Jesuit Education/Chapter 14

by Robert Schwickerath

 

Chapter XIV.

Scholarship and Teaching.

The aim proposed by the Ratio Studiorum is a great and noble one, which tasks the undivided energy of able and experienced men. Does the Society fit the teachers for this work? This is a most important question. However good and excellent a system may be, it is of little avail if the teachers know not how to apply it, or if they apply it badly. Professor Münsterberg rightly insists on the truth that all effective school reform must start with a reform of teachers. "Just as it has been said that war needs three things, money, money, and again money, so it can be said with much greater truth that education needs, not forces and buildings, not pedagogy and demonstrations, but only men, men, and again men,—without forbidding that some, not too many of them, shall be women. The right kind of men is what the schools need; they have the wrong kind. They need teachers whose interest in the subject would banish all drudgery, and they have teachers whose pitiable unpreparedness makes the class work either so superficial that the pupils do not learn anything, or, if it is taken seriously, so dry and empty that it is a vexation for children and teachers alike. To produce anything equivalent to the teaching staff from whose guidance I benefited in my boyhood, no one ought to be allowed to teach in a grammar school who has not passed through a college or a good normal school; no one ought to teach in a high school who has not worked, after his college course, at least two years in the graduate school of a good university; no one ought to teach in a college who has not taken his doctor's degree in one of the best universities; and no one ought to teach in a graduate school who has not shown his mastery of method by powerful scientific publications. We have instead a misery which can be characterized by one statistical fact: only two per cent of the school teachers possess any degree whatever."^[1]

It would certainly be an ideal state, if all teachers came up to the Professor's requirements, as laid down in this proposition; but one may justly object to the importance assigned to the doctor's degree and the scientific publications, as necessary requisites for teaching. Although this degree and productive scholarship are very desirable, still we must consider it a mistake to expect from them alone or even chiefly the men needed in our educational institutions. The present writer, in his own school days, had some teachers who neither possessed the doctor's degree – of course they all had undergone the "State examinations" – nor had published any books, and yet as teachers were far superior to others who possessed the doctor's degree and had published books. Scholarship and capability for teaching are by no means identical. Too much weight has been given of late to scholarship in preference to practical experience, combined, as is understood, with a sufficient knowledge of the matter to be taught. The documents of the Society insist strongly that the teacher should thoroughly master the subject which he is to teach. Father Ledesma wrote three hundred years ago: "In all classes the teachers should be such that they could teach a much higher class" [than that which is actually assigned to them],^[2] and Father Nadal said: "All the professors should be distinguished in their respective branches, and no one can teach in the classes of Humanities and Rhetoric (Freshman and Sophomore) who is not a Master of Arts."^[3] In these words Father Nadal virtually lays down as a postulate what Professor Münsterberg wants, namely, that the professors in the college course should have the doctor's degree. But the Society attached still greater weight to skill in teaching than scholarship, and we think rightly so.

Within the last two years this question of the relation of scholarship to teaching has received more attention than before, and some articles in leading reviews and periodicals found one of the reasons of the decline of teaching exactly in the excess of scholarship. It was especially the New York Nation which in the spring of 1900 brought the topic before the eyes of the public. On March 8, 1900, the Nation had an editorial on The Decline of Teaching, in which we find this statement: "It is at least a curious coincidence that the development of the modern science of pedagogy, with its array of physiological and psychological data, should have been accompanied by a distinct decline in the prominence of the teacher. No one, we suppose, will question that the number of great teachers is less now than it once was, and that the depleted ranks are not being adequately filled up. While this dearth of teaching power, notwithstanding the persistent efforts to overcome it, is characteristic of all departments of education, it is especially noticeable in the colleges and universities; perhaps in no single respect, indeed, does the average college of the present day contrast more sharply with the college of a generation or two ago." On March 22, the Nation published the following correspondence. "Your editorial upon the Decline of Teaching ought to arouse very general solicitude throughout the profession: it gives notable emphasis to the condition which some of us have perceived for several years, although, so far as I am aware, stress has not hitherto been laid upon it in any public way. Your statement of the facts implies, without directly asserting, both the magnitude of the evil and its causes. Possibly both of these should receive, at the proper time and place, more extended and more exhaustive consideration. ... In the upper schools – high schools and colleges – the evil which has brought about the decline of teaching is an entirely different one. There is no evidence that the pseudo-pedagogy has won any hold on these men, except as subjects for wise admonitions to elementary teachers. The evil here is that original research has been confounded with true teaching. Original research is an independent profession, worthy of all honor and respect, but its processes are not in any essential or fundamental way those of education. We can never bring back to our colleges the nobler ideals of character and culture until we separate them from an ideal which is purely that of a trade or profession. We should have a very analogous confusion if our lawyers were to contend that education consisted in mastering the process and methods of the law. In so far as our colleges are converted into workshops where 'the bounds of knowledge' are widened, their real and greater function becomes restricted, if not forgotten."^[4] Dean Briggs of Harvard College shortly after wrote as follows: "Another doubt about the new-fashioned education concerns the abnormal value set on the higher degrees. That a teacher should know his subject is obvious; but the man of intelligence and self-sacrifice who bends his energy to teaching boys will soon get enough scholarship for the purpose; whereas no amount of scholarship can make up for the want of intelligence and self-sacrifice."^[5]

