sovereign of the whole animated creation, the interpreter, and adorer, and almost the representative of the Divinity.' Lord Brougham justly appreciated the high position which the educator ought to occupy in modern society, when he said, "The schoolmaster, and not the cannon, will henceforth be the arbiter of the world. His progress leads to a far more * * * brilliant triumph, and to laurels more imperishable than the destroyer of his species, the scourge of the world, ever won.”+ SECT. IV.-SOCIAL POSITION OF THE TEACHER. We have seen what is the position in society to which the educator is entitled; let us now examine how he stands in this country. Many consider themselves his superiors, who not only are greatly his inferiors in mental and moral acquirements, but whose pursuits in life are much beneath the occupation in which he is engaged. He shares, in fact, in the neglect (alluded to in a preceding Book) to which an undue and exclusive regard for birth, titles, and money, leads the English to consign all the votaries of science and literature. But, on this subject, we prefer to state the opinions of English writers, lest our own should be taxed with partiality as coming from a foreigner. Sir David Brewster, after having contrasted the disgraceful indifference entertained here for the professors of science, with the high estimation in which they are held on the continent, and the honours conferred on them by all enlightened governments, goes on to say, "No statute, indeed, disqualifies them from holding the titles which reward the services of other men; but custom, as powerful as statute, has torn all such hopes from their grasp; and, while the mere possessor of animal courage, one of the most common qualities of the species, has been loaded with every variety of honours, the professor of the highest endowments of the mind,—he whom the Almighty has chosen to make known the laws and mysteries of his works, he who has devoted his life, and sacrificed his health and the interests of his family, in the most profound and ennobling pursuits, is allowed to live in poverty and obscurity, and to sink into the grave without one mark of the affection and gratitude of his country. And why does England thus persecute the votaries of her * Philosophy of the Mind. † Speech in Liverpool, 20th July, 1835. science? Why does she depress them to the level of her hewers of wood and her drawers of water? It is because science flatters no courtier, mingles in no political strife, and brings up no reserve to the minister, to swell his triumph or break his fall. She is persecuted, because she is virtuous; dishonoured, because she is weak.”* "Mere teaching, like mere literature," says Dr. Arnold, “places a man in rather an equivocal position: he holds no undoubted station in society by these alone; for neither education nor literature have ever enjoyed that consideration and general respect in England, which they enjoy in France and in Germany."+ Far from meeting with liberal encouragement, the teacher is denied what he is entitled to, courtesy as a gentleman, esteem as a man of cultivated mind, and gratitude as a benefactor. Such a state of things is worthy of the feudal times, when it was the interest of political rulers to keep the people in darkness; for to discourage the teacher is to encourage ignorance. If, as has been justly remarked, his social position be a perfect index of the real mind of society on the subject of education, we must only deplore the spirit of the present age. "Nothing can more clearly indicate a low state of public morals than the vulgar disrespect and parsimonious remuneration with which the teacher is sometimes requited."‡ The depreciation of the teacher's useful services is particularly seen in the case of resident tutors and governesses. "The illtreatment to which," says a modern writer, "this class of persons is too frequently exposed in private families, has lowered their attainments and moral bearing; and the lowered character and pretensions of instructors, by an inevitable reaction, has diminished the respect in which they are held by parents, subjecting them to a still more galling ill-treatment. This vice in the social arrangements, which, by the bye, is, in a great degree, peculiar to the British isles, could not exist, if parents possessed a requisite knowledge of the true value of education, and of the qualities it demands in the instructor." "For the higher class of male instructors, it is true, the prestige of a university education, and a prevailing reverence for the clerical character, do something towards raising them above the * Decline of Science in England. Quart. Rev., Oct., 1830. condition of menials, - forcing from the most ignorant and vulgar-minded some show of decent respect; but, even in their case, the avarice, which seeks to remunerate their noble services by the lowest possible salary, gives a true measure of the position they hold in the estimation of their employers. Much worse does it fare with the teachers of minor academies, and tutors brought into houses of an inferior caste; but, of all the degraded, dispiriting positions in which intellectual and virtuous poverty can be thrust, that of the governess is commonly the most revolting and the most digraceful to the society by whose opinions it is determined." In the great majority of cases, when parents place their children in the hands of a teacher, they absurdly wish him to do every thing for them; and not only do they neglect giving him assistance, but they frequently take every pains to render the fulfilment of his task impossible. By the little regard or sympathy which they evince for him, they instil into the hearts of young people feelings of antipathy against him, which counteract the effect of his best exertions: few parents ever visit him as a friend, or invite him to their houses; some make their children the bearers of disagreeable messages to him, or listen with