UC-NRLF 
 
EDITED BY HENRY SUZZALLO 
 
 PRESIDENT OF THK UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON, SEATTLE 
 
 THE TEACHER AS ARTIST 
 
 AN ESSAY IN EDUCATION AS AN 
 iESTHETIG PROCESS 
 
 BY 
 
 HERMAN HARRELL HORNE, Ph.D. 
 
 PROFESSOR OF THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION AND 
 THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY, NEW YORK UNIVERSITY 
 
 HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 
 
 BOSTON, NEW YORK AND CHICAGO 
 
HT 
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1917, BY HERMAN HARRELL HORNB 
 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 
 
 iDtlCATION DEPT^^ 
 
 CAMBRIDGE . MASSACHUSETTS 
 U . S . A 
 
PREFACE 
 
 In the following pages the first essay raises the 
 question whether the art of teaching may in a 
 measure become one of the fine arts, and answers 
 in the affirmative, under certain conditions. 
 What these conditions are the second essay at- 
 tempts to set forth. Though the aesthetic experi- 
 ence is complex and difficult to analyze, I have 
 endeavored to be as intelligible as the subject 
 itseK allows, having in mind busy teachers who 
 have neither the time nor the inclination to 
 puzzle over unnecessary difficulties. 
 
 That the standard here set up for the teaching 
 process is high, perhaps too high for general at- 
 tainment yet awhile, is admitted; yet we may 
 steer by the stars. My idealistic writings on edu- 
 cation have been criticized for lifting the stand- 
 ards too high, "putting the teacher on a pedes- 
 tal," and seeing philosophical significance in 
 "mere pedagogy." The charge is well founded 
 iii 
 
 Ml.74793 
 
PREFACE 
 
 — unless you who read, having the eternal 
 perfection in your hearts, prove otherwise by 
 your beautiful work in shaping individuals and 
 society. 
 
 H. H. H. 
 
 Leonia, New Jersey 
 October 1916 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 Editor's Introduction vii 
 
 I. Is TEAcmNG A Fine Art? i 
 
 II. The Shriving op an Inartistic Teacher . 39 
 
 References 59 
 
 OUTUNE 61 
 
EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION 
 
 There are many teachers who are good artisans; 
 there are only a few who are fine artists. All 
 teachers who are successful enough to hold their 
 appointments possess the useful power to trans- 
 form human nature so that it is better informed, 
 more moral, and more effectively active than 
 before. But the process by which these valuable 
 results are brought about may have been more or 
 less mechanical and quite unpleasing to the 
 pupil. The pupil himself, well informed, thought- 
 ful, and dynamic, may not be a wholesome and 
 attractive personality. The process and the 
 product of the finely artistic teacher are vastly 
 different. He teaches, he is inspiring and genial, 
 • and those who study and labor under his guid- 
 ance do so with spontaneity and affection. The 
 men and women he rears are more than strong 
 and forceful, learned and skillful; they are har- 
 moniously developed personalities, wholesome 
 and charming, for whom "the world steps aside" 
 vii 
 
EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION 
 
 r 
 
 more than half the time. The fine artist in the 
 classroom differs from the mere artisan in more 
 things than degree of ability. There is a differ- 
 ence both of aim and of method. 
 
 There was an older type of education that 
 made of every man it touched the scholar and 
 gentleman. Too often our newer t)^e of school 
 training makes only the scholar and omits the 
 gentleman. It is the blend of the two at which 
 the truly artistic teacher aims. However narrow 
 the field of study may seem to be, this master 
 pursues his specialty with a reverent regard for 
 relationships and settings. He gives a liberal 
 education in a single course. His treatment is 
 specialized but never narrowing. Into the class- 
 room he brings a character as well as a mind. 
 He conveys both values and truths. In him 
 there is no forgetfulness of the man, the gentle- 
 man, in whom the trained mind is to reside. 
 While his direct and obvious business is to make 
 a thinker, he never forgets the more important 
 obligation of training character. His objective 
 is nothing less than the making of a wholesome, 
 attractive, and admirable personality, which 
 viii 
 
EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION 
 
 reveals no inconsistency, no lack of balance, no 
 want of charm. His artistic and pedagogic aim 
 is to produce a beautiful character. 
 
 As the ends toward which we mould human 
 nature differ, so the processes of achievement 
 vary. The fine artist at teaching has a technique 
 different from that of any ordinary teacher. To 
 begin with he has a keen regard for the individu- 
 ality of his products. He handles each boy and 
 girl with a particular care which takes into 
 account personal traits. For this reason he is 
 versatile in the ways and means of his craft. His 
 teaching life seldom seems to repeat itself. 
 Every moment, every topic, every human mood 
 is a new challenge to his resourcefulness. His is 
 a life of adventure, in which there is nothing of 
 the dull repetition, the monotony, and the 
 routine of which so many instructors complaiu. 
 Each youth is still true to himself when such a 
 teacher is done with his instruction. The educa- 
 tional machine, with its uniform disregard for va- 
 riations in materials and its passion for making 
 all human units copies of one another, cannot 
 exist in a company of artistic teachers. 
 ix 
 
EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION 
 
 The teacher of whom we speak is a sym- 
 pathetic interpreter. An idealist he is, trying to 
 realize his ideals in human substance; but he has 
 a fine regard for what is human. The acade- 
 mician and the pedant are unlovely products 
 in his eyes. He tolerates human imperfection 
 rather than wrench youth too far from its in- 
 stinctive bases. His is the art, not of making a 
 new kind of man, but of improving the one he 
 finds. He accentuates whatever virtues he finds, 
 and softens the weaknesses, leaving in our pres- 
 ence an old and familiar friend whom we find 
 more admirable and companionable than be- 
 fore. There is something finely tolerant about 
 such a worker in human stuff. He is as far as can 
 be from that fanaticism which would overpower 
 every pupil's soul and make it like the school- 
 master's. 
 
 The artist's ways are interesting. He keeps his 
 students open-eyed. He is as sure of purpose as 
 any old-fashioned martinet, but he does not 
 drive. He stimulates, he suggests, he exemplifies. 
 His methods are patient and roundabout, but 
 the speed he puts in his pupils more than com- 
 
EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION 
 
 pensates for the length of the route taken. His 
 workshop in mid-process does not seem as tidy 
 as one might expect; but his job is the neatest in 
 the end. The children are forever making mis- 
 takes as they try themselves out. The artist- 
 teacher is unabashed regardless of the number of 
 visitors who see the incompleteness of each step. 
 He will get the perfect result he wants in the 
 end — a man or a woman poised, thoughtful, 
 kindly, and sure. He will have given his own love 
 of high values, clear thinking, and forceful action 
 to his wards. Against any imperfection he has 
 left with them, he has given them the power to 
 grow forever. His creativeness has been dynamic. 
 The teacher who sets out upon the duty of 
 teaching young men and women the fine art of 
 living, must himself be an artist at living. Cul- 
 ture is his scholarship. In addition he must be an 
 artist at transmitting life. Personality is the 
 instrument for conveying his message. Let every 
 aspiring teacher who is not afraid of a difficult 
 and a subtle task be a student of fine artistry. 
 Its general laws will offer more than one rich 
 suggestion. 
 
THE TEACHER AS ARTIST 
 
 IS TEACHING A FINE ART? 
 
 Teaching as a physical process 
 
 That teaching is a physical process, when re- 
 garded from a certain point of view, is admitted. 
 Teachers make use of their own bodies, of the 
 bodies of their pupils, of sound waves, of ether 
 vibrations, of schoolrooms, books, and appara- 
 tus. Indeed, the physical aspects of good teach- 
 ing have come into great prominence recently in 
 the way of school hygiene, medical inspection, 
 dietetics, and care for heating, lighting, ventila- 
 tion, as well as exterior and interior decoration. 
 
 Teaching as an intellectual process 
 
 That teaching is an intellectual process also, 
 none will care to deny. Indeed, from the modem 
 historical standpoint, teaching since the Renais- 
 sance in Europe has been mainly an intellectual 
 
THE TEACHER AS ARTIST 
 
 process, with emphasis placed on the getting of 
 knowledge, first of the humanities, then of the 
 sciences, and finally of society. From this stand- 
 point "to teach" is synon)anous with to instruct, 
 to inform, to communicate or awaken ideas. To 
 regard the end of teaching as either knowledge, 
 or the ability to think, or both, is to emphasize 
 the intellectual element involved in it. 
 
 Teaching as a personal process 
 
 That teaching is also a moral, a personal, a 
 spiritual process, we must also admit, for the 
 teacher is an influential person and the pupils are 
 susceptible persons, and in teaching there is an 
 interchange of personality between teacher and 
 taught, as well as the exchange of ideas. The 
 elusive and intangible and not the least impor- 
 tant results of teaching belong to it as a personal 
 process. Where professionalism enters teaching, 
 this personal aspect enters least. 
 
 Is teaching also an cesthetic process? 
 
