Chapter 9 WORK AND LIFE

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Tom Sawyer.-Tom Sawyer was one of the most effective teachers that has figured in the pages of the books; and yet we still regard Mark Twain as merely the prince of humorists. He was that, of course, but much more; and some day we shall read his books in quest of pedagogical wisdom and shall not be disappointed. It will be recalled that Tom Sawyer sat on the top of a barrel and munched apples while his boy companions whitewashed the fence in his stead. Tom achieved this triumph because he knew how to emancipate work from the plane of drudgery and exalt it to the plane of a privilege. Indeed, it loomed so large as a privilege that the other boys were eager to barter the treasures of their pockets in exchange for this privilege. And never did a fence receive such a whitewashing! There wasn't fence enough and, therefore, the process must needs be repeated again and again. The best part of the entire episode was that everybody was happy, Tom included. Tom was happy in seeing his plan work, and the other boys were happy because they were doing work that Tom had caused them to become eager to do.

Work as a privilege.-To make work seem a privilege is a worthy task for the school to set before itself, and if it but achieves this it will prove itself worth all it costs. At first thought, it seems a stupendous task, and so it is. But Tom Sawyer accomplished it in an easy, natural way, with no parade or bombast. He had habit and tradition to contend against, just as the school has, but he overbore these obstacles and won the contest. Some of those boys, before that morning, may have thought it ignoble to perform menial tasks; but Tom soon overcame that feeling and led them to feel that only an artist can whitewash a fence properly. Some of them may have been interpreting life as having a good time, but, under the tutorage of Tom, they soon came to feel that having a good time means whitewashing a fence.

The persistency of habit.-In striving to exalt and ennoble work, the school runs counter to habits of thought that have been formed in the home, and these habits prove stubborn. The home has so long imposed work as a task that the school finds it difficult to make it seem a privilege. The father and mother have so often complained of their work, in the presence of their children, that all work comes to assume the aspect of a hardship, if not a penalty. It often happens, too, that the parents encourage their children to think that education affords immunity from work, and the children attend school with that notion firmly implanted in their minds. They seem to think that when they have achieved an education they will receive their reward in the choicest gifts that Fortune has to bestow, and that their only responsibility will be to indicate their choices.

Misconceptions of work.-Still further, when children enter school imbued with this conception of work, they feel that the work of the school is imposed upon them as a task from which they would fain be free. If their parents had only been as wise as Tom Sawyer and had set up motives before them in connection with their home activities and thus exalted all their work to the plane of privilege, the work of the school would be greatly simplified. It is no slight task to eradicate this misconception of work, but somehow it must be done before the work of the school can get on. Until this is done, the work of the school will be done grudgingly instead of buoyantly, and work that is done under compulsion is never joyous work. Nor will work that is done under compulsion ever be done in full measure, as the days of slavery clearly prove.

Illustrations.-Life and work are synonymous, and no amount or form of sophistry can abrogate their relation. The man who does not work does not have real life, as the invalid will freely witness. The tramp on the highway manages to exist, but he does not really live, no matter what his philosophy may be. Many children interpret life to mean plenty of money and nothing to do, but this conception merely proves that they are children with childish misconceptions. They see the railway magnate riding in his private car and conceive his life to be one of ease and luxury. They do not realize that the private car affords him the opportunity to do more and better work. They see the president of the bank sitting in his private office and imagine that he is idle, not realizing that his mind is busy with problems of great magnitude, problems that would appall his subordinates. They cannot know, as he sits there, that he is projecting his thoughts into far-off lands, and is watching the manifold and complex processions of commerce in their relations to the world of finance.

Concrete examples.-They see the architect in his luxurious apartments, but do not realize that his brain is directing every movement of a thousand men who are causing a colossal building to tower toward the sky. They see a Grant sitting beneath a tree in apparent unconcern, but do not know that he is bearing the responsibility of the movements of a vast army. They see the pastor in his study among his books, but do not know the travail of spirit that he experiences in his yearning for his parishioners. They see the farmer sitting at ease in the shade, but do not know that he is visualizing every detail of his farm, the men at their tasks, the flocks and herds, the crops, the streams, the machinery, the fences, and the orchards and vineyards. They see the master of the ship, standing on the bridge clad in his smart uniform, and imagine that he is merely enjoying the sea breezes the same as themselves, not knowing that his thoughts are concentrated upon the safety of his hundreds of passengers and his precious cargo.