Many years ago Arnold had expressed the same opinion. In a letter of inquiry for a master he wrote: "What I want is a Christian and a gentleman – an active man, and one who has common sense and understands boys. I do not so much care about scholarship, as he will have immediately under him the lowest forms [classes] in the school; but yet, on second thoughts, I do care about it very much, because his pupils may be in the highest forms; and besides, I think that even the elements are best taught by a man who has a thorough knowledge of the matter. However, if one must give way, I prefer activity of mind and an interest in his work to high scholarship, for the one can be acquired more easily than the other."^[6]

The views of prominent German educators are not less pronounced on this subject – and yet, no nation insists more on scholarship than the German. Says one: "We have no more educators in the true sense of the word."^[7] The opinion of Professor Paulsen is especially worthy of notice. We summarize what he says on this subject in his History of Higher Education. It cannot be doubted that scholarship of the teacher, as a rule, tends towards raising teaching. But it should not be overlooked that the success of a teacher depends not only upon the amount of his scientific knowledge, but as much on his inclination and practical skill for teaching. Do the latter qualities increase in proportion with the teacher's scholarship? This is not always the case. It should be expected that, the richer, the clearer and the deeper the knowledge is, the stronger the inclination, and the facility of imparting it to others. But between philological scholarship proper and elementary instruction in Latin grammar and style, we find rather the reverse proportion. Scholarship can become an obstacle to teaching. First, it weakens the liking for it, or rather it strengthens the aversion to it. For the "drilling" in the elements of a language is undoubtedly one of the least attractive tasks to a man who feels in himself an inclination to educate the souls of the young. – Secondly, scholarship easily leads to introducing into class-instruction things that are important for the teacher's own scientific grasp of the subject. Hence the common complaint: the more grammar and the study of antiquities increase, and the more deeply the teachers enter into these sciences, the less the pupils learn; or rather the more the pupils learn of these things, the less thoroughness and facility they acquire in reading and writing; but this last is exactly what they need. From this it appears that it was in part disadvantageous to replace theologians in the gymnasia by philologians and mathematicians, a change which for a long time was wished for, undoubtedly not without good reasons. The theologian, owing to his whole training, had a tendency towards caring for the souls; an interest in the whole man was the centre of his calling, – if indeed he was an honest theologian, – not an interest in science, nor an interest in the student as student. Everything leads the theologian and the true philosopher to be an educator; the scholar, the learned specialist, may content himself with being an instructor. Add to this that the theologian through his studies was everywhere led to view things philosophically. And, after all, it is philosophy and religion alone that impel a man to communicate what he knows. He who has no philosophic views of life and of the world, has nothing to communicate; it is only the relation to some such ultimate object which gives learning pedagogical power and motives.^[8] Be it remembered that the man who says this is no ecclesiastic, but a layman, one of the foremost professors of the University of Berlin.

