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 THE TRUE TEACHER 
 
 AN ADDRESS DELIVERED BT 
 
 EDGAR DUBS SHIMER, Ph.D.,LL.D. 
 
 AT A DINNER GIVEN BY 
 
 01 2X0AASTIK0I 
 
 TO 
 
 HON. THOMAS W. CHURCHILL 
 
 PBESIDENT, BOABD OF EDtTCATION 
 CITY OP NEW TOBK 
 
 APRIL 12, 1913 
 
 Privately Printed 
 
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 (j>t 
 
 I 
 
 COPTRIGHT, 1913, BY 
 
 Edgah Dubs Shimer 
 
 Gtrt 
 
 Mrs. Opal L- Kunx 
 Sept. 13 1934 
 
THE TRUE TEACHER 
 
 Not long ago I was called upon to sign an 
 oflScial document and also to attach to the 
 signature my professional title. I signed 
 my name and then, on the line below, I 
 added the word "Teacher." My wife was 
 looking over my shoulder at the time, and 
 she asked rather quizzically, "Why did 
 you write 'Teacher'.^ Why didn't you say 
 'Superintendent'?" My reply to this was, 
 "Because, to my mind, 'Teacher' is the 
 proudest title that any man can wear — if 
 he deserves it." 
 
 Allow me, therefore, to speak to you from 
 the teacher's point of view, and to set forth 
 as fully as the brief time limit permits, and 
 as simply as I can, what appear to me to be 
 the essential functions in the process of 
 teaching. This will, of course, compel me 
 to speak largely in the abstract. As a 
 counterbalance, I shall think in the concrete 
 and keep in view one teacher in particular. 
 This will hold me steady as I focus atten- 
 tion on separate characteristic qualities. 
 
 [1] 
 
The name of this society, Ot ^x^^^^'^'^'^^^ 
 always reminds me of a great teacher, Doc- 
 tor Frederick Augustus Muhlenberg, and of 
 his regular correspondence in Greek with the 
 famous Felton of Harvard. He gave me 
 this life motto when he found that I had 
 determined to become a teacher, — 
 
 *' Ma/ca/otoi ol tttooxoI tw irvevfiarL, ort avrcov icrrlv 
 7f ^aaiXeia tmv ovpavMV." 
 
 Take that home with you, Ot S;)^oXao-Tt«:oi 
 and translate it into your daily lives. You 
 will find it sound practical philosophy. It 
 is especially serviceable for the teacher who 
 lives it. No teacher who suffers from pride 
 of intellect, or who wraps himself up in robes 
 of infallibility, ever enters into the kingdom 
 of true teaching. "Blessed are the poor in 
 spirit " holds true in every sphere of human 
 activity. 
 
 Granting, however, the correct spiritual 
 attitude of the teacher, what in the last 
 analysis does teaching mean? What are the 
 ends aimed at? Surely this question must be 
 definitely settled before we can properly con- 
 sider the various means to be used. In my 
 judgment, formation rather than informa- 
 tion is the end to be constantly held in view. 
 If this be taken as the controlling principle 
 of method and the paramount standard of 
 practice, all else will naturally organize itself 
 in due season. The outcome of it all will be 
 [2] 
 
character, a sum total of habits and dispo- 
 sitions, — in short, power. 
 
 To teach means to train the sense-impres- 
 sions of a child in such fashion that they will 
 all receive adequate exercise, gradually and 
 naturally become full-fledged sense-percep- 
 tions, and finally pass over into regulated 
 observation. Then to look will mean to see, 
 and to hark will mean to hear. 
 
 I am reminded of a college professor who 
 complained privately that his juniors in 
 geology could not perceive. One day after 
 the study of a certain rock-formation, he 
 took the class on an excursion, during which 
 he led them to an outcropping of the strata 
 under study plainly in view; but they did 
 not tell him what it was. One of the stu- 
 dents, indeed, barked his shin as he crossed 
 the ledge. Of course, he had looked at the 
 rock. Had he seen.'^ Had he perceived .^^ 
 Had he observed.'^ The professor thought 
 not. 
 