 But is teaching also an aesthetic process? Or, 
 is it capable of becoming such? That is our pres- 
 
 2 
 
IS TEACHING A FINE ART? 
 
 ent question. It may be admitted at the outset 
 that often, perhaps usually, teaching is neither a 
 thing of beauty nor a joy forever. 
 
 We are not now concerned to ask whether 
 teaching essentially is a physical, or intellectual, 
 or personal, or aesthetic process, — perhaps it is 
 essentially a personal process, — but only to ask 
 whether teaching is, at least potentially, an 
 aesthetic process. 
 
 De Quincey^s Essay on Murder 
 
 The most humorous and the most ironical of 
 the writings of Thomas De Quincey is his Essay 
 on Murder considered as one of the Fine Arts. De 
 Quincey's serio-comic genius could no doubt have 
 succeeded equally well with our topic. If murder 
 may be regarded as a fine art, we may imagine 
 him asking, why not teaching even more so? For 
 the murderer can at most destroy only the body, 
 but the teacher can maim, aye destroy, even the 
 soul. But, lacking the genius of De Quincey, we 
 must omit the comic element in the treatment 
 and consider only seriously the possibility of 
 teaching being or even becoming a fine art. In 
 3 
 
THE TEACHER AS ARTIST 
 
 his fascinating discussion De Quincey proceeded 
 by examples, considering different instances of 
 murder from the aesthetic standpoint; but our 
 serious mode of treatment will require us to pro- 
 ceed by principles. The discussion will lead us 
 into several matters concerning art, in relation to 
 each of which we can test teaching as a candidate 
 for membership in the circle of the arts. 
 
 The nature of art 
 
 To begin with, what is art? Professor Tufts ^ 
 defines art as " any activity or production involv- 
 ing intelligence and skill." This definition per- 
 mits us to contrast art with three other things, 
 namely, unskillful production, science, and a 
 work of nature. 
 
 Unskilled labor and art 
 
 An unskillful activity, such as carrying a hod 
 of brick, stands in contrast with such a skillful 
 activity as bricklaying; and bricklaying again 
 stands in contrast with such a highly skillful 
 
 1 J. H. Tufts, article "Art and Art Theories" in Baldwin's 
 Dictionary of Philosophy and Psychology. 
 
 4 
 
IS TEACHING A FINE ART? 
 
 activity as designing a brick house. Even the 
 hod-carrier may develop a certain skill in han- 
 dling his burden in the easiest way. A group of 
 laborers hammering steel drills in a quarry show 
 additional skill when they beat out a rhythm. 
 
 Science and art 
 
 In contrast with science, which is knowledge, 
 an art is action. In science, the intellect is pri- 
 marily involved; in art, the will. In science, truth 
 is our goal; in art, performance of some kind. It 
 is true that this contrast is not absolute, for 
 there is no science without the will to know and 
 there is no art without the intellect, as the defini- 
 tion itself indicates. 
 
 Nature and art 
 
 The third contrast is between art and a work of 
 nature. Art begins with some modification or 
 even copy of nature. That plants should grow is 
 a work of nature, that they should be made to 
 grow in systematic groupings according to the 
 color of their flowers is a work of man, is an art. 
 The products of nature, the stone, the crystal, 
 5 
 
THE TEACHER AS ARTIST 
 
 the snow-flake, the mountains, the ocean, the 
 clouds driven by the wind, science supposes, per- 
 haps incorrectly, to involve neither intelligence 
 nor skill in their making; the products of man, 
 the stone hammer, the mirror, the house, the 
 boat, the sail, the engine, the telegraph, the air- 
 ship, require both intelligence and skill. The arts 
 of civilization thus stand in contrast with the 
 works of nature. When teachers of arts — e.g., of 
 expression — urge that their pupils "be natural,'* 
 "follow nature," etc., the injunction is ambigu- 
 ous; to do so literally would cancel all art; what is 
 really meant is to be so artful as to conceal the 
 appearance of art. "To be natural" in any art is 
 not to be as nature is, but to be as nature ought 
 to be to satisfy man's purpose. 
 
 Colvin^s definition of art 
 
 Another definition of art at this point may help 
 us. Professor Colvin ^ defines art as "every reg- 
 ulated operation or dexterity by which organized 
 beings pursue ends which they know beforehand, 
 
 * Sidney Colvin, article "Art" in Encydopoedia Britannica, 
 Qthed. 
 
 6 
 
IS TEACHING A FINE ART? 
 
 together with the rules and the result of every 
 such activity." That the operation should be 
 "regulated" involves skill, the pursuit of ends 
 involves intelligence, and the presence of rules 
 shows the dexterity to be formally guided. 
 
 Is teaching an art ? 
 
 Now, in the light of these definitions, is teach- 
 ing an art? Is it an activity? It is. Does it in- 
 volve intelHgence? It does. Does it involve skill? 
 It does. Is it a science? It is not, though there 
 may be a science of teaching. Is it a work of 
 nature? It is not, but, on the contrary, is a work 
 of man modifying nature. Has it rules of pro- 
 cedure? It has, though the poorest practice in 
 teaching may be leagues behind the best rules. 
 On the whole, then, we must conclude that 
 teaching is an art, though the intelligence and 
 skill it involves may in some cases rank it with 
 hod-carrying, in others with bricklaying, and 
 perhaps in a few others with the plans of the 
 architect. 
 
THE TEACHER AS ARTIST 
 
 Tufts* definition of fine art 
 
 But there is a difference between art and fine 
 art and our main question was, Is teaching a fine 
 art? But what is a fine art? Recurring to Prof es- 
 sor Tufts' article we read that a fine art is ^'an 
 activity or product of activity which has aesthetic 
 value or (in the broadest sense of the term) is 
 beautiful." This second definition directs our 
 attention to aesthetic value as the distinguishing 
 mark between art and fine art. But what is the 
 nature of aesthetic value? We will first take the 
 standpoint of an observer of a work of fine art 
 in a studio, or, in the analogous case, of a super- 
 visor of teaching in the classroom. 
 
 The characteristics of (Esthetic value 
 
 There are five main characteristics of aesthetic 
 value possessed by a work of art. First, aesthetic 
 value is objective; that is, it is there for all, share- 
 able, universal; it is not purely private and per- 
 sonal and agreeable to the senses. The fruit that 
 app>ears painted in "studies of still life" is out 
 there for all to see, to enjoy, and to realize the 
 8 
 
IS TEACHING A FINE ART? 
 
 meaning of fruit through space and light effects, 
 whereas the fruit one ate for breakfast gives only 
 an individual pleasure. The pride one takes in 
 owning aesthetic objects is not an aesthetic feeling, 
 it is the property or ownership feeling; it is not 
 necessary to own a work of art in order to enjoy 
 it. 
 
 Second, the aesthetic value is intrinsic; that is, 
 it is disinterested, immediate, contemplative, not 
 utilitarian, mediate, practical, or even moral. 
 The frame of the picture and its two dimensions 
 separate it as a work of art from the practical 
 world in which we live. An automobile taking its 
 place in a painting of a city street scene may be 
 part of a work of fine art, but if it appears in a 
 catalogue, it loses its aesthetic value in proportion 
 as it serves the purpose of sale. The viewing of 
 the Apollo Belvedere as the Greek ideal of man- 
 hood is aesthetic, allowing it to possess intrinsic 
 value, but the use of the same to study the physi- 
 ology of the bodies of the Greeks is not aesthetic 
 but utilitarian. We do not ask beauty to justify 
 its existence by doing any of the world's work for 
 us, but only to represent some ideal to us that we 
 9 
 
THE TEACHER AS ARTIST 
 
 may repose in it. As Professor Miinsterberg ^ 
 shows, the essence of art is isolation from the 
 practical world of cause and effect, just as the 
 essence of science is connection with antecedents 
 and consequents. 
 
 Third, the work of art whose aesthetic value we 
 feel widens sympathy. In enjoying the work of art 
 our feelings appropriate the feeling the artist put 
 into the piece, or something akin to it, our sym- 
 pathies are enlarged to include the Hf e and mean- 
 ing of the piece of art. A good painting of a shep- 
 herd with his sheep and the faithful dog reveals 
 to us a significance and meaning which the sight 
 of the real objects often fails to convey. The rea- 
 son for this is that the artist feels more than we 
 do in the presence of the experiences of hfe, and, 
 by selecting and eliminating features, he spreads 
 on canvas, in light and shade, in form and color, 
 accentuated suggestions of feeling, meaning, and 
 significance. Thereafter we return into fife's ex- 
 periences with heightened susceptibifities. This 
 is the answer to those practical-minded people 
 
 1 H. Miinsterberg, The Principles of Art Education, part i. 
 New York, 1905. 
 
 10 
 
IS TEACHING A FINE ART? 
 
 who say, with one of the characters in Bryce^s 
 Story of a Floughboy : — 
 
 What 's a picture, after all? Merely a shadow of 
 the real. Why do people Uke paintings, or profess to 
 like them? Because they Ve lost the use of their eyes; 
 they can't see Nature. Can any paintings of the sea 
 match the sea itself? What man in his senses would 
 shut himself up in a room to look at paintings of the 
 sky if he could live in country air and look up at the 
 sky when he liked? All this luxury you've been talk- 
 ing about is n't a means of helping us to enjoy life; 
 it's an encumbrance; it's an obstruction; it keeps us 
 from the sun, it keeps us in a stuffy room when we 
 might be out of doors. And all this talk about Art 
 has done as much as anything to hinder real reform. 
 I told Ruskin that when he was blathering in Fors. 
 And he came to see it, for he said more than once that 
 he felt he would never do any good till he stopped 
 talking and began to work like a man. But, poor 
 soul! he had n't the courage any more than the rest 
 of us. 
 
