In the School-Room Part 7

"Oh, no! no! Do not send me home! Do anything else. I will submit to any punishment you please. Flog me; _please_, flog me!"

"Flog you! Never! I have no scruples, as you know, on the subject of corporal punishment, for I often chastise the smaller boys; but boys as old and mature as you are have sense enough to be governed by other considerations than fear, and especially fear of the rod. If they have not, I want nothing to do with them."

"Oh! Mr. H., won't you _please_ to flog me?"

And the boy actually went down on his knees and begged me to thrash him.

He, Charlie Graham, whose veins ran fire, who, six hours before, would have leaped at my throat had I so much as raised my finger at him, was now begging me, as a special boon, to give him a whipping! I could hardly believe my senses. Yet there was no doubt of the boy's sincerity, or of his earnestness. So, to give me time to reflect as to what should be done, I finally said, "Charlie, I will think of what you have asked, and let you know at three o'clock."

Three o'clock came, and Charlie again made his appearance.

"Do you still wish me to whip you?"

"I do. I will make any apology you think proper to the teacher whom I insulted, and I will be most thankful to you to chastise me for the offence."

"Please to take off your coat."

When the painful affair was over, I gave him my hand cordially and frankly, and said, "Charlie, you have honorably and courageously atoned for a grievous fault, and I a.s.sure you, I restore you not only to your position in school, but to my respect and confidence."

I never had any further difficulty with Charlie Graham. Years afterwards, when I met his father at the Springs, he could hardly contain his amazement when I told him that I had once flogged his oldest son Charlie, at his own particular request. It was, I suppose, the first and last time the hand of correction was ever laid on him.

XXIII.

PHRENOLOGY.

In the previous chapter I gave a leaf from my experience of life in a boarding-school. I propose now to give another leaf from the same book.

The incident about to be narrated, however, is not given as an ill.u.s.tration of boarding-school life, but merely because it happened at school. It might have happened elsewhere, though the circ.u.mstances on that occasion were particularly favorable for giving to it a curious point.

While I was at the head of the Edgehill school, at Princeton, N. J., a stranger called one day and announced himself as Prof. ----. The name is one almost as well known in the history of Phrenological science as that of Prof. Combe. He said he was about to give a lecture in Princeton on the subject of Phrenology, and as he was an entire stranger to myself and to all the pupils and teachers in the school, he thought it would be a good opportunity for making an interesting and critical experiment. He proposed, therefore, with my consent, to spend an hour, in presence of the school, in examining the heads of any of the boys that I might call up for that purpose. From the very intimate relations existing in a boarding-school, the characters of the boys would be well known to me and to their companions and teachers, and we would have therefore the means of knowing how far he succeeded in his experiment.

Thinking that an hour spent in this way would not be misspent, that it would at least give some variety to the monotonous routine of study and lessons, and, let me add, being not entirely without curiosity as to the result, I consented to his proposition, and called the school together in the large a.s.sembly-room. All the boys being in their seats, together with the teachers and the ladies of the household, I stated briefly the object of their a.s.sembling and the method in which it was proposed to proceed with the experiment. They were to observe entire silence, and to give no indication, by word or look, so far as they could help it, to show whether the Professor was. .h.i.tting the mark or not, as he read off to them the characters of their companions. The boys took to the idea at once, and the excitement very soon was at fever-heat.

Placing a chair upon the platform, in full view of the school, and the Professor alongside of it, I called up

_Boy No. 1._--This happened to be a lad about fourteen, from the interior of Alabama. He was the most athletic boy in school. "Full big he was of brawn and eke of bones," as Chaucer says, in his picture of the Miller. He could beat any boy in school in wrestling, and no doubt could flog any of them in a fist-fight, though on this point I speak only from conjecture, as this part of boys' amus.e.m.e.nts is not always as well known to their teachers as it is to the boys themselves. The Professor, after some little manipulation of the cranium, read off the boy's character with tolerable accuracy. Any one, however, with a grain of observation, who had seen the boy stalking up to the platform, with bold, almost defiant air, or had noticed his bull-neck, hard fist, and swaggering gait, could not have had much difficulty in guessing what kind of a boy he was, without resort to his b.u.mps for information. It was written in unmistakable characters all over his physical conformation, from his head to his heels.