 I am fond of telling the following story of 
 my friend, Doctor Edgar Fahs Smith, Pro- 
 vost of the University of Pennsylvania, a 
 famous chemist with a world-wide reputa- 
 tion richly deserved. Doctor Smith is a re- 
 markably successful teacher. One day he 
 stopped short in a lesson and said, "Young 
 gentlemen, allow me to say that you fail to 
 perceive. You look and perhaps you see; 
 but you do not truly perceive, because you 
 
 [3] 
 
do not regulate your perceptions; that is, 
 you do not yet observe." 
 
 Thereupon, he took from his cabinet a 
 large beaker and set it on the table in front 
 of the students. Into this beaker he poured 
 from various bottles a mixture of chemicals, 
 — the vilest concoction to the taste that he 
 could compound, but one that would not 
 stain. 
 
 "Now, gentlemen, watch me very close- 
 ly," said he, "and then do exactly as you 
 see me do." 
 
 At this, the Doctor slowly and ostenta- 
 tiously thrust his forefinger deep down into 
 the mixture, withdrew it just as slowly, 
 shook off the last suspended drop, and then 
 rapidly put his middle finger into his 
 mouth for a moment. 
 
 The students in company followed the 
 Doctor's example, as they fondly thought. 
 When they had got through with spitting 
 and sputtering and the making of wry 
 faces, the Doctor quietly remarked, "It is 
 just as I told you, gentlemen. You do not 
 yet truly perceive. If you had observed 
 what I did (and here he began to repeat the 
 performance) you would have noticed that 
 the finger which I put into my mouth was 
 not the one which I put into the beaker." 
 
 Sense-training, you see, means far more 
 than the mere training of sense, the mere 
 response to stimulus. Good sense-training 
 [4] 
 
lends itself indeed to common-sense, a rare 
 quality, yet one easily understood to be 
 the power to refrain from acting on mere 
 hearsay, to wait until all the evidence is in 
 along every line of perception, and not to 
 shoot off at half-cock upon the report of a 
 single sense. The world is full enough of 
 single-sensers. 
 
 To teach means primarily to develop 
 sense-reactions and to exalt them into con- 
 ceptions. To that end it means to give 
 power to fixate the attention, and to hold 
 it fixed as steadily as nature will allow; that 
 is, to adjust it and readjust it easily in 
 true concentration. Without such natural 
 flitting to and fro, we have only the fixed 
 attention of a monkey, an idiot, or a mono- 
 maniac, — the fixed idea of a hypnote. 
 
 To teach means to train the memory so 
 that it may become highly retentive, swift- 
 ly reproductive, and faithfully recognitive. 
 ''' Tenaciter, faciliter, fideliter'' is the Latin 
 motto for a good memory. The great mys- 
 tery here is not retention, nor reproduction 
 whether direct or indirect, but the inexpli- 
 cable elemental power of recognition. How 
 do we come to know that the memory trace 
 revivified is like the sense-impression now 
 appealing to us for the first time? The two 
 have never before been together in our 
 experience. Man may well stand in awe 
 before such an inherency! 
 [5] 
 
To teach means to give wings to the im- 
 agination and to train it how to fly. It is 
 natural and right for a child to revel in a 
 world of intensely vivid images, both con- 
 gruous and incongruous. Profound insight 
 and loving sympathy are needed to keep 
 young Icarus from flying too near the sun. 
 To teach means to regulate the flight, so 
 that from the realm of fancy the child may 
 pass out of the fairy, myth, and legendary 
 age into constructive imagination with ac- 
 cess of power gained by exercise, and not 
 with loss of power because his wings were 
 clipped to make him stay within the bounds 
 of a too narrow curriculum. 
 
 To teach means to make the mind acute 
 in detecting differences ; and at the same 
 time to make it keen in tracing likenesses, 
 so that it shall not be lost in the multi- 
 plicity of particulars, but be able to rise 
 above them to a general truth. The child 
 learns to take apart and to put together. 
 He learns to see the parts in the whole and 
 the whole in its parts at the same time. 
 This exercise in discrimination and assim- 
 ilation constitutes comparison. The man 
 who can discover true relations in making 
 broad comparisons is the man whose judg- 
 ments are sound and safe for continuity of 
 thought in reasoning. No matter how ir- 
 refragable the logic may be, a conclusion is 
 never stronger than the major premise. 
 [6] 
 
To teach means more than merely to 
 equip the intellect. It means to rouse the 
 feelings and to refine them, to convert selfish 
 emotions into social sensibilities, to make 
 the child feel truly that beside him as a 
 single self there sits a larger self, that he 
 has his rights but that his classmates have 
 theirs too, and finally that his conduct is 
 not correct unless it can be made universal. 
 In this realm the teacher's example is su- 
 preme. I have wondered whether Emer- 
 son was thinking of his teacher when he said, 
 *'How can I hear what you say, when what 
 you are is thundering in my ears?" 
 
