Part 4 (1/2)
The second of my three topics, ”The University Teacher in His Classroom,” is an even more intimate one than the one just treated It is so intimate that perhaps discretion would be the better part of valor, but since I am at a considerable distance fro, I feel that I can proceed with comparative safety
There is abroad at the present tiher education Our graduates, it is said, are not able ”to connect up”; ”it takes theet out to find theet rid of a lot of theoretical notions that have been given thes of life” President Foster of Reed College, Oregon, puts it thus: ”It is possible to graduate froe without an idea in one's head” Professor Wenley, Head of the Departan University, had about the sainal definition of an Aher learning whose chief accoainst education” Or shall we put it in the words of our friend Mr Dooley: ”Nowadays when a lad goes to college, the prisidint takes hiareet an' says: Me dear boy, what special branch iv larnin wud ye like to have studied f'r ye be our compitint perfessors?”
Such are some of the caustic remarks that we occasionally hear Of course the situation is always exaggerated in such criticisms; but, as the old saw puts it, ”Where there's so much smoke, there uesses have been ations entered into in an effort to discover the cause The outcome of all such consideration, so far as I am able to learn, throws the responsibility upon the teacher rather than upon the institution as a whole, and upon his teaching ability rather than upon any lack of knowledge We cannot teach, it is said In spite of the knowledge that we possess, we do not kno to present that knowledge so that another can gain it Nicholas Murray Butler, the brainy President of Colu of es and universities] is distinctly poor; so state, anyway? Teaching involves a double process and two persons, both active upon the sa is causing to learn, and when there is no learning, there can have been no teaching ”Learning is not , but is one of its constituent elements”
No matter how much an instructor may know, no matter how much he may say nor what he may do, if he doesn't cause the student to put forth those , he doesn't teach And it is claimed that, in many cases, our university instructors do not kno to do this He knows but he does not kno to cause another to know, is a common criticism
I suppose it is true, tho loyalty makes me rather dislike to ad in our entire educational systees and universities My own observation both as a student and as a teacher all along the line leadsis done in the eleh schools, and poorest in the higher institutions Another puts it thus: ”We have excellent teaching in the lower priraduate schools, but between these two extre only by courtesy” Another, the president of a State University, is reported to have said, ”I have resolved never again to turnPh D's It takes five years to make a coraduate work”
If these statements are true, and I am afraid that there's much of truth in them, the situation is rather serious Still, it isn't at all surprising when one takes the whole matter into consideration For relatively few university instructors have given any attention to theitself They have studied the subject matter hich they are to deal They have becoe is concerned No fault can be found with theiven any reflective thought to the art of teaching They have not made a study of the human mind in its develope as mental nourishment, and to understand the assiiven themselves to a systematic and scientific study of human life so as to kno to handle it in its various ood people would have planned if they had expected to practise Law, or Medicine or to enter the Ministry! In every such case they would have made professional preparation for their work
Isn't it strange that any one should think that this profession--the her realiven its practise onereasons for poor college teaching, says, ”Too few instructors are interested in education”
I am reminded of Socrates' shrewd parody of a supposed speech of Euthydenorant of statecraft, desired election to an iovernestive here: ”I, O man of Athens, have never learned the medical art from any one, nor have been desirous that any physician should be uard, not only against learning anything of the art fro; nevertheless confer on me thisexperiments upon you” Coe that every teacher should possess, that every successful teacher does possess: first, knowledge of the subject e of the hue of the way to bring these two together in a helpful manner Of the three, I am afraid that university instructors have, in the main, but the first At any rate, all they know of the other two is of an empirical character and what they have picked up incidentally There are exceptions, to be sure
Every worthy institution has the exceptions, too, soood teachers thru practise and experi man now comes with professional preparation But yet, as in so many other matters, the exceptions merely prove the rule
Thus equipt, or rather with this serious lack of equipins his work If he is, to use the words of the university president just quoted, ”a raw doctor fresh fro the methods of procedure of his own recent instructors He tries to set these iirls at research problems and, in classroom, tries to impart information by the lecture method
Hoell I remember such an instance in my own freshman days I fell into the hands of such an instructor in Greek We were reading thatof Greek stories--_The Odyssey_ Textual criticis to compare texts, to delve into the intricacies of for to iave us, in the forot it, we did not want it because we did not knohat to do with it Now, I a with textual criticis doctor (he was younger than I was at that time) to deal with the facts of textual criticis for hiive those facts to us in our freshe of Arts They were not adapted to our intellectual needs They did not fit into our mental sto But the pathetic fact was that the instructor did not know that they did not fit I, being older thanbetter the barrenness of the Greek pasture in which ere trying to graze, finally ed, by a little skilful roup that happened to be in the care of a real teacher who knew not only Hoirls, the reasons for teaching Hoirls, and how to do it He was acquainted with both the science and the art of teaching Oh, how green was the pasture here, and how abundant and how nutritious the food! In all htful
But this is ancient history? Yes, I know it is But yet, I areatdoctor o are beingdoctors and by old doctors and by many who are not doctors at all, in one subject or another, in well-nigh every college or university in the United States Our instructors do not knoell enough how to adapt knowledge to human needs; they have the erroneous notion that the chief function of an educational institution is to impart information; and, too, many of the these three mistakes, let e: the word _education_ is derived from the Latin _educo_, _educare_, and means _to nourish_, and nourishment, physical, mental, or anisive to our dining-rooive to the mental and moral pabulum that they serve to their students, especially the lower classes if not the entire body of undergraduates They should know this knowledge as mental nourishment; they should know the condition of the mind, and they should kno to select and prepare this food for digestion and assimilation