In his latest important work,^[9] he speaks still more emphatically on the drawbacks and dangers that menace teaching, even in the university, from scholarship. The professor, he says, considers himself in the first place not so much a teacher as a scholar, as the man of science, and so scientific research appears to him nobler and more important than instruction. Consequently, it happens very easily that he becomes indifferent about perfecting himself as teacher, he devotes scarcely the necessary time to preparing his lectures, he loses interest in teaching, which is an unwelcome interruption of his researches. It is evident that no great success is to be expected from such teaching or lecturing. There are also dangers on the part of the students. Not unfrequently they are introduced too early to the specialized treatment of the sciences, before they have acquired general information about their subject. This danger is the greatest for the most talented and zealous students. If afterwards they are teachers in a gymnasium, they feel altogether out of place; nearly all they had to study in the university is inapplicable in this present position, and it takes very long before the mental equilibrium is found again. The author then points out the dangers for science. If manifestation of scholarship is required for obtaining a position as teacher, the unavoidable consequence will be a kind of "pseudo-productivity" and other evils.

Of recent utterances from England the following of the Hon. George C. Brodrick (Warden of Merton) will suffice. In an article, "Amateur Nation," he says: "Strange to say, the higher branches of the great educational profession in England are strongholds of amateurism. The masters and mistresses of elementary schools are now well trained, and even when they teach mechanically, they teach as persons who have grasped the difficulties of teaching, and mean business, as most professionals do. But what of masters at the great public schools, grammar schools, and private academies, or of the great multitude of private tutors who keep boarding houses or 'coach' pupils in their own houses? Not a twentieth of them have received any training whatever, or have the smallest idea that anything beyond a certain amount of scholarship and a certain power of commanding attention is required for teaching young people." The writer then states what he thinks is needed: "It is teachers of average ability instructing pupils of average industry, not individually, but in classes, who specially need training – not of necessity in training colleges, but through close attention at lessons given by masters of tried experience."^[10]

This is exactly the idea of the Ratio Studiorum. The aim is to provide teachers, who are "men of intelligence and self-sacrifice, who possess, besides an excellent general culture, a good knowledge of their subject, and who are trained through close attendance, by masters of tried experience." Before attempting to prove this from the Constitutions of the Society and the Ratio Studiorum, we beg to make one remark. The Society does not undervalue scholarship, but, on the contrary, appreciates it highly and wishes always a considerable number of her members to possess it to an eminent degree. This is proved beyond doubt by the list of distinguished Jesuit writers given in two preceding chapters (V and VII). The Society recognizes also the value of university studies. We have quoted previously the decree of the 23rd General Congregation of the Order (1883, Decretum XXI): "It is expedient to send select members to the universities to obtain the degrees which empower them to teach in the public [i. e. Government] schools."^[11] We learn that the English Jesuits in late years have opened a Hall at Oxford (Pope's Hall), to afford young members an opportunity of attending the university lectures and of taking the degrees. We learn further that a number of Jesuits from other countries are there pursuing linguistic and scientific studies. The same is done in Ireland, Belgium, Holland, Austria, France and other countries. In some places, as in Austria, several Jesuit colleges are wholly under the supervision of the government, and all the teachers have made the prescribed studies at the universities and passed the rigid "state examinations". One of the professors of the Jesuit college at Feldkirch, Austria, has been chosen as "one of the seven prominent Latinists who are working at the great Historical Grammar of the Latin Language."^[12] It is evident that in all professional schools conducted by Jesuits, as in the Medical and Law Departments of Georgetown University, Washington, D. C., the instructors and professors are able professional teachers.

As far as America is concerned there existed peculiar handicaps to the cultivation of scholarship especially in Catholic institutions. Throughout the nineteenth century missions had to be established, chapels and churches built, and missionaries found to care for the spiritual wants of a rapidly increasing population.^[13] This work claimed the greatest part of the interest of the Catholic Church in general, and a comparatively large share of the time and energy of the members of the Society. But a teacher overburdened with work cannot devote himself to original research. Add to this the general poverty of the Catholic population, who had to support not only their churches, but also their schools, and it will be easy to understand that Catholic colleges had serious difficulties in acquiring the libraries, museums and laboratories which are essential for higher studies, and much more so for scholarly work. How much better situated are the secular institutions of learning in this country! "The National Government has, from the very beginning, made enormous grants of land and money in aid of education in the several states. The portion of public domain hitherto set apart by Congress for the endowment of public education amounts to 86,138,473 acres or 134,591 English square miles. This is an area larger than the New England States, New York, New Jersey, Maryland, and Delaware added together, as great as the kingdom of Prussia. The aggregate value of lands and money given for education by the National Government is nearly $300,000,000.^[14] Besides, of the three hundred and fifteen million dollars given by private individuals within the last nine years for educational purposes,^[15] very little has gone to Catholic institutions.

