he
contrary, these years were in general marked by educational stagnation.]

[Footnote 5: The writer here accepts the conclusions of J.A. Thomson
(_Heredity_ New York, 1908, ch. vii).]

~III~

HOW MAY WE PROMOTE THE EFFICIENCY OF THE TEACHING FORCE?[6]

I

Efficiency seems to be a word to conjure with in these days. Popular
speech has taken it in its present connotation from the technical
vocabulary of engineering, and the term has brought with it a very
refreshing sense of accuracy and practicality. It suggests blueprints
and T-squares and mathematical formulae. A faint and rather pleasant odor
of lubricating oil and cotton waste seems to hover about it. The
efficiency of a steam engine or a dynamo is a definitely determinable
and measurable factor, and when we use the term "efficiency" in popular
speech we convey through the word somewhat of this quality of certainty
and exactitude.

An efficient man, very obviously, is a man who "makes good," who
surmounts obstacles, overcomes difficulties, and "gets results." Rowan,
the man who achieved immortality on account of a certain message that he
carried to Garcia, is the contemporary standard of human efficiency. He
was given a task to do, and he did it. He did not stop to inquire
whether it was interesting, or whether it was easy, or whether it would
be remunerative, or whether Garcia was a pleasant man to meet. He simply
took the message and brought back the answer. Here we have efficiency in
human endeavor reduced to its lowest terms: to take a message and to
bring back an answer; to do the work that is laid out for one to do
without shirking or "soldiering" or whining; and to "make good," to get
results.

Now if we are to improve the efficiency of the teacher, the first thing
to do is to see that the conditions of efficiency are fulfilled as far
as possible at the outset. In other words, efficiency is impossible
unless one is set a certain task to accomplish. Rowan was told to carry
a message to Garcia. He was to carry it to Garcia, not to Queen Victoria
or Li Hung Chang or J. Pierpont Morgan, or any one else whom he may have
felt inclined to choose as its recipient. And that is just where Rowan
had a decided advantage over many teachers who have every ambition to be
just as efficient as he was. To expect a young teacher not only to get
results, but also to determine the results that should be obtained,
multiplies his chances of failure, not by two, as