The Evolution of Dodd | Page 9

adopted by multitudes of teachers East, West, North, and South.
I am well aware that there are teachers, plenty of them, whose spirits will rebel against the above insinuation, so, a word with you, ladies and gentlemen.
The system used by Miss Stone may have worked well enough in some other hands, but it should be remembered that it is not a system that can educate our children. Nor is it a system--any set of rules and formularies--that can make our schools, any more than it is forms and ceremonies that make our churches. These may all be well enough in their proper places, but there is nothing, absolutely nothing, in them, per se. It is the righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees in the one case, and the dry bones of pedagogy in the other,
The evil arises, in the schools as in the churches, from believing and acting as if there were something in the system itself.
If human nature were a fixed quantity, if any two children were alike, or anywhere nearly alike, if a certain act done for a child always brought forth the same result, then it might be possible to form an absolute system of pedagogy, as, with fixed elements, there is formed the science of chemistry. But the quick atoms of spirit that manifest their affinities under the eye of that alchemist, the teacher, are far more subtle than the elements that go into the crucible in any other of Nature's laboratories.
A chemist will distill for you the odor of a blown rose, or catch and hold captive the breath of the morning meadow, and do it always just the same, and ever with like results. But there is no art by which anything analogous can be wrought in human life. Here a new element comes in that entirely changes the economy of nature in this regard. The individuality of every human soul is this new factor, and because of it, of its infinite variability--because no two atoms that are cast into the crucible of life are ever the same, or can be wrought into character by the same means--because of this, no fixed rules can ever be laid down for evolving a definite result, in the realm of soul, by never-varying means.
And this is where Miss Stone was at fault. She had put her faith in a system, a mill through which all children should be run, and in passing through which each child should receive the same treatment, and from which they should all emerge, stamped with the seal of the institution, "uniformity."
This was the prime idea that lay at the foundation of Miss Stone's system of training--to make children uniform. This very thing that God and Nature have set themselves against--no two faces, or forms, or statures; no two minds, or hearts, or souls being alike, as designed by the Creator, and as fashioned by Nature's hand--to make all these alike was the aim of the system under which "Dodd" began to be evolved, and with which he began to clash at once.
The boy was much brighter than most of the class in which he was placed. The peculiarity of his own nature, and his surroundings before entering school, made him a subject for some special notice, something more than the "regular thing" prescribed by the rules. Yet this he did not get, and by so much as he did not, by so much he failed to receive his proper due at this period of his life.
And this is a fault in any system, or in any teacher who works exclusively by any card other than his or her own good sense, as applied to each individual case.
It was not so much the means that Miss Stone tried upon "Dodd" that were at fault, as it was the way in which she applied them and the end she strove to reach by their use. And for you, my dear, who are walking over the same road as the one just reported as traversed by Miss Stone, look the way over and see how it is with you in these matters. And do not content yourself, either, by merely saying, "But what are we going to do about it?" Bless your dear life, that is the very thing that is set for you to find out, and as you hope for success here and a reward hereafter, don't give up till you have answered the question.
Neither can any one but yourself answer this question. The experience of others may be of some help to you, but the problem--and you have a new problem every time you have a new pupil--is only to be solved by yourself. Look over the history of the Chart Class, over whose silly mumblings this boy was dragged till disgust took