What’s that you say?—Oh, but surely not before she has had a hearing!—the worst criminal deserves that much consideration. I beg of you to let me speak one moment in her behalf.—Ah, thank you, my friends.
(Sister, you had a tight squeak1 just then! If it hadn’t been for my presence of mind and my habitual2 coolness in the presence of infuriated mobs, I hate to think what would have happened.—And now let me see: what can I say in your behalf? H’m.... H’m....)
My friends, this unhappy woman (for we shall centre our attention on the female of the species) is more sinned against than sinning. Reflect! The status of women in the United States has changed in the last fifty years. Modern industry has almost utterly3 destroyed the old pioneer home with its partnership-marriage; ambitious young men no longer have an economic need for capable[Pg 28] women-partners; women have lost their wonted economic value as potential helpers, and their capacity for motherhood appears to the largest section of young manhood in the aspect of a danger rather than a blessing4. Women have, to be sure, acquired a new value, in the eyes of a smaller class of economically “arrived” men, as a sign of their “arrival”—that is, they are desired as advertisements of their husbands’ economic status. In one sense, the task of demonstrating the extent of a husband’s income is easier than the pioneer task of helping5 take care of a farm and raising a houseful of babies; but, after all, such a career does require either natural talent or a high degree of training in the graceful6 habits of conspicuous7 idleness and honorific extravagance. And, whether it is that the vast majority of women spurned8 such a career as an essentially9 immoral10 one, or whether they were not really up to its requirements, or whether the demand was found to be more than met by the hordes11 of candidates turned out yearly by the boarding-schools—whatever the reason, the fact remains12 that a large number of women began to see the necessity and to conceive the desirability of some career other than marriage. But industrial evolution, which had destroyed their former opportunities, had failed to make any considerable[Pg 29] or at least any decent room for them in the industrial scheme. Most particularly was this true for the young women of the middle class. They were unable to go into the professions or the respectable trades, and unwilling13 (for excellent reasons) to enter the factories; they were given no opportunity to learn how to do anything—they were (quite against their will, but inevitably) condemned14 to profound ignorance of the most important things in the world—work and love; and so, naturally, they became Teachers.
The world did not want them, and so they stayed out of the world, in that drab, quasi-religious edifice15, the School Building, and prepared others to go into the world....
Good Heavens! do you suppose for a minute, if this unfortunate woman had known enough about Anything in Particular to get a respectable job outside, that she would have stayed in there to teach Everything in General?[1] Do you suppose she wants to be a Teacher? Do you suppose she likes pretending to be adept16 in a dozen difficult subjects at once, inflicting17 an impossible ideal[Pg 30] of “order” upon the forty restless children whom her weary, amateur, underpaid efforts at instruction have failed to interest, spending her days in the confronting of an impossible task and her nights in the “correcting” of an endless series of written proofs of her failure—and, on top of that, being denied most of her human rights? The munition-factory girls at least had their fling when the day’s work was over; but she is expected to be a Vestal. In some places she can’t get married without losing her job; in New York, if she is married, she can’t have a baby! No—it is her misfortune, not her fault, that she is what she is.
In fact, I think that if we could have managed to keep the war going a little longer, she would have pretty much abolished herself. Abdication19 is becoming popular, and she among all the monarchs20 is not the least uncomfortable and restricted and hedged in by useless divinity. Her abdication will be as disturbing an event as the Russian Revolution. The Russians were accustomed to their Czar; but they just had to learn to get along without him. And perhaps a similar lesson is in store for us....
You find it a little difficult to imagine what School would be like without Teachers? Well,[Pg 31] for one thing, it would be more like the rest of the world than it is now—and that, we agreed, was what we wanted. Where else, indeed, except in School, do you find Teachers? The rest of the world manages to get along without them very well. Perhaps it is merely a superstition21 that they are needed in School! Let us inquire into the matter.