 Fourth, in the best art there is a sense of con- 
 scious self -illusion, as some one has described it. 
 In viewing a fine portrait of some friend, we seem 
 to be in his presence again, to feel his spirit, to 
 share his atmosphere, to realize his ideals, — in 
 II 
 
THE TEACHER AS ARTIST 
 
 this consists the self -illusion; but we do not break 
 the sacred silence to ask him questions, even 
 though we consider it "a speaking likeness," — 
 in this the self -illusion is conscious. That Zeuxis 
 deceived the birds with his painting of lifelike 
 grapes and that Parrhasius deceived even Zeuxis 
 with his reahstic painting of the curtain, is not 
 the highest evidence of the skill of those painters; 
 in those cases the self-illusion was not conscious. 
 The portrait is selective and heightening in effect, 
 it could not be mistaken for the original; a col- 
 ored, life-size photograph is unselective and 
 "just-so" in its presentation; it might be mis- 
 taken for the original, but its aesthetic value is 
 lower than that of the portrait. The Eden 
 Musee, where death is mistaken for life, does not 
 stir as high aesthetic emotions as the Metropoli- 
 tan Museum where life is consciously viewed in 
 idealized form. We admire the talent shown in 
 the one, the genius in the other. 
 
 Fifth, there is often, not always, an element of 
 pain or melancholy in the enjoyment of aesthetic 
 value. It is obvious in the threnody of poetry 
 and in the minor strains of music. Milton ex- 
 
 12 
 
IS TEACHING A FINE ART? 
 
 presses it in // Penseroso. The source of the feel- 
 ing is not easy to find. The sense of the perfect 
 disturbs us while it enraptures us. Even the pain 
 it causes us is a delight which we should not care 
 to forego, just as Peter, at the moment of realiz- 
 ing his Master's character, urges him to depart, 
 though his Master's departure would have 
 pleased him still less. Perhaps the source of the 
 feeling is the contrast effect between the ideal of 
 art and the real of our own experience. As the 
 ideal begins to harmonize our own ruffled and 
 unordered feelings, the growing-pains of the soul 
 arise. Even the soft blues of an Italian sky may 
 dim the eyes and awaken an inexpressible sad- 
 ness. 
 
 Teaching as having (esthetic value 
 
 Now, all this seems remote enough from what 
 our school supervisor or visitor, looking for some 
 show of art, can see and hear in the classroom. 
 But the real question is not so much one of actual 
 practice as one of possible practice. May not the 
 observed teaching process come to have aesthetic 
 value? Objective it certainly is. A thing worth 
 13 
 
THE TEACHER AS ARTIST 
 
 while in itself, having an intrinsic value for itself, 
 it certainly may be, especially where the ideals of 
 a liberal in distinction from a vocational training 
 dominate, where things worth doing are done well 
 for their own sake without regard to their prac- 
 tical usefulness. A widening of sympathy will 
 also result in case the ground covered is not too 
 familiar and the treatment of the truth and Ufe 
 involved in the lesson is vital, real, and apprecia- 
 tive. Even a sense of conscious self -illusion may 
 be present when the teaching hour simulates the 
 real original experience; there is no danger of its 
 being mistaken for it; as when a teacher of Greek 
 history plays for a time the part of Socrates and 
 the pupils answer him as they suppose Athenian 
 youths to have done. Any dramatization or even 
 vivid word portrayal of past truth and life may 
 awaken within us a sense of the original reality; 
 thus the past lives again. In the ideal classroom 
 living is real, the teaching that reproduces the 
 racial experience is real, yet both teachers and 
 pupils recognize that the life of which they speak 
 is more real than the speaking of it. Regarding 
 the last point, the sadness provoked by the ideal, 
 14 
 
IS TEACHING A FINE ART? 
 
 it is to be confessed that, so far, in the develop- 
 ment of teaching, this sense is aroused more by 
 the absence than by the presence of the ideal. 
 Even here, however, the observer may feel the 
 sharp contrast between hfe as the school ideally 
 represents it and life as it is, and he may find 
 himself anticipating with regret the rude awak- 
 enings awaiting unsophisticated young people. 
 This is as it should be; the school should present 
 life at its best, only hinting at the real existence of 
 the mean and the sordid, and exalting the ideals 
 of service and sacrifice. To the contemplative 
 observer the work of some schoolrooms may in- 
 deed appeal as having aesthetic value because of 
 the struggUng efforts present to realize even in a 
 crude way the highest ideals of living. 
 
 The characteristics of (Esthetic activity 
 
 A fine art, our definition said, was "an activity 
 or a product of activity which has aesthetic 
 value." We have considered the characteristics 
 of aesthetic value and how the teaching process 
 may come to possess them. Now we must in- 
 quire concerning the nature of the activity itself 
 15 
 
THE TEACHER AS ARTIST 
 
 by which works of beauty are produced, with a 
 view to considering whether the teacher also may 
 become an artist in his work. From the stand- 
 point of an observer of a work of art we pass to 
 that of the producer. 
 
 Lack of data 
 
 We are handicapped at the outset of this 
 inquiry by the lack of suitable material upon 
 which to base conclusions. Artists do creative 
 work, but they do not tell us how they do it. 
 Their minds are bent on production, not intro- 
 spection. We could wish more artists would tell 
 us how it feels to write a poem, to compose a 
 piece of music, to carve a statue, to paint a pic- 
 ture, to design a building, or to beautify a natural 
 landscape. The introspection upon which such 
 reports would rest would itself cripple the activ- 
 ity it was observing. Those readers who are 
 themselves artists may, however, by memory 
 verify and correct our account of their work. 
 Wolf-Ferrari, the musical composer, is quoted 
 as saying in regard to his method of composi- 
 tion: — 
 
 i6 
 
IS TEACHING A FINE ART? 
 
 I could not bear to plan or to feel that I had a 
 method. I should not like to know where I shall eat 
 luncheon to-morrow. No more do I want to know 
 how or m what manner I shall write my next work. 
 I want it to be natural. I want the music to express 
 the text, — that is all I care about. 
 
 Here certainly is artistic spontaneity. 
 
 Channing Pollock, in The Footlights — Fore 
 and Aft, gives the following description of one 
 dramatist at work: — 
 
 When Eugene Walter writes a play the tools neces- 
 sary to the process are one large room, one outfit of 
 furniture and one exceptionally rapid stenographer. 
 Mr. Walter and the stenographer enter the room. 
 The door is locked, and work is begun by placing the 
 furniture as it is to be placed on the stage — in other 
 words, by setting the scene. Then the young drama- 
 tist begins to act. He is all the characters in his play. 
 He rushes about the apartment, quarreling with 
 himself, making love to himself, now standing here 
 as one person and then racing to the opposite end of 
 the apartment to be another. All the time he is 
 speaking the words that come into his mind as na- 
 tural under the circumstances, and the stenographer 
 is taking them down at top speed. At the end of an 
 hour or two an act is finished, an invisible curtain is 
 
 17 
 
THE TEACHER AS ARTIST 
 
 rung down, and if the amanuensis has n't fainted, 
 as two did in one day of labor on one play, the stage 
 is set for the next act. 
 
 Here at least are self-expression, imagination, 
 and imitation. 
 
 Six characteristics of (esthetic activity 
 
 On the whole there appear to be six main 
 characteristics of the aesthetic activity. These 
 are spontaneity, self-expression, imagination, 
 imitation, love, and self -relief . These six are very 
 closely related as the discussion of them will 
 indicate. 
 
 Spontaneity. The aesthetic activity is spon- 
 taneous; that is, it is seK-initiated, free, inspired, 
 natural, playful. The activity that is not self- 
 activity cannot be aesthetic; it can be mechani- 
 cal. The great poems are not made to order, they 
 are not even poems for occasions. Hack work 
 may be done for pay at command but artistic 
 activity must be stimulated from within. Beauty 
 rather creates a demand for itself than supplies it. 
 The artists who receive orders to be filled must at 
 least be given time for their inspiration to come. 
 i8 
 
IS TEACHING A FINE ART? 
 