I noticed, however, that while the Professor's fingers were busy with the boy's cranium, his eyes were not less busy with the faces of his youthful auditors. Whenever his interpretation of any b.u.mp was a palpable hit, his success could be all too plainly read in the upturned faces before him. If the success was very marked and decisive, the youngsters were entirely unable to restrain their expressions of surprise and admiration. It was very evident, from his method of procedure, that he was guided by these expressions, quite as much as by his fingering of the b.u.mps. He would first mention lightly some trait of character. If it attracted no particular attention, he would quietly fall on to something else. But if the announcement seemed to create a little breeze, showing that he had made a hit, he would then dwell upon the point, and intensify his expressions, until, in some instances, the school was in quite an uproar of satisfaction.

Possibly there was a spice of malice in what followed. At all events, it seemed to me that that was a kind of game at which two could play, and if, under the circ.u.mstances, he chose to palm off for knowledge gained by the fingers, what he was really getting by means of his eyes and ears, there would be no great crime in punis.h.i.+ng him a little for his impertinence. So, in calling the following boys, I selected some who were notorious in school for certain marked traits, but whose general appearance and manner gave no indication of their mental peculiarities; and I questioned the Professor, in regard to each boy, after a method suited to the case.

_Boy No. 2_ was a youth of moderate abilities, and was, in all things, save one, just like other boys. But, in one matter, he had a peculiarity about which there could be no mistake. That was in the matter of music.

So, after questioning the Professor about various indifferent points, moral and intellectual, such as reverence, combativeness, secretiveness, language, ideality, etc., I asked incidentally something also about tune and music. The answer was such as might be safely given in regard to ninety-nine out of every hundred persons--some vague, indefinite epithet that would apply to almost any one. But, seeing a little sparkle in the eyes before him, the gentleman manipulated the cranium again, and then expressed himself somewhat more strongly. As his expressions increased in strength, the excitement of the audience increased, until he was quite lost in hyperbole, as they were in uproar. He even went into particulars. "Now," said he, "though I never saw this boy before, yet I venture to say that his ear for music is so quick that he can pick up almost any tune by once hearing it played or whistled in the street. [A general rustle through the school, boys winking and giving knowing looks one to another.] I dare say he could now sing or whistle a hundred tunes from memory. [More knowing looks.] Possibly he may never make a very accurate performer, on account of the very ease with which he picks up a tune. He learns a tune so easily by the ear, that he will not submit to the drudgery of studying it scientifically."

"You think, then, Professor, that the boy has decided indications of musical talent?"

"Undoubtedly. He has musical talents of a very high order [suppressed shouts] amounting almost to genius!"

The fact was, poor Charlie was the b.u.t.t of the whole school, on account of his utter inability to learn the first elements of either the art or the science of music. He could neither sing, whistle, nor play. He could hardly tell "Old Hundred" from "Yankee Doodle." Although he had been taking music-lessons for two years, he could not rise and fall through the eight notes, to save his neck. His attempts to do so were a sort of indiscriminate goo, goo, goo, like that of an infant; and the excitement among the boys, which the Professor had mistaken for applause and admiration, grew out of their astonishment. They were simply laughing at him.

_Boy No. 3_ was a youth over fourteen years old, regularly and symmetrically formed in face, features, and person. There was nothing in his make or bearing to indicate any marked peculiarity. Yet he had a peculiarity as marked as that of the preceding. He was singularly deficient in the capacity for mathematical studies. He was studying English grammar, geography, and Latin, and got along in these branches about as well as the majority of his cla.s.s. But when it came to the science of numbers, he seemed to stick fast. Neither I nor any of my teachers had been able to get him beyond Long Division. It was as clear a case as I have ever known of natural deficiency in that department of the mental const.i.tution. Yet this boy was declared by the manipulator to have a decided talent for mathematics.

