Thomas E. Sanders

“ No one is fit to teach who finds the work thoroughly distasteful and who does not have a genuine love for children and young people. No sadder sight was ever seen than a long-faced pessimist in the school-room. It is cruelty personified to keep children in the school-room under the chilling, blighting influence of a sour-grained pessimistic teacher, long since dead, else never alive to the beauty of nature and the buoyancy of childhood—firmly convinced of the total depravity of all children. ”

“ The afternoon dismission to the careful observer is a fair index not only of the day but the teacher’s grasp of her school.—Teachers often hurry to dismiss the children, anxious to be rid of the responsibility. The pupils rush from the door with a jump and a shout as boisterous as a wild group of Comanche Indians. Of all the periods of the day, the one just before dismission is the one when the teacher should show most composure and deliberation. Of all the periods of the day, the pupils are most at the teacher’s mercy. Let them understand that quiet and decorum precede dismission. ”

“ Pure thoughts, pure words, sincerity, honesty, earnest and deep convictions must be habitual with you. The purity of your own thought, the sincerity of your own motives, flashing through your eyes, the windows of your soul, must call out and strengthen the purity and nobility of other minds. Your character and your reputation, too, must stand the search light of the X-ray without showing flaw or blemish. This, and this alone, is the character and reputation worthy the teacher, the builder and architect of immortal minds. ”

“ Cheered, upheld, inspired by such thoughts as these, no community will be uninteresting, no school will be unworthy your best efforts, no healthy, hearty, happy child but will stand before you an instrument of infinite possibilities. Knowing what notes to strike you can place it in harmony with God and the universe.
To see life in its larger views, to live life on a higher plane, to lift others to this larger life is the opportunity of the true teacher. Think you that teaching is dull? ”

“ Remember that order in the school-room does not mean deathlike stillness.—There is the noise of work—a noise pleasing to the ear of the successful teacher, and the noise of idleness and confusion. The first is as inspiring to a good teacher as the second is discouraging. The stillness that comes through fear of punishment may be the worst of conditions. Under routine drill to quietness under the eagle eye of a so-called disciplinarian, the pupils are often on the borderland of anarchy. They have never learned the lesson of self-control nor the reasons for good behaviour. ”

“ As a teacher learn to look on life with a healthy optimism. Get a world view of humanity in its progress. Recognize yourself as a force—infinitely small perhaps, but a necessary force in the triumphant march. Dollars and cents are necessary to you to fill to perfection this place—but over and above all money, sweeter and more lasting, is the lives you can reach, the good you can do, the pleasure you can inspire, the kindlier feelings you can cultivate in your pupils. ”

“ But the love-sick young man who pines for his lady love—the last one who smiled on him, it matters little who; the giddy girl who has two strings to each of her half a dozen beaux and is too busy pulling these strings to think of anything else—these are unfit to teach.
Then, too, the young teacher must sacrifice something to public opinion. Public opinion may be ever so narrow, so unreasonable, so unjust, but if you are to establish your reputation in that community as a reliable, trustworthy teacher, you cannot afford to be indifferent to it. ”

“ To deify your own work is the way to get pleasure and growth out of it. Forget as far as possible the daily wage. Let the carpenter see himself helping to build and improve the homes of mankind and he is ashamed of shoddy work. The street sweeper should glow with civic pride. His work is as essential as that of any man. When he realizes this, his work is then not drudgery. He feels the worth of his work. He feels that he is making his city the cleanest, the brightest, the healthiest and the most beautiful in the world. ”

“ The spirit of the teacher shows itself in the intellectual attitude of the pupils. The teacher should be a living fountain, not a stagnant pool. The growing mind is alone fit to teach. The best, the life-giving teaching, which makes the pupil’s soul thirst for more is not being done by men and women who have long since completed their education. I pity the high school pupil65 whose teacher adds nothing to his intellectual growth each year. ”

“ If teaching is a profession, or is ever to become one, teachers must read the literature of the profession. If you are a professional teacher, or if you are ever to become one, you must read and enjoy the reading of good books on teaching and education. It is not the reading alone but the keen interest and love for the reading. Teaching can never become a profession until teachers become acquainted with the literature of the profession, and even before they enter the profession must show that they have made the acquaintance of this literature. ”

“ It puts spirit and energy into the most humdrum tasks. A necessary work is an honorable work. Do that which your ability and your environment makes necessary. Do it with cheerfulness and a will. Envy no man his success until you are willing to pay for it what he has paid. By paying the price you can win success for yourself. But success is not always measured in dollars and cents. Teach yourself to view life and labor in its broader light, and you will have found the philosopher’s stone that dignifies labor well done, and draws pleasure from any honorable occupation. ”

“ The personality of the teacher and its influence on the school.—Does she know what to do, does she know how to do it, does she have the dignity to get this done promptly and well without it ever entering the mind of a pupil to question its propriety or her ability to get it done? Your personality should be strong enough that it is rare indeed that any pupil dare to dispute your authority and then you should have weight of character enough to prevent open rebellion. The personality of the teacher, like the atmosphere of the school, is intangible. ”