 Self-expression. The aesthetic activity is self- 
 expressive; that is, it exhibits the self of the 
 artist. The artist must have a self to exhibit, and 
 the kind of self he is will appear in his art, if his 
 art is sincere. Some artists reveal more of them- 
 selves than others; thus did Goethe more than 
 Shakespeare, though it is probably true that, if 
 we knew the life of Shakespeare better, we should 
 see him more in his works than we are now able 
 to do. And one material is more expressive of 
 personality than another; thus music is more ex- 
 pressive than architecture. The content of the 
 work of art is largely supplied by the ideas and 
 experiences of the artist. Good art is a pleasing 
 exhibition of the self of the artist. 
 
 Imagination. The aesthetic activity involves 
 imagination, — imagination, that is, of the pro- 
 ductive, not of the reproductive, type. The pro- 
 ductive imagination of the artist re-combines old 
 experiences in new ways. The poet gives us a 
 new arrangement of old words descriptive of his 
 feelings and ideas. The musical composer gives us 
 the familiar sounds in imf amiliar combinations, 
 expressing the harmony or chaos his soul feels. 
 19 
 
THE TEACHER AS ARTIST 
 
 The sculptor gives us the familiar human or ani- 
 mal body in a new position or exhibiting a dififer- 
 ent emotion. The painter combines old colors in 
 new ways suggesting new shades of feeling. The 
 architect uses old motives in new ways to suit the 
 central idea of the building. The imagination of 
 the artist is creative, not in the sense that it 
 makes something out of nothing, but in the sense 
 that it shapes old material in novel ways. 
 
 Imitation. The aesthetic activity is imitative; 
 this was its essential characteristic to Plato, and 
 on this ground he condemned art as unreal, his 
 standard of reality, however, being intellectual, 
 not emotional. The presence of imitation in art 
 is most obvious in the paintings, carvings, and 
 drawings from models or nature. The initial 
 training of the artist is largely copying. But 
 merely imitative art is never first grade. By imi- 
 tating the work of another, one ends by finding 
 himself. The finest products of art are indeed 
 imitative but in a very free and original manner. 
 The photograph in colors of a scene is the exact 
 imitation of the landscape, but the photograph is 
 not such high art as a painting of that scene. In 
 
 20 
 
IS TEACHING A FINE ART? 
 
 the painting there is still imitation, but in addi- 
 tion there is selection and emphasis of certain 
 features in the landscape; the final painting is the 
 scene not as it is in itself but as it appears to the 
 artist. Thus fine art is not really holding "the 
 mirror up to nature," it is idealizing nature. 
 Thus the imitation that characterizes the aes- 
 thetic activity is not exact in detail, but faithful 
 to the type. 
 
 Love. All art is animated by the love-impulse. 
 The artist is a lover; he is in love with the ideal, 
 in love with his work, and in love with the partic- 
 ular piece upon which he is working. The love- 
 impulse behind art is closely related to the social 
 instinct. Though artistic genius begins to dis- 
 close itself in early years ordinarily, the highest 
 appreciation and production of art cannot arise 
 before adolescence. The artist is habituated to 
 expressing his love in his work; he is not accus- 
 tomed to restraining but to expressing his love- 
 impulse. It is possible that this fact helps to ex- 
 plain, though not to justify, the frequent moral 
 irregularity of artists. However this may be, it is 
 important to recognize that all art is begotten in 
 
 21 
 
THE TEACHER AS ARTIST 
 
 love. There is a certain intensity, heat, glow, and 
 sense of fullness in all aesthetic activity. 
 
 Self-relief. It is not surprising that aesthetic 
 activity should end in self-relief. The burden is 
 discharged and relaxation supervenes. The sur- 
 plus energy has been worked off and lassitude 
 results. The emotional pressure is over, the 
 muscles lose their tenseness, the whole being lets 
 down. There is a certain joy in being delivered of 
 a part of one's self which may survive one's self 
 and even the shocks of time. The period of relax- 
 ation is likely to be of short duration, however; 
 some other conception begins to grow in the soul 
 toward maturity; then the nervous strain of self- 
 delivery comes on again, followed by relief; and 
 so the process repeats itself. In its mothering of 
 ideals all art is feminine. 
 
 Teaching as an (Esthetic activity 
 
 Teaching appears as a possible fine art even 
 better in its relation to the aesthetic activity than 
 to the aesthetic values previously considered. 
 The teacher is like the artist, the pupils are his 
 material through whom he is expressing his 
 
 22 
 
IS TEACHING A FINE ART? 
 
 ideals. Such an artist teacher is spontaneous and 
 free in his methods, knowing the rules of the 
 technique of teaching but subordinating them to 
 his own purposes. He is self-expressive in letting 
 his pupils fully into the secrets of his ambition for 
 them as individuals and in showing the ideals 
 regnant in his own life. He is imaginative in 
 handling the familiar material of instruction in 
 new and unfamiliar ways, making contrasts and 
 suggesting comparisons. He is imitative of the 
 great masters of teaching, Socrates, Jesus, Pes- 
 tolozzi, and Froebel, but in his own independent 
 way. He is animated by the love of teaching, by 
 the love of his pupils, and by the joy he finds in 
 making ideals take root in human lives. And at 
 the end of each day's work, each week's, each 
 year's, there is the sense of having emptied him- 
 self, the demand for quiet and rest till the burden 
 of fullness is again present. In this cycle of self- 
 expression and assimilation, of giving forth and 
 taking in, of transferring personality and re-gain- 
 ing personality, the teacher finds that he too may 
 be an artist in his work, embodying day by day 
 his highest ideals of living in the plastic growing 
 
 2? 
 
THE TEACHER AS ARTIST 
 
 material of the nation's youth. Seeing visions 
 constantly himself, he lives to assist others in 
 seeing them, and rejoices daily in his exalted 
 calling. Not all teachers are, or can hope to be- 
 come, artists in their work, because their eyes are 
 blind, their ears deaf, their hearts heavy of under- 
 standing, their tasks formal, their pupils obnox- 
 ious, their work drudgery, and even their ideals 
 ignoble. The difference is rather in the teacher 
 than in the pupil or the equipment. The artist is 
 an artist in any environment, and so is the unfor- 
 tunate blockhead. But many teachers have the 
 making of artists in them and do not know it; 
 for these particularly we must work. The artist 
 teacher works not with brush and canvas, nor 
 with chisel and marble, but with truths and 
 youths, with ideals and nervous systems. He too 
 like the artists of the world is striving to embody 
 the ideal in the real. 
 
 How teaching differs from the other fine arts 
 
 There is one important distinction between the 
 aesthetic activity of the teacher and of other ar- 
 tists which we must bear in mind if we would not 
 24 
 
IS TEACHING A FINE ART? 
 
 press the analogy between teaching and the fine 
 arts too far. This distinction regards the material 
 which is informed by the ideals. The material of 
 other artists, whether wood, stone, marble, brass, 
 colors, sounds, is inert and impersonal, while that 
 of the teacher is alive and personal. Other artists 
 may have regard for their ideals alone, shaping 
 their material at pleasure to embody them; the 
 teacher must have regard also for his material, 
 which he cannot shape at pleasure because it has 
 a form and essence of its own. Other artists con- 
 form their material to their ideals; the teacher 
 must transform his ideals to suit his material. 
 Other artists make bodies for their ideals; the 
 teacher must enable bodies to grow into the ideals 
 of their own nature. The teacher is not so much 
 like the sculptor as he is like the gardener. It is 
 hard to say whether this distinction renders the 
 work of teaching more or less difficult, more or 
 less "fine," than the other arts. 
 
 The nature of the (esthetic product 
 
 Recurring once again to our definition of fiine 
 art, namely, "an activity, or a product of activ- 
 25 
 
THE TEACHER AS ARTIST 
 
 ity, which has aesthetic value," we note there is 
 one element of it hitherto unconsidered, — the 
 aesthetic product. We have considered the nature 
 of aesthetic value and the nature of aesthetic activ- 
 ity, and we have now to ask, what is the work of 
 art itself? 
 
 The idealistic philosophy of art 
 
 Without reviewing the interesting and devel- 
 oping series of historic answers to this question, 
 which would take us too far afield, let us select 
 and contrast two typical views of the nature of 
 art, namely, the idealistic and the pragmatic. Ac- 
 cording to the idealistic view, the work of art is 
 the imitation of some ideal, and utility does not 
 essentially belong to it. This philosophy of art 
 would be represented by the names of Plato, Aris- 
 totle, and Hegel, and is expressed in part by the 
 familiar line of Keats, *'a thing of beauty is a joy 
 forever," coupled with the thought of Emerson, 
 "beauty is its own excuse for being." 
 
