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Art. VI. The Educator.

Published under the sanction of the Central

Society of Education. London: Taylor and Walton.

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THE HE volume, to which we propose in this article directing the attention of our readers, is a remarkable and interesting one. It contains a Prize Essay, and four others written in competition for the prize, published by the Central Society of Education. That society offered a sum of 100 guineas for the best essay on the following subject; The expediency and means of elevating 'the profession of Educator in the public estimation.' The prize was awarded by Professor Malden, of University College, and was gained by John Lalor, Esq., of Trinity College, Dublin. The remaining essays are from the pens of the Rev. Edward Higginson, of Hull; J. A. Heraud, Esq., J. Simpson, Esq., and Mrs. G. R. Porter. We have perused the whole with great satisfaction; and think the Central Society has performed a most serviceable act in offering this prize, and publishing the essays which it produced. The position occupied by those who conduct secular education in this aristocratic and commercial country, is far too low, and we therefore rejoice in every effort, whether by individuals or public bodies, to elevate it.

In the times of classical antiquity, the sage and the educator were one and the same; and the noble office of an Instructor received its due meed of honor and emolument. The names of the greatest philosophers are familiar to us as the heads of schools, and (without referring to the patronage afforded to Aristotle by Alexander) the profits reaped by those who pursued the occupation of teaching may be seen from the severe animadversions of Socrates on the Sophists, as recorded in the Dialogues of Plato. In the Oriental nations, the duty of imparting secular as well as religious knowledge was monopolized by the priesthood; and their example was followed (in this as in other respects) in modern Europe by the Romish hierarchy, after the establishment of the power of the church had restored to the seven hilled city the empire of the western world. At the Reformation, the task of instruction, which had been theretofore fulfilled, or professed to be fulfilled, in the monasteries, was performed by private hands. The want of secular instructors may be distinctly seen from the establishments which were founded to supply it, viz., the grammar schools, which, all instituted about that period, clearly indicate the necessity out of which they arose. Those, who have in such powerful and richly endowed establishments, and in our Universities, superintended instruction, have, it must be confessed, received their full reward. But the truth must be spoken. We are an aristocratical and money-loving people, and unless the professors of education have been also endowed with large incomes

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or titles of honor, we have not yielded them our respect. The nation has never, in fact, duly honored, because it has never duly appreciated, the office of educator. It has respected the accidental, when that office has been accompanied by wealth, or has led to ecclesiastical dignity; but it has never really honored the essential character of the office from a sense of its intrinsic dignity and paramount importance. Even the great men who have held it, have not been able to eradicate the prejudices of society. Johnson was a schoolmaster, although he was half ashamed of his office, or at any rate felt no pride in it. Milton was a schoolmaster, and with that high appreciation of all intrinsic excellence, which marked his august nature, felt the weight and real importance of his duty. His noble Tractate on Education' shows the sense he entertained of the educational office. Locke in his philosophic Thoughts on Education,' says expressly, when describing a tutor, [sec. 91,] The great difficulty will be where to find a 'proper person.' I can only say, spare no care or cost to get such a one... In this choice, be as curious as you would be in that of a wife for your son,' &c. And Lord Brougham, in the splendid peroration to his speech at the Liverpool Mechanics' Institute, nobly said, 'The calling of the schoolmaster is high and holy; their fame is the property of nations; their renown will fill the earth in after ages in proportion as it sounds not far off in their own times.' Yet it must be owned that even now, too little disposition prevails throughout society, to view the educational office in its proper light. The miseries and degraded condition of ushers and tutors are familiar to all; have passed into proverbs, and formed a favorite topic for the satire of novelists; while the unhappy governess, halting between the drawing-room and the nursery, less kindly treated often than the housekeeper, has presented to the eye of philanthropists one of the most heartrending objects which the hard exigencies of our society have produced. The consummation of this most devoutly to be deprecated state of things, is doubtless owing to the action and reaction of various causes. The profession has not been duly estimated by the great mass of the nation, and therefore men of high talent and moral feeling have not entered it. And, again, such men having shrunk from the discharge of its duties, they have been left to the incompetent and unworthy, and, therefore, society has not felt disposed to honor those to whom personally, honor was, too often, really not due. We confess we feel it is high time that some efforts should be made to terminate, if possible, this most unjust and disastrous state of things, by which society inflicts a grievous injury on itself as well as on a body of men to whom it is under

* Speeches, vol. iii. p. 603.

deep obligations. Here, as always, the highest morality is the best policy. Justice works out its own expediency,' to use the expressive phrase of the greatest of living poets. Most essential interests of society are involved in a due appreciation of the office of the educator;' and doubtless before that office can receive its proper estimation, the real importance of its duties must be thoroughly and sincerely felt. We think the discussion of the subject is one most efficient means of producing this result, and therefore cheerfully devote a few of our pages to an examination of it.

The prize essayist, Mr. Lalor, has eloquently and justly described the present position of the class of schoolmasters.

