XIII - THE BLESSINGS OF TEACHING

Without straining what is called the sense of proportion it may be said that the noblest of professions and the sorriest of trades is the happiest of vocations. In recent times much has been written about this high and ill-rewarded work _ too much, perhaps. Teaching has been drawn in dismal colours and if some of these are found to have been borrowed from truthful sources it has not even then markedly helped in rendering the picture attractive. Commiseration for the teacher has, therefore, become an easyen ough matter and the commiseration is ineffective for the simple reason that it is cheap and nasty as the market jargon goes. It cannot, of course, be denied that there are thorns in teaching as thorns are a supplementary fate of roses, but it cannot also be denied that in teaching there are flower-gardens and fine blossoms too. An almost organic defect of modern thought is that it has a chronic little way of forgetting the other side of the medal.

The condescending pity that seeks to honour the teacher with its attentions is the teacher's worst enemy. It encourages him to commiserate himself, which is about the worst earthly calamity that could befall any individual. It is, therefore, the teacher's prime duty to resist tears where tears are not called. Optimism can often be stupid but a mournful outlook on life exempt from those obligatory impulses and instincts that cunningly persuade us to hitch our little waggons to far off shining things has seldom been discovered a friend of humanity. Even if one were inclined to pessimize one cannot go farther than to say that it is imperative that the teacher must at least try and make the best of a bad bargain.

In former times when education was more or less for the few instruction generally remained in the hands of those who were born with a bent and brought up in the fitness to give it. This is the Indian tradition. These born and self-constituted teachers were honoured and were happy sometimes even more happy than the rest of the community. During the last one hundred years or so education happily has been travelling from the few to the many and today it is asking everyone to come under its umbrella. The demand for teachers has therefore vastly exceeded the supply of the real article and in satisfying the demand it has not always been found possible to concentrate too much on value. The result is that today in teaching there are workers who have mistaken their vocation as well as those who have found it. Teachers training colleges have stepped forward to make the wrong elements happy and efficient and the right ones happier and more efficient. How far these institutions are justifying expectations still remains a debatable question. However that may be the general consensus of opinion among the majority of teachers if it could be onbtained unpolluted by alien considerations will be found to be in favour of voting teaching a nobler profession than a sorry trade. Teaching has certainly its blessings.

In teaching the wrong words subsidizing the wrong ideas have done considerable harm. Teaching has never been and perhaps never can be a profession to say nothing of its being or becoming a trade. Whatever it might be in other professions, the crux of the matter in teaching is the inward call in it the mind ought to be greatly more than money and it is only when the money idea overpowers teaching that it becomes the sorriest of trades at the expense of the noblest of professions. Although money has grown to a size all out of proportion to its intrinsic value in the modern world there remain still certain human efforts which cannot be sustained by the strength of money alone. Mind and spirit where they are honoured still maintain their proud independence of earthly cravings. Gold can lend no glamour to the temple of knowledge nor electricity illuminate its halls. The teacher must really like teaching to be good at it, and he must really be good at it to know its blessings, and to him that is really good at it teaching holds many blessings. And there is comfort for all that are engaged in teaching in the assurance that although the training colleges do not always succeed in making them like the work or in persuading them to reach its highest possibilities they can do these of themselves. It is only those that shut their eyes to the joys of teaching that can neither see them nor have them. There might also be eyes that shut themselves in ignorance. That is the reason why it must be made clear that there are real blessings in teaching to delight such as would have them.

