NON-OFFICIAL WORK.

205

Teacher in a right way, and on a definite plan, the opportunity of throwing some of his own life into the work going on, and casting a gleam of light, yea of very sunshine, on to the heaviest ploughed field of stick-in-the-mud clay. He can make a great man a living presence, or a daring deed breathe fire, or the dim battles of kites and crows, as it were, lose their vague unreality, and step out bold and free again, man struggling with man, and life and death, the life and death of men and nations hanging on the issue. This kind of nonofficial work again enables a Teacher to illustrate all the work done in the strange language, by the familiar examples of our own tongue; and thus connect both the meaning of the words and the structure of the sentences with daily life. He explains why the languages seem to differ, and what is the loss or gain in English as compared with Latin or Greek. Living interest is thrown into the language lesson by this, and the dullest can be made to see that he is not engaged in a disgusting, nor unprofitable study, but that it is worth his while to do it, though he may find it difficult.

Following this same track, the Teacher throughout every class in the school ought once a week to read and explain to his class such an author as they can follow, be it English, or Latin, or Greek, according to their capacity. This is calculated to

206

WEEKLY LECTURES.

give a taste for literature, and to provide a good deal of material at a small expenditure of time. At all events it breaks the chains of necessary routine, and lets a master loose, if he has any real feeling or life in him, to cultivate in some degree what he likes best, and bring it in as part of his school work. This can be a source of as much fresh life to him as to his class, and may be made a most real link between the teacher and the taught. Again nothing is more felt in the present day, the moment any attempt is made to train each boy, be he clever or stupid, than the ignorance that is disclosed. No sooner does a search begin into the boys' minds, than carnivorous stags, cantering whales, and four-legged dolphins are found rampaging in all directions, and the daily tasks, with the tale of bricks rigidly demanded by Pharaoh, bring no hope of anything better. They simply leave the whole matter of ignorance in common objects on one side, absolutely untouched. This is a very baffling difficulty. Yet if during one Term in the year, one afternoon a week is set apart for a Lecture to the whole school on any subject whatever worth lecturing on, much general knowledge of common but unknown things can be given, grand battues of carnivorous stags, and other such game, take place, interest be excited, and freshness poured into the school routine. Not the least

HUMAN SYMPATHIES.

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valuable part of this plan is the advantage it is to the Masters themselves. Has any one of them a Hobby, a favourite pursuit, he is able to bring it out, and air it before an appreciative audience, to exhibit himself as a human being with human sympathies, and not merely a mummified paste of Greek and Latin verbs. Lecturers and able men not on the staff of the school can also be called in in a natural way to help the work, and the sphere of power available very much enlarged in consequence. All this belongs to masters, and is their work. A Teacher is not a Teacher who neglects these various forms of training life.

CHAPTER IX.

THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING.

Playing with the bat upside down.

THE boys do not know how to set about learning, they ought to be taught. This teaching cannot be given through the medium of the unknown. It will be acknowledged that the power to observe a simple thing, and answer a plain question, is the very beginning of mental training. But the boys neither observe, nor can answer. That is, they do not know the process by which it is done, and learning new difficulties does not teach them. They ought to be taught. It is the beginning of the knowledge how to learn. This assertion can be proved and remedied at the same time. Let the teacher, for example, ask the boys of an ordinary class to give an account of any well-known object, for instance, What's an apple? Minutes on minutes will be spent before any

PICTURE AND CONTRAST.

209

reasonable description of it will be given. In other words, there will not be a single boy out of hundreds who may be questioned in this way, who has ever had the quiet bit of teaching given him, that the moment he is required to answer, his business is at once to picture to himself the thing mentioned in as many aspects as possible one by one, compare it with the things most like it, and then note the peculiar facts which make it different from everything else. To take a second example somewhat more complex. "The sower went forth to sow his seed." If a really intelligent answer is to be given as to the meaning of the word "seed" under such circumstances, the process is, first to picture in the mind a seedsman's shop with all its various seeds, none better to the eye than another, hard dry facts all of them, and to contrast it with the summer garden, where every flower and plant declare what they are, self-revealed. The main distinctions of the seed stand out at once. Next the seed must be pictured in the ground, all its hard dry nature vanishing, it is full of new movement, roots penetrating in subtle, tender shapes of change, and as they change, drawing the secret powers of the ground into fresh vitality, the seed thus growing with a growth of its own, and so on. All this kind of truth and power of answer proceed to a very great extent