Part 13

It is definite action alone which achieves progress. All the mere knowledge possible to men would not be of any real help, except insofar as it finds its expression in definite and positive action. Mere knowledge is like mere good intentions. Their presence is no better than their absence until they are incarnated into deeds. Knowledge has the largest of all potentialities for the good of mankind when it becomes calculated action and wise service. For this reason, the entertaining of such an educational ideal is significant for the good of the world as well as for the educational progress of the pupil himself.

A Korean boy came to a missionary one day with the information that he had learned the entire Sermon on the Mount by heart. The missionary congratulated him upon his effort, but reminded him that it was a better thing to follow its teachings than to learn to repeat its words.

“Oh,” said the boy, “That’s the way I learned it.” He had solved an important pedagogical problem. It was the same old process that we saw in the Squeers school. There it was grotesquely conceived and followed out, but the effect lay along the right track. When a boy learned a thing, he was told to go and do it.

The modern school must teach boys and girls much more dependable knowledge than was imparted at Dotheboys Hall, and no modern teacher will abuse his privilege and opportunity as did Mr. Squeers; but it will be a good thing if it is remembered in the modern schoolroom that the educational ideal is twofold. It demands, first, that the child shall be taught to know a thing. It requires, second, that he shall not fail to make definite use of the knowledge which he has gained. Thus it will be made to mean the most in education to him and the most in service to the world.

The Sound-Reproducing Machine as a Music Teacher (1919)

Many changes for the better have taken place in American life during the past two decades; among these is a remarkable advance in musical art, knowledge, and appreciation. Europe once had sufficient grounds to look down upon us for our crudity in matters musical, but now we are beginning to have dignity and standing in the musical world.

In this marked advance, the sound-reproducing machine has borne an important part. During the period named, it has evolved from the status of a curious toy to that of a splendid instrument, present and active in the best homes in this country.

It is true, people often start in with the flimsiest of popular music, “rags,” “blues,” and such; but let one good classic find its accidental way into this motley collection—and things begin to change. The taste of the listener is on its way to better things.

The small daughter of a friend of mine stepped out from the home into public school. At once, the parents were distressed to notice that she began to show a taste for the cheapest sort of music—a natural contagion from the class of children with whom she associated. The parents cast about for an antidote to this ill. They found it in the purchase of a sound-reproducing machine and an abundance of really good records—ranging from simple ballads to symphony movements.

It worked. At once, instead of humming and whistling popular songs with their often vulgar words, she begged for the better music of the machine at home, and this music gradually pushed the other stuff out of her mind—the inevitable action of good over bad. No doubt this little seriocomedy has been enacted all over the country, raising the standard of musical taste.

The sound-reproducing machine has inaugurated a veritable Democracy of Music. To places inaccessible to the high-priced artist or teacher it has come, bringing the best music, rendered in the best way, and at a comparatively small cost—certainly much smaller than journeys to far-off cities and the charge for seats at concerts. It is the tragedy of most good things of this life that they go only to a special few. But the sound-reproducing machine has been no respecter of persons—it goes into the humble home as well as into the wealthy one. Anyone can spend fifty cents or a dollar a week on a new record. And for this small sum there are hours of pleasure and musical profit. This is the reason why it has become such a strong factor in our musical life and the reason par excellence why we are well on the way to becoming a seriously musical nation.

The School Teacher and the Republic (1920)

At Plymouth, Massachusetts, there stands the monument which memorializes the landing of the Pilgrim Fathers and the ideals for which they stood. The Pilgrim Monument lifts aloft five sculptured figures, each symbolic of one of the moving and controlling principles of early New England life. The large central figure bears the name of Faith. At each of the four corners stands one of four others—Freedom, Law, Morality, and Education.

These things represent fundamental principles in the moulding of our nation and its life. We have all profited more than we have realized from the fact that they had a place in the characters, minds, and purposes of our forefathers. Each is highly important, but the Pilgrims would have been seriously in error if they had failed to include the last named.