 Plato as an example. To take Plato for more 
 specific consideration as an example of the ideal- 
 istic philosophy of art. Plato is the first theo- 
 * 26 
 
IS TEACHING A FINE ART? 
 
 rist to consider art critically. Paraphrasing his 
 thought, we may express it briefly, though some- 
 what cumbrously, as follows: art is the imita- 
 tion of an imitation of some divine idea. Let us 
 explain. According to Plato the real world is 
 the ideal world, the world of existent, objective, 
 universal ideas. He reached this view through 
 taking the "concepts" of Socrates as the real 
 elements in knowledge and raising them to an 
 absolute existence. Thus there are "ideas" of 
 wisdom, courage, temperance, justice, and even 
 of classes of material objects, like men and beds, 
 and, highest of all, there is the idea of the good. 
 In his dialogue Timceus, Plato represents God 
 as an artist making the world in accord with the 
 " ideas " as eternal patterns. Now the artisan, like 
 bed- and bridle-maker, makes objects according 
 to their idea, that is, according to the purpose 
 they are set to serve. Then comes the artist — 
 the painter or poet, who imitates the object, 
 which itself is the artisan's imitation of the real 
 idea. Thus art is an imitation of an imitation of 
 an idea. Thus the artist is really dealing with 
 reality at third hand ; he presents us only with the 
 27 
 
THE TEACHER AS ARTIST 
 
 appearance of an appearance, with the shadow of 
 a shadow. 
 
 For these reasons, Plato, though once a poet 
 himself, and always a literary artist, did not es- 
 teem art highly. The ideal state had little room 
 for artists and the ideal curriculum little place for 
 art, for it did not bring the mind into close touch 
 with reality as did mathematics and philosophy. 
 Art is indeed useless in conducting us to reality, 
 according to Plato, but in this he found reason 
 not for praising but for condemning art, except 
 such simple forms of song and music as made 
 soldiers brave and such simple beauty in the 
 environment as refined the taste. 
 
 Modern idealistic philosophy of art in contrast 
 with Plato's 
 
 The modem idealistic philosophy of art still 
 regards it, with Plato, as a striving to express an 
 inexpressible ideal and still finds utility absent 
 from its essential nature, but, unlike Plato, 
 praises instead of condemns art for its useless- 
 ness. That about art which to Plato was a defect 
 has become one of its admirable qualities. Both 
 28 
 
IS TEACHING A FINE ART? 
 
 Plato and the modern idealists want the ideal but 
 they differ in that Plato regarded art as detaching 
 us from the ideal whereas moderns regard art as 
 attaching us to the ideal. This difference is due 
 fundamentally to Aristotle who made the ideal 
 immanent in Hfe instead of transcendent. 
 
 Summary 
 
 In sum, the idealistic philosophy of art makes 
 it an imitation of an ideal copy and free from 
 utility, whether blamed or praised for this latter 
 characteristic. 
 
 The pragmatic philosophy of art 
 
 Now in contrast, the pragmatic philosophy of 
 art. According to pragmatism, art is not so much 
 a copy of what is as a promise of what is to be, it 
 is not static but dynamic, it is not retrospective 
 but prospective, it is not imitation of an existent 
 ideal but a formulation of a distant ideal becom- 
 ing real in time. And the effect of art upon us is 
 not to quiet but to inspire, not to rest us but to 
 stimulate us. Consequently, utility is part of the 
 essence of art. The pragmatists would disagree 
 29 
 
THE TEACHER AS ARTIST 
 
 with Plato that art is the imitation of an absolute 
 ideal but they would agree with him in condemn- 
 ing useless art, the art that does not conduct to 
 truth and that does not form character. 
 
 Miss Gordon quoted 
 
 Let us illustrate the pragmatic philosophy of 
 art by quotation from a recent writer. Miss Kate 
 Gordon ^ says: — 
 
 The pragmatic view of art, I should say, is this, 
 that art is not essentially an imitation of life — a 
 copy of something done and finished before art took 
 it up; but that life is a copy and imitation of art. If 
 art is "the image of life," it is more a prophetic than 
 an historic image. . . . After seeing a Turner one sees 
 more form and color in the sky. 
 
 Which is the true theory ? 
 
 Thus we have the two contrasting views of the 
 nature of a work of art. Before asking whether 
 teaching is or may become a work of art, we must 
 consider which is the true theory of what a work 
 of art is, the idealistic or the pragmatic? In an- 
 
 ^ "Pragmatism in Esthetics," in Essays Philosophical and 
 Psychological in Honor of William James. New York, 1908. 
 
 30 
 
IS TEACHING A FINE ART? 
 
 swering this question, fortunately we do not have 
 to choose between the rival theories, as sometimes 
 must be done, but we may combine the two, if 
 the idealists and the pragmatists will allow us. 
 Art is both an imitation of the highest ideal the 
 artist can conceive and it does usefully influence 
 thought and character. Without the ideal, art 
 has no content; without a beneficial influence, its 
 content is unworthy. 
 
 "Art for art's sake'' 
 
 The phrase, "art for art's sake," originated as 
 a protest against making painting tell a story, 
 against the requirement that art should be narra- 
 tive, and so ethical in influence. The phrase 
 meant to insist on form in distinction from con- 
 tent, and on beauty in distinction from goodness. 
 The meaning of the phrase looks consequently in 
 the direction of the idealistic rather than the 
 pragmatic philosophy of art. Yet we have as- 
 signed a measure of truth to the pragmatic phil- 
 osophy of art. How then are these two things to 
 be reconciled? 
 
 31 
 
THE TEACHER AS ARTIST 
 
 Art for lifers sake 
 
 Under examination the work of art reveals two 
 elements, form and content. To insist upon form 
 alone is to insist upon an abstraction, for there is 
 no form without content, just as there can exist 
 no content without form. It is an impossible 
 purism to insist in art upon form for form's sake. 
 Content all art must have and does have, though 
 less defined in some art, as in impressionism, than 
 in others. 
 
 Now wherever there is content there also 
 is some effect upon thought, and so possibly 
 upon character, as well as the effect upon feeling 
 and sensation, which form gives. We must con- 
 clude, therefore, that art cannot exist for art's 
 sake only, that the effects of beauty are also a 
 part of its excuse for being, and that art, like 
 truth, is also for life's sake. This does not mean 
 that the artist should strive for effect, or that he 
 should regard himself primarily as a moralist, but 
 only that he should recognize that no art is 
 without its influence on thought and conduct as 
 well as upon feeling, and that the highest art 
 32 
 
IS TEACHING A FINE ART? 
 
 will not offend logical and ethical standards at 
 the same time that it conforms to standards of 
 taste. 
 
 Walter Pater on Plato 
 
 Plato would probably agree to this conclusion 
 which synthesizes the pragmatic and idealistic 
 philosophies of art; at least he would as Pater 
 finely interprets him, who says,^ "And Plato's 
 aesthetics, remember, as such are ever in close 
 connection with Plato's ethics. It is life itself, 
 action and character, he proposes to color; to get 
 something of that irrepressible conscience of art, 
 that spirit of control, into the general course of 
 life, above all into its energetic or impassioned 
 acts." 
 
 Final view of the msthetic product 
 
 In summary, combining the two philosophies 
 of art, we should have to say art is life in its ideal- 
 ity, felt and expressed, and life is, or should be, 
 such art loved, cherished, and obeyed. 
 
 1 Walter Pater, Plato and the Platonists, pp. 254-55. 
 
 33 
 
THE TEACHER AS ARTIST 
 
 Teaching as a work of art 
 
 If now we inquire whether teaching is or may 
 become a work of art, the question means two 
 things, namely, does teaching imitate and repre- 
 sent ideals? and does it shape life in accord with 
 those ideals? In both cases the answer is affirma- 
 tive: some teaching does do these two things, and 
 all teaching should. Teaching at its best does feel 
 and express the ideals of life, — health, truth, 
 beauty, goodness, social efficiency, and God; and 
 it does win allegiance to these ideals in the daily 
 living of young people. Thus teaching is both an 
 ideality and a practicality. It is the business of 
 the school to set, not simply to conform to, social 
 standards; and by its corporate atmosphere to 
 demonstrate that the higher life is practicable. 
 Esthetic teaching is life interpreted in terms of 
 its best, as life again is, or should be, such teach- 
 ing applied. 
 
 Miss Slatiery quoted 
 
 An example may be quoted at length from 
 
 Miss Slattery, who writes: ^ 
 
 * Margaret Slattery, Living Teachers, pp. 47-52. Cleveland, 
 1909. 
 
 34 
 
IS TEACHING A FINE ART? 
 
 The business of every teacher is to encourage and 
 enthuse every pupil he teaches. He is an artist, and 
 the picture he paints should awaken the ambition of 
 each child, stir his soul with desire to be, and inspire 
 him with confidence that he can be. And if the teacher 
 is keenly alive, a lover of the world, feels the response 
 of its great heart, his task is perfectly possible. 
 
 I can never forget a magazine story, "The Artist's 
 Masterpiece," told me by a friend some years ago. 
 It is a wonderful story and shows just what all I have 
 been saying means. 
 
 Back into the country town that gave him birth, 
 the story says, came the great artist, proud of all the 
 honor and success hard work had brought to him. 
 He wanted rest, to see the old places he loved and 
 live over again the simple natural life of his boyhood. 
 
 At first the people were afraid of his fame, but in a 
 few weeks he was the interested friend of men, women 
 and children, trusted and loved by all save one — 
 Mr. A- — . 
 