What do people in the outside world do when they want to learn something? They go to somebody who knows about it, and ask him. They do not go to somebody who is reputed to know about everything—except, when they are very young, to their parents: and they speedily become disillusioned22 about that variety of omniscience23. They go to somebody who might reasonably be expected to know about the particular thing they are interested in. When a man buys a motor-car, he does not say to himself: “Where can I find somebody who can teach me how to run a motor-car and dance the tango and predict a rise on the stock-market?” He does not look in the telephone directory under T. He just gets an experienced driver to teach him. And when the driver tells him that this is the self-starter, and proceeds to start the car with it, a confidence is established which makes him inclined to believe[Pg 32] all he can understand of what he is presently told about the mysterious functions of the carburetor. He does not even inquire if the man has taken vows24 of celibacy25. He just pays attention and asks questions and tries to do the thing himself, until he learns.
But this case, of course, assumes an interest of the pupil in the subject, a willingness and even a desire to learn about it, a feeling that the matter is of some importance to himself. And come to think of it, these motives26 are generally present in the learning that goes on in the outside world. It is only in School that the pupil is expected to be unwilling to learn.
When you were a child, and passed the door of the village blacksmith shop, and looked in, day after day, you saw the blacksmith heating a piece of iron red hot in the furnace, or twisting it deftly27 with his pincers, or dropping it sizzling into a tub of water, or paring a horse’s hoofs28, or hammering in the silvery nails with swift blows; you admired his skill, and stood in awe29 of his strength; and if he had offered to let you blow the bellows30 for him and shown you how to twist a red-hot penny, that would have been a proud moment. It would also have been an educational one. But suppose there[Pg 33] had been a new shop set up in the town, and when you looked in at the open door you saw a man at work painting a picture; and suppose a bell rang just then, and the man stopped painting right in the middle of a brush-stroke, and commenced to read aloud “How They Brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix”; and suppose when he was half way through, the bell rang again, and he said, “We will go on with that tomorrow,” and commenced to chisel31 the surface of a piece of marble; and then, after a little, somewhat exhaustedly32, started in to play “The Rock of Ages” on a flute33, interrupting the tune18 to order you to stand up straight and not whisper to the little boy beside you. There’s no doubt what you would think of him; you would know perfectly34 well that he was crazy; people don’t do things in that way anywhere in the world, except in school. And even if he had assured you that painting and poetry, sculpture and music, were later in your life going to be matters of the deepest importance and interest, and that you should start in now with the determination of becoming proficient35 in the arts, it would not have helped much. Not very much.
It’s nonsense that children do not want to learn. Everybody wants to learn. And everybody wants[Pg 34] to teach. And the process is going on all the time. All that is necessary is to put a person who knows something—really knows it—within the curiosity-range of some one who doesn’t know it: the process commences at once. It is almost irresistible36. In the interest of previous engagements one has to tear one’s self away from all sorts of opportunities to learn things which may never be of the slightest use but which nevertheless are alluring37 precisely38 because one does not know them.
People talk about children being hard to teach, and in the next breath deplore39 the facility with which they acquire the “vices.” That seems strange. It takes as much patience, energy and faithful application to become proficient in a vice40 as it does to learn mathematics. Yet consider how much more popular poker41 is than equations! But did a schoolboy ever drop in on a group of teachers who had sat up all night parsing42, say, a sentence in Henry James, or seeing who could draw the best map of the North Atlantic States? And when you come to think of it, it seems extremely improbable that any little boy ever learned to drink beer by seeing somebody take a tablespoonful once a day.
I think that if there were no teachers—no[Pg 35] hastily and superficially trained Vestals who were supposed to know everything—but just ordinary human beings who knew passionately43 and thoroughly44 one thing (but you’d be surprised to find what a lot of other knowledge that would incidentally comprise!) and who had the patience to show little boys and girls how to do that thing—we might get along without Immaculate Omniscience pretty well. Of course, we’d have to pay them more, because they could get other jobs out in the larger world; and besides, you couldn’t expect to get somebody who knows how to do something, for the price you are accustomed to pay those who only know how to teach everything.
