1905 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



1255 



on. (By the way, he put a blue mark on 

 the margin, suggesting that we leave out 

 the part about his own boy, but we have 

 not obeyed instructions.) 



Mrs. Root only once in her busy life has 

 consented to stand up before an audience 

 and speak. It was once when I talked 

 to our country school in Northern Michigan. 

 After I had finished, the superintendent 

 courteously asked if Mrs. Root had not 

 something to add to what had already been 

 said. Then came one of the happiest sur- 

 prises of my life. Mrs. Root got up and 

 spoke. She said I had already mentioned 

 the importance of being on hand every day; 

 and she said that, in training a family of 

 children, and in helping to make a success of 

 their education, she had found it of equal 

 importance to have them on hand promptly 

 when the school opened, every day and eve- 

 ry week— no tardiness. She said that, as a 

 mother, she had labored hard not only to 

 have the pupil on hand promptly at the 

 opening of the school, but to have his lessons 

 in mind so there would be but little proba- 

 bility of a failure in his recitations. She 

 saii such rigid training seems a little hard 

 at first; but after the child gets used to it, 

 and takes it up every day as a matter of 

 course, he does not find it so very hard after 

 all; and she felt sure that this one lesson of 

 punctuality would be worth much to them in 

 after-life. She closed by urging parents and 

 teachers to try hard to have the pupils on 

 hand every day so that there would be no 

 failure or break in their regular lessons. 



With this preface, friends, you can under- 

 stand why Mrs. Root was so intensely in- 

 terested in the following part of the ser- 

 mon. She did not say amen out loud, as I 

 often do, but no doubt there were many 

 amens in her heart. 



It is natural that we think well of our children, 

 and so we are carried away with our interest in 

 them, so as to be unfair toward the painstaking, 

 conscientious, patient teacher. The most irrational 

 'jonduct I think I have ever seen has been on the part 

 of parents toward the nation's greatest benefactors — 

 parents with little minds, darkened by ignorance, 

 warped by prejudice, and saturated with an amaz- 

 ing conceit, who have assumed knowledge greater 

 than that possessed by the school board, superintend- 

 ent and teachers combined, because they have been 

 blinded by love of their children. 



We may justly expect certain things from the 

 teacher. First, she must be a student of child life. 

 Some knowledge of the child growth and develop- 

 ment, the way to approach the child mind, the 

 changes that are taking place in the physical as 

 well as the mental life of the child — these the 

 teacher must know as the farmer knows his land. 

 We may justly expect, too, that she shall know the 

 tools with which she works, and these tools 

 are largely the subjects which are taught in the 

 schoolroom; and the teacher's knowledge ought to 

 pass beyond merely knowing the contents of 

 the subject in the book; she ought to know how it 

 affects the mind and how it works upon the mind. 

 The editor of the Sunday School Times, usually 

 so clear ami correct, recently said: "Knowledge is 

 the goal of secular education; character is a by- 

 product. Character is the goal of Sunday School 

 instruction, and intellectual knowledge is the by- 

 product," to which statement both Sunday School 

 teachers and public school teachers all over the 

 country are seriously objecting, for it prophecies 

 sad days before us if it shall ever become the 

 object of the public school to make character a by- 

 product, or the Sunday school to make intellectual 



knowledge a by-product. The National Associa- 

 tion eif Teachers at its last annual meeting in July 

 took occasion to affirm, as it had done before, that 

 "the Mltimate object of popular education is to 

 teach the children how to live righteously, health- 

 fully and happily," and said they "desired to record 

 their approval of the increasing appreciation among 

 educators of the fact that the building of character 

 is the real aim of the schools and the ultimate rea 

 son for the expenditure of millions of dollars for 

 their maintenance." And this we have a right to 

 expect ef the teacher. 



We have a right to expect the parent to uphold 

 the teachers in their aim. When things do not 

 run smoothly with your children in the schoolroom 

 it is not fair, first of all, to talk it over with your 

 neighbors, your friends, your relatives, the school 

 board, and the town in general, and then, when you 

 have assumed the prerogative of a prosecuting at- 

 torney, judge and jury, and have arrested, tried 

 and convicted, sentenced and crucifie-l the reputa- 

 tion of your teacher, finally to hunt up your child's 

 teacher and ask him if there were any reasons why 

 the judgment should not be passed? Let us mix i 

 little common sense in our relation to this bulwark 

 of the nation. The conduct, progress and general 

 relationship of your child in the schoolroom is, 

 first of all, the business of no one but the child't 

 teacher and yourselves. When your views do not 

 coincide with those of the teacher it becomes a 

 matter of consideration for the superintendent. 

 Children would be happier, make more progress, 

 and be better prepared for the duties of life, if the 

 parents would talk with the teacher and superintend 

 ent concerning the education of their children, 

 rather than, with acrimonious spirit, to gossip with 

 iheir neighbors about things which a word of 

 explanation would make clear and reasonable. 



No one desires more than the teacher a peaceful 

 relationship in the work of the school. To uphold 

 a child against the teacher is to lessen the child's 

 receptiveness to instruction, if not to destroy the 

 teacher's effectiveness for the child. We ought to 

 bridge over with parental tact the momentary 

 breach between pupil and teacher. Teachers are not 

 always perfect, parents are not always perfect, and 

 children are not always perfect. These instructors 

 stand in a representative capacity, and the child 

 should be taught to respect and reverence them, 

 partly for the teacher's sake and chiefly for the 

 child's sake. 



III. I have dwelt so long upon the relation be- 

 tiveen the home and the school that there is 

 time left but to mention those fundamental 

 virtues that lie at the basis of all character, and 

 upon which teacher and parent ought to unite. 



They are so trite that we are tempted to smile 

 when they are considered as fundamental in char- 

 acter. First of all are punctuality and regularity. 

 God is the greatest teacher of the universe. His 

 models are always perfect. He has written it so deeply 

 into the nature of things that they should obey these 

 two laws that we can determine, for centuries to 

 come, the rising and the setting of the sun and 

 moon. There is not a calling in life where these traits 

 of character are not a necessity, and perhaps no 

 trait, when once acquired, sticks to us like these 

 Horace Greeley is renowned as the kardest worker 

 of the last century. He was for thirty years at the 

 head of one of the greatest newspapers that the 

 nation or the world ever saw. The strongest editor- 

 ials of his time were written by him. He knew 

 every part ef his own country, and traveled abroad. 

 He farmed, and wrote a book to farmers on what 

 he knew about farming. He was a student of his- 

 tory, and wrote two large volumes on the Ameijican 

 conflict, and did them all while editor of the paper. 

 His biographers declare it was possible for him to 

 perform these Herculean tasks because he had for 

 his friends those twin brothers — Punctuality and 

 Regularity. 



Oh, if i could only tell you how in the secular and 

 religious education of the child, how in the develop- 

 ment of the Christian life, how in the success arid 

 failure of business, all things depend upon these vir- 

 tures, you would make them fundamental in your 

 child's education! 



Obedience is a prime virtue which a child should 

 learn from both parent and teacher; for the school 

 and the home whose combined teaching has failed 

 to teach the majesty and the sanctity of law are 



