: The Philosophy of Teaching The Teacher The Pupil The School by Sands Nathaniel - Teaching

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e idea that all their means of subsistence and enjoyment can only be obtained by labor; not only should their attention be called to the fact, but they should be made sensible how much skill, knowledge and labor and economy were needed for the creation of existing stores, and are needed for their maintenance in undiminished quantity; nor can this be done in any way more fitly or completely than by performing under their eyes, and causing them to take part in, the actual business of production. The well-ordered school is an industrial school, in which every industrial occupation, manufacturing or agricultural, for the carrying on of which convenience can be made, should be successively practised by the children, under the direction of skilled workers.

The farm, the factory, the shop, the counting-house and the kitchen, should each have its type in the school, and present to the minds of the children a picture of real life; while their practice would impart a skill and adaptability to the pupils which would insure their preparedness for all the vicissitudes of the most eventful life.

Can any reason be suggested for adopting a different system of instruction for girls than that which shall be determined on as best fitted for boys? We confess to our inability to perceive any--both are organisms of the same all-pervading nature--to both the most intimate knowledge of that which skill and perseverance secure, seems to be desirable for their happiness, and that of all mankind. Of the two, perhaps, the greatest knowledge is needed for the woman, FOR HERS IS THE MORE IMPORTANT AND MORE PERFECTED ORGANISM; to her is committed the performance of the chief functions of the highest act of organized beings, viz., reproduction; therefore, upon her knowledge and conduct, far more than upon that of the man, depends the future of the beings in whom she is to live again.

Another great object with the true teacher, will be so to train the judgment of his pupils as to avoid that forming of unconsidered opinion which is the parent of prejudice and a chief obstacle to progress. Trained to investigate the foundations of every fact in nature and in science, to weigh the evidences on which they are asked to receive assertions, whether of a physical, moral or social nature, they will ever have a reason for the faith that is in them; and will know how to SUSPEND JUDGMENT when the means of knowledge are insufficient.

Such pupils will not be apt to form opinions either in physical science, politics, or industrial life, without having first thoroughly examined the bases of the opinions they form and express, while the prejudices imbibed from nurses or parents, will be subjected to vigorous investigation, and either received as sound doctrine, or discarded as ill-founded and superstitious. Of how many prejudices are we not the victims, without being ourselves in the least conscious of the fact! Our political opinions, our social customs, are taken up like the fashion of a coat, without reason or reflection; and habit and association, but too often hold us captive long after reason has pronounced her condemnation; our minds have been warped from truth, and we fail to perceive our own deficiency, to recognize the mental dishonesty with which we are afflicted. All this will be averted in the case of those who in their youth are trained to a rigorous investigation of every fact presented to their minds, until the habit of truth, not merely of speaking and telling the truth, but that mental truthfulness which shrinks from accepting a falsehood for truth, and acknowledges ignorance rather than utter what is not assured--will become as much a part of the pupil's nature as is his desire for food. In short, he would be so trained as to feel as great a repugnance to plunge his mind into moral, as his body into material filth.

Again, while ever merciful and pitying to the criminal, he would be intolerant of falsehood wherever it might be found; and he would deem himself derelict in his duty, as a man and as a citizen, did he leave corruption to rot and fester in the Commonwealth, because he and others like him would not take the trouble to raise their voices against wrongdoers!

What a different aspect would not this great city of New York offer to our inspection to what it now presents, had a generation been trained in the knowledge, and practised in the observance of their duties as citizens!

Did those merchants and traders, who, in their private dealings would scorn a lie, but recognize the duty they owe as citizens and as men of truth, they would, by uniting, soon sweep away the serious discredit to our country and to Republican Institutions, the festering corruption of this city and of the State; yet it is to their supine, nay wicked tolerance of the evil that we owe the specimens of judicial corruption by which we are robbed and dishonored. Can it be said that any system of education can be sound, which shall fail to demonstrate, at least to the older pupils, their duties as citizens, to take an active, intelligent and upright interest in public affairs; that shall fail to instruct them in the principles by which their judgments should be guided, and lead them to discard every action in public affairs, which they would not approve in private life?

We must cease to live in books, in past mystifications, in useless theories, in foolish and unprofitable discussions, in ancient ideas and customs, and grasp the living present with all the richness, fullness and beauty of its life. The chemistry of nature, the work of her great laboratory, should be the study of youth as of age, instead of dead languages and the vain and foolish mythology of Greeks and Romans wherewith at present we poison the minds of the young.

"Can we take burning coals into our bosom and not be burned?" Can we suffer the impressionable minds of youth to be impregnated with the filth of the heathen poets in their imaginings of gods as disgusting as themselves, without staining the pure tablet of the mind with spots and grossness, while the children acquire a distaste for that glorious nature whose volume should be their constant study?

We have to deal with the great present, with life, not with death--to promote health, physical and moral, not to propagate infectious sickness. The present, wisely improved, leads to a happy future, and is the only road to that goal. We can not jump the present and its duties and reach the future so as to enjoy it, neither can the dead past lighten the labors of the living present. There is a past which still lives and vivifies the present, but the quaint and filthy imagery in which the ancient priests disguised from the profane--from all but the initiated--the mysteries of their lore, can be of small account to a people whose great duty is the dissemination of light and truth.

Every thing that has any relation to man's comfort and well-being, or to his happiness as a social being, that it is, and not the dead past that we should learn, and of the things that affect us most nearly we should learn first. What did the ancients know of steam, of electricity, of the material elements of nature, of her forces? And little as we know, how much of that little could be learned from a lifelong study of ancient lore? If there be aught of value in the laws of ancient Rome which has not been translated into our native tongue, let it be translated; but let not our youth waste precious years in learning to play upon an instrument which when learned can give forth no sound. But if we turn to Nature and to her grand volume, we there find all the knowledge man can acquire. From her study, too, we can learn a lesson, not perhaps among the least important, as to the limits fixed by nature to human knowledge. To know of a surety what those things are which never can be known to mortal man, is a knowledge, the want of which has driven many to puerile and superstitious practices, and many more to madness and despair.

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