CHAPTER VIII.

TEACHING.

POSSIBLY there are those among you who will become teachers, and it may be well, therefore, to give you some of my ideas on the subject, the more especially as they may assist you in the selection of teachers for your children-should you have no other occasion to act upon them. A thorough knowledge of what is to be taught, though an indispensable, is not a sufficient qualification, for this important profession. The power of imparting the knowledge does not necessarily accompany it, and is a distinct and especial gift. Supposing that the prospective teacher combines the two within himself, he still needs, for full and proper success, a heart conscientiously devoted to his work, and a love both for it and for his pupils. No teaching will be thorough that is not conscientious, and conscientious teaching is very hard work, requiring a stimulus from within.

The first thing to be taught is, generally, how to study, though this, in many instances, is never learned, in all the years of school-life. Sitting over

one's book, while gazing much of the time around the room, or into empty space, is called study. Committing a lesson, so that a few passages may be recited from it by rote, is called study. Making a very imperfect slipshod translation, partly by guessing, and partly by a certain facility of insight into hidden meaning, is called study. "I have spent so much time over that lesson," is considered a sufficient apology for not knowing it, instead of a proof sufficient that no proper means have been used for mastering it. Time was given, but will was wanting. It has been said that a man being asked what was the first requisite in a wife, replied, "An amiable disposition, and the second, an amiable disposition, and the third, an amiable disposition.'

There is a word cqually deserving a threefold repetition, as applied to teaching, which is, "thoroughness." If this is insisted upon from the beginning of a child's education, he is made a working student almost as a matter of course; but I am led to infer that this is not usually the case, because I have found, in a majority of instances, that my pupils of all ages have yet to learn this first principle.

Real

There have been exceptions, of course. study is hard work, and it is only by hard work that anything of importance or value is to be obtained in this world. Let the mind be made up to

casy.

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the work, and it ceases to be formidable. Often what was at first laborious and difficult, becomes "To him that hath shall be given," applies to every human effort. The promise is really made to him who hath-what he has gained for himself. It is with the mental as with the bodily powers; they acquire both strength and facility by use; and, therefore, whether the chief end of schools be to accumulate stores of knowledge, as is maintained by some, or, as others believe, to train the powers of the mind for future use, it is equally important that the discipline should be very thorough.

It is painful to find how many young girls go through several years of school-life, with little or no gain of any sort, often with injury; for sham lessons, like shams of all sorts impair the tone of mind and character, and constitute a most unfit preparation for a true earnest life.

Not unfrequently, I think, the perceptions are dimmed, and the mind confused, even in the case of those who would be willing to learn under proper auspices, by their being hurried on, as members perhaps of large classes, through lessons which they did not understand.

Some of you will remember a lassie of about twelve, who came to me from a mammoth school, which she had attended some years without learning anything, whose brow contracted the moment

she began to recite, and remained so knit during the whole time of recitation, in spite of all my efforts to the contrary-nor could I cure her altogether of this habit, during the two years that she remained with me. Her sister, too, older than herself, had a most painfully anxious expression under the same circumstances. I told their father, I could have done far more and better for them if they had not been at school at all up to the time that they came to me, so that I could have begun at the alphabet with them. Young people must be excused for wishing always to get through a book, and counting their advancement by the number of books they have gone through; but a teacher is unfit for his vocation, who has not an entirely different mode of reckoning, and does not consider that the thorough study of one book, is better than a superficial skimming of any number whatever. Not merely thoroughness in the first instance, but repetition, often a good deal of repetition is necessary to master it.

I have sometimes found, after trying by every possible means, to quicken a new pupil to diligence, and make her acquire a lesson, that one secret of her failure, was her ignorance of her own language, which she actually did not know well enough to study any but the simplest elementary book, perhaps not even that. The extent of this ignorance is in some cases marvellous, and almost

unaccountable, for unless one were brought up with the dumb or with idiots, it might be expected that a good deal of language would be learned, nolens volens. I have had one pupil of sixteen, whose vocabulary was limited to that required for ordinary material life. Her ignorance measured by her opportunities, was quite as striking as that of a little child in a ragged school, who, poor little creature, did not know what a flower meant, never having seen one.

Be sure then that the lesson is comprehended. Let no word or phrase remain unexplained, that may possibly not be understood by even the least intelligent of the class, and then insist upon its being well learned. Let it never be excused or let go, until this is accomplished. You will perceive at once, how important it is that you should study carefully the capacity, character, and previous attainments of your pupils, that you may know how much you may reasonably and safely require of them, and be enabled to class them perfectly, so that the quick and the gifted may not be kept back by the slow and the dull, nor the latter pulled forward to a point quite beyond their proper attainment, or be discouraged altogether.

One of my pupils, who had attended a large and celebrated school in one of our cities, assured me that she never studied a lesson while she was there. When I asked how this was possible, she replied,