The potency of mental work.-Only by experience may children come to know that work may be mental as well as physical, and the school is charged with the responsibility of affording this experience. Through experience they will come to know that mind transcends matter, and that in life the body yields obedience to the behests of the mind. They will come to know that mental work is more far-reaching than physical work, in that a single mind plans the work for a thousand hands. They will learn that mental work has redeemed the world from its primitive condition and is making life more agreeable even if more complex. They will come to see the mind busy in its work of tunneling mountains, building canals and railways, navigating oceans, and exploring the sky. They will come to realize that mental work has produced our libraries, designed our machinery, made our homes more comfortable and our fields more fertile.

Work a blessing.-As a knowledge of all these things filters into their minds, their conception of life broadens, and they see more and more clearly that life and work are fundamentally identical. They see that work directs the streams of life and gives to life point, potency, and significance. They soon see that knowledge is power only because it is the agency that generates power, and that knowledge touches life at every point. They will come to realize that work is the one great luxury in life, and that education is designed to increase the capacity for work in order that people may indulge in this luxury more abundantly. The more work one can do, the more life one has; and the better the work one can do, the higher the quality of that life. They learn that the adage "Work to live and live to work" is no fiction but a reality.

Work and enjoyment.-The school, therefore, becomes to them a workshop of life, and unless it is that, it is not a worthy school. It is not a something detached from life, but, rather, an integral part of life and therefore a place and an occasion for work. The school is the Burning Bush of work that is to grow into the Tree of Life. But life ought to teem with joy in order to be at its best, and never be a drag. Work, therefore, being synonymous with life, should be a joyous experience, even though it taxes the powers to the utmost. If the child comes to the work of the school as the galley-slave goes to his task, there is a lack of adjustment and balance somewhere, and a readjustment is necessary. It matters not that a boy spends two hours over a problem in arithmetic if only he enjoys himself during the time. But, if he works two hours merely to get a passing grade or to escape punishment, the time thus spent does not afford him the pleasure that rightfully belongs to him, and some better motive should be supplied.

The teacher's problem.-The teacher's mission is not to make school work easy, but, rather, to make the hardest work alluring and agreeable. Here, again, she may need to take counsel with Tom Sawyer. Whitewashing a fence is quite as hard work as solving a problem in decimals or cube root. Much depends upon the mental attitude of the boy, and this in turn depends upon the skill of the teacher and her fertility of mind in supplying motives. Whitewashing a fence causes the arms to grow weary and the back to ache, but the boys recked not of that. On the contrary, they clamored for more of the same kind of work. This same spirit characterizes the work of the vitalized school. The pupils live as joyously in the schoolroom as they do outside, and the harder the work the greater their joy.

When work is made a privilege by the expert teacher, school procedure becomes well-nigh automatic and there is never any occasion for nagging, hectoring, or badgering. Such things are abnormal in life and no less so in the vitalized school. They are a confession on the part of the teacher that she has reached the limit of her resources. She admits that she cannot do what Tom Sawyer did so well, and so proclaims her inability to articulate life and work effectively.

Questions and Exercises

Read that chapter of "Tom Sawyer" which deals with the whitewashing episode.

What principles of teaching did Tom Sawyer apply?

Discuss, from the pupils' viewpoint, how the study of different subjects may be made a privilege.

In accordance with Tom Sawyer pedagogy, discuss plans for the formation of the reading habit in pupils. How direct the pupils' choice of reading matter?

How would you demonstrate to pupils that mental work is more exhausting than manual labor?

Why is work a blessing? How convince an indolent pupil of this truth?

State the chief problem of the teacher.

Show that the pedagogical doctrines of this chapter are not to be classified under the head of "soft pedagogy."