes on with each pupil into all his future story. 4. Faith in the unfolding of character through processes beyond our knowledge. The processes of all life are concealed. We do not understand the life of the seed from the commonest herb nor how it sprouts and grows. But anyone who plants a seed expects it to grow. It is the same with the life of the spirit. What happens in the schoolroom is to be remembered; habits there formed are to continue; standards of right and wrong, of truth and duty, of honor and shame, pass into the inmost texture of the soul and abide there. But the outcome of it all, how, when and where, is beyond our forecast. A word, a glance of the eye, a trifling incident, may work a radical change in character; it may do this at once or it may be years about it. So unfathomable are the deeps of influence that go into the long courses of experience through which every human life is borne on to its completion. And this is where the teacher works, putting into his impressions from moment to moment, from day to day, from year to year, to grow character and to determine destiny. It might be wise for people to give more though than they are doing to the part which teachers are playing in the world's progress. Take the story of the colored people in the United States during the last fifty years--many are surprised at the reports which are given out from time to time. It is a record of rapidly advancing intelligence, energy and wealth. Let me refer to a few well-known figures of the United States census. In 1860 the number of colored children attending school was 32,639, of whom 29,906 were in the Northern Free States. In 1870 the number had risen to 180,372, of whom 58,808 were in the North and 131,564 in the South. Now leap over a period of forty years to 1910, and we find the number of colored children enrolled in the public schools of the South alone, as reported by the Commissioner of Education, to be 1,748,853, with an average attendance daily of 1,105,629, and with over 30,000 teachers; we find also 150 public high schools containing 11,662 pupils; besides these some 260 schools for advanced training, designated as universities, colleges, normal schools or institutes, in which are fully 75,000 students.* This development is the more impressive if we bring before our minds the colored people as they were forty or fifty years ago. We can find those who will described the colored schools of that time--the old army barracks at Nashville, Hampton, Atlanta and other places which served for schoolroom, very unlike the commodious buildings and attractive grounds of the colored schools in those same places to-day. A comparison of the pupils is even more striking, that wild horde of umkempt boys and girls, men and women of uncertain age, many of them clad in rags, unwashed and with the tight knobs of hair on their round heads would thick with cotton strings--what a contrast to those you will see now in a thousand schools, not in cities only but often in sparsely settled districts, children and youth clean in person, neatly attired in becoming garments, orderly in behavior, and frequently giving evidence of a careful training in the home. The colored teachers in these schools, numbering over 30,000, all grown and trained within so short a time from a race without educational tradition, how much they mean! Not all model teachers, indeed, but far superior to what might have been expected, and approved most heartily by those Southern superintendents and intelligent observers who know the most about their work. These facts tell of a new intelligence awakening on a vast scale. And this brings other developments of great moment. Of course there is increase of wealth, a multiplication of prosperous farms, of banks, stores, comfortable homes and substantial churches. Organizations for religious effort, for insurance and mutual aid have their net- *"An Era of Progress and Promise," W. N. Hartshorn, pp. 369-371.
