THE MASSACHUSETTS TEACHER. Vol. IV. No. 3.] F. N. BLAKE, EDITOR OF THIS NUMBER. [March, 1851. THE TEACHER'S LIBRARY. The best mode of educating the young is one of the great problems of the day. Involving, as it does, the necessity of adapting many and complicated means to a great and important end, it is, at once, difficult of solution and worthy of serious and prolonged study. To plan the best houses; to procure the best apparatus; to select the best books; to prescribe a course of study that shall best harmonize the three great elements of education, moral, intellectual, and physical; and to secure the most efficient and accomplished teachers these are some of the parts of this complicated question. We propose to follow out but one of its ramifications, that which pertains to teachers. We shall not take it upon ourselves to say what should be the special training of the teacher in view of the great work to which he is called; we shall only point out what we consider one of his greatest wants at the present time, a judiciously selected library. It has long been the opinion of many judicious men, that the business of teaching should vindicate for itself a place among the so-called learned professions. Teachers themselves have felt the necessity of having some bond of union- some corporate pride some corporate existence. They have met to devise means for advancing and dignifying their work; and already does teaching begin to assume the rank and dignity of a profession. But it, as yet, enjoys but an embryo existence. Many changes must take place, both in the public and in teachers themselves, before it can assume the rank it deserves. An idea still lurks in the mind of many, that teaching is not so respectable, or rather, honorable as the practice of law or medicine. The natural consequence of this prejudice is that the work of education fails to attract its legitimate share of the best talent. There are two ways of remedying this evil. The public must pay higher salaries to teachers, and thus allure a higher order of talent into the profession, or the teachers must take the matter into their own hands, and by raising the standard of the profession, and infusing into it a greater amount of learning, raise themselves in the public estimation. It is a principle recognized by writers on political economy, that a profession should be remunerated according to the time and money expended in preparing for it, and the capital necessarily employed in its practice. The lawyer, physician, and clergyman, usually spend two or three years in preparing to enter on the duties of their respective professions. In addition to this expenditure of time, a select library is deemed essentially necessary to success. We see no reason why even a much longer preparatory course, a much higher degree of attainment, and a much larger library, are not as essentially necessary to the success of the teacher; and were these conditions of success fulfilled, it would follow that a much larger remuneration would also be due to him. But our present business is with the teacher's library. In the first place, teachers are rarely situated so that they can have access to our large public libraries. Were they all stationed in our large cities, or in the immediate vicinity of social libraries, the necessity of having a private library would not be so pressing. But three-fourths of our teachers must depend for books upon themselves. The small school libraries established by the Legislature of 1842, though doing so much for the culture of children, and eminently fulfilling the purpose for which they were established, cannot satisfy the wants of the teacher. The character of the books composing these libraries recommends them especially to children; and were they such books as he would select, their limited number would still render a private library necessary. The same reasons that render a library necessary to the lawyer, the physician, and the clergyman, render one necessary to the teacher. There is, besides, a special reason in the case of the latter. The teacher needs a course of general, miscellaneous reading to check and counteract the untoward influences of his profession. There is something in the very nature of his duties that has a tendency to contract and belittle the mind. The daily return of the same round of studies for years, varied only by an occasional change of text-books; the need of insisting upon all the little forms and technicalities of the school-room; the necessity of simplifying and mincing his thoughts so as to bring them down to the level of the pupil's mind; the painful attention he is obliged to give to a thousand little particulars ;all these are influences which, if not counteracted, might reason ably be supposed to produce the effect to which we have alluded. In fact, we may say that every professional man is in danger of impeding and cramping his mental culture; first, by relying too much upon the mere forms and technicalities of his profession, without striving to attain to its life and spirit; and secondly, by failing to see how all professions are, in some manner, linked together-how all the departments of learning are, as Cicero remarks, bound together by the closest ties of relationship. The physician who should rely for success chiefly upon his drugs and diploma, and should give up his books altogether, would soon degenerate into an unmitigated quack. The lawyer who should fancy the difficulties of his profession overcome, when he had mastered its dry forms, its tedious tautologies, and its antiquated technicalities, (unfortunately there are too many who "lay that flattering unction" to their souls,) would soon have a mind shrivelled and decayed, and little better than a machine with which to grind out writs and "shave notes." - If these contracting, stiffening influences beset the physician and the lawyer, how much more the teacher! If they, with fresh subjects for thought and investigation almost daily presented in