THE WEBER LITERARY JOURNAL Is the Art of Teaching- a Gift? ARE TEACHERS born or made? Is teaching an inherent tendency or a developed art? Probably we should compromise and say that each plays an important part in the role of teacher. He inherits temperament which is the very root of teacher-behavior. If he is "high strung" he may prove too irritable to develop an inspiring atmosphere. On the other hand if he is "easy going" he may lack the necessary dignity for good discipline. Knowledge is regarded as being acquired. Therefore, what is taught comes under the "developed art." If we think of teaching as an art, we must consider knowledge but the brush with which the teacher "paints." As an artist puts feeling into his picture, so must a teacher wield his knowledge so that it will speak, inspire, and put new life into his pupils. As I look back over the teachers I have had, each brings to mind a different opinion. I think of some as lovable, others as hateful, and a few as poor teachers; but with some I couple little things they told me, little stories with a moral that made me feel as if I wanted to return my stolen apples, never say mean things or be disagreeable to anyone, and never smoke or swear because it led to a bad life and I could not grow up to be like my teacher. These are the teachers who put life into their work. It is the teacher that has a "striking way" and is surrounded by a friendly atmosphere who is loved, honored, and almost worshipped by his students. He is the one who gets results and makes a success of teaching. It is not always the teachers with long years of experience that have been the most animative. Sometime a teacher, teaching for the first time has laid siege to a class of mine, and through his enthusiasm and good generalship, has taken us into his field of thought without the usual smoke that generally precedes a battle. I remember when taking freshman English in college, we had a senior student conducting our class. He certainly proved a success. The class was orderly though he was not haughty or domineering. Everyone looked up to, respected, and admired him. And as for preparation every student put English before all other subjects and prepared his themes or reading if he had to study all night. At the end of the quarter the class sent in a petition 28 THE WEBER LITERARY JOURNAL signed by every member to the head of the English department requesting that our student teacher be allowed to teach a class of English II. Our request was granted. When English II finished at the close of the school year, the class presented the young pedagogue with a Thesaurus, beautifully bound in leather, containing the autograph of each member. This is a token that few teachers receive. It is a reward for thorough work. He was competent and inspired confidence, so the students acknowledged their approval. As I look over my college days I think of some of my chemistry and physics teachers as masters with a lash, ever driving us to be fearful of their classes. My class in physics particularly impressed me in this way. It was composed of one hundred fifty students. Each student was known by a number the number of his seat. If he was not in the right seat he was marked absent. I thought of this teacher as a cruel automaton. He was so precise, went through the same routine day after day. I wondered if he were not a machine. I couldn't even conceive of him having a heart. I knew every person possessed a heart at birth a fully developed four chamber heart, but teaching physics seems either to shrink the chambers or cause them to function imperfectly. Perhaps teachers evolve through different stages: amiable indifferent harsh and the cruel. Teaching English seems to attract the young amiable instructors, possessors of normal robust hearts. They get their start here before their right auricle has "sagged shut," and then later about the time the conus arteriosus is "jimb jambed" venture into science or some less emotional subject. By the time a "jinx" overpowers the other heart chambers, the now experienced pedagogue is cocked on a chair before a class of physics students, piercing them with cold, steel like eyes, and speaking in a language almost foreign to the awe-stricken listeners. The students that are not dreaming of terrible dragons, or endowed with unusual brains, flounder in vain to grasp the unfamiliar terms as they glide upward. They marvel at the "Prof's" profound knowledge and are impressed with his silvery tongue but would be indeed thankful for faint signs of the "milk of human kindness." Silently the students pray that this harsh master may make a mistake or false stroke so they might believe him human, but their prayers go unanswered. 29