French teacher

“ Who will trust so young a girl to instruct them? If you only had a first and second pupil, you would be self-supporting. French teachers are in great demand, but where shall you find that first pupil—tell me that, ma fille. No matter how small your charge, the question will be, where have you taught? No one will wish to be the first pupil. ”

“ Sidgwick’s Form Discipline.
Nothing can replace in a teacher the study of individual peculiarities of character: the motives, the special hindrances, the growth of each child in her class must be studied and individually met, if she is to rise to the true level of her work.
(c) Insight into character.This is assuming that the teacher feels the full responsibility of being put in a position where, by the way in which she teaches French, or mathematics, she can help or hinder the spiritual growth of each of her pupils. ”

“ Then there is in college life association with professors and tutors, and this is, I confess, sometimes of little value, as when teachers are mere machines, but in it, at its best, are distinguishing benefits. When teachers are full men, apt men, and enthusiastic men—as college professors, and for that matter all teachers ought to be—the place of recitation soon becomes a center of power. Tact tests attainment, exposes ignorance, foils deceit, develops strength, indicates lines of discovery, and inspires courage. A living teacher supplies at once model and motive. ”

“ In every word uttered by the Academic Teacher in the exercise of his calling, let it be Knowledge that speaks,—let it be his longings to extend her dominion,—let it be his deep love for his hearers, not as his hearers, but as the future ministers of Knowledge:—Knowledge, and these living desires to extend her dominion, let these speak, not the Teacher. ”

“ We were enabled therefore to conclude that the real teacher is within the soul of the pupil, or, better still, the teacher is the pupil himself in the dynamism of his development. So that, far from limiting the autonomy of the disciple, the master, as the propulsive element of the pupil’s spontaneity, penetrates his personality, not to suppress it, but to help its impulses and facilitate its infinite development. ”

“ The teacher whose soul is on fire with her work, the pupil who is willing to learn, these are the essentials of a good school. The teacher, one whose heart is in the work, one who realizes the dignity and the importance of teaching, one who not only knows the subject to be taught and the laws of mental development, but has that innate tact and worth and personal magnetism that draws young people to her, such a teacher is a priceless gem. Such a teacher brings order out of chaos. The pupils feel the magnetism of her presence. ”

“ The thing that makes one man really different from another is not so much knowledge as character; and the thing that makes one school different from another is not so much curriculum and apparatus, as teaching body. Algebra and trigonometry, Greek and Latin, history and political economy, the student will forget; but he will not forget a teacher gentle but earnest, of disinterested scholarship and life-long devotion. The specific teaching may be quite erased from the memory, but in the heart will be left a deepening respect for the teacher.
Many of you are to become class-room teachers. ”

“ You distinguish between the teacher and the tutor. Another piece of folly! Do you make any distinction between the pupil and the scholar? There is only one science for children to learn—the duties of man. This science is one, and, whatever Xenophon may say of the education of the Persians, it is indivisible. Besides, I prefer to call the man who has this knowledge master rather than teacher, since it is a question of guidance rather than instruction. He must not give precepts, he must let the scholar find them out for himself. ”

“ The work of the Oral Teacher is, in its immediate application, only a work for the time, modified by the degree of culture possessed by those who are entrusted to his care. Only in so far as he can venture to suppose that he is moulding future Teachers worthy of their calling, who, in their turn, will train others for the same task, and so on without end, can he regard himself as working for Eternity. ”

“ When, after some years of study, a student was examined by the professors, he was, if successful, admitted to the corporation of teachers and became a master himself. What we call a degree to-day was originally, in the mediæval universities, nothing more than the qualification to teach. But in the thirteenth century many began to desire the honorable title of master or doctor (which is only the Latin word for teacher) who did not care to become professors in our sense of the word. ”

“ The true teacher has, or gets, the poet's ability to project himself into the lives of others. He keeps invisible, tactful antennæ playing in all directions, feeling this one's coming embarrassment before it arrives, conscious of that one's eager assent before it lights his eyes, exploring homes and occupations and character in order to adapt question to scholar. Without argument or plan, but by instinctive appreciation of differing personality, the true teacher assumes dignity with this pupil, bonhomie with that. ”

“ It showed itself first in the rise of great teachers, some of whom were also notable scholars. There has never been a clearer demonstration of the central importance in education of the distinguished teacher:
At the beginning of the twelfth century three schools are distinguished in the contemporary literature above the multitude which had sprung into new life in France and were connected with so many of her cathedrals and religious houses. These three were at Laon, Paris, and Chartres. ”

“ But the chief impression which it would make upon the individual, and upon the other scholars, would be, "I must take care how I let the master hear me use such language again." A wise teacher, who takes enlarged and extended views of his duty, in regard to the moral progress of his pupils, would act very differently. ”

“ Not without deliberation do I class the Teachers in the lower Schools among true and not subaltern Scholars, and therefore demand of them that they attain possession of the Idea, and be penetrated by it,—if not with perfect light, yet with living warmth. He who is destined to study will, even while a boy, surround himself invisibly with the Idea and with its sanctity, and bathe his whole being in its influence. ”

“ This question of using the language of those addressed is one which meets every teacher at the very threshold of the class-room. The best instructor is not he who knows most, but he who imparts most; and he imparts most who most perfectly speaks the language of his pupils. ”

