CHAPTER VII. SCHEMING.
The best teachers in our country, or rather those who might be the best, lose a great deal of their time, and endanger, or perhaps entirely destroy their hopes of success, by a scheming spirit, which is always reaching forward to something new. One has in his mind some new school book, by which Arithmetic, Grammar, or Geography are to be taught with unexampled rapidity, and his own purse to be filled, in a much more easy way, than by waiting for the rewards of patient industry. Another has the plan of a school, bringing into operation new principles of management or instruction, which he is to establish on some favored spot, and which is to become in a few years a second Hofwyl. Another has some royal road to learning, and though he is trammeled and held down by what he calls the ignorance and stupidity of his Trustees or his School Committee, yet if he could fairly put his principles and methods to the test, he is certain of advancing the science of Education half a century at least, at a single leap.
Ingenuity in devising new ways, and enterprise in following them, are among the happiest characteristics of a new country rapidly filling with a thriving population. Without these qualities there could be no advance; society must be stationary; and from a stationary to a retrograde condition, the progress is inevitable. The disposition to make improvements and changes may however be too great. If so, it must he checked. On the other hand a slavish attachment to old established practices may prevail. Then the spirit of enterprise and experiment must be awakened and encouraged. Which of these two is to be the duty of a writer at any time, will of course depend upon the situation of the community at the time he writes, and of the class of readers for which he takes his pen. Now at the present time, it is undoubtedly true, that, while among the great mass of teachers there may be too little originality and enterprise, there is still among many a spirit of innovation and change, to which a caution ought to be addressed. But before I proceed, let me protect myself from misconception by one or two remarks.
1. There are a few individuals in various parts of our country, who by ingenuity and enterprise, have made real and important improvements in many departments of our science, and are still making them. The science is to be carried forward by such men. Let them not therefore understand that any thing which I shall say, applies at all to those real improvements which are from time to time, brought before the public. As examples of this there might easily be mentioned, were it necessary, several new modes of study, and new text books, and literary institutions on new plans, which have been brought forward within a few years, and proved, on actual trial, to be of real and permanent value.
These are, or rather they were, when first conceived by the original projectors, new schemes; and the result has proved that they were good ones. Every teacher too must hope that such improvements will continue to be made. Let nothing therefore which shall be said on the subject of scheming in this chapter, be interpreted as intended to condemn real improvements of this kind, or to check those which may now be in progress, by men of age or experience, or of sound judgment, who are capable of distinguishing between a real improvement and a whimsical innovation, which can never live any longer than it is sustained by the enthusiasm of the original inventor.
2. There are a great many teachers in our country, who make their business a mere dull and formal routine, through which they plod on, month after month, and year after year, without variety or change, and who are inclined to stigmatize with the appellation of idle scheming, all plans, of whatever kind, to give variety or interest to the exercises of the school. Now whatever may be said in this chapter against unnecessary innovation and change, does not apply to efforts to secure variety in the details of daily study, while the great leading objects are steadily pursued. This subject has already been discussed in the chapter on Instruction, where it has been shown that every wise teacher, while he pursues the same great object, and adopts in substance the same leading measures at all times, will exercise all the ingenuity he possesses, and bring all his inventive powers into requisition to give variety and interest to the minute details.
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To explain now what is meant by such scheming as is to be condemned, let us suppose a case, which is not very uncommon. A young man, while preparing for college, takes a school. When he first enters upon the duties of his office, he is diffident and timid, and walks cautiously in the steps which precedent has marked out for him. Distrusting himself, he seeks guidance in the example which others have set for him, and very probably he imitates precisely, though it may be insensibly and involuntarily, the manners and the plans of his own last teacher. This servitude soon however, if he is a man of natural abilities, passes away: he learns to try one experiment after another, until he insensibly finds that a plan may succeed, even if it was not pursued by his former teacher. So far it is well. He throws greater interest into his school, and into all its exercises by the spirit with which he conducts them. He is successful. After the period of his services has expired, he returns to the pursuit of his studies, encouraged by his success, and anticipating further triumphs in his subsequent attempts.
He goes on through college we will suppose, teaching from time to time in the vacations, as opportunity occurs, taking more and more interest in the employment, and meeting with greater and greater success. This success is owing in a very great degree to the freedom of his practice, that is to his escape from the thraldom of imitation. So long as he leaves the great objects of the school untouched, and the great features of its organization unchanged, his many plans for accomplishing these objects in new and various ways, awaken interest and spirit both in himself and in his scholars, and all goes on well.
Now in such a case as this, a young teacher philosophizing upon his success and the causes of it, will almost invariably make this mistake; viz., he will attribute to something essentially excellent in his plans, the success which, in fact results from the novelty of them.
When he proposes something new to a class, they all take an interest in it, because it is new. He takes, too, a special interest in it because it is an experiment which he is trying, and he feels a sort of pride and pleasure in securing its success. The new method which he adopts, may not be, in itself, in the least degree better than old methods. Yet it may succeed vastly better in his hands, than any old method he had tried before. And why? Why because it is new. It awakens interest in his class, because it offers them variety, and it awakens interest in him, because it is a plan which he has devised, and for whose success therefore he feels that his credit is at stake. Either of these circumstances is abundantly sufficient to account for its success. Either of these would secure success, unless the plan was a very bad one indeed.