_Boy No. 4_ was my crack mathematician. He was really in mathematics what our manipulator had made out No. 2 to be in music. His quickness in the perception of mathematical truth was wonderful. Besides this natural readiness in everything pertaining to the science of quant.i.ty and the relations of numbers, he had received a good mathematical training, and he was in this department far in advance of his years. Whenever we had a public exhibition, George was our show-card. The rapidity with which he would fill the blackboard, in solving difficult problems in quadratics, was almost bewildering. It was not every teacher even that could follow him in his quick but exact evolutions of complex algebraical formulae. In Greek and Latin he hardly attained to mediocrity, being always behind his cla.s.s, while in mathematics he was superior, not only to every boy in school, but to any boy of the same age that I have ever had in any school. But this boy received from the Professor only a second or third-rate rank for mathematical indications, while highly praised for linguistics, in which he was decidedly inferior.

The fact was, I saw that the gentleman was trying to read _me_, as well as the more youthful part of his audience; and so, in questioning him about this boy, I was malicious enough to be very minute and specific in my inquiries about any indications of a talent for language, while the questions about mathematics were propounded just like those about half a dozen other points; that is, with no special stress or emphasis, but just enough to draw from the Professor a clear and distinct expression of opinion.

_Boy No. 5_ was perhaps the most critical case of all, yet the one most difficult to describe. He was good, and about equally good, in all his studies. He stood head in almost every cla.s.s. He was so uniformly good that his character became monotonous, and would have been insipid, but for the manly vigor that marked all his performances. His moral were like his mental traits. He was indeed our model boy. In two years he had not had one demerit mark. He was on all sides rounded and complete--_totus teres atque rotundus_. The uniformity of his goodness was sometimes a source of anxiety to me. There was danger of his growing up with a self-satisfied, pharisaical spirit.

Thus far, however, I have not named the feature which I regarded as the critical one, and which had led me to select him as one of the subjects for examination. Model boys are to be found in all schools. But this boy had a power of reticence which was to me a continual study, and it was this feature in his character that I wanted to bring out in the examination. He was not a sneak. There was nothing sly about him. His conduct was open and aboveboard. What he did was patent to all. But what he thought, or how he felt, no one knew. Not Grant himself could more perfectly keep his own counsel. If a new rule was promulgated, Joseph obeyed it to the letter. But whether it was agreeable or disagreeable to him, no teacher could ever find out. Nor was his obedience of that tame, pa.s.sive sort which comes from indifference and lack of spirit. We all knew him to be resolute, and to be possessed of strong pa.s.sions. But his power of self-restraint was equal to his power of reticence. He had, indeed, in a very marked degree, qualities which you look for only in those who have had a long schooling in the stern realities of life, and which you find rarely even then. He was as self-poised as a man of fifty, with not a particle of that easy impulsiveness so nearly universal at his age.

None of the gentleman's performances surprised me so much as the character which he a.s.signed to this boy, and all the more because something of the boy's self-continence and reserve was written upon his face and manner. He was represented by the Professor, in general terms, as having a free and easy, rollicking sort of disposition--not being really worse than his companions, though probably having the reputation of being so. 'If he got into more sc.r.a.pes than the others [Joseph was never in a sc.r.a.pe in his life], it was more owing to his natural impulsiveness than to anything inherently bad in him. And then, when he did get into a sc.r.a.pe, he had no faculty for concealing it. His organ of secretiveness was unusually small. The boys would hardly admit him to a partners.h.i.+p in their plans of mischief, so sure was he inadvertently to let the cat out of the bag,' etc., etc.

_Boy No. 6_ was the weakest boy, mentally, that we had in school. He was barely able to take care of himself. Some of his mistakes and blunders were so ridiculous, that they were handed down among the traditionary jokes of the school, and I am afraid even at this day to repeat them, lest they may be recognized. If the manipulator had had the cranium of Daniel Webster under his fingers, he could not have drawn a mental character more marked by every trait that belongs to intellectual greatness of the highest order. Finding that he was making a decided impression upon his young hearers, the Professor continued to pile up qualities and powers, until the scene became almost too much for the most practised gravity.

The examinations occupied an hour, and I made copious notes of the whole, writing down, as nearly as I could, the exact expressions used by the operator. The report which I have now given of it is as nearly literal as it is safe to make it.

