Imatges de pàgina
PDF
EPUB

FORMATION OF CHARACTER.

I proceed now to speak of the regulation of the emotional nature, -the government of all the springs of action. This brings into view the teacher's part in aiding his pupils to use intelligence for the guidance of their conduct. I have already indicated the grounds on which I conceive that this department of oversight and training belongs to the teacher. He is an instructor in the widest sense. To him is intrusted the development of the whole nature, in so far as that is found to be needful for school discipline, and possible through means of it. The two departments, instruction and training, are indeed quite distinct, and admit of separate treatment.

From the one point of view, the teacher seeks to make his scholars observant, reflective, well informed, and prompt in the use of their faculties. From the other he seeks to make them upright, generous, and brave. The relative importance of these two ends will be at once recognized. As meanness of disposition is worse than slowness of intellect; as selfishness is worse than defective memory; as cowardice is worse than ignorance, special importance is to be attached to the department of moral training. The teacher can not, indeed, raise such training to the position of primary importance, since all the school arrrangements are made expressly for instruction in the ordinary branches of knowledge. But there is no need for this, since moral training is gained not so much by formal inculcation of duty as by practice in well-doing throughout the common engagements of life. If, however, moral training do not expressly engage the attention of the scholars as a subject of study, it is to be continually the subject of consideration with the teacher. It makes no difference whether it be grammar, or geography, or history which is being taught, the formation of character goes on with equal facility. So generally is this recognized in the profession, that Mr. Currie has set this down as his first statement in his valuable work on Education:-Education comprises all the influences which go to form the character.'

Sympathy with Children in their Training.

For success in training, the first requisite is intelligent sympathy with the children in the difficulties they experience while attempting to control their conduct. Before a true and influential sympathy is possible, the teacher must observe peculiarities of disposition. It will thus appear how essential it is to discriminate carefully, in order to make a satisfactory beginning. At the same time the

general truth must be recognized and applied for the guidance of our procedure, that a child's ruling dispositions are as truly inherited as his intellectual powers or his bodily constitution. This will not be disputed, and therefore I do not insist upon it; but the consideration must have a directly practical bearing upon school gov ernment. If it be not uniformly recognized and acted upon, justice can not be done to the children, nor can sagacity have proper exercise in dealing with them. One child is naturally irritable, another is naturally amiable. The one is not to be blamed, nor is the other to be praised, for what he has inherited. If under sudden provocation the one shows a sensitiveness which the other does not discover, no marvel. The result is exactly that to be expected from the different natures of the two. What is of chief interest to the educationist is, that the irritable child can gain the mastery over the ruling tendency of his nature, and can be helped in striving for the victory. But it is unjust to punish a child because he has inherited an irritable disposition. In many cases it is no less so to punish him because that disposition has suddenly started into activity under provocation. One child is naturally timid, another naturally rash. It is unreasonable to blame the children, or to do any thing but consider what are the special difficulties of each, and how best each can be helped in overcoming these. The one has inherited a highly sensitive nervous constitution, which is readily excited by the slighest changes, and which throws in upon the mind the agitation originating in the organism. To punish such a child for his timidity, or mock him on account of it, is a grievous practical blunder, which indicates want of knowledge and reflection as to the necessary conditions of moral training. If a teacher is not to run the risk of inflicting life-long injury upon one intrusted to his care, he must have some clearly defined plan in harmony with the known laws of mind, suitable for allaying fear and promoting courage. Another child is naturally impulsive. The former thinks and shrinks.

Limits in the Teachers' Power in Training.

He can not form the character, but can only aid the pupil in efforts to form his own character. This consideration is of vital importance in the determination of method. Character implies established habits of self-government. Its formation is thus essentially a personal matter. Whatever be its type, it is the result of habits voluntarily cherished. So long as the predominant natural dispositions sway the conduct unchecked, moral character is unformed.

The beginning of its formation can be traced from the time that there are signs of voluntary restriction and regulation of these dispositions. Whenever a degree of self-control appears, it indicates the sway of intelligence. Character, whether good or bad, is in no case the result of involuntary tendency. Its formation in a good and healthy type is a most delicate process, needing to be continued through many years. Nothing is more likely to injure, by retarding, or it may even be in perverting, the process, than efforts after coercion. Will-power must regulate the course of conduct, and the only safe stimulants of the action of will are intelligence within, and the encouragement of intelligent sympathy from superiors who have already won respect.

Influence of Companionship.

Children are greatly hindered or aided in the formation of a good character by the influence of those around them. If their seniors make light of moral distinctions, they will do so too. If their com panions are selfish, and unchecked in that tendency, they too will begin to give way to the same hideous disposition. There is in human nature enough of the desire for self-gratification, and a suffi cient sense of the irksomeness of self-restraint, to favor ready yield ing to the easier way of life. But self-denial is the necessary

condition of self-government. The effort it involves, and the pain connected with that effort, try us most at the commencement. But both the effort and the pain will be considerably lessened if seniors give encouragement and companions share the difficulties. In this way, all the order and discipline of the school should support the virtues and promote their growth.