The bulk of professional instructers are persons to whom education, as a business of life, is not a matter of choice, but of necessity. By very few is it adopted with free will and deliberation, as the mode of exertion best fitted to their characters and most conducive to their happiness. On the contrary, it is the general, but last resource of those who, having received some degree of education, find every other avenue to livelihood shut up. It is taken up with reluctance, and often with struggles of mortified pride, but generally in a state of mind the most unfavorable for its successful prosecution. With numbers, perhaps with most, it is meant to be a temporary resource which they hope will lead to something better. With such, it is a mechanical routine often gone through when the thoughts are far away. Their meditations, their hours of freedom, are spent in a brighter world. Their business receives little of their energy, none of their affections. It is a drudgery needful for the supply of food; an intellectual treadmill to which they are condemned for a season, and from which they are to escape to life, and liberty, and happiness. These bright hopes are often, most often, disappointed. No hour of deliverance arrives. The spirit may long to try its pinions in the free unbounded space, within the range of vision; but inexorable necessity, the necessity of to-day's and to-morrow's bread, wills not. It may beat the bars of ils cage until its plumage is stained with its heart's blood; its wasted strength must fall back into its prison. Year after year, hope struggles with disappointment; it flashes fitfully before the aching eye and sickening heart, until it goes out in despair. In the beginning of its course, the energy of such a mind was called elsewhere; in the end, energy is gone, extinguished, with hope. Young beings entrusted to its charge, have grown up unregulated, and have ripened into maturity under their own wild impulses. The education is doubly unfortunate: it has cost the happiness of the instructer-its effects will be scarcely less disastrously felt in the future career of the children.

Others of the class of teachers by necessity, having less keen susceptibilities or more good sense, adapt themselves resignedly to their inevitable lot. They plod on quietly in the beaten track, performing the duties which custom has established with a respectable diligence. They have little pleasure in teaching, and no love for it. They have

perhaps, no enthusiasm for any thing, but least of all for their daily task-work. It is drudgery-sheer drudgery-but in this hard world every one must drudge; and they are not much worse off than their neighbours. Even the lowest standard of education cannot be realized by such instructers. The merest intellectual culture cannot take place without thought. Mechanical routine will teach nothing but routine. Thought alone can excite and develope thought. But far less can moral education be accomplished. The highest work of man-to enlighten his brother man and to elevate his moral being-must have the mind's entire force of thought and passion concentrated upon it.'

-p. 73.

This striking picture is, alas! too true; and therefore the result is as Mr. Lalor justly says, that education fails-miserably fails, 'it brings no germ of intellectual or moral greatness to maturity, and for this all-sufficient reason, that those to whom its business 'is entrusted are incompetent to the task to the most arduous 'duties they bring the least qualifications. The highest interests are 'intrusted to the meanest hands. Society tolerates an unfitness in those who profess to form its young minds, which it would not 'endure in the lowest menial offices that minister to its material interest or enjoyment.'-p. 66.

We feel that the experience of all our readers must at once recognize the truth of these positions, and shall not stay to enforce them. We must assume the existence of the crying evil; and the important and interesting question arises-How is it to be remedied?

Various useful suggestions are thrown out by the different essayists, a perusal of whose compositions we earnestly recommend. They all agree in assigning as the main cause of the low position occupied by the educator in public estimation, the really unsatisfactory character of the education at present given to the wealthy classes of society, and enforce with great power, though in different modes, the paramount importance of impressing a completely new character on our system of education itself, so as to make it produce fruits that shall be at once felt to be of inestimable value, and which shall consequently confer on those who cultivate them a position of honour. A favorite object with all the essayists is the establishment of some description of corporate body of teachers, although they seem to differ in the details of the institution. Another subject of considerable importance into which they enter is the propriety of licensing schoolmasters. We confess we feel inclined to concur in the valuable suggestion of the Rev. Edward Higginson, that it should be open to all teachers to obtain a diploma or certificate of their skill in the didactic art, but that no exclusive legal privilege should attach to any such certificate. Such a monopoly,' he says, would justly be con'demned, as not only oppressive to other teachers, but also as

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'tending, according to the general spirit of monopolies, to render 'the privileged teachers indifferent to their own sufficient qualifi'cations, and supine in their work. Let competition be therefore 'still left free; and if it be found that the teachers sent forth from 'our institutes are qualified in a superior degree for their office, the institutes will deservedly be frequented more and more, and 'their certificates may be trusted as a better guide to the choice ' of instructers, than the casual opinions of friends and neighbours.' -p. 307. He therefore proposes to rely on the moral effect, and that alone, of the certificate of skill. Of course, all the essayists propose a normal school, or establishment for training of teachers. It has not been yet sufficiently understood that teaching is itself an art which requires peculiar skill and protracted study. The common opinion of society has been and is, that the greatest proficient in any department of knowledge must be necessarily the best teacher of that department. But this is one of the many vital mistakes which at present pervade society upon education. The didactic art, or art of communicating knowledge, is itself a peculiar one, and demands qualifications entirely independent of the extent of information. It frequently happens that a man with less information than another on any given subject is a much better teacher, from his superior sympathy with his pupils and greater moral power. Differing, therefore, as they do in details, all the essayists concur in recommending the foundation of some description of normal school, where the didactic art itself may be taught. Our limits prevent our going into detail on this subject. We must, therefore, content ourselves with earnestly directing the attention of our readers to it, and shall conclude by one or two extracts illustrative of the views of the writer before us. Mr. Lalor thus concludes his excellent essay.

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It appears, further, that the inefficient state of the educational profession is mainly caused by the low position which it holds in public estimation; and that a change of opinion with regard to it would soon create a supply of appropriate skill and energy.

It also appears in the highest degree probable that the desired change in public opinion is destined to come to pass. For, as the other professions have successively risen in estimation in proportion as their influence on the happiness of society has been felt, education, when its capacities are developed, must rise also. Whatever adds to the power which the educator wields over the well-being of his fellow men, raises him in their estimation: and if we can communicate force of character and professional aptitude to a few, we may, by the attention and respect they command, induce many to direct their zeal and talents to this despised but noble occupation. We can do this by establishing institutions for the scientific training of educators, which shall send out a small number devoted to their profession, with much

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