Immagini della pagina
PDF
ePub
[graphic][merged small][merged small][graphic]

Educational Biography

NATHAN C. SCHAEFFER

[For portrait see front cover]

THE new president of the National Educational Association, N. C. Schaeffer, has been State superintendent of public instruction for Pennsylvania since 1893. He was born in Berks County of the same State, February 3, 1849. After graduating from Franklin and Marshall college, he studied for the ministry and later went abroad and studied at the universities of Berlin, Tubingen and Leipzig. He was an instructor at Franklin and Marshall 1875-1877; principal of the Keystone State Normal school 187793. He has been a member of the commis

sion on Industrial Education, president of the Medical and Dental Councils of Pennsylvania, secretary of the College and University Council of Pennsylvania, chancellor of the Pennsylvania Chautauqua, and clergyman of the German Reformed church. In connection with his other work he has found time to write a number of valuable educational texts including, Thinking and Learning to Think, History of Education in Pennsylvania, Bible Readings for Schools, and has contributed extensively to educational and theological journals.

he roll of American

The

worthies numbers men

like Washington and Lincoln, Grant and farragut, Hawthorne and Poe, Fulton and Morse, St. Gaudens and Mac Monnies; it numbers statesmen and soldiers, men of letters, artists, sculptors, men of science, inventors, explorers, roadmakers, bridge builders, philanthropists, moral leaders in great reforms; it numbers men who have deserved well in any one of countless fields of activity; but of rich men it numbers only those who have used their riches aright, who have treated wealth not as an end, but as a means; who have shown good conduct in acquiring it and not merely lavish generosity in disposing of it.-President Roosevelt.

I

In Special Fields

THE SOUL OF A SCHOOLBOY

T. C. MURRAY, RATHDUFF N. S., BLARNEY, IRELAND

AM fond of reading, and wish it to be noted that I place this in red-letter with

some few other items on the debit side of my account with my teacher. It is four years gone last Michaelmas since I, as we here (God pity us!) phrase it-"got out of books." It may be thought a rude push from the young world of school-life to that of dull plodding field labor. Yet with horny hands and stooped shoulders, and often a sense of something burdensome on my spirit, I never regret that that first chapter of my life-history is at an end! Ungrateful perhaps? Not wholly, indeed for many a night when I ponder some little penny classic purchased on the market day, I feel a touch of tenderness for him whose character mostly fashioned that history. And a mingling sense of gratitude too, that I can, though crudely, give tongue to the frequent thoughts which arise to disturb, or charm, or sadden me. Now, to-day, while trimming the thorn hedge in the boreen, unkempt and wild as any untended thing might be happening to come upon two truant lads, unkempt as the bushes under which they had hid-my thoughts drifted towards the long white building on the windy hill. And while the hedge-clipper clicked in my hand, and the prickly overgrowth of Summer dropped on either side, there was I in spirit a pupil in the old schoolroom once more. And such are the tricks of association-all that perplexed me of old returned to vex me again. Of these uncouth imaginings, I shall try to give herein some record, and pray my readers to search them, not in the severe fashion of literary critics, but in that of schoolmasters who can understand my limitations. And, for one thing, I shall try to be guided by these words of my teacher words which, with others of worth, lie se

[ocr errors]

curely imprisoned in my memory—“In writing-thus he ever advised-put down things as they seem to you; truth, like a shivering arrow, goes straight to the heart of the reader; artificiality, though ever so cunningly pointed, goes but skin-deep." Goodly advice, I think, and expressed in words as goodly.

And now about masters first. I ask myself so:-Were they, as lads, like the rest of their school companions? Or were they free from all the degenerate tendencies of the average earth-born child? The boys' art of lying (little subterfuges to escape tasks and home-exercises), idle talking (confidences on anything of note-ranging from the master's temper to bird-nesting)—of these and of all the other weaknesses which the childsoul is heir to-were our masters entirely innocent? For, if not, what else can explain away their ignorance of us and our failings. Ignorance, for-listen :—

On Monday last (even so it seems), I arrived at school late. It happened that previous to my starting, my father discovered that one of our heifers, "Strawberry," was missing. I being barefooted and a bit learned in "Strawberry's" vagrant fancies, was sent to seek her, and when I succeeded in my quest (she had sought out the sweetest field of clover in the townland), I trotted off to school. The master was not in his best humor-somehow he never is on that morning. I knew it from his stern eyes as I met him in the porch. And ere I could put my cap on one of the pegs, my hands were smarting keenly; and as I soothed the stinging pain by digging my hands into my armpits, I thought: was he ever late for morning lesson? And I thought again: would it not be more just, that he should chastise my father (six feet two inches in his socks)

who ordered me to seek for "Strawberry?" And if I told him how it occurred (he never thought to ask me) would he have punished me? And my speculative thoughts finally moulded themselves into a kind of monotone burden that kept going ding-dong for hours in my brain-"He preaches justice is he himself just?"

