p. 176 | The True School by S. Brownsberger

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Apr 13, 1882

The True School.

By S. Brownsberger

BY PROF. S. BROWNSBERGER.

THE characteristic features of a true school are as manifest to the educator as are the leading traits of a good character to a competent judge of human nature. The true school will always secure to its pupils completeness in their studies. The expression "completeness in their studies," as used above, does not mean a finished course of study as popularly understood, but the performance of every day's work to completeness. It is a lack of a habit of completeness in their work that makes many a farm hand, domestic, and seamstress, next to worthless.

Completeness in school work on the part of the pupil, means more than simply to commit to memory, rules and definitions, and parrot-like to recite them; more than to perform examples in a certain way because "the rule says so," and to consider the work right only because the result obtained is like the answer. In English Grammar it consists of more than penning up the words of a sentence in a mechanical frame-work called diagraming, and dignifying each by one of the eight conventional titles of noun, verb, adjective, etc.

The habit of doing things well will not come from such methods of study. To insure completeness, and to instill habits of original thought, the teacher must lead the pupil, with certain facts before him, to reason and draw conclusions from the stand-point of an original investigator.

The true school will attach great importance to practical studies. These properly pursued cannot fail to give good mental culture, and at the same time the pupil is acquiring that knowledge which he will most need when he becomes a man.

It has become a kind of mania among young people in many of our public and preparatory schools throughout the country, to attach very great importance to the higher branches, while the common branches are looked upon with disdain, and as something to be passed over in a superficial manner. As a result their penmanship is poor, their spelling worse, and their knowledge of practical Arithmetic is not sufficient to meet the demands of most ordinary business.

The true school will inculcate in its pupils the habit of doing everything well. This habit may become just as deeply and firmly seated in the character of the student as the habit of carelessness and superficiality. Children, when properly informed, appreciate and love to practice thoroughness.

In many cases patrons judge the merits of a school and teacher, simply from the reports of the children in attendance. If the pupils love the teacher, then the school is good; if they express indifference or a dislike for the teacher, the school is accordingly bad.

The following from a certain school examiner may be readily comprehended in the light of the foregoing statements: "I have in my possession commendations from parties setting forth that Mr. A or Miss B had taught an excellent school, giving the best satisfaction, etc. And, yet, on further inquiry, it was found that not a member of the School Board, nor a soul of the district, had visited the school during the term in which these persons had been employed as teachers."

Whoever enters into heart sympathy with child-life, may command the love of children, but the possession of their love by the teacher, is not a safe criterion by which to judge the character of the school, and its educational power upon the minds of the children.

The experienced educator may know the true school by its methods; the inexperienced must judge it chiefly from its results.