 Ten years before, Mr. A had come a stranger 
 
 to the town. He said nothing about himself, had no 
 letters of introduction, would answer no questions. 
 He opened a law office where he spent his days; at 
 night he studied. He was a mystery. Rumor said 
 that an important position awaited him in a distant 
 city, but he would not return. One day the town was 
 greatly excited over a consulship in a distant land 
 
 35 
 
THE TEACHER" AS ARTIST 
 
 which was off ered him. He refused to accept it. After 
 a time they grew accustomed to him, spoke of him in 
 half suspicious tones, and left him to himself. 
 r The artist had tried in vain to know him. But one 
 day, in response to the confidence in him which he 
 
 had expressed, Mr. A said that he had made a 
 
 mistake in his life, lost his courage, and wished to 
 forget. He would say no more. After that, seeing 
 him walk slowly along, head down, listless and not 
 caring, a great desire to help him find life again filled 
 the artist's soul. 
 
 He had promised himself a full year of rest, but 
 now sought out a studio and began to paint. Ea- 
 geriy, steadily, with keenest enthusiasm he labored. 
 Months passed and his picture was finished. That 
 
 day he sought Mr. A in his office and asked him 
 
 to come down and see the picture. " It is my master- 
 piece," he said, "I shall never do anything better, I 
 have put all my art into it. No one has seen it yet. 
 Will you look at it?" 
 
 Mr. A seemed pleased. They walked together 
 
 to the studio. The artist stepped behind the great 
 canvas stretched across the room. He pulled aside 
 
 the crimson curtain, and there before him Mr. A 
 
 saw himself. Yet it was not he, for the man upon the 
 canvas faced the world straight, shoulders thrown 
 back, head erect, ambition, desire, hope, in attitude 
 and expression. 
 
 36 
 
IS TEACHING A FINE ART? 
 
 For a long time he gazed in silence. The artist 
 waited breathlessly to see if his masterpiece were a 
 
 success or failure. At last Mr. A spoke. "He 
 
 thinks I'm that," he said. "He sees that in me." 
 Then a pause. "Am I that? Can I be that?" In a 
 moment the artist stood beside him. Together they 
 looked at the man on the canvas while the other 
 asked again, "Can I be that?" "Yes," said the 
 artist, and it seemed the voice of the masterpiece. 
 
 Then said Mr. A , gazing straight at it, "I will 
 
 go back, / will be that." And he went from the studio, 
 courage, hope, confidence in every step. 
 
 Summary of the whole discussion 
 
 Thus, in sum, we have seen that teaching has, 
 or may have, aesthetic value; that it is, or may 
 become, an aesthetic activity; and that it is, or 
 may be, an aesthetic product. Is teaching then, 
 finally, one of the fine arts? The answer must be 
 affirmative, if we take such answer not as a de- 
 scription but as a challenge. Teaching is a fine 
 art, if we make it so. The matter rests upon all 
 school authorities, but mainly upon the teachers. 
 It is not essentially a question of more teachers of 
 art, though we need such, but of more artistic 
 teachers. 
 
 37 
 
THE TEACHER AS ARTIST 
 
 A practical question 
 
 How shall teachers become artistic? is the 
 practical question. We will consider the answer 
 in the following chapter. 
 
II 
 
 THE SHRIVING OF AN INARTISTIC TEACHER 
 
 The point of view 
 
 The confessor and the priest are in this case the 
 same. The confessor reporesents in a way his 
 class. He is a teacher. The process of shriving 
 involves confession, penance, and absolution. 
 The confession covers lapses from the aesthetic 
 ideal, the penance includes renewed effort to con- 
 form to aesthetic principles, and absolution means 
 the willingness to go on hving with one's faulty, 
 but progressive and forgiven self. Other mem- 
 bers of the class for whom the confessor speaks 
 are craved to grant indulgence in proportion as 
 they themselves are innocent. 
 
 The lapse of the ideal 
 
 I am not an artistic teacher and I belong to a 
 
 class of inartistic teachers. Only on rare and 
 
 brief occasions can I truthfully say, "I too am 
 
 an artist.'' I do not teach suflSciently by my 
 
 39 
 
THE TEACHER AS ARTIST 
 
 ideals, I do not sufficiently idealize my work, an(i 
 am not sufficiently inspired by the vision of ulti- 
 mate results. I live and labor on the low plane 
 of the valleys, forgetting the prospect from the 
 hilltop, and often find myself too tired from the 
 day's work to climb. Yet I really live by such 
 glimpses of the ideal as I have had or can catch. 
 
 Our small influence 
 
 As teacher I belong to one of the social classes. 
 There are half a million of me in the United 
 States alone. There are twenty thousand of me 
 in New York City. The dignity, antiquity, and 
 extent of our service constitute us one of the most 
 important social classes. Not that any so-called 
 social class, enjoying freedom of human inter- 
 course, is more than an abstraction. We, like 
 members of any other social class, have other re- 
 lations than to our labor. Now it is a remarkable 
 thing about us as a class that, belonging as we do 
 to such a noble profession, we yet exert so little 
 influence on the affairs of society, perhaps I had 
 better say on the immediate affairs of society 
 and on its adult membership. Our influence has 
 40 
 
SHRIVING AN INARTISTIC TEACHER 
 
 to wait a generation for children to grow up; 
 meanwhile the conditions have changed; other 
 types of leaders than teachers are doing things; 
 and the teacher's influence is hard to trace. No 
 doubt it is there in some form. 
 
 The reason 
 
 ^ Why are we not more influential socially? 
 Mainly because we have the defects of our quali- 
 ties. Our work is surrounded by certain condi- 
 tions and engenders certain habits that mainly 
 preclude social influence and leadership in social 
 reform.^ We do not see ourselves as others see us; 
 if we did we might realize that our art does not 
 count for more in society because we are often 
 poor artists. The schoolmaster, the schoolmis- 
 tress, have become literary t3T)es, easily subject 
 to caricature, usually pictured as without par- 
 ticular social esteem, wearing unique garments, 
 and having characteristic features and expres- 
 sion. Some people say they can tell a school- 
 teacher on sight and, if they have the option, 
 
 * Cf. G. S. Hall, "Certain Degenerative Tendencies among 
 Teachers," Fed. Setn., vol. xn, pp. 454-63. 
 
 41 
 
THE TEACHER AS ARTIST 
 
 they go the other way. "What shall we do with 
 our college professors?" is a newspaper witti- 
 cism. A Virginia gentleman was to meet Booker 
 T. Washington for the first time. He deliberated 
 within himself as to how he should address him. 
 "Booker" would be too familiar. "Mr." would 
 be too formal. "Professor" was the correct solu- 
 tion. This dubious title fits shoe-black, dancing- 
 master, tonsorial artist, or college teacher. One 
 may rise from our ranks to be Governor of a State 
 or President of a Nation, but when being criti- 
 cized he cannot escape being dubbed "Profes- 
 sor." So we are not the leaders in social progress 
 that we might be. As a profession we seem to be 
 largely out of touch with the temper and the 
 progress of the times. Ours are the virtues of 
 imitation rather than initiation. Others lead, we 
 follow afar off. We seem to be taking our orders 
 from the dead lips of past generations instead of 
 speaking new forms of hfe into being. We seem 
 to be so busy conserving the rudiments of learn- 
 ing that we are not thinking and acting. As 
 artists we would fashion immature hfe while we 
 ourselves are not abreast of mature Hfe. 
 42 
 
SHRIVING AN INARTISTIC TEACHER 
 
 Self-criticism necessary 
 
 Let us at least not have the fault of being blind 
 to our own faults. At the same time, in reviewing 
 our faults, let us not exemplify the fault of fault- 
 finding. Our purpose is only to examine ourselves 
 whether these things be so, that we may intelli- 
 gently correct our weaknesses, and so make prog- 
 ress toward our artistic ideals and toward a 
 corresponding social influence. 
 
 As I review my pedagogic sins for confession, 
 they mount up to the deadly seven, as follows: 
 pedantry, didacticism, methodastry (there is no 
 such word, but you see, or will see what I mean), 
 traditionalism, the omniscient air, gratuitous 
 discipline, and academicism. I admit that, if the 
 sins are as bad as their names, my conscience 
 must be either callous or heavily burdened. Per- 
 haps before launching into a detailed confession, 
 once again I had better crave the pardon of all 
 members of our class in proportion as they feel 
 themselves not guilty. 
 
 43 
 
THE TEACHER AS ARTIST/ 
 
 Pedantry 
 
 First, are we not in a measure pedantic? The 
 pedant substitutes knowledge for wisdom. And 
 the knowledge he has is without perspective. He 
 has little sense of the relative value of different 
 pieces of knowledge. The knowledge that makes 
 no difference is pedantry, the knowledge that 
 guides life is wisdom. Pedantry is a parade of 
 intellectual wares; wisdom is knowing what is 
 best to do and doing it. Montaigne's essay on 
 "Pedantry" is still modern. He says: "We can 
 become learned by other men's learning, but we 
 can become wise only by our own wisdom." 
 One way to avoid pedantry is to consider con- 
 stantly the uses to which knowledge may be put. 
 
