ne avoid the sensational in school work? What are the
characteristics of sensationalism? Is the fact that a class is unusually
aroused a reason for decrying a method as sensational?

22. With what spirit should a teacher prepare to teach about the
thirteen colonies?

23. Why should a teacher have great joy in the teaching of science?

24. Is interest in a subject as an abstract science likely to be an
adequate interest? If so, is it the best sort of interest? Why?

25. From what should interest start, and in what should it function?

26. Summarize the ways in which the artist teacher will show herself the
artist.

CHAPTER XIV

THE TEACHER AS AN IDEAL

=Responsibility of the exemplar.=--If the teacher could be convinced
that each of her pupils is to become a replica of herself, she would
more fully appreciate the responsibilities of her position. At first
flush, she might feel flattered; but when she came into a full
realization of the magnitude of the responsibility, she would probably
seek release. If she could know that each pupil is striving to copy her
in every detail of her life, her habits of speech, her bodily movements,
her tone of voice, her dress, her walk, and even her manner of thinking,
this knowledge would appall her, and she would shrink from the
responsibility of becoming the exemplar of the child. She cannot know,
however, to what extent and in what respects the pupils imitate her.
Nor, perhaps, could they themselves give definite information on these
points, if they were put to the test. Children imitate their elders both
consciously and unconsciously; so, whether the teacher wills it so or
not, she must assume the functions of an exemplar as well as a teacher.

=Absorbing standards.=--If we give full credence to Tennyson's
statement, "I am a part of all that I have met," then it follows that we
have become what we are, in some appreciable measure, through the
process of absorption. In other words, we are a composite of all our
ideals. The vase of flowers, daintily arranged, on the breakfast table
becomes the standard of good taste thenceforth, and all through life a
vase of flowers arranged less than artistically gives one a sensation of
discomfort. A traveler relates that in a hotel in Brussels he saw window
curtains of a delicate pattern; and, since that time, he has sought in
many cities for curtains that will fill the measure of the ideal he
absorbed in that hotel. Beauty is not