TEACHING.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 5292, 12 March 1878, Page 3

TEACHING.

(Prom Tinsley’s Magazine). ; A teacher’s task is of the noblest and most exalted kind, and it requires rare and peculiar qualifications to fit a man or woman for this task. Learning is not the highest—not even the most indispensible of these qualifications. A man may be brimful of knowledge, and yet be a very indifferent teacher. The faculty of imparting to others the knowledge which one possesses is one of: the rarest and happiest gifts. There is a deal of philosophical meaning in the old fable of the crane and the fox, and the wide shallow dish and the narrow-necked bottle ; the fox could not drink out of the one, and the crane' but very indifferently out of the other. A skilful teacher is he who can adapt himself readily to the different capacities of his pupils—who can be, as it were, unto the one a narrow-necked unto another a wide, shallow dish,' and so forth. A. good teacher .should , be gentle, patient,’ and forbearing, : and : always and'invariably sympathetic. His firmness 1 should never be permitted to degenerate into harshness. Ho should 1 strive to impress upon all his pupils,

even' upon those who may try his ' patience most, that he hbneatlylfmd sincerely wishes to ■.bp -tb? best-aud ’ kindpst" (rjend of Iheip” 'Many 1 ati' ungrateful’ sbil'inaymy persevering;,Iqving lahoF ho made to yield a, grateful bar--vest. Quo. of the griwost'erfbrs in cur present 'education,is, that it makes but very/ indifferent provision of/, differences in , the character, and disflositioh .and the several natural gifts; inclinations, , and tendencies ,qf children. Boys of the same school, or the same form or class/ ’ are all .treated alike teethe same subjects and the same mode of teaching,With the sovereign of their several capacities, and even of their intended future'.pursuits ill life. . But the most radical error of the present system is, in my opinion, that masters, and teachers .would ’seem more and more’ disposed‘ to drop ‘teMhing iu the .proper sense of the term, and to make their pupils learn-instead; for the , growing system ,of home tasks can only tend in this most decidedly wrong direction. It would be much better for the,, true interests of" both .teachers : nml learners tb’inake the children stay one hour longer in school every day, and to abandon home-tasks altogether. , The school, is the ’ ijropeV jjl.ace' for learning; and the only , truly proper place ; and instruction by word of moutjh, and, with the'aid bf the blackboard, is always the ihost profitable' instruction,' To send a liby home., with orders• to.(earn lessont out of .‘books'; and to ’write, tasks, sometimes: of the’.'mHst/ fantastic nature/, is'certainly'net the / proper way of teaching him ; and.when a child Has passed some five or six hours of the day ip soh'pbl,’lie ought to have rest and ‘freedom from stbdy’ tjll/tlio next';day—even -leaving but bf/the’ qhbstion' the glaring fact' that all home-t'ask‘s''mfist'fihcessariiy fall/most unevenly upon ' clever ' 'children au'd! dull' children, ‘ and upon- those whose*parents may I be ’ able_ and •willing,to assist,their offspring in doing'the tasks, and those who have! no such help -afforded' them. ' It : is' this''*'very/.syttem of liome-tasks'\vhich is making'the, school years of boys more and more irksome and unhappy; not here, alone,, but even,/and perhaps still ihore so/ id'Germany/ with'her vaunted system of' education; A* /'poor' child is never free to ■ enjoy himself ; eVen ‘part of ,/hisSouHay has tb! be ,employed ,in,the preparation- ■ qf- this; liome-tasks and lesaotjs, t j