That they did not fail to include it is evidenced by the fact that, very early in the colonial history of America, representative leaders met in conference on the question of establishing a free system of public schools. There is hardly a better recommendation for a nation or a more dependable indication of its quality than the fact that its system of free public schools dates almost back to the time of its original settlement. Such is the case with America. At no period in her history has she been unaccustomed to the sight of the pedagogue.

America has been made what she is largely by means of the public school. If she is democratic, it is largely because the public school has so faithfully sown the seeds of democracy in the thinking of her boys and girls in their plastic periods. In so far as she is clean and righteous, the fact is largely due to the teaching the children have received in the public schools. Their work in character-building, their inculcation of the principles of scientific temperance, and now their efforts to teach Americanism to all classes and ages have all been good seed sown in fertile and productive soil. Today every schoolhouse is a symbol of freedom, of democracy, and of productive efficiency. To neglect the schools would be to neglect the source of much that is entirely necessary in the nation’s life.

What America did for herself by means of the school in the days when her interests did not reach beyond her own borders, she has since done by the same means in the territories for which she has assumed responsibility. Since Spain ceded the Philippines to us, the life of their people has been entirely regenerated. The old insanitary cities with their shacks and their squalor have changed into orderly and well-improved municipalities. The unkempt and ignorant people are now bright, industrious, and efficient. A practically savage land has become a civilized one in slightly more than two decades.

Alaska has been transformed from a fruitless wilderness into a territory of awakened and forward-looking people. They have developed such industries as their land would support. They have achieved a large degree of economic independence. They acquitted themselves with as great credit as did almost any of the states in the various responsibilities incident to the war. They have cleaned up their towns and developed their social institutions. Through their town meetings, they are becoming more and more a self-governing people.

Hawaii is rapidly learning to make the most of herself. Porto Rico is doing the same. The new Virgin Islands will follow along in the same course the others have travelled. Cuba has developed in the last twenty years largely because of the start American leadership, organization, and education gave her. Panama has been revolutionized by American influence.

There are, of course, a number of answers to the question as to why all this has happened. One of the chiefest of them, however, is the work of the public school system inaugurated wherever the hand of America holds sway for any length of time. Even the leadership, the scientific attainment, the medical skill, the genius for organization, and the commercial power that have entered into the moulding of these new civilizations all owe themselves, in greater or less degree, to the public school and to the work of the teacher.

Our plight would be sorry indeed had it not been for the presence of the little red school house among us. No country has ever gotten along without it and escaped the penalty which Fate is certain to impose. The situation in Russia now is undoubtedly largely the result of the age-long lack of an adequate educational system. Civilization simply cannot be moulded without the patient and painstaking work of the pedagogue.

Bismarck once said that whatever one would put into the state he must first put into the schools. This was a great utterance, and its truth has been repeatedly demonstrated in the years since. His own country used the principle wrongly, but her use of it demonstrated its correctness. When William II came to the German throne, he did not long retain Bismarck as his chancellor, but he did follow many of Bismarck’s policies to the end of his career. This was one of them.

Imperial Germany was largely built upon this principle. The educational system from the beginner’s classes to the universities was standardized and utilized to inculcate the Pan-German theory of the state and its development. Philosophy was prostituted to this end. Literature and art were bought by the state for its own purposes. History was written with the ambitions of the state in view. According to the German theory, this was perfectly proper, for, as General von Bernhardi once said, “There is no power above the state.” The result is familiar. A loyal nation and a mighty military power were built up by first putting into the schools what the leaders wished to inject into the life of the state.

Under German guidance, Turkey did much the same thing. When Abd-ul-Hamid II was dethroned in 1909, and the Young Turk party came into power, an imperialistic program was undertaken in behalf of the Ottoman state. One of the first things done was to standardize the educational system and set it to work to weave the Ottoman spirit and faith into the lives of the young.

The leading military spirit of Turkey for centuries was the organization of soldiers called the Janizaries. This organization was started in the fourteenth century by Orkhan, son of Osman. The first members of it were the children exacted as tribute from conquered Christian peoples. It was kept up afterward by levying a tax on Christian towns to be paid in children. These children of Christian parents were trained to be Turks, Mohammedans, and soldiers, and they became all three things with a vengeance. They were the most loyal Turks, the most fanatical Mohammedans, and the most cruel soldiers. Such is the force of education. One may take a vine and train it in any direction. One may take a young life and make of it what he will.

