VIII UNCLASSIFIED TRIFLES I. STRAY THOUGHTS MANY teachers of morality destroy the good effect of judicious counsel by too much talk, as a chemical precipitate is re-dissolved in an excess of the precipitating agent. Repression is sometimes better than expansion. A rose is but a crowded cluster of repressed leaves. Wild fruits lose an exquisite flavor by the garden culture which causes them to become large and beautiful. So the mind may lose agreeable qualities by the process of education. In burning delicate pottery the utmost care is taken to regulate the temperature of the oven, as excess or insufficiency of heat ruins the ware. Similarly, the nicest judgment is requisite in disciplining sensitive children, for one may injure their very nature by too much or too little severity. Virgil says the same fire that makes soft clay hard makes hard wax soft. A successful fruit-grower was asked how it happened that he always obtained an abundant crop of peaches while his neighbors, with apparently better facilities, so often failed to raise even half a crop, and never got superior fruit. He replied: "I know my trees; they tell me what they want; I have a special interest in every twig of this orchard. A peach-tree won't produce unless it is loved." If love brings forth the best that is in trees, will it not much more develop the best that is in men? Some people practise their virtues so viciously that it is a pity they have virtues to abuse. Books are called the tools of teachers. Teachers may become the tools of books. Children are pleased with gay prints of high color and with the discordant, loud melody of the grindorgan. Gairish, gaudy hues and noisy sounds pain the cultivated senses. As the eye and ear learn to discriminate between harmony and inharmony, taste grows more exacting. In like manner mental training brings the mind to desire truth and enables it to detect and abhor error. The scholar demands coherence and logical connection of words. To the trained thinker a bad argument jars on the mind as an instrument out of tune distresses the ear. Educa tion puts the mind in tune so that its strings answer to corresponding chords of truth. It would seem reasonable that the teacher should be recognized everywhere as the highest authority on the subject of education, and that he should dictate how his pupils ought to be trained. In Germany that parent is considered impertinent who advises the professor in regard to pedagogical matters. In this country everybody considers it anybody's business to teach the teacher. Editors, clergymen, doctors, lawyers, merchants, mechanics, farmers, - all know how to teach school better than the schoolmaster does, and they all interfere, injudiciously, with his art. There should be co-operation between parent and teacher, but the school must proceed on general principles to which the individuality of families and single pupils must conform. Wherefore fret if heedless Tom Loses half the words I say? Culture is not everything; Farmers must not always hoe; Action is not always gain; Crystals form when left at rest; Haply inattentive Tom Thinks a thought beyond my reach; More than algebra can teach. Purer than the mountain dew, whiter than skyborn flakes be the atmosphere of education. The sentiment and the language of instruction should be such that no blot or stain can touch the soul of the pupil. A holy light should pervade tuition. Might not boys and girls grow up with principles so sensitive to truth and purity that they would be forever self-shielded from the false and the foul? They are benefactors of youth who use pure words. "Is not mine host a witty man?" asks the hunter of the fisherman in Walton's "Angler." The fisherman replies, "To speak truly, he is not to me a good companion. A companion that feasts his company with wit and mirth, and leaves out the sin which is usually mixed with them, he is the man. And let me tell you, good company and good discourse are the very sinews of virtue. But for such discourse as we heard last night, it infects others." Whatever is obscene, vulgar, degrading, or of questionable delicacy, infects the young. Blood poisoning is not so perilous as mind poisoning. What germicide can destroy the microbe vile imagination? We know temptation must be met, nevertheless," lead us not into temptation." The school is the temple of safety. Within its sacred walls we are delivered from evil. There only good counsels and examples |