As to the secondof knowledge: let me quote a feords from President Wilson, uttered when President of Princeton University: ”We should rereater part of the work that we are doing in our colleges to-day is to impart information” I am afraid that he is correct I a But it is wrong The greater part of our work should not be to i the knowledge that the student hiets--to fit it to his own life needs and to help him learn how to study and how to think for himself In other words, this information in which we deal should not be an end in itself, but a _means_ to an end And that end should be development, mental power, point of view--character To be sure, weof you, misunderstand me) but not for the mere possession of those facts
And lastly the lecture craze, under the doet into the habit of supplying information to students who already kno to read instead of telling the it with them How common it is! But why? Simply because it is easy How much easier it is than to conduct a real live recitation in which there is the give and take, the action and reaction, of eager vigorous young ency of interpretation and the inspiration! To conduct such an exercise with froe students and keep them on the alert is no lazy man's task It requires brains and skill, whereas anybody can do the other thing! President Foster is correct in saying, ”There should be fewer lecturesthe easiest of all ive an illustration drawn from my own sad experience, just to shohat at least so to be a confession as well as an exposition I was taking a course in the History of Philosophy It was given by a man well known in the educational world, then and now He ell thought of both as a teacher and a man He read his lectures from manuscript We were supposed to put into our note books every golden word that dropt from his inspired lips And the ot down soolden I did as the rest did till one day, fresh from the lecture, I went into the library and chanced upon a copy of Burt's ”History of Greek Philosophy” I opened it and shortly found the very discussion, and some of the very sentences, word for word, that I had just copied with so much labor into my note book And they were in print, too, so ! I at once sent to the publisher for a copy of the book and took no more notes in that course Nor did I take any more courses under that instructor
And so it was in a course in history--only there the kind old professor was nave enough to tell us the naain, letin my criticisht than do mine--Nicholas Murray Butler, President of Columbia University--(Ed Rev Apr, 1915, p 399): ”To use--or rather to abuse--the acade it a medium for the conveyance of mere information is to shut one's eyes to the fact that the art of printing has been discovered The proper use of the lecture is the critical interpretation by the older scholar of the inforained for hiuide and by no means merely to inform”
I do not mean to condemn the lecture method absolutely There are certain lines of work in which it is quite necessary This is true in some advanced courses, especially in the sciences, where an instructor is doing both lines of university work--carrying on research and giving his advanced students the results of his findings Of course these have not yet been eiven
And this saed for some of the work in our professional schools where both the ht are different In still another line of work the lecture is permissible--if it deal with a relatively new subject or with new phases of an old subject not yet covered by a satisfactory text But here it need not continue long because so instructor will soon satisfy the need The forht place in the later years of undergraduate work Its place should be taken by the text and reference book and the class discussion One of the finest accoain is the ability tothe , fidelity to truth compels me to admit, tho reluctantly, that much of it is very poor It satisfies the external demands and that is about all It is not of a character to kindle enthusiash ideals of scholarshi+p Much of it, I said, not all Every institution has soood teachers, some very excellent ones, but no institution is overstockt with species of that genus The great ht That exareater than it is is due to two fine qualities, one in the student body and the other in the instructors It speaks eloquently of the initiative of the students, and demonstrates that instructors can be fair even if they can't teach Many times we know that we are to bla it, will not visit the penalty upon the unoffending head
The reason for this lamentable situation can be traced to two practises: In the first place, up to the present tie teachers have made any professional preparation for their work as teachers In the second place, it is the almost universal custom to place the freshest classes and the ones in greatest need of skilled teachers, in the hands of young instructors who have not yet learned how to teach Relief will cooverning board of the college shall demand professional preparation of every one allowed to occupy a teaching position, just as we do now for positions in the elementary and secondary schools And if any one should raise a question as to the value of such preparation, my only but all-sufficient answer is to point to the universally recognized i in those parts of our educational system since that requiree is this--for Presidents seeking teachers to ask candidates two questions instead of one as heretofore: first, of course, the question should be, ”What do you know?” Satisfied as to that, let the second co, ”Can you teach?” And until an affirmative answer is deht be salutary, too, in dealing with the forces on the ground, to follow President Foster's suggestion given in these words: ”It would be well if more teachers were dis of any kind”
I come now to the last of my three sub-topics,
THE UNIVERSITY'S ATtitUDE TOWARD THE PREPARATION OF TEACHERS FOR THE SCHOOLS OF THE STATE
Fortunately, its discussion need not detain us long What should be that attitude? If you will analyze the relationshi+p existing between the teachers of a state and that state's progress and development, and then recall my brief discussion of the function of a State University--to provide leaders--the answer to the question is at once apparent The logic of the situation is clear For what other body of people in a state are so clearly the state's leaders as the teachers? Always intellectually and, for the most part, in these days, morally and physically, the teachers in our schools ress and accomplishment This is true of the teachers of a state roup of people within its borders not excepting the ministry