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Education
A teacher’s advantages may have been limited, so that he may
not possess as high literary qualifications as might be desirable; yet
if he has true insight into human nature; if he has a genuine love
for his work, an appreciation of its magnitude, and a determination
to improve; if he is willing to labor earnestly and perseveringly, he
will comprehend the needs of his pupils, and, by his sympathetic,
progressive spirit, will inspire them to follow as he seeks to lead them
onward and upward.
The children and youth under the teacher’s care differ widely in
disposition, habits, and training. Some have no definite purpose or
fixed principles. They need to be awakened to their responsibilities and
possibilities. Few children have been rightly trained at home. Some
have been household pets. Their whole training has been superficial.
Allowed to follow inclination and to shun responsibility and burden
bearing, they lack stability, perseverance, and self-denial. These often
regard all discipline as an unnecessary restraint. Others have been
censured and discouraged. Arbitrary restraint and harshness have
developed in them obstinacy and defiance. If these deformed characters
are reshaped, the work must, in most cases, be done by the teacher.
In order to accomplish it successfully, he must have the sympathy
and insight that will enable him to trace to their cause the faults and
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errors manifest in his pupils. He must have also the tact and skill,
the patience and firmness, that will enable him to impart to each the
needed help—to the vacillating and ease loving, such encouragement
and assistance as will be a stimulus to exertion; to the discouraged,
sympathy and appreciation that will create confidence and thus inspire
effort.
Teachers often fail of coming sufficiently into social relation with
their pupils. They manifest too little sympathy and tenderness, and too
much of the dignity of the stern judge. While the teacher must be firm
and decided, he should not be exacting or dictatorial. To be harsh and
censorious, to stand aloof from his pupils or treat them indifferently, is
to close the avenues through which he might influence them for good.
Under no circumstances should the teacher manifest partiality.
To favor the winning, attractive pupil, and be critical, impatient, or
unsympathetic toward those who most need encouragement and help,
is to reveal a total misconception of the teacher’s work. It is in dealing