 Didacticism 
 
 As a class have we not the didactic habit to 
 excess? It follows us out of the schoolroom. We 
 do not relax enough ourselves, we do not help 
 others to relax enough. We criticize our amuse- 
 ments. Instead of letting ourselves go at times, 
 we inquire rather concerning the educative bene- 
 fits of any undertaking. I am conscious of effort 
 44 
 
SHRIVING AN INARTISTIC TEACHER 
 
 in trying to forget at times that I am a teacher 
 and read with a smitten conscience such a state- 
 ment as the following from a clever article: 
 "What man or woman of culture is so foolish as 
 to seek the society of the average school-teacher, 
 either for relaxation or entertainment?" ^ Think 
 of people avoiding us because they do not want 
 to be taught; it is enough. I must try to leave the 
 didactic habit behind me in the schoolroom, like 
 a garment, and go forth into the world of human 
 beings as a human being. If we could just be 
 pupils when we are not teaching! Let us learn 
 from those we meet, instead of seeming to insist 
 that they learn from us. 
 
 Methodastry 
 
 Even in the schoolroom do we not also sin 
 against artistic ideals by attaching a fictitious im- 
 portance to method? Not that we can dispense 
 with method, but that we cannot rely mainly 
 upon it; not that method is unimportant, but 
 
 1 The Point of View: "Confessions of a Pedagogue," 
 Scribner's, April, 1908. This article refers to five of the seven 
 faults here confessed. 
 
 45 
 
THE TEACHER AS ARTIST 
 
 that it is not most important. We tend too often 
 to serve rather than to use method. This is to 
 worship what we ourselves, or others like us, 
 have made. Our devotion to method tends to 
 make our work mechanical instead of vital. A 
 mechanical procedure runs off in a foreordained 
 kind of way, being incapable of adjusting itself 
 readily at each point to the needs of a situation. 
 It puts routine into work. Methods we must 
 indeed have, but as servants, not as masters. 
 We must know enough not to follow the set 
 method under certain circumstances, to vary it 
 according to need, to meet the situation in the 
 best way as it arises, to have versatility, ingenu- 
 ity, and individuaUty in our work. If we can keep 
 ourselves vital under school conditions, we can 
 more readily be vital members of society. If we 
 can eliminate all artifice and unreality from our 
 labor, perhaps we can be more himaan and natu- 
 ral in our other associations. 
 
 TradiHonalisfn 
 
 As a class are we not in bondage to tradition? 
 We are among the conservative members of so- 
 46 
 
SHRIVING AN INARTISTIC TEACHER 
 
 ciety. We teach what is known, the present and 
 the past, mainly the past. The goal toward 
 which we are, or ought to be, moving rarely 
 comes within our ken. We have not awakened to 
 our work as a great constructive effort to shap)e 
 developing human society toward its true goal. 
 Instead, we hand down traditional knowledge 
 and socially standardized viewpoints. The school 
 does not lead social progress, it hardly keeps up 
 with it. It ought to be developing social leader- 
 ship and not merely conservative following. We 
 should communicate, not merely established 
 knowledge, but also ideas regarding the end and 
 means of social progress. Society requires guid- 
 ance as well as information. 
 
 Along with our traditionalism goes our lack of 
 personal growth. Are we not rather unprogres- 
 sive in self-culture? We know fairly what we 
 have to teach, and there too often we stop. If 
 promotion and increased salary depend upon 
 study, we are more able to study. We teach 
 rather from an accimiulated store than from a 
 growing acquisition. We sometimes retain old 
 familiar texts instead of changing to newer and 
 47 
 
THE TEACHER AS ARTIST 
 
 better ones. Our ambition is bounded rather by 
 our necessity than by our capacity. We know 
 enough to teach our classes, why study any more 
 at all? We lack too often the conception of a 
 personal growth that is unending and worth 
 while for its own sake. We lack too often the 
 conception of merit independent of salary. Life 
 to us is rather static than dynamic. Surrounded 
 by growing life and vitality, we have almost 
 ceased to grow ourselves. We can not move soci- 
 ety because we are not moving enough ourselves. 
 
 The omniscient air 
 
 As a class are we not more conscious of our 
 knowledge than of our ignorance? The known 
 we emphasize and communicate; the unknown, 
 which is far vaster, we scarcely realize. Pupils 
 get from us too often the impression that we 
 know it all and that there isn't much left of 
 value that is unknown. We assume that we know 
 because we are supposed to know. We are afraid 
 for some reason to show or confess our ignorance. 
 Even a mistake of our own we are ashamed to 
 confess and correct. We fear loss of respect from 
 
 48 
 
SHRIVING AN INARTISTIC TEACHER 
 
 our pupils. We have made the dreadful mistake 
 of trying to live up to the reputation of being 
 encyclopaedic. Intellectual modesty is a fitting 
 virtue in our world for even the wisest man. Our 
 pupils would get more from us if we taught them 
 less from our store and learned with them more. 
 
 Gratuitous discipline 
 
 Again, we tend to maintain a kind of gratui- 
 tous discipline among our pupils. Our rules for 
 order are based, not so much on moral principle 
 as on what is convenient or not annoying to our- 
 selves. Thus we keep pupils quiet, though work 
 should sometimes mean noise. Thus we keep 
 them motionless when bodily activity is good for 
 thinking, morality, and health alike. Being often 
 nervous ourselves, we force a regimen on them 
 that tends to make them nervous. The discipline 
 and order we maintain are likely to be based on 
 our authority rather than on a sweet and univer- 
 sal reason. We even go the length at times of 
 denying our pupils the freedom they need be- 
 cause it disturbs us. We make ourselves too 
 much the center around which the class revolves 
 49 
 
THE TEACHER AS ARTIST 
 
 as a satellite. We fail as artists because we do 
 not develop freedom, initiative, spontaneity, and 
 self-expression. Not being as complete person- 
 alities ourselves as we should be, we make our 
 pupils into our own image. Until we become 
 better artists, we cannot shape life artistically. 
 
 Academicism 
 
 Perhaps the nadir of our weakness is that we 
 are so exclusively academic. We move in a 
 realm too apart from life. The world sweeps too 
 much by, too little through, our schoolroom. We 
 are safely isolated, insulated, within our four 
 walls, if we will it so. Life is something we are 
 supposed to prepare pupils for; it comes later. 
 This we do, not so much by living as by talking. 
 We spend our pupils' time not so much in doing 
 things as in saying how they should be done. A 
 child is taught to say the table of cubic measure 
 but he cannot measure a pile of wood with a 
 yardstick. We have something we call a curricu- 
 lum that children have to study; it is well-named, 
 "a little race-course" around which we usually 
 drive them at top speed out of sight of the world. 
 SO 
 
SHRIVING AN INARTISTIC TEACHER 
 
 The antidote for academicism is vitalism, the 
 living touch. The curriculum should interpret 
 life with a view to its improvement. The school 
 should itself be a miniature of the ideal society. 
 
 Thus at length my confession is ended. These 
 are faults enough, if not exaggerated, sadly to 
 handicap the influence of our art. Perhaps the 
 narration of the faults has been somewhat over- 
 drawn, as one truly confessing a fault is likely to 
 magnify it. If it be a nightmare here depicted, at 
 least may it awaken us from our lethargy, and so 
 have afflicted our souls to good purpose. 
 
 After the confession the assignment of pen- 
 ance. How shall we who recognize and confess 
 our inartistic defects proceed to overcome them? 
 This is the practical question. The penance will 
 take the form of certain specific things to be done. 
 Some of these have been hinted at in the course 
 of the confession itself. The register of the pen- 
 ance will include these items: the winning of a 
 wider consciousness, the knowing of principles, 
 cultivating aesthetic appreciation, making an ar- 
 tistic environment, conmiunicating a personality, 
 and possessing a soul. 
 
 51 
 
THE TEACHER AS ARTIST 
 
 The wider consciousness 
 
 The teachers of the world are the artificers of 
 life. We need to have, as Isaac Watts said of 
 John Locke, "a soul wide as the sea, calm as 
 night, bright as day." We need the conception 
 of the unity and goal of humanity. We must 
 acquire a wider consciousness, one that is inter- 
 class, interracial, and international in scope. 
 With such a consciousness in the classroom we 
 can become leaders in making individual and 
 social living that divine thing of peace and prog- 
 ress, health and happiness, labor and love, jus- 
 tice and mercy that it should be and some day 
 will be. 
 
 Knowing principles 
 
 And then, as regards our craft, we should know 
 more thoroughly and apply more effectively the 
 principles of teaching as an art in order to make 
 it a fine art. As Aristotle says,^ 
 
 . . . Any one who wishes to become an artist in 
 education and to know the theory of it must, it will 
 
 * Burnet, Aristotle on Education, p. 95. Cambridge, 1905. 
 