Nor need the change necessarily be abrupt45. It could probably be effected with considerable success by firing all the teachers at the beginning of the summer vacations, and engaging their services as human beings for the next year. Many of them would find no difficulty at all in readjusting themselves....
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1
squeak
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| n.吱吱声，逃脱；v.（发出）吱吱叫，侥幸通过；（俚）告密 | |
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2
habitual
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| adj.习惯性的；通常的，惯常的 | |
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3
utterly
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| adv.完全地，绝对地 | |
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4
blessing
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| n.祈神赐福；祷告；祝福，祝愿 | |
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5
helping
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| n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的，辅助的 | |
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6
graceful
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| adj.优美的，优雅的；得体的 | |
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7
conspicuous
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| adj.明眼的，惹人注目的；炫耀的，摆阔气的 | |
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8
spurned
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| v.一脚踢开，拒绝接受( spurn的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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9
essentially
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| adv.本质上，实质上，基本上 | |
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10
immoral
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| adj.不道德的，淫荡的，荒淫的，有伤风化的 | |
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hordes
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| n.移动着的一大群( horde的名词复数 )；部落 | |
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12
remains
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| n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹 | |
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13
unwilling
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| adj.不情愿的 | |
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14
condemned
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| adj. 被责难的, 被宣告有罪的 动词condemn的过去式和过去分词 | |
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15
edifice
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| n.宏伟的建筑物(如宫殿，教室) | |
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adept
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| adj.老练的，精通的 | |
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17
inflicting
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| 把…强加给，使承受，遭受( inflict的现在分词 ) | |
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18
tune
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| n.调子；和谐，协调；v.调音，调节，调整 | |
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abdication
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| n.辞职；退位 | |
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monarchs
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| 君主，帝王( monarch的名词复数 ) | |
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21
superstition
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| n.迷信，迷信行为 | |
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disillusioned
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| a.不再抱幻想的，大失所望的，幻想破灭的 | |
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23
omniscience
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| n.全知，全知者，上帝 | |
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24
vows
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| 誓言( vow的名词复数 )； 郑重宣布，许愿 | |
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celibacy
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| n.独身(主义) | |
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motives
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| n.动机，目的( motive的名词复数 ) | |
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27
deftly
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| adv.灵巧地，熟练地，敏捷地 | |
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28
hoofs
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| n.（兽的）蹄，马蹄( hoof的名词复数 )v.（兽的）蹄，马蹄( hoof的第三人称单数 ) | |
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29
awe
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| n.敬畏，惊惧；vt.使敬畏，使惊惧 | |
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30
bellows
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| n.风箱；发出吼叫声，咆哮（尤指因痛苦）( bellow的名词复数 )；（愤怒地）说出（某事），大叫v.发出吼叫声，咆哮（尤指因痛苦）( bellow的第三人称单数 )；（愤怒地）说出（某事），大叫 | |
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31
chisel
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| n.凿子；v.用凿子刻，雕，凿 | |
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32
exhaustedly
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| adv.exhausted（精疲力竭的）的变形 | |
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flute
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| n.长笛；v.吹笛 | |
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34
perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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35
proficient
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| adj.熟练的，精通的；n.能手，专家 | |
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36
irresistible
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| adj.非常诱人的，无法拒绝的，无法抗拒的 | |
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alluring
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| adj.吸引人的，迷人的 | |
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38
precisely
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| adv.恰好，正好，精确地，细致地 | |
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39
deplore
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| vt.哀叹，对...深感遗憾 | |
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40
vice
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| n.坏事；恶习；[pl.]台钳，老虎钳；adj.副的 | |
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41
poker
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| n.扑克；vt.烙制 | |
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42
parsing
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| n.分[剖]析，分解v.从语法上描述或分析（词句等）( parse的现在分词 ) | |
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43
passionately
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| ad.热烈地，激烈地 | |
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44
thoroughly
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| adv.完全地，彻底地，十足地 | |
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45
abrupt
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| adj.突然的，意外的；唐突的，鲁莽的 | |
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