In spite of the liberal national and private assistance granted, the public institutions have, until a short time ago, not been overconspicuous for scholarship, as is openly declared in a number of recent articles on this subject, by Professor Münsterberg of Harvard,^[16] Mr. Carl Snyder,^[17] and Professor Simon Newcomb of the Naval Observatory, Washington.^[18] These writers repeat the complaints which Professor Rowland of Johns Hopkins had uttered more than twenty-five years ago.^[19] Professor Münsterberg, in the said article of the Atlantic Monthly, repudiates the charge that America has no scholarship at all; he affirms that the situation is infinitely better than Europeans suppose it to be – in certain branches of knowledge excellent work has been done. Nevertheless the author is compelled to continue: "And yet I am convinced that the result stands in no proper relation to the achievements of American culture in all the other aspects of national life, and the best American scholars everywhere frankly acknowledge and seriously deplore it. ... American publications cross the ocean in a ridiculously small number; in the world of letters no Columbus has yet discovered the other side of the globe."^[20] Years ago, Dr. McCosh had passed a similar verdict: "The scholarship of the great body of the students is as high in America as in Europe; but they rear in Great Britain and Germany a body of ripe scholars to whom we have nothing equal in the New World."^[21]

Can we, then, be surprised to find that the Catholic institutions could not yet develop productive scholarship? However, as was said by many distinguished writers, productive scholarship is by no means the first requisite for an efficient teacher, much more essential are "intelligence, self-sacrifice, and close attention to lessons given by masters of tried experience." In the next chapter we shall show that the training prescribed by the Ratio Studiorum for the young Jesuit is excellently suited to furnish him with these requisites, and thus to make of him a good teacher.^[22]

 

1. Atlantic Monthly, May 1900, p. 667.
2. Monumenta Paedagogica, p. 156.
3. Ibid., p. 104.
4. Mr. Frederick Whitton, Michigan Military Academy.
5. Atlantic Monthly, October 1900.
6. Fitch, Thomas and Matthew Arnold, p. 69.
7. Lehmann, Erziehung und Erzieher, Berlin, Weidmann, 1901. – Neue Jahrbücher, 1901, vol. VIII, p. 237.
8. Geschichte des gelehrten Unterrichts, pp. 628-629. (2nd ed., vol. II, pp. 389-391.)
9. Die deutschen Universitäten und das Universitäts-Studium, Berlin 1902, pp. 213-222.
10. The Nineteenth Century, October 1900. Italics ours. – As early as 1880 Father Pachtler had enunciated, almost literally, the same principles, in the Stimmen aus Maria-Laach, vol. XIX, p. 167.
11. Pachtler, vol. I, p. 123. See above pp. 198-199.
12. Körting, Handbuch der romanischen Philologie (Leipzig 1896), p. 247.
13. See the remarks of the Right Rev. Th. Conaty in the Catholic University Bulletin, July 1901, p. 305.
14. Education in the United States. Edited by Professor Butler of Columbia University, Albany 1900, pp. VII-VIII.
15. See Educational Review, May 1902, p. 492. In 1901 the educational gifts were not less than 73 million dollars. Mrs. Stanford leads the list with 30½ million to the Leland Stanford Jr. University. In 1900 the private gifts amounted to 48 million, and in 1899 to 63 million dollars.
16. Atlantic Monthly, May 1901.
17. North American Review, Jan. 1902.
18. North American Review, February 1902.
19. See Popular Science Monthly, June 1901.
20. Atlantic Monthly, l. c., p. 615.
21. Life of James McCosh, p. 204.
22. On p. 409 it is said that a sort of "pseudo-productivity" is likely to attend the excessive emphasis laid on scholarship. This statement finds a striking confirmation in the latest Report of the Com. of Ed. (1901, vol. I, pp. 127-128). In a brief article "Higher Education made in Germany," we read among other things: "To deplore the fact that our scholarship has a strong German tinge would be like apologizing for the loins from which we sprang. And yet it is a question if of recent years we have not followed German methods too exclusively and too unintelligently." The Germans themselves often misuse the scientific method on trivial subjects. "Scholarship suffers from an enormous overproduction of monographs in which an ambitious method stretches a thin substance to the cracking point. There is a craze not to prove something valuable, but to prove something." A few remarkable instances of such "scholarly" productions of American graduate students are given in the same article.