 To teach means to give intellectual illu- 
 mination to the impulses, all of which are 
 blind in themselves, and to convert these 
 emotional outbreaks into desires worthy to 
 become the core of motive. Every human 
 being makes his own motive. He desires, 
 deliberates, and chooses among the ends 
 which he himself entertains. There is no 
 such thing as external motive. A man's 
 motives are his own created ideals. He 
 cannot evade the responsibility of free 
 choice in selecting the one to act upon. 
 
 To teach means most importantly, there- 
 fore, how to convert non-voluntary or at- 
 tracted attention into voluntary attention, 
 to bring about a full, voluntary self-control 
 and thereby to establish selfhood. 
 
 With such a conception of teaching, it is 
 [7] 
 
not too bold, I take it, to say that all along 
 the line the pupil will in the very nature of 
 things build ideals. Here he will take an 
 idea, there an idea, and elsewhere perhaps 
 but part of an idea. These he will fuse in 
 his imagination into an ideal. Goethe's 
 dictum that the imagination is the prepara- 
 tory school for thought comes true. He will 
 glimpse and reach after the highest ideal of 
 the intellect, namely, — truth. Amid all the 
 diversities of his manifold emotional experi- 
 ences, he will stretch his soul with longing 
 toward the highest ideal of the emotions, 
 namely, — beauty, or harmony amid diver- 
 sity. From his daily battle to keep an im- 
 pulse at heel, and his joy over conquest of 
 sin (perhaps in imitation of some hero, or 
 for love of his mother), he reaches after the 
 highest ideal of morals, of the will, namely, — 
 goodness. 
 
 But the superstructure of his character 
 rises still higher. He now has new footing. 
 He makes the supreme effort of the human 
 mind. He idealizes his ideals, and apotheo- 
 sizes truth, beauty, and goodness into the 
 grander, all-comprehending ideal — God. No 
 true teaching, from my point of view, can 
 be done except it be with the conscious- 
 ness on the part of the teacher of the rela- 
 tion that exists between him and the Great 
 SupremeBeingwhom he worships, — thatcon- 
 sciousness to be expressed in daily conduct. 
 [8] 
 
A teacher's power in the last resort de- 
 pends upon what he is. Therefore he should 
 in largest measure possess the qualities he 
 seeks to develop. He should assuredly be a 
 student, with a wide range, yet able to say, 
 in all modesty, — 
 
 "I am a part of all that I have met; 
 Yet all experience is an arch where-thro' 
 Gleams that untravell'd world, whose margin 
 
 fades 
 Forever and forever when I move. 
 
 * * * yearning in desire 
 
 To follow knowledge, like a sinking star. 
 Beyond the utmost bounds of human 
 thought." 
 
 The teacher must first himself know 
 how the soul gropes out of darkness into 
 light before he can guide another. Such 
 a teacher I have had in mind to-night. I 
 have repeatedly gauged his powers as he 
 taught with fine tact, winning personality 
 and sure success. He was a constant, care- 
 ful, and reflective student. He made a full 
 surrender of all his powers to the divine 
 glory of teaching. The memory of his re- 
 markable persistence brings to mind the 
 words of Faustus, — 
 
 "Nature that framed us of four elements 
 Warring within our breasts for regiment 
 Doth teach us all to have aspiring minds; 
 
 [9] 
 
Our souls whose faculties can comprehend 
 The wondrous architecture of the world, 
 And measure every wandering planet's course, 
 Still climbing after knowledge infinite, 
 And always moving as the restless spheres. 
 Will us to wear ourselves and never rest." 
 