“ Your highest success and greatest usefulness must be measured by the lasting impressions you leave on your pupils. The worthy pupil who catches fire and ambition from you to be something and to do something, who years after can truthfully say it was from you that he got his aspiration for a high-school course, these pupils are to be the reward to you that is above all money value. I feel that I am justly proud of the percentage of my grade pupils who have gone to high school, and of my high school graduates that have taken a college or university course. ”

“ The school, large or small, country or town, blest with a teacher of broad mold, liberal-minded, active, studious, still learning, virtuous and pure-minded, such a school is a dynamic force for good in the neighborhood. Such a teacher is not worried by bad boys. Her energy is not sapped by keeping order. She does not nervously pound the desk or the call bell for quiet. Her very attitude begets quiet without having to demand it. She may sit down and hear a recitation. Composure on her part gets composure on the part of the pupils. ”

“ The teamster with his load of coal, dirty and begrimed though he may be, should forget his toil and drudgery in the conviction that he is helping humanity to keep warm while in turn he is earning an honest living and the comforts of home for himself and family.
Let the washerwoman, bending over her tub, feel that her work is not only honorable, but necessary. Except for her, or others doing her work, humanity in a few months time would be in a pitiful plight, and our present civilization could not long exist. Dignify your own little niche in life. ”

“ Is the mind so much less important that good judgment would reject the physician and the lawyer who have done no professional study, and accept the teacher, ignorant of the literature of her line of work and who had never given any study of why or how or what to teach in order to best develop the child? Is the mind of less importance than the body? ”

“ Clean buildings and grounds with some good walks and a few trees and flowers will follow as a result of a good teacher after a few years in almost any school.
The teacher, too, usually secures room and board with a good family where they may have comforts equal or superior to their own home. Teachers are always welcome to the best society—it may not be the low-necked, high-heeled variety—but the best and most substantial. The best homes welcome them as guests and the biggest fat apples are laid—an honest and worthy tribute—on the teacher’s desk. ”

“ The greatest men of all time come and converse with you. A pity it is if you see nothing but drudgery and dull pupils and hard lessons and unruly boys and petty mischiefs and little annoyances in teaching. If this is all you see, quit—never teach again.
Teaching, if your heart is in the work, will keep you young. It will bring you into contact with the best in life. It will be a constant inspiration to pure thought and right conduct. It will give you the love and respect of young people whose future joys and sorrows will be your joys and sorrows, and whose successes will bring you pleasure. ”

“ The discipline and training of a high school course will not only increase the earning capacity of your boy, but it will increase his living capacity.—He will see more beauty in the evening sunset, God’s wonderful watch care in the stars overhead, and more and sweeter fragrance in the pansy at his feet. It will develop character and manhood, give him thoughts and ideas of his own, make him broader in his views of life, and raise him to a higher standard of manhood. ”

“ The brightest colors, the most beautiful harmonies, are self-created products of your own mind. We see what we look for, we hear what we listen for, we get what we give. We must lose our life in our work if we are to find it again renewed and more fruitful in the lives of our pupils. Love our pupils and they will love us in return. ”

“ Discussions are bright and animated, and full of life, but always respectful and courteous. She is in strong contrast to the teacher that talks and talks in a monotonous tone until half the class are sleepy and the others thinking about everything else save the subject she is trying to explain. One draws out information and stimulates thought. The other pours in second-hand information and deadens thought. One sharpens intellect. ”

“ If there is anything that saps the mental life of pupils, dulls their intellectual desires, disgusts them with school and all that pertains to it, it is the spirit of the grumbling, growling, whining, probing, complaining teacher. Occasionally we meet such a teacher in the schools, and her work is followed by the wreck of childish hopes and ambitions. ”

“ The school takes its coloring from your own attitude, and when things go wrong, begin to seek the cause in your own actions, disposition and manners. Learn to study yourself without upbraiding, and yet with determination to find the cause of your failure. Confidence in yourself and courage backed by good judgment will make government easy. Remember the government of a school is more a matter of mind than of physical strength. ”

“ To this large and growing class of zealous, capable and untiring teachers the present and the future owes a debt which the world can scarcely pay. There is but one more sacred place—the wife and mother’s. The woman who quits teaching to become the center of the home—the purest, the noblest, the most sacred—she does not leave the profession. ”

“ If you have time to idle or to day-dream, do it in the open air and in the sunshine where the exercise will do you good or go forth on a still, clear night and watch the movements of the heavenly bodies, the star-decked sky, and drink in its inspiration and beauty. ”

“ We all feel better after it is over. Many of our leaders in education, university professors, normal school teachers, specialists and heads of departments along with many superintendents would hesitate to stake their reputation as a teacher or educator upon the answers to ten questions from each of ten subjects, these subjects to be prepared and the answers graded by “the other fellow.” Yet this is the ordeal to be passed by most young teachers. Is it any wonder they dread it?
Every thinking man will concede that the usual examination does not test the applicant’s ability to teach. ”

“ Teaching has two sides. There is the school-room side and the public or community side. Each is important. You cannot be a successful teacher without mastering the first. You can’t hold your job long unless you have some skill in the second. Your success in a community is often measured more by the second than the first. In fact, the good you do, the influence you exert on the lives of the pupils, the net results of your work, is often a reflex of your skill and ability to get along with the people, to get their respect, good will and hearty co-operation. ”