“ If you take an academy or a private school, constituted and organized like other similar institutions, success in your own will give you influence over others. A successful teacher of an academy raises the general standard of academic instruction. A college professor, if he brings extraordinary talents to bear upon the regular duties of that office, throws light, universally, upon the whole science of college discipline and instruction, and thus aids in infusing a continually renewed life and vigor into those venerable seats of learning that might otherwise sink into decrepitude and decay. ”

“ The Academic Teacher, of whom chiefly we have to speak, ought to train the Student who has been made acquainted with the nature and dignity of his calling, to the capacity of receiving the Idea, and to the power of developing it anew, and giving it a form peculiar to himself:—he should do all this if he can. ”

“ The vocation of the Academic Teacher requires him to communicate the Idea,—not as the Author does, abstractly, in the one perfect conception under which it presents itself to his own mind,—but he must mould, express, and clothe it in an infinite variety of forms, so that he may bring it home, under some one or other of those adventitious vestures, to those by whose present state of culture he must be guided in the exercise of his calling. ”

“ Lectures from such persons are, no doubt, as full of insight, imagination and power as are their written works; but we cannot have a score of such lecturers in every school, each to elucidate his own subject, nor, if we could, would it be good for the children. The personality of the teacher would influence them to distraction from the delight in knowledge which is itself a sufficient and compelling force to secure perfect attention, and seemly discipline. ”

“ A great many teachers feel a much stronger interest in the one or two scholars they may have, in Surveying, or in Latin, than they do in the large classes, in the elementary branches, which fill the school. But a moment's reflection will show, that such a preference is founded on a very mistaken view. Leading forward one or two minds, from step to step, in an advanced study, is certainly far inferior, in real dignity and importance, to opening all the stores of written knowledge, to fifty or a hundred. ”

“ The tests of success in practice-teaching are in the main those to be applied to all teaching. Do her pupils grow more honest, industrious, polite? Do they admire their teacher? Does she secure obedience and industry only while demanding it, or has she influence that reaches beyond her presence? ”

“ The middle-aged school-teacher who saves up her money and comes just once comes at forty-five with a ripe mind and fresh, fresh eyes, such as no European can have. I'll never forget what I heard one of them say in Paris. ”

“ No pulpit in our day is more far-reaching and decisive than the desk of the college teacher. The college professor who does not forget that he is first a man, then a professor, and who can get past the friendship of books and knowledge to a genuine friendship with students, can be the highest force in our present day civilization. But the teacher says: “I am only a teacher of literature, or of chemistry, or of engineering, or of bridge-building. ”

“ No profession to-day, perhaps, chronicles so many tragedies as that of the teacher; for school and college give the preference to the young applicant who has yet to prove if he have the making of a teacher in him, while rejected experience dies of a broken heart. ”

“ You've never been a teacher in a large fashionable college, my boy. When most of your so-called students are taking your course because it is reported to be a snap, so they can spend their evenings at billiards, musical comedies, or the like, any young devil with a ray of intellectual interest becomes the teacher's golden-haired boy. ”

“ For this reason, the Teacher in these lower Schools should be a partaker of the Idea, because it is his task imperceptibly to familiarize the youth with the high and noble before he is able for himself to distinguish these from the vulgar, to accustom him to these, and to estrange him from the low and ignoble. Thus guarded in his early years, and thus prepared for higher progress, the youth enters the University. ”

“ In some cases a different course is wise undoubtedly,—as, for example, where a teacher is commencing a private school, on a previously well-digested plan of his own,—or where one who has had experience, and has confidence in his power to bring his new pupils promptly and at once into the system of classification and instruction which he prefers. ”

“ But the Public School teacher will accomplish much if, reverently and sympathetically, he endeavours to preserve the freshness and ingenuousness of childhood and, by the influence of his own example, while leading the pupil up the golden ladder of mental acquisition, he encourages the cultivation of those graces of life which are the best adornments of youth.'—Feb. ”

“ There are various principles of human nature, which may be of great avail, in accomplishing this object. Making intel [Pg 81] lectual effort, and acquiring knowledge, are always pleasant to the human mind, unless some peculiar circumstances render them otherwise. The teacher has, therefore, only to remove obstructions, and sources of pain, and the employment of his pupils will be, of itself, a pleasure.
"I am going to give you a new exercise to-day," said a teacher to a class of boys, in Latin. "I am going to have you parse your whole lesson, in writing. ”

“ The teacher was, indeed, merely the medium to transmit facts, which he himself had learned from another. The moment the supremacy of man over facts and books is conceded the teacher's mission, in whatever school he may be placed, changes. ”

“ To his pupils, however, he must always appear in the threefold character of teacher, master, and developed human being; while they correspondingly present themselves to him as pupils, members of the school, and elementary human beings. Of these pairs of relationships two are contrasted and supplemental,—teacher and pupil, master and scholar, having nothing in common, each being precisely what the other is not. As human beings, however, pupil and teacher are akin and removed from one another merely by the degree of progress made by the elder 63 along a common path. ”

“ It proclaims its possessor a student but not a teacher. Yet, in our practices, we proceed upon the assumption that teacher and student are synonymous. We hold examinations for teachers in our schools, but not for teachers in our colleges of education. His degree is the magic talisman that causes the doors to swing wide open for him. ”

“ A teacher who has succeeded in bringing us to the light many times in the past despite our intransigence, is one who deserves our patience in the present instance where we are still in the dark. This is the mark which honors the great teachers of all times. In the tradition of European learning, some men have been the teachers of many generations, of many epochs. The fact that these men are so generally honored by the tradition as great teachers—men who both know and can communicate—is the most compelling extrinsic sign of an authority to which we must respond with docility. ”