What then? Shall we have a separate school for every child? Shall we
have a special teacher for each mind? That would probably be
impossible, but we certainly should have so small a number of pupils
under each teacher that she (and we are taking it for granted that the
teachers of little children will largely be women) may be able to
study the whole nature of every little one committed to her care. She
should be not only in communication, but in real _communion_ with the
mother; should know the child's mental and moral inheritance, and, in
as far as her own watchful care and the help of the family physician
may enable her to do so, she should understand its physical
constitution. She should acquaint herself with the temperament, the
habits, the degree of affection, and the little germs of spiritual
insight and inspiration, all of which go to make up the nature of the
little creature in her charge. If she be the true teacher, she should
combine the threefold duties of mother, instructor, and physician for
the young life unfolding in her care. If she has not the heart to love
the child and to let the child love her, and so to lay foundation for
the larger loving, that, by and by, shall out-reach and take in the
whole humanity of God, then we will not say she has mistaken her
calling, but her own process of education has been defective and she
has much to learn.
Such threefold development for heart, hand, and brain of the little
child makes preparation for the next higher steps of educational work.
Whatever form the training may assume, the individuality of the human
soul should be kept inviolate. That individuality betrays itself in
many ways; by emotion and sentiment, by quickness or dullness of
perception, and above all, by preferences and dislikes. These minute
indications as to just what elements of spirit and mind have entered
into the nature of the child, are the little delicate fibres that show
the texture of the human soul with which we have to deal. The child
learns too soon to draw in and hide the frail, sensitive tendrils that
indicate that the life of the soul-plant is feeling its way toward the
light of God.
In the primary school, the teacher (and sometimes in the cradle, the
mother, who is, whether she would have it so or not, the child's first
teacher) begins the process of training by which the little one is
made to do as others do, to say what others say, and to conceal the
fact that it has any inward life or impulses that are not the same as
those of other children.
Instead of being able to read the God-given signs as to what the
infant nature really requires, we give it instead an arbitrary supply,
based upon what we think it ought to need, and then marvel that it
does not thrive upon its unnatural diet. We have not supplied what it
craved but that which, from our preconceived notion, we thought it
ought to want.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account