XIV.

MEN OF ONE IDEA.

There is between the teacher and other operatives one obvious difference, arising from the difference in the materials upon which their labor is bestowed. That class of laborers whose toil and skill are exerted in modifying the forms of matter, succeed generally in proportion to the narrowness of the range to which each individual's attention is confined. It is possible (the writer has known it to be a fact) for the same person to sow the flax, to pull and rot it, to break it, hatchel it, spin it, warp it, weave it, dye or bleach it, and finally make it into clothes. I say this is _possible_, for I have seen it done, and I dare say many of my readers have seen the same. But how coarse and expensive is such a product, compared with that in which every step in the progress of production is made the subject of one individual's entire and undivided attention.

If we were to go into the factories of Lowell, or into any of the thousand workshops which are converting Philadelphia into a great manufacturing centre, we would find the manufacture of an article approaching perfection just in proportion to the _im_perfection (in one sense) of the individual workmen employed in its production. The man who can make a pin-head better and cheaper than any one else, must give his attention to making pin-heads only. He need not know how to point a pin, or polish it, or cut the wire. On the contrary his skill in that one operation increases ordinarily in proportion to his want of skill in others. His perfection as a workman is in the direct ratio to his imperfection as a man. He operates upon matter, and the more nearly he can bring his muscles and his volitions to the uniformity and the precision of a mere machine--the more confined, monotonous, and undeviating are his operations--the higher is the price set upon his work, the better is he fitted for his task.

Not so the instructor of youth. The material operated on here is of a nature too subtle to be shaped and fashioned by the undeviating routine of any such mechanical operations. The process necessary to sharpen one intellect may terrify and confound another. The means which in one instance serve to convince, serve in other cases to confuse. The illustration which to one is a ray of light, is to another only "darkness visible." Mind is not, like matter, fixed and uniform in its operations. The workman who is to operate upon a substance so subtle and so varying must not be a man of _one idea_--who knows one thing, and nothing more. It is not true in mind, as in matter, that perfection in the knowledge of one particular point is gained by withdrawing the attention from every other point. All truth and all knowledge are affiliated. The knowledge of arithmetic is increased by that of algebra, the knowledge of geography by that of astronomy, the knowledge of one language by knowing another. As no one thing in nature exists unconnected with other things, so no one item in the vast sum of human knowledge is isolated, and no person is likely to be perfectly acquainted with any one subject who confines his attention with microscopic minuteness to that subject. To understand thoroughly one subject, you must study it not only in itself, but in its relations. To know one thing well you must know very many other things.

Let us return then to the point from which we set out, namely: that one important difference between the teacher and other operatives arises from the difference in the objects on which they operate. The one operates upon matter, the other upon mind. The one attains perfection in his art by a process which in the other would produce an ignoramus, a bungler, a narrow-minded, conceited charlatan. Hence the necessity on the part of those who would excel in the profession of teachers, of endeavoring continually to enlarge the bounds of their knowledge. Hence the error of those who think that to teach anything well it is necessary to know only that one thing. That young woman who undertakes to teach a primary school, or even an infant class, has mistaken her calling if she supposes that because she has to teach only the alphabet or the "table card," she has therefore no need to know many other things. There are some things which every teacher needs. Every teacher needs a cultivated taste, a disciplined intellect, and that enlargement of views which results only from enlarged knowledge.

We all know how much we are ourselves benefited by associating habitually with persons of superior abilities. So it is in a still higher degree with children. There is something contagious in the fire of intellect. The human mind, as well as the human heart, has a wonderful power of assimilation. Every judicious parent will say: Let not my child be consigned to the care of an ill-informed, dull, spiritless teacher. Let it be his happy lot, if possible, to be under one who has some higher ambition than merely to go through a certain prescribed routine of duties and lessons; one whose face beams with intelligence and whose lips drop knowledge; one who can cultivate in him the disposition to inquire, by his own readiness and ability to answer childish inquiries; who can lead the inquiries of a child into proper channels, and train him to a correct mode of thinking by being himself familiar with the true logical process, by having himself a cultivated understanding. Such a teacher finds a pleasure in his task. He finds that he is not only teaching his pupils to read and to spell, to write and to cipher, but he is acquiring an ascendancy over them. He is exerting upon them a moral and intellectual power. He is leaving, upon a material far more precious than any coined in the Mint, the deep and inerasible impress of his own character.

Let me repeat then, at the risk of becoming tiresome, what I hold to be an important and elementary truth, that the teacher should know very many things besides what he is required to teach. A good knowledge of history will enable him to invest the study of geography with new interest. Acquaintance with algebra will give a clearness to his perceptions, and consequently to his mode of inculcating the principles, of arithmetic. The ability to delineate off-hand with chalk or pencil the forms of objects, gives him an unlimited power of illustrating every subject, and of clothing even the dullest with interest. Familiarity with the principles of rhetoric and with the rules of criticism, gives at once elegance and ease to his language, and the means of more clearly detecting what is faulty in the language of others. A knowledge of Latin or of French, or of any language besides his own, throws upon his own language a light of which he before had no conception. It produces in his ideas of grammar and of language generally, a change somewhat like that which the anatomist experiences from the study of comparative anatomy. The student of the human frame finds many things that he cannot comprehend until he extends his inquiries to other tribes of animals; to the monkey, the ox, the reptile, the fish, and even to the insect world. So it is with language. We return from the study of a foreign language invariably with an increased knowledge of our own. We have made one step at least from the technicalities of particular rules towards the principles and truths of general grammar.

But it is not necessary to multiply illustrations. I have already said enough to explain my meaning. Let me say, then, to every teacher, as you desire to rise in your profession, as you wish to make your task agreeable to yourself or profitable to your pupils, do not cease your studies as soon as you gain your election, but continue to be a learner as long as you continue to be a teacher, and especially strive by all proper means, and at all times, to enlarge the bounds of your knowledge.