He may not know it, for which he has mainly to thank himself but the teacher lives in a romantic world whose every nook teems with wonder and adventure, with fascination and joy, the romantic world of boys and girls. It is difficult to live in this world long and resist its captivity and if one does not succeed in resisting it altogether one is gradually drawn to the blessing teaching is. The same children that give the home its inextinguishable joys and protect it against the pale-eyed cares inevitable to adult life make the school and there can be few experiences with more lasting power of enriching and elevating the mind than to lose oneself in their prattling company. The school is always young and the stream of life that babbles through it is untroubled by the frosty fingers of time. It must be the highest adventure to bathe continually in this stream and to arrest the stealthy footstep of age. The little beasts may join together and lead the teacher a dance show their teeth at him or tear his lessons to regs but they are boys and girls for all that and the teacher cannot try too hard to know them and to enjoy the inestimable felieties they scatter and they alone can scatter. It is easier to hate them than to love them just as it is easier to lose the joys of teaching than to have them. There is no boy or girl but hides some unexpected arbours of creation's mysteries and there is probably no higher mission than to penetate these. Every right teacher is an explorer in the realm of the behaviour of boys and girls, and it is an elfin art, this exploration of the mind and spirit while they are yet young and fres from the hidden chambers of creation. When teaching becomes a thing of inane books to be swotted, of overdone chalk and exhausted talk of dreaded examinations that are allowed to go their own ways which lie afar from the ways of nature holding sole right in the activities of children, of prowling inspections before which the teacher's soul is allowed to tremble and his personality to shrink and when the teacher succumbs to this alien expression of educational ideals then it is that he is constantly reminded how small he is and how unhappy all round. The great joys slip through his days and the dull and heavy course of routine has him. It is a sad spectacle, that of joyless eyes compelled to watch life's early stream as it goes laughing over life's first pebbles.

The tragedy of present day school life is that it makes it easy for the teacher to deflect his attention from fundamental things from living needs to a mechanical succession of so-called realities. Yearings and dreams essential elements in life, are forgotten in the uproar of visible things. They are forgotten because it is easier to make a machine than to dream a dream. Subjects have therefore become more important than stimulation and examinations more important than education. In such an atmosphere the teacher must strive for all he is worth even to suspect the joys of teaching. While a just equilibrium between body and soul is the ideal in education what is frequently achieved is the dominance of soul by body. Yes it is easier to feed the body than to nourish the soul. The teacher is thus strongly tempted to remain exiled from the joys of teaching.

There are also other channels to blessing in teaching than the company and contemplation of growing boys and girls. There are varied opportunities for self-improvement in this profession. There is peace and quiet in it, the best of all aids to man to know himself, peace and quiet in which life puts forth its noble blossoms. The imperious haste that marks the march of things in modern times does not happily hamper teaching yet to any great extent. The teacher might still work in an atmosphere of sious in these days enjoy the calm that attaches to teaching. The week's work is crowned by a double holiday inviting the teacher to enrich himself in tranquillity. Long vacations come bearing chance and change. He may renew himself, emerge from active rest another man. Where chances of renewal are not denied there is no monotony. Monotony is the curse of unexercised minds, but every day the call comes to the teacher to catch a new symphony to give the savour of new things to his soul.

It is as difficult as it is easy to be a teacher for long and not to aspire perfection and happiness, for although these lie hidden from the casual eye the awaking ear catches their whispers while the class rooms resound with the time table the school rules stand at bay against the disobedience of boys and girls and examinations come and go uttering threats and holding out hopes strewing sorrow and joy. Behind the aggressive outward are the true realities. The outward must ask the teacher to go and hang his head in shame. The inward will try and elude him. This is the normal fate of teaching, a sad enough fate which it is absolutely necessary every teacher must try and escape for the peace of his mind and the glory of his work. If the teacher is the school it is the teacher's inner life that is the only quarry from which to make himself.

There is a spurious mental life, a low intellectual existence which both the teacher and the pupil can live and mistake for the higher thing. It is an insidious lure against which the teacher cannot guard himself or warn his pupils too well. To stir the inner depths of the mind is his great mission and not to sail a fragile craft that cannot live in a single storm on its back waters and call it adventurous cruise. Mind speaks to mind and unless the teacher dives deep and explores his own inner ocean he can not help others do it. It is the teacher that lives the inner life that moves the inner life and knows the joys of teaching. Every blessing is girdled by a belt of barking breakwaters and there is need for some initial venture to brave them.

It is so very important that the teacher must realize the blessings that he might have, for on this realization not only depends his own happiness but also the ultimate fate of education itself. The personal, the spiritual, element is ninety per cent of instruction. Where education flies its own flag the teacher is all. From him comes inspiration and he gives the word. He must really be the king the ruler whose life is merged in the life of the children he rules. It is not inevitable that the head that wears the educational crown should lie uneasy, but where the true crown is not worn it is almost inevitable that it must often lie very uneasy indeed.

The teacher is really born to kingly estate, but he need not make himself too uneasy before looking to see what blessings lie in the royal road stretching away and vanishing in the glimmering distance.