EDITOR'S TABLE. 



749 



The very organization of the school, its 

 regular operations, and necessary daily 

 results, are a constant and powerful 

 appeal to the selfishness of the pupils. 

 To be promoted, to beat some one, to 

 outstrip a whole class in the open race, 

 where the results are closely watched, 

 is surely sufficient incentive, without 

 throwing in medals and prizes to inten- 

 sify the competition. Indeed, the strife, 

 without these additional stimuli, is often 

 far too strong, and requires to be checked 

 by teachers and school-managers, in- 

 stead of being encouraged and inflamed. 

 Granted that the selfish motives are 

 those by which people are habitually 

 influenced in social life, it is the duty 

 of teachers, and one of the great ends 

 of education, to cultivate another class 

 of motives, and to arouse and strength- 

 en the more generous and disinterested 

 feelings as incitements to action. In 

 its highest purpose, the object of edu- 

 cation is the formation of character, 

 and character is the stamp of habitual 

 feeling by which conduct is controlled. 

 The common qualifications of a teacher 

 are, to be able to "hear lessons," and 

 to show children how to read, write, 

 and cipher, but no teacher is fit for his 

 business, in any adequate sense, who 

 cannot discriminate among the grada- 

 tion of motives by which pupils are in- 

 fluenced, and who cannot call out, exer- 

 cise, discipline, and invigorate the high- 

 er motives that should operate in deter- 

 mining conduct. Undoubtedly we are 

 drifting into a great system of whole- 

 sale machine - education, which deals 

 with masses under general inflexible 

 regulations, and in which the indi- 

 vidual, as such, virtually disappears. 

 The ambition is rather to drive all the 

 children into the suffocating establish- 

 ments called schools, and swell the 

 numbers, and thus furnish materials for 

 the National Bureau of Education, that 

 it may flout its astonishing statistics in 

 the face of an admiring world. Ameri- 

 can education thus takes its place in 

 the category of " big things " immense 



prairies, long railroads, universal suf- 

 frage, a mighty war, and the other 

 elements of national vanity and boast- 

 ing which the newspapers never allow 

 us to forget. From this exalted place 

 in the public regard, which our educa- 

 tional system has achieved, it is re- 

 garded as an eminent patriotic duty to 

 patronize and encourage it, and so 

 wealthy people can in no way better 

 indicate their love of country, and min- 

 ister to their own vanity, than by giv- 

 ing here a hundred dollars, and there 

 five hundred, as prizes to be fought for 

 in the schools. All this only aggra- 

 vates an evil already too strong, and 

 with which, from the very constitution 

 of the schools, it is difficult to cope. 



The education that does not recog- 

 nize the individual and the elements of 

 individuality as of the first importance, 

 and cannot conform itself to their spe- 

 cial and peculiar needs, and bring to 

 bear effectually upon the widely-vary- 

 ing personalities with which it has to 

 deal the incitements most suitable to 

 each case, is, just to that degree, imper- 

 fect, and fails in the fundamental object 

 of education. Education is a leading 

 out of the faculties, and the very word 

 determines the method. It is not a 

 forcing out, a driving out, or a grinding 

 out by machinery, but a process that 

 expressly excludes the compulsive or 

 coercive element a leading out, which 

 implies that the individual material to 

 be acted upon has a nature that must 

 be respected and acted upon in a given 

 way. The preexisting spontaneous 

 forces of character, varying in their 

 composition in each personality, are to 

 be regarded by the educator, and are 

 to shape his course, or he will fail of his 

 highest object. 



"We say, then, that, first of all, the 

 teacher should not be meddled with 

 by thrusting in extraneous stimuli to 

 give artificial excitement to the work 

 of the school-room, and we are glad to 

 see some symptoms of reaction against 

 the old and vicious practice. Our edu- 