But favorable circumstances do not in themselves afford all that is requisite. Dismiss the best disciplined class, and observe the moral characteristics of the children when they are free to act according to inclination. It will be found that there is considerable diversity among them, and that some very readily inflict wrong upon their companions. Discipline is the product of authority. Character does not grow by mere force of authority. There is even peril to character in the constant strain of authority, which demands unquestioning submission on pain of punishment. Obedience in such a case is often reluctantly rendered, and reluctant submission, is apt to be unfavorable to character. A rooted aversion to restraint is then cherished, which carries in it serious forebodings of evil. A child must be taught to walk alone, else a reckless career may fol low escape from the hated restraint. The most perfect form of

drill can not establish moral character; the best educational machinery is unequal to the task. Circumstances, even the most favorable, can not produce the character which must itself be superior to circumstances. Character must grow from within, in accordance with the invariable laws of mind.

Individualization.

To render aid in the formation of character, a teacher must individualize. One hundred children may be instructed in the same branch of knowledge at once, but development of character can not proceed in this way. The prevailing dispositions and tendencies of each scholar must be ascertained. Ignorant of these, a teacher can do little which will render really effective help. A physician might as well write prescriptions at random, and distribute them in order, as he made the round of his patients. Knowledge of each pupil is the essential requisite for real training. It may be objected that professional duty leaves a teacher no leisure for this; but one who has made it a practice to observe character, as every teacher must have done in order to be successful, needs no special time for the necessary observation. He can not help observing. He only requires the routine and bustle of school life to afford the opportunities he needs. A private talk with each pupil, when constrained and quite on his guard, will be of little worth for purposes of observation. You must see children excited by rivalry-tried by the irritating conduct of fellow scholars-subjected to unexpected disappointment and roused by the exercise of the playground-in order to ascertain what are the characteristics of each onc, and what a teacher should most strive to do for each. In such scenes observation is inevitable, and a child is never allowed to feel as if he were watched. Every thing is 'above-board,' and comes under observation in natural course. The teacher soon knows who are irritable, and who are of a stubborn disposition; who are rash and who shrinking; who are inclined to conceal their purposes, and practice cunning; and who are prone to be domineering. Seeing these things, a teacher sees his work. He recognizes that a common discipline, touching all alike, is not equal to the demand. Help, appropriate in form, and well timed, he must endeavor to give. Scarcely noticed by the school generally, hardly remarked upon by the child more immediately concerned, a look of encouragement or rebuke will make a child conscious of success or failure. A mere glance of the eye may not reckon for much in the log-book of the school, but it has left its impress on the sensitive surface of a young

heart. A word of rebuke dropped softly at the fitting moment into that ear alone for which it is meant may be enough to start a resolution of improvement upon which a teacher may continue to operate from day to day. Such a word may live long in the memory. I remember now, as if it had been yesterday, the look and word of a venerated preceptor [Dr. Boyd, of the Edinburgh High School] who had detected a case of oppression of a fellow scholar, 'There was one boy in the group I did not expect to see consenting to such conduct.' The look and word were for me, and how the lesson went home may be judged by the vividness of the present recollection.

Self-Control.

A child must see that formation of character is his own business, and a work for all times. He must be awakened to the sense of that power which is power over self. He must have aroused to activity those motive forces which impel the mind to the work of self-control as one of living interest. He must taste the joy as well as feel the difficulty of self-government. Only thus can the building up of character proceed. For a teacher, then, there is no other way possible than that of helping the scholar to help himself in what must be his own work. If we fail to induce the pupil to take to this in earnest, we fail in the first condition of success. From the very center of the being must come the determination of the forces which are to be allowed to sway the conduct. Who can overcome selfishness but the person who feels it? How can generosity be planted in the mind except by personal admiration of it, and personal exercise!

Self-Control and Reflectiveness.

Self-control begins with reflectiveness. It has its sure commencement in thought as to right and wrong in human conduct. But this thought, to be of any real value in character building, must be concerned more with the inward dispositions than with the outward forms of conduct. It is in the suggesting and encouraging of such thought that a teacher can give to a pupil the full benefit of his superior intelligence, and greater calmness of observation. But some consideration needs to be given to the lines of thought which it is of real consequence to suggest. A child needs no lecturing in proof of the position that falsehood is wrong, unless his thinking on the subject has been already perverted by pernicious home training. There is nothing a child more resents than being deliberately deceived. In like manner it is not needful, under ordinary conditions, to convince

« AnteriorContinua »