complacency to their distorted and malicious reports of him, or his school; while others most incautiously express, within their hearing, opinions unfavourable to him, and calculated to lower him in their estimation. They require of him the greatest service which a man can expect from another; and yet, in their unconsciousness of the importance of that service, they commonly treat him with the most barefaced ingratitude, and are often even shamefully remiss in fulfilling their pecuniary engagements towards him, taking as little notice of his demand for fees so painfully earned-nay, a debt so sacred-as they would of a tailor's bill. Although unacquainted with the details of teaching, or the relative worth of the different branches of knowledge, many parents, in the absence of a regular recognised system of instruction, presume to dictate to experienced teachers the course which they ought to pursue; they sometimes value most what is least important, and are regardless of their children's improvement in really useful acquirements; not a few imagining that education consists solely in the learning of lessons, and, anxious to obtain immediate and ostensible value for their money, judge of the * Journal of Education, No. 17. merit of a teacher by the number of tasks imposed on his pupils ; some unreasonably demand a general exemption from punishment for their children, and others are so unmercifully cruel, that we have known boys to be removed from school for not being, as the parents thought, sufficiently flogged. Thus are educators selected or discarded on the most frivolous and unwarrantable grounds. There are some parents also who, always ready to make the teacher an object of terror to the young, carry inconsistency so far as to complain to him of their idleness at home, or to insist on his punishing them for faults committed out of school and under the paternal roof. Unable to maintain their own authority, they give their children habits of indolence and insubordination, and, afterwards, thoughtlessly call upon the schoolmaster to remedy the evils of their own mismanagement; but, in most cases, his efforts must be vain; and he is blamed for a failure which ought to be attributed solely to themselves. These and innumerable other evils in ordinary education will continue to exercise the most baneful influence on society as long as youth is abandoned by the state to the ignorance of parents, and to the pretensions of every adventurer who speculates on that ignorance. The unlimited and unprotected liberty of education is the plague of Great Britain. SECT. V.-INCOMPETENCY OF TEACHERS ATTRIBUTABLE TO PARENTS. The office of instructor ought, perhaps, to rank with the magistracy; and yet it is the last that any one will choose. It is, with few exceptions, embraced by persons of inferior merit. It is taken up as a last resource by those who have failed in every other calling. But if so many incompetent persons crowd the avenues of tuition, the blame lies on society. Education is not generally appreciated, although its eulogy is in everybody's mouth; hence the business of teaching does not secure a respectable social position; nor does it offer a fair chance of realising an independence -two powerful motives by which men of capacity and information are guided in the choice of a profession. The art of educating has, consistently with the mercantile habits of the people, been made a trade, and that trade, from the ignorance and indifference of society in educational matters, has become discreditable, laborious, thankless, and unprofitable. Many parents, being unacquainted with the principles and the essentials of education, are unable to judge of the competency, or estimate the merit of an instructor, and are often influenced in their selection of one by mere pecuniary considerations. They absurdly imagine that any teacher is good enough for a very young child; to a paltry economy they sacrifice his future prospects: they run the risk of his imbibing errors and evil habits which no expense or labour can afterwards effectually remove. The fallacies of such notions is sufficiently proved by what precedes, and will be rendered more obvious still throughout this work. All the anxiety, the trouble, the sacrifices of the instructor, without mentioning his actual services, are above what gold can repay; and yet how many wealthy mothers are there who, while they are extravagantly expensive in their dress, their household, their table, their equipages, and all other personal expenditure, aim at sordid economy in everything regarding the education of their children. They never purchase any but a high-priced article of jewellery, dress, or furniture, aware that it is always the most serviceable; yet, forgetting that none but incompetent teachers are willing to accept low terms, they do not hesitate to offer to any person who would undertake the education of their children what an upper-servant would scorn to accept! Those who make cheapness the highest recommendation of instruction, lay the foundation of their children's misery. They must take the blame on themselves if those children do not turn out as well as they expected. What Plutarch said on this subject is applicable at the present day:-"There are parents who carry so far the love of money, and indifference for the good of their children, that, from a sordid economy, they select for them tutors without any merit, and whose ignorance is always cheap. Aristippus made one day a pertinent answer to one of these despicable men. As he asked the latter fifty drachms for educating his son, 'How!' exclaimed the father, 'with that sum I would purchase a slave!' 'Do so,' said Aristippus, and then you will have two.'"* The preposterously humble position assigned to the teacher in society, the denial of sympathy for his exertions, and the little value set on his services, are fraught with evil. Slighted and * Of the Education of Children. |