 52 
 
SHRIVING AN INARTISTIC^ TEACHER 1 
 
 be allowed, betake himself to the universal and get 
 to know it as far as that may be possible. And no 
 doubt too every one that wishes to make people bet- 
 ter, whether they be few or many, must try to learn 
 the art of legislation, seeing that it is only through 
 law that we can be made good. To produce a good 
 disposition in any given subject submitted for treat- 
 ment is not in the power of anybody and everybody, 
 but only, if in anybody's, in that of the scientific 
 educator. 
 
 ^Esthetic appreciation 
 
 We should learn to appreciate the works of fine 
 art, — the best music, literature, sculpture, 
 painting, and architecture. Some of our busy 
 time and small income should be devoted to 
 these greater matters of the soul, with a view not 
 only to cultivating our own aesthetic sense, but 
 also to using in our own work the methods of the 
 masters of art. As Herbart says,^ "The teacher 
 should by all means study literary masterpieces 
 for the purpose of learning from great authors 
 how they escaped these difl&culties " (in securing 
 attention). 
 
 1 Herbart's Outlines of Educational Doctrine, p. 66, trans- 
 lated by Lange and De Garmo. New York, 1909. 
 
 53 
 
THE TEACHER AS ARTIST 
 
 Artistic environment 
 
 Beauty, as Plato showed, is drawn into the 
 soul through association with things of beauty. 
 The continuous and relatively unconscious in- 
 fluence of the schoolhouse must refine the nature 
 of pupils. We must accentuate the growing ten- 
 dency to have fine architecture in the school 
 building itself, artistic and well-kept school 
 grounds, handsomely decorated interiors in 
 halls, corridors, and classrooms, and withal, we 
 must show in our own appearance some evidence 
 of aesthetic feeling. 
 
 Transmission of personality 
 
 Such artistic taste and personality as we can 
 by effort develop in ourselves, we must transmit 
 by a contagious enthusiasm to our pupils. Not 
 what we say, nor even what we do, but what we 
 really are counts for most in the aesthetic as well 
 as other development of our pupils. 
 
 As McLellan and Dewey say: ^ 
 
 The fundamental principle is that personality com- 
 municates itself, that there is developed in the pupil 
 * Applied Psychology, p. 232. 
 54 
 
SHRIVING AN INARTISTIC TEACHER 
 
 the same state of intellectual and moral conscious- 
 ness that marks the teacher ... he makes an attrac- 
 tive subject still more attractive; he invests the in- 
 different with newly discovered charms; he reveals 
 an element of beauty even in what was dry and 
 harsh; in a word, he makes the pupil love what he 
 himself loves, and hate what he hates. . . . The de- 
 spiser of classics becomes an enthusiastic student of 
 Homer and Virgil; the hater of mathematics takes 
 to geometry and the calculus; and the unimaginative 
 plodder becomes saturated with love for the beauty 
 and strength of Milton and Shakespeare. 
 
 This statement may be somewhat unrestrained 
 in its estimate of what the communication of 
 personality may accomplish. The quotation to 
 follow is speaking to the same point but in a 
 somewhat more judicious and discriminating 
 way. 
 
 The New York Times of April 20, 191 1, quoted 
 in its editorial column the following from the 
 brilliant French critic, Emile Faguet: — 
 
 It is true that taste is incommunicable and that 
 thinking cannot be taught. But if a teacher cannot 
 teach his pupils to have taste, he can show taste in the 
 
 55 
 
THE TEACHER AS ARTIST 
 
 presence of a hundred of them and excite them to its 
 attainment; it is only an excitation, but it may be 
 potent, and if he cannot teach them thinking, he can 
 think in their presence and excite them to think for 
 themselves, and it is only an excitation, but it is 
 vital. 
 
 Such teaching, to be accurate, is not teaching; it is 
 intercourse; it consists in living intellectually with 
 the young, who, on their part, are living intellectu- 
 ally, and whom your intellectual life arouses, keeps 
 curious and eager, and encourages. That is all. 
 
 Possession of soul 
 
 And, as fashioners of the future America, we 
 must rise above the American standard of haste, 
 bustle, and speed. Our teaching and the spiritual 
 atmosphere of our classrooms too easily reflect 
 the prevailing standards of American life. The 
 school exists, not so much to conform itself to 
 existing society as to transform existing society 
 through its future members into what it ought to 
 be. In the classroom those standards of poise, 
 self-control, equilibrium, and patience should 
 prevail in relation to which young souls may 
 properly grow, and which are so conspicuously 
 ~ 56 
 
SHRIVING AN INARTISiTIC TEACHER 
 
 lacking from American society. Things of beauty 
 are neither created nor enjoyed in record-break- 
 ing time, but the spirit of leisure and free spon- 
 taneity characterizes them. This does not mean 
 that we are to be inactive when we should be at 
 work, but it means that the spirit of self-control 
 should animate even our busiest days. 
 
 In these, and no doubt in many other ways, 
 put upon ourselves, it may be, in the form of 
 penance for inartistic shortcomings, we, as lovers 
 of our profession, must help raise the art of 
 teaching to the dignity, excellence, majesty, and 
 joy of a fine art. 
 
 It remains only to pronounce the word of 
 absolution upon ourselves, who see our faults, 
 confess them, resolve so far as possible to turn 
 from them, and to walk more nearly in the way 
 that is holy, because beautiful. 
 
REFERENCES 
 
 Bailey, H. T., Art Education, chap, viii, "The 
 Teacher the Chief Factor." Houghton Mifflin Co. 
 
 Brown, E. E., Government by Influence, chap, xiv, 
 "The Art of the Teacher." Longmans, Green & 
 Co. 1910. 
 
 HowERTH, I. W., The Art of Education, pp. 21-25, 
 and chap, xii, " The Artist Teacher." The Mac- 
 Millan Co. 191 2. 
 
 Palmer, G. H., The Ideal Teacher. Houghton Mifflin 
 Co. 
 
 Richards, Z., "The Teacher as Artist," Proceed- 
 ings, National Education Association, 1863, pp. 
 69-80. 
 
 Slattery, Margaret, Living Teachers. Cleveland, 
 1909. 
 
OUTLINE 
 
 I. IS TEACHING A FINE ART? 
 
 1. Teaching as a physical process i 
 
 2. Teaching as an intellectual process i 
 
 3. Teaching as a personal process 2 
 
 4. Is teaching also an aesthetic process? .... 2 
 
 5. De Quincey's Essay on Murder 3 
 
 6. The nature of art .4 
 
 7. Unskilled labor and art 4 
 
 8. Science and art 5 
 
 9. Nature and art 5 
 
 10. Colvin's definition of art 6 
 
 11. Is teaching an art? 7 
 
 12. Tufts' definition of fine art 8 
 
 13. The characteristics of aesthetic value . . / . 8 
 
 14. Teaching as having aesthetic value 13 
 
 15. The characteristics of aesthetic activity . . .15 
 
 16. Lack of data 16 
 
 17. Six characteristics of aesthetic activity . . . .18 
 
 a. Spontaneity 18 
 
 b. Self-expression 19 
 
 c. Imagination 19 
 
 61 
 
OUTLINE 
 
 d. Imitation , . , 20 
 
 e. Love 21 
 
 /. Self-relief 22 
 
 18. Teaching as an aesthetic activity 22 
 
 19. How teaching differs from the other fine arts . 24 
 
 20. The nature of the aesthetic product 25 
 
 21. The idealistic philosophy of art 26 
 
 a. Plato as an example 26 
 
 22. Modern idealistic philosophy of art in contrast 
 with Plato's 28 
 
 23. Summary 29 
 
 24. The pragmatic philosophy of art 29 
 
 25. Miss Gordon quoted 30 
 
 26. Which is the true theory? 30 
 
 27. "Art for art's sake" 31 
 
 28. Art for Hfe's sake 32 
 
 29. Walter Pater on Plato 33 
 
 30. Final view of the aesthetic product 33 
 
 31. Teaching as a work of art 34 
 
 32. Miss Slattery quoted 34 
 
 33. Summary of the whole discussion 37 
 
 34. A practical question 38 
 
 62. 
 
OUTLINE 
 
 II. THE SHRIVING OF AN INARTISTIC 
 TEACHER 
 
 1. The point of view 39 
 
 2. The lapse of the ideal 39 
 
 3. Our small influence 40 
 
 4. The reason 41 
 
 5. Self-criticism necessary 43 
 
 6. Pedantry 44 
 
 7. Didacticism 44 
 
 8. Methodastry 45 
 
 9. Traditionalism 46 
 
 10. The omniscient air . . « 48 
 
 11. Gratuitous discipline 49 
 
 12. Academicism 50 
 
 13. The wider consciousness 52 
 
 14. Knowing principles 52 
 
 15. Esthetic appreciation 53 
 
 16. Artistic environment 54 
 
 17. Transmission of personality 54 
 
 18. Possession of soul 56 
 
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