When the Professor was through, and was about to leave, he asked me privately to tell him how far he had succeeded in his experiments. Not wis.h.i.+ng to say anything disagreeable, I evaded the question to the best of my ability, answering with some vague generalities, but indicating sufficiently that it was not agreeable to be more explicit. He pressed me, however, to tell him candidly and explicitly whether he had succeeded, and how far. I then told him frankly that he had failed point-blank in every case. "Ah," said he, "you are skeptical." "No, sir," said I, "skepticism implies doubt, and I have no longer any doubts on the subject. _My skepticism is entirely removed!_"

XXIV.

NORMAL SCHOOLS.

The term Normal School is an unfortunate misnomer, and its general adoption has led to much confusion of ideas. The word "Normal," from the Latin _norma_, a rule or pattern to work by, does not differ essentially from "Model." A Normal School, according to the meaning of the word, would be a pattern school, an inst.i.tution which could be held up for imitation, to be copied by other schools of the same grade. But this meaning of the word is not what we mean by the thing. When we mean a school to be copied or imitated, we call it a Model School. Here the name and the thing agree. The name explains the thing. It is very different when we speak of a Normal School. To the uninitiated, the term either conveys no meaning at all; or, if your hearer is a man of letters, it conveys to him an idea which you have at once to explain away. You have to tell him, in effect, that a Normal School is not a Normal School, and then that it is something else, which the word does not in the least describe.

What then do we mean by a Normal School? What is the thing which we have called by this unfortunate name?

A Normal School is a seminary for the professional education of teachers. It is an inst.i.tution in which those who wish to become teachers learn how to do their work; in which they learn, not reading, but how to teach reading; not penmans.h.i.+p, but how to teach penmans.h.i.+p; not grammar, but how to teach grammar; not geography, but how to teach geography; not arithmetic, but how to teach arithmetic. The idea which lies at the basis of such an inst.i.tute, is that knowing a thing, and knowing how to teach that thing to others, are distinguishable and very different facts. The knowledge of the subjects to be taught, may be gained at any school. In order to give to the Teachers' Seminary its full power and efficiency, it were greatly to be desired that the subjects themselves, as mere matters of knowledge, should be first learned elsewhere, before entering the Teachers' School. This latter would then have to do only with its own special function, that of showing its matriculants how to use these materials in the process of teaching. Unfortunately, we have not yet made such progress in popular education as to be able to separate these two functions to the extent that is desirable. Many of those who attend a Teachers' Seminary, come to it lamentably ignorant of the common branches of knowledge. They have consequently first to study these branches in the Normal School, as they would study them in any other school. That is, they have first to learn the facts as matters of knowledge, and then to study the art and science of teaching these facts to others. Instead of coming with their brick and mortar ready prepared, that they may be instructed in the use of the trowel and the plumb-line, they have to make their brick and mix their mortar after they enter the inst.i.tution. This is undoubtedly a drawback and a misfortune. But it cannot be helped at present. All we can do is to define clearly the true idea of the Teachers' School, and then to work towards it as fast and as far as we can.

A Normal School is essentially unlike any other school. It has been compared indeed to those professional schools which are for the study of law, divinity, medicine, mining, engineering, and so forth. The Normal School, it is true, is like these schools in one respect. It is established with reference to the wants of a particular profession. It is a professional school. But those schools have for their main object the communication of some particular branch of science. They teach law, divinity, medicine, mining, or engineering. They aim to make lawyers, divines, physicians, miners, engineers, not teachers of these branches.

The Professor in the Law School aims, not to make Professors of law, but lawyers. The medical Professor aims, not to make medical lecturers, but pract.i.tioners. To render these inst.i.tutions a.n.a.logous to the Teachers'

Seminary, their pupils should first study law, medicine, engineering, and so forth, and then sit at the feet of their Gamaliels to be initiated into the secrets of the Professorial chair, that they may in turn become Professors of those branches to cla.s.ses of their own. Nor would such a plan, if it were possible, be altogether without its value.