And about Terry Murphy. It goes without saying that Terry (poor fellow) is inordinately dull-unteachable almost. And dull boys, though ever so gentle and unoffending, like Terry, are a sore trouble to schools. Look alone at the amount of energy idly consumed in telling them all hours of the day, what a nuisance and what "brainless fools" they are (as if fools were eyer otherwise). But there is much more. Terry, for instance, how badly he stammered through his reading to-day. No wonder he got a rousing thump. And his spelling was appalling fifteen errors I remember (and more thumps). Then that recitation, "The Last Minstrel!" (O, master of romance, wouldst thou ever have penned the story, if thou couldest foresee poor Terry's quivering palms). Dull boys are a grievous trouble, no doubt, (O, but sorest to themselves). But my mind in its odd fitful manner, takes a new attitude, and such odd questions as these arise to perplex me. Who is to blame for Terry Murphy's dullness? Himself? Impossible-he does his very best (can masters do more, I wonder?) His parents then? O, no, they teach him according to their lights; and, despite his morning look of misery, send him to school most regularly. Who, then? Pardon-must I blame Him who fashioned his mind, and who even as our master says-is all-wise; Him into whose designs we look more blindly than the ant does into the mind of man? He is the Author of that work, poor Terry's brain, and if He seems to our view, to have made it less wonderful than a schoolmaster's, be sure if we could but understand-it is as appropriately, as wisely and as beautifully

set in the divine fabric of human intellect as that of a Paul, a Dante or an Angelo!

And as to the pangs of the mind. This is another question that vexes my soul overmuch. Had our master a mind-a mind I mean of that vibrant quality which most boys possess? Had he feelings sensitive as the strings of a wind-harp-yielding sweetness only when touched with delicate sympathy? It cannot be, for if so, he would understand that in ridicule there is a stab sharp almost as death. I know, indeed, it is only a stab; and the wounds of a child (O, most wise God) heal rapidly. I feel diffident at seeing set in the framework of words this incident. Read it.

The boys here-all of us-spoke, and still speak in too rich a brogue. The inspector found fault with this-and no wonder, he himself having a voice so grand and "englified." The master tried desperately to tune our accent to the inspector's; but mockery is a terrible medicine! Better the evil of the disease than the pain inflicted by such a remedy. I was one who erred most frequently in this matter of verbal euphony. I confess my trespass and admit to the full its gravity. Now it so happened that on being asked on one occasion why I absented myself from school for a whole week, I, from old custom, replied, "I had to be snagging the swades, sir." The ominous silence gong was struck, and every group became a study in still life. Then, having first explained the query put to me, he gave forth, with ruthlessly perfect mimicry, my answer, and concluded with an impromptu parody which (pleased with its cleverness) he repeated twice:

"You may teach and beseech Simon Walsh, as you will,

But the scent of vulgarity will hang round him still."

He laughed, and the crowd (disloyal little beggars) taking the cue, laughed with him. And I crimson, burning, miserable—my heart quivering with suppressed rebellion-the

tears dropping from my eyes, would gladly barter, if I might, all this exquisite mental anguish for the most brutal physical infliction-and deem myself rich for the exchange! And that night this strange thing I did, and I write it only because it is true, and "Truth," my teacher said (as I have told you) "is a shivering arrow." Under the friendly cloak of darkness, I stole along the roadway to the master's house. A dramatic feat I contemplated. To go in to him-to tell him of my wretched feelings of my sick heart-of the untasted dinner-of all the tears which I had shed ever since under a bush in my father's garden, and to implore him not to mangle my sensitive mind again! I approached his door, some madness or the memory of the day's humiliation sustaining my resolution. It was closed. Would I strike the knocker? No, he might not like that; besides, I never before struck a knocker. Perhaps if I waited he might come out (God, pitying me, might inspire him to do so) and seeing me, speak to me.

But having waited what I felt to be an endless time, and having only the weak faith of a little boy, I resolved to knock. That sudden reverberating sound-how it frightened me! My fluttering heart seemed to have leaped from its ordained centre, and fearful as some poor feathered thing at the sound of gunpowder, I fled, my bare feet little heeding bramble or highway rubble, or sharp stone. So he never knows; but may, perchance, should his eyes fall on this. And should it thus happen, I hope he will forgive me, and that he (and all masters) will learn to put just a little less bitterness, a little more sweet into the cup from which they give the young mind its draughts of intelligence. And again, as to love. A most beautiful thing it seems to me. Having a mother, I understand its meaning. When I go home of evenings, "Rory" bounds to me and his bark is all music, for it is the voice of welcoming love. When I go into my father's fields, the calves and the lambs run and nose me, and their affection fills me with most rare soft feelings. It is a thing so grateful,

even from poor dumb beasts, that I am ever perplexed why masters so rarely seek it. Our masters with a few acts of thoughtful kindness, might unlock our hearts and seize the riches which God has so plentifully stored therein. When the Parish Priest, old Father Maurice, meets a knot of us wending our way to school, he gives us a smiling, "Good morning, lads." Every wayside roadmender, every toiler in the fields, the postboy trudging on his rounds, the policeman at the barrack door reading his morning paper, all fling us a brave good morning. But our master? Cold always; always silent; driving all the gathered warmth of morning impressions from our souls. Might he say something cheery, we could trip gladly into school, instead of dragging ourselves in as we do to the dead accompaniment of a stifled sigh. Why do not masters know such things as these? They are so clever, so learned in all kinds of complex studies-it would take them such a brief time to study the simple soul of a school boy!

And lastly, as to mere physical suffering. Were schoolmasters themselves ever punished? If they were, memory has played them cruelly false. Hearken to this:-I (a mere stripling) could transform the school nature of the cruellest bully into tenderness surpassing that of woman. To all masters I give this panacea. Try it will youthough it is only a rustic asks you? Take the cane which you have used on soft childish palms; or mayhap (now and then) on little heads or other tender places-and when the school is dismissed, give it to your fellow teacher. Extend your hand, open wide your palm, and bid him strike just as firmly as you yourself do! And having tried, if you find heart to use it again for some time on one of your little flock, I rather pity than hate you. Pity you most truly. For your soul must be, indeed, a graceless thinghaving lost every ray of that tenderness and sweetness which every spirit caught from the Creator as it leaped exulting from His hands!-Irish School Monthly.

« IndietroContinua »