62 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXVII. No. 941 



is let out, there are to be no more tasks, noth- 

 ing but playing cross-tag with the boys in the 

 yard and developing the " class conscious- 

 ness." There is among us, as in other sub- 

 jects, the type of man properly called an 

 " educator." He " draws out " his pupils. 

 Always animated, always with the last word 

 from the Scientific American or the Review 

 of Reviews, he makes his class-hour a little 

 less interesting than the moving pictures, but 

 more so than a star lecture at the Y. M. C. A. 

 Such a man likes to see bright faces about 

 him. He is accustomed to have his hour 

 looked forward to with pleasure, his classes 

 begging to be allowed to write ten pages, 

 while he sternly holds out for five. His work 

 is " inspirational " ; to make it succeed, he 

 must be in the best of physical condition. So 

 he saves himself. He lets his students criti- 

 cize their own compositions and those of one 

 another. For himself, he resolves to read 

 themes less, and to play golf more. Such a 

 man is merely an accident in an English class- 

 room. If his occupation were adapted to his 

 essence, we should find him preaching on poli- 

 tics and current problems in a modern evan- 

 gelistic city church. But, as he stands, his 

 students look up to him as a polished gentle- 

 man and man of the world. From him they 

 draw culture in the vaguer sense, a dissemina- 

 tion of sweetness and light. 



Meanwhile, there is still the teacher. He 

 is to be found in all subjects, even English 

 composition. He hates inexactness and 

 vagueness, he loves to enforce a clear intel- 

 lectual distinction, he has great confidence in 

 the educational value of abstract thought. 

 On these accounts he is very unhappy, at the 

 moment, in the English class room. The 

 birch was taken away from him long ago, and 

 now they have taken the book. His confer- 

 ence work goes well enough, being confined 

 mostly to punctuation, grammar and the split 

 infinitive; but in the class he finds nothing to 

 do that he considers worth while. His text- 

 book distresses him with its lack of content. 

 How can he hold up his head before his 

 classes as a man of intelligence when he is 

 obliged to spend his hours with them in dis- 



cussing principles which would be evident to 

 the child of ten? He was better off in the 

 dark ages, before they made the whole busi- 

 ness so simple. Then, at least, there was 

 material for mental exercise. 



It is this style of man who does the real 

 work of the schools, that for which parents 

 suppose they are paying. He is less con- 

 spicuous than the " educator," for teaching i* 

 a curious business. It is the only profession 

 in which men appear to succeed best by neg- 

 lecting their work and doing other things. 

 At the same time, as it is not now a question 

 of promotion or salary, we may admit that 

 this man of solid, thoughtful mind is the only 

 real teacher. And the question comes up : 

 What are we to do to keep him happy in 

 English composition? 



If we assume that no college teacher wants 

 to do his plain duty, and teach spelling and 

 grammar, there are still two other directions 

 in which the outlook for new text-books is 

 more or less hopeful. The first is logic. That 

 subject has been for some time neglected, and 

 now tends to seem a part of " the good old 

 times." College teachers have begun to ask 

 themselves whether they can not introduce 

 some training in logical principles into the 

 English course ; though at the outset they are 

 somewhat staggered at the memory of " Bar- 

 bara, Celarent." Some day there will be a 

 shaking among those dry bones, and then wer 

 shall have a text-book for the teacher. 



The second direction from which light may 

 come is the artistic treatment of prose. The 

 artistic problem behind the student's theme, if 

 he can be made to see it, will interest him. 

 It will interest also the " educator " and the 

 teacher. If we could find a man among us 

 who is by nature an artist, rather than a 

 critic, he might contrive to tell us how to 

 write. This sort of book is the hardest of all 

 to produce, and the least likely to appear ; but, 

 if one could make it, it would be worth as 

 much as all that has yet been written. 



A. T. Robinson 

 Institute of Technology, 

 Boston, Mass. 