Germany and Turkey used the power of the school wrongly, of course, but they demonstrated what can be done with it. It is as great a force for weal as it is for woe, and America has thus far used it for the doing of good things rather than evil. The possibilities of education in either direction are practically boundless.

When one speaks of the public school system, he speaks really of an army of teachers. A school has buildings and books, but it is really made and determined by the teacher. One may have a school without either a building or a book, but he cannot have one without a teacher.

The nation cannot recognize its obligation to the teacher too soon or too completely. He has never received his just due, and the time has come when we need to take an inventory of the service he has rendered and reward him in some fair proportion to it. What we do for him we really do for the country and its future.

Some Overlooked Compensations in Teaching (1920)

The economic aspect of the teaching profession has never been encouraging. It was least so at the close of the recent great war. In 1918 we were paying our male teachers the munificent wage of $82.35 per month for the six to nine months of the year during which they were employed. During the same period, our female teachers were getting an average of $64.72.

The natural consequence of such a situation was a shortage of teachers. A report of the Federal Bureau of Education indicated that the shortage in 1918 was not less than 30,000. About 87,500 new recruits are needed annually for the rural schools alone. In 1916 we graduated less than one-third of that number from all our teacher-training institutions together.

In former days a young man was usually delighted to obtain a position on a college faculty. Recently a senior in a state university was offered a position in the Chemistry department and refused it, on the ground that it might tie him up to the teaching profession and thus commit him to poverty. This attitude is not one of utter selfishness on the part of young people. Most of them are willing to serve their day, and allow the reward to be a secondary consideration. They feel, however, that they have a right to physical comfort while they do serve. They realize that the standards of the profession are high in every way, and they feel that such exacting requirements warrant good pay.

They are right; yet there are certain aspects of the teaching profession which they should not overlook. It involves less pay than it should, but it also involves certain compensations, some of which are very valuable and some of which are priceless. It places in the hands of those who choose it privileges which many of the rich would gladly give their gold to obtain. It brings within the scope of their experience things which many men, otherwise successful, have been disappointed in not possessing.

One of these is the privilege of living in the atmosphere and under the influence of the best thought of all the ages. It is a great mistake to suppose that bread and raiment are the only necessities of life. Some of its intellectual and spiritual necessities are quite as commanding as its physical ones. Those who fail to obtain them pay the penalty by living cramped lives and usually dying with their deeper longings unsatisfied. Good pictures, good music, good books, and good friends are among the kinds of meat that never perish. The values they bring are everlasting.

A man’s life does not consist in the abundance of the things he possesses. When one has made a living, he has not necessarily lived. He has made only it possible to exist while he tries to live. His life is made up of the thoughts he thinks, the hopes he entertains, the associations he enjoys, and the tasks he performs. Earth and its physical necessities are only the stage and the setting for the drama. The play itself lies beyond them and is separate from them. The teacher is permitted to play always a leading role.

He also enjoys the privilege of doing a work which carries with it something of its own reward. Some kinds of work detract from one’s strength and fitness. The work of the teacher adds to them. Each lesson he prepares leaves him by so much bigger and stronger. Each problem he masters adds to his mental sinew. Each instance in which he helps someone on the way benefits him more than it does the recipient of his attention. His is a treasure which only increases by being given away. His is the blessing of daily growth and development.

Another compensation he enjoys is the privilege of living among the best people of the community. One is largely made by his associations, and his success in life depends largely on the type of friends he can cultivate. His admittance into the best society is itself a long step on the road to the highest success.

The ordinary person must live in a new community for a long while before the best people make up their minds regarding him. Even after a long period of decision, they do not always see their way clear to admit him to their circle. The teacher is excused from much of this severe testing. His very work serves as his credentials. People assume that if he is a successful teacher he is eligible for the best society anywhere, and they are usually right about it.

This means very much indeed. One cannot hope to reach a much higher level than that of the society in which he moves. A certain law of social erosion is always operative. By it the minds and personalities of people so act and react upon one another that they all tend to become alike. This being true, one cannot afford to move in any but the best society into which he can find his way. This is a matter in which the teacher has no difficulty.