their practice, are in danger of becoming lifeless and formal, what shall we say of the teacher who is obliged to travel a beaten track to tread the same round of duties after year year? He, of all men, needs the genial and quickening influence of reading. He, of all men, needs to have fresh streams of thought pouring into his mind from all departments of learning. He, of all men, stands in need of the quickening, "fecundating pollen of thought," which books, like bees, bear from mind to mind. He needs a library for his own recreation, if for nothing else. When he returns home at night, wearied in mind and body with the cares and labors of the day, what is better fitted to restore his flagging spirits than a good book? What is better to make him forget the trials and perplexities of the school-room? The very presence of his books will infuse peace and quietness into his soul. "Round these, with tendrils strong as flesh and blood, He will find them in truth a "substantial world, both pure and good," into which he can retire at pleasure a world in which he can find something to heighten every joy and soothe every sorrow. But it is not solely for his own good that I would insist upon the teacher's having a library. The stream that will flow from it, will not fertilize his mind alone. He can make of himself, so to speak, a vast reservoir from which a thousand little streamlets may be taken and conducted into the bosom of society. He is 68 the teacher of all, the teacher of teachers. Clergymen, physi- It would be a difficult task to enumerate all the books that should find a place in the teacher's library. Standing in the relation of instructor to society, having under his tuition those who are to fill all stations and devote themselves to all professions, the character of his books should correspond with the nature of his duties. Supposing him furnished with the most approved text books, he should have another class of books which have a close connection with the branches he is called to teach. An extensive course of reading will supply him with the means of relieving the dryness, monotony and incompleteness that are often found in the best text-books. The best books must necessarily leave much for him to supply. If he teaches history, his library should furnish him with the means of pouring a flood of light and illustration upon the lesson. The bare, jejune epitome of events should dilate and spread into a beautiful and interesting picture. The dry chronological skeleton, under his 'vivifying touch, should assume flesh and blood again, and once more warm into life and vitality. Thus will the dulness of teaching be relieved; the scholar's curiosity will be roused; the springs of thought will be opened in his mind; and his intellectual machinery will be set in motion. Thus will the real end of education be answered, which is not so much a pouring-in, as a drawiny-out process, a development of those transcendent faculties which the child possesses in virtue of his humanity, but which must lie cold and dormant, until some skilful hand touches their springs of motion. Again, if he teaches mathematics, he should have an intimate acquaintance with its higher principles with what is termed the higher mathematics. Books wholly above the level of his scholars' abilities, may furnish rich food to him, and through him to them. Thus we might go on through the whole circle of sciences. Especially should he endeavor to have books embodying the results of the most recent investigation in the natural sciences, when new discoveries are made almost daily. All books relating to the business of teaching will, of course, be found in his possession. He should have an intimate knowledge of the school systems, not only in this country, but also of those in Europe, where, in many countries, the science and principles of education are much better understood than among us. Encyclopædias, books and treatises on the useful arts, and on the application of science to the arts, should find a place in his library. The works of Humboldt, Ritter and Guyot, will enable him to convert the study of Geography-too often one of the dryest, most mechanical and unphilosophical studies into one full of interest, life and deep philosophy. Works on mental philosophy he will not fail to possess. If a knowledge of the faculties and laws of the mind are of practical moment to any man, it is to him. The physician professes to take charge of our bodies - our physical health. What toil and study are necessary in the departments of anatomy and physiology, before he feels himself competent to assume the duties of his office! Every minute part of the system is carefully and repeatedly anatomized, and its physiological function learned. The teacher takes charge of the mind's health, and that, too, when the mind is most susceptible of contracting diseases of all sorts. He is the mind's physician. Any malpractice on his part will give it an unhealthy tone, or a one-sided development that will last for life. He needs, then, to know all its faculties, their laws and functions, all its deep and wonderful capacities — all its tender, nerve-like sensibilities-all its delicate susceptibilities; he needs to know how to touch skilfully all its hidden springs, and to set in motion all its complex and invisible machinery. Works on moral science, and, generally, works of a moral and religious tendency should occupy a large space in his library. Their contents should" deck his head," and their spirit animate his heart. He stands not only "in loco parentis," but "in loco pastoris" to great numbers of children. Many of his pupils, orphans, perhaps, or the offspring of vicious and degraded parents, surrounded by untoward influences, and feeling the strong hand of poverty always upon them, are rarely seen at church. Such children have a double claim upon him. He must be to them both teacher and preacher. The wants of their bodies and their minds are light in importance, when compared |