=The child's need of ideals.=--Every child needs and has a right to
ideals, and finds the teacher convenient both in space and in the nature
of her work to act in this capacity. Because of the character of her
work and her peculiar relation to the child, the teacher assumes a place
of leadership, and the child naturally appropriates her as the lodestar
for which his nature is seeking. And so, whether the teacher leads into
the morass or into the jungle, the child will follow; but if she elects
to take her way up to the heights, there will be the child as faithful
as her shadow. If the teacher plucks flowers by the way, then, in time,
gathering flowers will become habitual to the child, nor will there be
any need to admonish the child to gather flowers. The teacher plucks
flowers, and that becomes the child's command. Education by absorption
needs neither admonition nor homilies.
=The ideal a perpetual influence.=--And all this is life--actual life,
fundamental life, and inevitable life. Moreover, the inevitableness of
this phase of life serves to accentuate its importance. The idealized
teacher gives to the child his ideals of conduct, literature, art,
music, home, school, and service. Take this teacher out of his life and
these ideals vanish. Better by far eliminate the formal instruction,
important as that may be made to be, than to rob the child of his
ideals. They are the influences that are ever active even when formal
instruction is quiescent.
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