 The soul of the true teacher is ever climb- 
 ing after knowledge infinite. He wills to 
 wear himself and never rest. 
 
 Gentlemen, I have been speaking of 
 Thomas W. Churchill. For many years 
 he and I were teachers of Oratory and 
 English Literature in Evening High School. 
 Similar tastes and aspirations, common joys 
 and tribulations, brought us into close fel- 
 lowship, heart answering heart and friend- 
 ship ripening with affection. I know this 
 man well. You could have given me no 
 finer subject for discourse. Most of you 
 know him as the President of the Board of 
 Education of the City of New York. I, 
 too, know him as President and as teacher to 
 teacher; but I also know him as man to man. 
 
 I have for some time been deeply inter- 
 ested in literature for children. Let me tell 
 you a story. 
 
 One night when all the engines in the 
 Sunnyside freight yard had gone to bed, 
 the superintendent found that three heavy 
 freight cars had been left where they did 
 not belong. He wanted to have them taken 
 [10] 
 
over a little rise to the other side of the 
 yard, so he went to the round-house to ask 
 one of the engines to help him. As the haul 
 was heavy, of course he went to the biggest 
 engine first and said, "No. 26, won't you 
 help me get some freight cars over the hill.^^ " 
 
 "No, I won't," said No. 26. "I am too 
 tired. Let me alone," 
 
 Then he went to the next biggest engine 
 and said, "No. 54, won't you help me get 
 some freight cars over the hill.^^" 
 
 "No, I won't," said No. 54. "I am too 
 sleepy. Let me alone." 
 
 The next engine said, "Let No. 20 do it." 
 
 Every one of the big engines had some 
 excuse and wouldn't help. As the disap- 
 pointed superintendent was just about to 
 leave the round-house he saw a pony-engine 
 standing near the door. He had never 
 thought to ask this pony -engine for help, 
 but now he asked, half doubtfully, "Do 
 you think, pony-engine, that you could help 
 me get some freight cars over the hill.'^" 
 
 "I think I can," replied the pony-engine. 
 
 "Come along then," said the superin- 
 tendent. 
 
 Soon the pony-engine had hitched himself 
 to the cars and began to puff as he strained 
 at the heavy load. Slowly and painfully he 
 dragged the cars up the rise. You could 
 hear him say in thin tones, with long drawn- 
 out but determined utterance, "/ — think — / 
 
 [11] 
 
— can. / — think — I — can." But just as 
 
 soon as he got over the rise he fairly 
 chortled, "7 thought I could! I thought I 
 could! I thought I could!'' 
 
 It means great things to have a proper 
 faith in yourself, whoever and whatever you 
 may be. "That which we are, we are," says 
 Tennyson. Not until a man has faith 
 enough in himself to be the man that he is 
 can he look the world squarely in the face 
 and say, "lam. What I am, that I am." 
 
 When a man can truly say, "I am," and 
 not till then, he can take the next step 
 and just as firmly say, "I can." The old 
 Roman was right when he said "Sum ergo 
 possum.'' 
 
 If a man can say, "I am, therefore I 
 can," he has a consciousness that easily 
 passes over into conscience. He becomes 
 conscientious. For him opportunity means 
 duty. As soon as duty dawns he says, "I 
 ought." 
 
 Now comes the last step in the series. 
 Let a man first be able to say truly, "I am," 
 and believe in it with all his might. Then 
 he can safely say, "I can," for he wdll have 
 a just knowledge of the limitations of his 
 power. Now let him consider the moral 
 judgments involved in conscience and he 
 will progress to "I ought." 
 
 Only by advancing through these three 
 vestibules of spiritual activity, "I am, I 
 [12] 
 
can, I ought," is it possible for any man to 
 enter into the temple of the categorical im- 
 perative, and be able to say, of himself and 
 for himself, "I will." Every mortal who 
 wishes to possess himself must be able to 
 say, "I am, I can, I ought, and I will." 
 
 That is the man, Thomas W. Churchill. 
 Of him it will remain true at all times, 
 though he may be made weak by time and 
 fate, that he is strong to will, to strive, to 
 seek, to find, and not to yield. 
 
 Gentlemen, let us rise and greet our guest 
 of honor, Thomas W. Churchill. 
 

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