The professor cannot help himself because he has a system handed to him by “precedent.” Precedent, in itself, implies a lack of ability to think out a new course.
In every man we place the sum of our own knowledge and thinking power. This should be a law of some sort as it would solve innumerable ills in any line of endeavor. It should be written that a man should first discover the exact capabilities of his student or laborer and then work him accordingly. This should be the goal of industry, including the teaching of a superintendent to know the capacity of his men, or the factory owner to know the mental capacities of his superintendent.
We have forgotten this in our teachings and it is a thing which must be remembered.
Professors know so much they forget how little other people know. Thus, here is a working plan for better knowledge.
The baby sees something and looks at it wonderingly. Then it asks Mama what it is. She says it is a stove and it burns little girls. Three days later the baby is burned.
The baby listens to Mama telling her to say, “Mama” and the baby merely coos. But Mama has some candy and says, “Mama” and the baby cries, “Mama” and thereafter thinks that Mama is a lovely word.
After the baby says, “Me ain’t got some, Daddy,” “Me too big enough, Daddy,” and “It was ’normous, Daddy,” the baby begins to know English.
Am I right?
And then Baby drifts along with “ain’t” and “me” for “I” and with mispronunciations rampant until he is almost ten years old, at which time school begins to correct him very gently.
The baby grows up to five and begins to read fairy stories and goes around in the woods looking for a dryad to pop forth from a tree with a bag of gold which will never, never empty no matter how one pours it.
These three cases should give some idea of a solution. In the first, it is impossible to tell anybody anything without enforcing it with fear or with example. The former case is the rule of the rod, but what a cruel, unnecessary thing! There is no reason to give pain to teach. There is no reason to say, “If you don’t learn this, you’ll never amount to anything.” That is fear. It is also wrong to say, “You will be smart if you learn this.”
Each one is fear of some sort and the last is a statement that the child is not smart.
If Mama had taken the little girl over to the stove very gently and had said, “See, there’s a fire in it! Look how hot it is! It will keep you warm.” The child thinks the fire pretty and admires it and, perhaps, starts to reach toward it. But it is hot close up. She withdraws with a foolish little grin and says, “Hot,” and the trick is done.
In the teaching of language, the rule is invariably the same. One learns a conjugation and half-a-dozen words and then, suddenly, here is a volume printed in the language and off we go to the ponies and scribbled English over the words. What a waste of time for the professor and the student!
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