It surely needs no demonstration to prove, that in the highest departments, no less than in the lowest, something more than knowledge is needed in order to teach. An understanding of how to communicate one's knowledge, and practical skill in doing it, are as necessary in teaching theology, metaphysics, languages, infinitesimal a.n.a.lysis, or chemistry, as they are in teaching the alphabet. If there are bunglers, who know not how to go to work to teach a child its letters, or to open its young mind and heart to the reception of truth, whose school-rooms are places where the young mind and heart are in a state, either of perpetual torpor, or of perpetual nightmare, have these bunglers no a.n.a.logues in the men of ponderous erudition that sometimes fill the Professor's chair? Have we no examples, in our highest seminaries of learning, of men very eminent in scientific attainments, who have not in themselves the first elements of a teacher? who impart to their students no quickening impulse? whose vast and towering knowledge may make them perhaps a grand feature in their College, attracting to it all eyes, but whose intellectual treasures, for all the practical wants of the students, are of no more use, than are the swathed and buried mummies in the pyramid of Cheops!

A Teachers' Seminary, if it were complete, would include in its curriculum of study the entire cycle of human knowledge, so far as it is taught by schools. Our teachers of mathematics and of logic, of law and of medicine, need indeed a knowledge of the branches which they are to teach, and for this knowledge they do not need a Teachers' Seminary. But they need something more than this knowledge. Besides being men of erudition, they need to be teachers, no less than the humbler members of the profession, who have only to teach the alphabet and the multiplication table; and there is in all teaching, high or low, something that is common to them all--an art and a skill which is different from the mere knowledge of the subjects; which is not necessarily learned in learning the subjects; which requires special, superadded gifts, and distinct study and training. There is, according to my observation, as great a lack of this special skill in the higher seminaries of learning, as in the lower seminaries. Were it possible to have a Normal School, not which should undertake to teach the entire encyclopaedia of the sciences, but which, limiting itself to its one main function of developing the art and mystery of communicating knowledge, should turn out College Professors, and even Divinity, Law, and Medical Professors,--men who were really skilful teachers,--it would work a change in those venerable inst.i.tutions as marked and decisive as that which it is now effecting in the common schools. Of course, no such scheme is possible; certainly, none such is contemplated. But I am very sure I shall not be considered calumnious, when I express the conviction, that there are learned and eminent occupants of Professors'

chairs, who might find great benefit in an occasional visit to a good Normal School, or even to the cla.s.s-room of a teacher trained in a Normal School. I certainly have seen, in the very lowest department of the common school, a style of teaching, which, for a wise and intelligent comprehension of its object, and for its quickening power upon the intellect and conscience, would compare favorably with the very best teaching I have ever seen in a College or University.

I come back, then, to the point from which I set out, namely, that a Normal School, or Teachers' Seminary, differs essentially from every other kind of school. It aims to give the knowledge and skill that are needed alike in all schools. To make the point a little plainer, let me restate, with what clearness I can, some of the elementary truths and facts which lie at the foundation of the whole subject. Though to many of my readers it may be going over a beaten track, it may not be so to all; and we all do well, even in regard to known and admitted truths, to bring them occasionally afresh to the mind.

As it has been already said, a man may know a thing perfectly, and yet not be able to teach it. Of course, a man cannot teach what he does not know. He must first have the knowledge. But the mere possession of knowledge does not make one a teacher, any more than the possession of powder and shot makes him a marksman, or the possession of a rod and line makes him an angler. The most learned men are often unfortunately the very men who have least capacity for communicating what they know.

Nor is this incapacity confined to those versed in book knowledge. It is common to every cla.s.s of men, and to every kind of knowledge. Let me give an example. The fact about to be stated, was communicated to me by a gentleman of eminent commercial standing in Philadelphia, at that time the President of one of its leading banks. The fact occurred in his own personal experience. He was, at the time of its occurrence, largely engaged in the cloth trade. His faculties of mind and body, and particularly his sense of touch, had been so trained in this business, that in going rapidly over an invoice of cloth, as his eye and hand pa.s.sed in quick succession from piece to piece, in the most miscellaneous a.s.sortment, he could tell instantly the value of each, with a degree of precision, and a certainty of knowledge, hardly credible. A single glance of the eye, a single touch, transient as thought, gave the result. His own knowledge of the subject, in short, was perfect, and it was rapidly winning him a fortune. Yet when undertaking to explain to a younger and less experienced member of the craft, whom he wished to befriend, by what process he arrived at his judgment, in other words, to teach what he knew, he found himself utterly at a loss. His thoughts had never run in that direction. "Oh!"