PRES. GARFIELD'S ADDRESS

Harry A. Garfield, A.B., LL.D., president of Williams College, gave a most instructive lecture on "Education as a Career" in the Living Room of the Union last evening.

In introducing President Garfield, President Lowell spoke as follows: "It has been said that every man ought to have a vocation and an avocation, but I know of a man who has four vocations, and made a success of each of them. Our guest of the evening has been a lawyer, a reformer in public life, an educator, and a college president; and he has done all of these with singular success, and in a way to excite the admiration of all who know him. I think he might speak with authority upon each of the four vocations I have mentioned, but he has chosen "Education" for his subject this evening. I wish to present to you President Garfield of Williams College."

President Garfield then gave the following address most of which is here printed verbatim:

"In the first place, to clear the way, education as a profession is essentially an art. One may have made a profound study of the science of education and yet have had no experience whatever in practical work. We all understand that some of the very best work that has been done in the science of education, has been done by those outside of our ranks. So I take it that it is not concerning that sort of educational career that you wish me to speak. Herbert Spencer would be an example of the men who have made notable contributions to education, and yet no one would call Herbert Spencer primarily a teacher. He is a scientist, and among other subjects studied education. All well-equipped educators should have a knowledge of the science of the subject, although it is not essential to the teaching profession that scientific knowledge of university principles should be uppermost in his mind. Some of the very best teachers I have known, and some of the very best teachers that you have known, are not versed primarily in the science of education. Some of the very best scholars with whom you have come in contact here at Harvard, may have impressed you as men not peculiarly gifted as teachers. The art of teaching is a thing by itself. I, myself, find difficulty in understanding from what it springs. Surely, through it must be moving that sign of perception that leads the teacher to understand that which is working in the mind of the pupil. It involves the appreciation of human nature that keeps one of older years in sympathy with one of younger years.

"I venture to say that you expected me to speak to you from the view point of the teacher and not from the view point of that other side of education dealing with the administration of the college. Those who hold the offices of administration, while they are dealing with the art of education, hold, nevertheless, a special position with regard to the profession, just as the judge on the bench holds a special position with regard to the profession of law. When a teacher goes in for administration he degrades both the office to which he succeeds and the profession from which he comes.

Teaching Treated Under Four Heads.

"I speak to you with reference to the claims of teaching as a profession, and I propose to treat it under the four following heads: first, in its relation to the student life; second, in its relation to the outside world; third, comparatively, how does this profession rank with other professions which may engage your attention? fourth, and last, what are some of the inward satisfactions coming from this profession, which I think are sufficiently great to attract men to it? Because in this, as in any other profession which we undertake, everything depends upon our being peculiarly qualified for the profession, and caring for that kind of life.

"In the first place, the relation to student life. What I wish to consider at the present moment is the scope and character of the relation between the faculty and the students. Are these such as to draw forth the best energies and finest attempts of a man? In other words, viewed from the student's point of view, is the profession worth while?

"I venture to say that most college men picture their life work in the midst of stirring scenes, striving with might and main among men. There, out in the world where men do things the very vastness of it all stirs the spirits of the young.

"Now by contrast, how small seems the world of the teacher! Instead of dealing with men, instead of coming into close connection with busy affairs, the teacher seems to be spending his time with books, or with men who have not yet arrived at the stage of doing things. But now gentlemen, that contrast is by no means all true. Nor is it essentially true. It is true in its outward aspect, but so far as the true view of success in life is concerned, so far as your service to the world is concerned, in teaching and educating young minds so that they may realize the uttermost of all that is in them, this contrast is misleading. I am not sure but that when filled with red blood of youth, we all look forward to our careers, and contrast the great world with the quiet college, we are apt to underestimate the teacher. His life is not what you think it is. In some respects it is better, and in some worse. At any rate, it is on a plane which enables him to develop the best that is in him.

"Now, so far as secondary schools are concerned. I can speak with some knowledge of the life that would be yours, were you to go into teaching as a profession, and your road were to lie in a secondary school, for I had one year's experience. There you are, so to speak, seeing and coming into close contact with young life at the very source, before the time that the young life has drawn away from the early ideas formed in the home. I assure you that if you were to go into that sort of life, it would be a very delightful one, because of this close contact. The boys are there leaning upon you morally, intellectually, socially, in a way that they do not among the older boys, and especially as they do not in our colleges and universities. I do not mean to say that I exalt that dependence, that I feel that there is a great advantage in keeping boys dependent. I realize that the work of the teachers is to make boys independent of them as rapidly as possible, to withdraw themselves just as rapidly as possible from their lives, that they may stand alone and stand strong. Nevertheless, it is a pleasant thing in the secondary school to have these young chaps about you, to feel that you are their leader, and that you can influence and direct them along the right lines.

"But I mean to speak particularly of the relation that exists between pupil and teacher in our colleges, between members of the teaching force, and members of the student body. You, of course, look upon us as people who lie over on the other side of a barrier. You look upon us as people set in authority, more or less interfering with your occupations in undergraduate days, imposing tasks upon you, which perhaps we have a legal right to do, yet you feel that you would be better if we did not interfere. But in such an attitude you are losing in a large measure that which is finest and best in our colleges. This relation of teacher and pupil in the colleges in not what it ought to be. We all appreciate it, and are trying our best to put it one the proper footing.

"In Paris, from which the English, and thereby the American university took its character, a faculty was formed from the start, and young men were invited to come and attend the lectures. And so if it seems to you, as undergraduates, that the faculty has too great authority, remember that they are acting in accordance with the trend and development of the American university, and has history as a precedent.

"More and more, as our society develops, the college man is coming into a real and vital relation with the outside world. I need go no further than Harvard itself, and you will see how powerful has been the impression of its professors upon the outside world. My own experience in Cleveland, some years ago, when as a lawyer, I became interested in civic affairs, confirms this most strongly. Professors may be theoretical, but it is largely by reason of the fact that they are unhampered by many of the things that hamper men in other relations of life, that they are able to accomplish things.

"Men going into law, or medicine, realize, even while they are at college, that there are restrictions placed upon them by custom, if not by law, which require preparation in a very special way. This is in every way of benefit to the community, I admit, but he who goes into the profession of teaching goes into it as he himself sees fit. He studies what is of interest to him, and he teaches this when he gets out into the world. He is free, in a sense that no other professional man is. If he wishes to go into public life, there is every opportunity opened to him, just as to his English cousin across the water.

"There are certain inward satisfactions that have been revealed to me in the few years I have been in educational circles. In undergraduate life, the supreme pleasure is to obtain such a control of the mind, that will enable you to turn upon any subject that may interest you, and hold it there until it delivers to you all that is possible to see,--to show up to you all that is within that subject, that man is capable of discovering. There is constantly in the college community a lifting up from plane to plane, higher and higher. The social life combines with the intellectual in such a way as to make the life charming in an especial degree.

"If you would inquire as to what it is that makes the old graduate kindle with enthusiasm and feel the glow of happi-