XV.

A TALENT FOR TEACHING.

There can be no doubt that some persons have a natural aptitude for teaching. As there are born poets, so there are born teachers. Yet the man born with the true poetic temperament and faculty will never achieve success as a poet, unless he add study and labor to his natural gift. So the man born with a talent for teaching needs to cultivate the talent by patient study and practice, before he can become a thoroughly accomplished teacher. No man probably ever showed greater native aptitude for anything, than did Benjamin West for painting. Yet what long years of toil and study it took for him to become a really great painter? In teaching, as in every other profession, while men doubtless differ as to their original qualifications and aptitudes, yet the differences are not so great as they are often supposed to be, and they are by no means so great as those produced by study and practice. The man who has no special gift for this employment, but who faithfully and intelligently tries to perfect himself in it, is sure to be a better teacher than the one who has the natural gift, but adds to it no special study and preparation. Indeed, if we exclude from consideration those very nice and delicate touches in education, which are so rare as to be quite exceptional, there is nothing in the business of teaching which may not be acquired by any person of average ability.

When, therefore, we see a teacher not succeeding in gaining the attention of his scholars, or in securing obedience and respect, or in bringing them forward in their lessons, we are not disposed to free such a person from blame on the plea of his having no natural aptitude for teaching. We would respectfully say to such a teacher: if you know not how to impart knowledge, learn how; if you have no tact, get it. Teaching is a business, as much as knitting stockings, or planting corn. Either do not undertake to teach at all, or learn how it is to be done.

If one-fourth of the labor bestowed upon the work of teaching were devoted to studying the business, the value of the remaining three-fourths would be quadrupled. It is painful to see the amount of hard work done in school with so little proportionate effect. If a man who knew nothing of farming, but who had a desire to be useful, were to dig a pit and bury therein a bushel of corn, and imagine that he was planting, his labor would not be wider of the mark than much that is bestowed in school. A man must learn how to do even so simple a thing as planting corn. Let the teacher also learn how to plant the seeds of knowledge, how to prepare the soil, how to open it for the reception of truth, where and when to deposit the precious grains.

I have no desire to discourage those faithful men and women who are so nobly striving to do good as teachers. But I cannot help expressing the regret that so much of this labor is without adequate result. Why should persons act so differently in this matter from what they do in any other? If a woman wants to make a pair of stockings, she goes to some other woman who understands knitting, and sees how it is done, and learns the stitches, tries and experiments, and studies the matter, until it is all familiar to her. So of any other ordinary business. Yet when it comes to teaching, anything like definite study or observation of the mode of doing it, is almost unknown! It is really no exaggeration to say that many teachers bungle in their work as egregiously as would a woman who should put yarn into a churn, and expect, after a proper amount of churning, to draw out stockings.

In our schools are many professional teachers of approved skill. Why should not a school-teacher, who is conscious of not succeeding as he would desire, spend an hour occasionally in observation? Find out the name of some teacher who is particularly successful, and look on while the work is being done, and if possible see how it is done.

Then again, there are books on the subject, in which the business of teaching is explained in all its branches. Get some of these books and read. The mere reading will not make you teachers. But it will set you to thinking. It will quicken your power of observation. It will help you to learn from your own experience.

Make a note of the difficulties you encounter, and the points in which you cannot accomplish what you desire. Very likely you will find these very difficulties discussed in the books on teaching which you are reading. If not, lay your difficulties before some friend who is a successful teacher, and get advice. _Anything_, rather than going on, week after week, without improvement. There _is_ a way of interesting your class in their lessons, of securing good order and punctual attendance, of making the scholars learn. Only make up your mind that you will find out what that way is. If you think it cannot be done, of course it will not be done. If you have fairly made up your mind that it _may_ be done, and that _you_ can do it, it is half done already.

You have no idea how much more pleasant the work will be, when you have once learned how to do it. One reason why so many teachers desert the ranks, is the irksomeness produced by want of success. Few things are more intolerable than being obliged to do a thing while conscious of doing it in an awkward and bungling manner. On the other hand, almost any work is a pleasure, which one is conscious of doing well.