Page:The Teacher's Practical Philosophy.djvu/23

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INTRODUCTORY
11

tions of one or more years at least, regular and unintermitting. He can thus reiterate, habitualize—"rub in," so to say —the truths and practises, of which he aims to make the pupil something of a master. In view of the immense loss of effective influence which comes from parting with this advantage, I should favor some rearrangement of our public-school system, especially in the large schools of our cities, which should, so far as possible, keep the same pupils under the same teachers for several years in succession. As it is now, too much of the work of education resembles the work of legislation; and this—to borrow a figure of speech from Milton—consists in large measure of "hatching lies with the heat of legislation," and then killing off the brood hatched by the last legislature.

And, finally, the teacher, if he is successful, may secure some of those most important domestic and social auxiliaries of the emotional kind, such as respect, confidence, and even tender affection. It was a saying of Confucius, which remains much more in force in the Orient than with us, and of which one of my Japanese pupils on our final parting reminded me, that "the relations of reverence and love betwen the pupil and his teacher stand next to those of the son to his father."

Such, then, is education as it is committed to the profession of the teacher; and such are some of the