And I conjectured as I heard of this incident, What would be the answer if the youth of our land were asked that question:  “Who are the great men of your country?  What type of achievement have you been led to imitate and emulate and admire?” How many of our boys and girls have even heard of our great men in the world of culture,—­unless, indeed, such men lived a half century ago and have got into the school readers by this time?  How many of our boys and girls have ever heard of MacDowell, or James, or Whistler, or Sargent?

I have said that the teacher must take the vow of service.  What does this imply except that the opportunity for service, the privilege of serving, should be the opportunity that one seeks, and that the achievements toward which one aspires should be the achievements of serving?  The keynote of service lies in self-sacrifice,—­in self-forgetfulness, rather,—­in merging one’s own life in the lives of others.  The attitude of the true teacher in this respect is very similar to the attitude of the true parent.  In so far as the parent feels himself responsible for the character of his children, in so far as he holds himself culpable for their shortcomings and instrumental in shaping their virtues, he loses himself in his children.  What we term parental affection is, I believe, in part an outgrowth of this feeling of responsibility.  The situation is precisely the same with the teacher.  It is when the teacher begins to feel himself responsible for the growth and development of his pupils that he begins to find himself in the work of teaching.  It is then that the effective devotion to his pupils has its birth.  The affection that comes prior to this is, I think, very likely to be of the sentimental and transitory sort.

In education, as in life, we play altogether too carelessly with the word “love.”  The test of true devotion is self-forgetfulness.  Until the teacher reaches that point, he is conscious of two distinct elements in his work,—­himself and his pupils.  When that time comes, his own ego drops from view, and he lives in and for his pupils.  The young teacher’s tendency is always to ask himself, “Do my pupils like me?” Let me say that this is beside the question.  It is not, from his standpoint, a matter of the pupils liking their teacher, but of the teacher liking his pupils.  That, I take it, must be constantly the point of view.  If you ask the other question first, you will be tempted to gain your end by means that are almost certain to prove fatal,—­to bribe and pet and cajole and flatter, to resort to the dangerous expedient of playing to the gallery; but the liking that you get in this way is not worth the price that you pay for it.  I should caution young teachers against the short-sighted educational theories that are in the air to-day, and that definitely recommend this attitude.  They may sound sweet, but they are soft and sticky in practice.  Better be guided by instinct than by “half-baked”