We must open our garden to such influences as shall
bring forward all the plants, each in a way corresponding to its own
nature. It is impossible if it were wise, and it would be foolish if it
were possible, to stimulate, by artificial means, the rose, in hope of
its reaching the size and magnitude of the apple-tree, or to try to
cultivate the fig and the orange where wheat only will grow. No; it
should be the teacher's main design to shelter his pupils from every
deleterious influence, and to bring every thing to bear upon the
community of minds before him which will encourage in each one the
development of its own native powers. For the rest, he must remember
that his province is to cultivate, not to create.
Error on this point is very common. Many teachers, even among those who
have taken high rank through the success with which they have labored in
the field, have wasted much time in attempting to do what never can be
done, to form the character of those brought under their influence after
a certain uniform model, which they have conceived as the standard of
excellence. Their pupils must write just such a hand, they must compose
in just such a style, they must be similar in sentiment and feeling, and
their manners must be formed according to a fixed and uniform model; and
when, in such a case, a pupil comes under their charge whom Providence
has designed to be entirely different from the beau ideal adopted as the
standard, more time, and pains, and anxious solicitude is wasted in vain
attempts to produce the desired conformity than half the school require
beside.
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