Indeed,
children are but objects that become useful as a means of proving
theories. It lacks vitality, and that is sad; but, worst of all, it
strives unceasingly to perpetuate itself in the schools. Real teaching
power receives looks askance in some of these colleges as if it bore the
mark of Cain in not being up to standard on the academic side. And yet
these colleges are teaching the teachers of our schools.
=Teaching power.=--Hence, the work of vitalizing the school must begin
in our colleges of education and normal schools, and this beginning will
be made only when we place the emphasis upon teaching power. The human
qualities of the teachers must be so pronounced that they become their
most distinguished characteristics. It is a sad commentary upon our
educational processes if a man must point to the letters of his degree
to prove that he is a teacher. His teaching should be of such a nature
as to justify and glorify his degree. As the preacher receives his
degree because he can preach, so the teacher should receive his degree
because he can teach, even if we must create a new degree by which to
designate the real teacher.
=Degrees and human qualities.=--There is no disparagement of the
academic degree in the statement that it proves absolutely nothing
touching the ability to teach. It proclaims its possessor a student but
not a teacher. Yet, in our practices, we proceed upon the assumption
that teacher and student are synonymous.
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