t what he has been doing
for his pupils is entirely without value, that his life of service has
been a failure, that the lessons of his own experience are not to be
trusted, nor the verdicts of his own intelligence respected. Go to any
of the great summer schools and you will meet, among the attending
teachers, hundreds of faithful, conscientious men and women who could
tell you if they would (and some of them will) of the muddle in which
their minds are left after some of the lectures to which they have
listened. Why should they fail to be depressed? The whole weight of
academic authority seems to be against them. The entire machinery of
educational administration is wheeling them with relentless force into
paths that seem to them hopelessly intricate and bewildering. If it is
true, as I think it is, that some of the proposals of modern education
are an attempt to square the circle, it is certainly true that the
classroom teacher is standing at the pressure points in this procedure.

We hear expressed on every side a great deal of sympathy for the child
as the victim of our educational system. Sympathy for childhood is the
most natural thing in the world. It is one of the basic human instincts,
and its expressions are among the finest things in human life. But why
limit our sympathy to the child, especially to-day when he is about as
happy and as fortunate an individual as anybody has ever been in all
history. Why not let a little of it go out to the teacher of this child?
Why not plan a little for her comfort and welfare and encouragement? It
is her skill that is assimilating the children of our alien population.
It is her strength that is lifting bodily each generation to the
ever-advancing race levels. Her work must be the main source of the
inspiration that will impel the race to further advancement. And yet
when these half-million teachers who mean so much to this country gather
at their institutes, when they attend the summer schools, when they take
up their professional journals, what do they hear and read? Criticisms
of their work. Denunciations of their methods. Serious doubts of their
intelligence. Aspersions cast upon their sincerity, their patience, and
their loyalty to their superiors. This, mingled with some mawkish
sentimentalism that passes under the name of inspiration. Only
occasionally a word of downright commendation, a sign of honest and
heartfelt appreciation, a note of sympathy or encouragement.