The teacher obtains a high value in the simple consciousness of being a worth-while person. One does not have to proclaim such a fact to the world. If it is true, the world is quite certain to learn about it. It brings health to one’s body and soul, however, for one to be able to feel honestly that his life is not a failure. It is a blessed thought to entertain that one really stands for something in his generation.

The teacher can congratulate himself that he is a world builder. He has his hand upon the throttle of human progress. He turns the key that swings open the gate of the future.

The inner life which he possesses is coveted by thousands who can never have it. They may try to substitute what money can buy for what only mind can possess, but the effort always ends in pitiful failure. One cannot long conceal a lack of mind and soul with clothes and paint. The result is only a vulgar display. The more flash and parade the ignorant indulge in, the cheaper they look.

The person who possesses real quality and worth does not have to cover himself over with artificialities and affectations. He has only to stand forth as he is. The soul within him will tell its own story. Despite all the cheap ways in which the world indulges, its real hunger is for genuine worth, unveneered culture, real character.

Some have missed these things because they made the mistake of setting out to make money alone. If one can have both these things and wealth, so much the better. If one must choose between the two, however, there is no question that money is the second choice. Thousands of people of every age could testify from their own experience that this is true.

One can do much more working for society than he can if he works only for himself. Incidentally, he may fare best from a selfish point of view when all things have been considered.

For many years an old colored woman sold peanuts on the grounds of Tuskegee Institute. A young negro girl who had just enrolled was one day admiring the buildings. Coming from a poor home in a backward community, she was amazed that one man had been able to gather together enough money to erect them.

“If Dr. Washington had worked for himself instead of running this school, wouldn’t he have been rich?” she said one day to the old peanut woman.

“Law, child! He wouldn’t a been worth a nickel,” was the reply.

She was probably right. Plenty of people have made their only claim to riches by serving others. Others, with talents as promising, have spent their lives on mediocre levels, because it never occurred to them to live for anything but themselves.

Dollars Versus Sense (1921)

In their normal and proper relations, money and learning are very helpful each to the other. Money is not only a desirable thing but a necessary one in the work of building up our educational systems. Certain items of material equipment nothing but money can provide. It is also the only thing which can obtain certain purely educational values in the way of teaching talent. As educational processes become more elaborate and complete, they cost more.

On the other hand, education exerts a natural and favorable reaction upon money-making. In this country, where the educational aim is not so much to turn out gentlemen of leisure as it is to manufacture sons of toil, school training is one of the greatest aids in the increase of earning capacity. Statistics proving by figures that the product of the schools can make more money than the uneducated man can do are familiar to us all. This is not the highest possible motive for the getting of an education, but it is a motive which is worth considering.

However, there is something about great economic wealth in a country which seems to make against the interest of education. This is a surprising fact, but it is a fact nevertheless. One might most easily think the reverse would be true. Certainly it is true that the greater wealth a country possesses the more it could afford to invest in education if it cared to do so. It looks like a safe assumption that a long step in the direction of intellectual greatness would have been taken when a people becomes great commercially. However, this assumption is not borne out by the facts. There seems to be more truth, especially from the educational viewpoint, in the idea that where wealth accumulates, men decay.

This principle is nothing new. It seems to be clearly indicated in history. At least one instance may be cited from the story of quite ancient times to indicate how true to form things have always run.

The Phoenician Empire was one of the most remarkable dominions of the ancient world. Geographically it was small. It was only about 140 miles long and 15 miles wide, skirted by the sea on one side and by a mountain range on the other. With the well-known Semitic genius for trading, its people planted colonies, operated mines, and established trading points on many rivers and seas. The volume of their trade was never surpassed until that day, centuries afterward, when the discovery of America opened up a new world to exploitation.

In the process of their trading, the Phoenicians carried letters and arts to many Old World lands. They were not their own letters and arts. All the intellectual treasures they had were borrowed from others. They were too busy buying and selling to take time to develop any of their own. Consequently, the only monument to Phoenicia that remains today is the memory of her commercial greatness. She concerned herself only with that which was temporary. She built nothing that could endure.