The art of teaching grew up in the schoolroom, out of inventiveness and sympathetic concrete observation. Even where (as in the case of Herbart) the advancer of the art was also a psychologist, the pedagogics and the psychology ran side by side, and the former was not derived in any sense from the latter. The two were congruent, but neither was subordinate. And so everywhere the teaching must agree with the psychology, but need not necessarily be the only kind of teaching that would so agree; for many diverse methods of teaching may equally well agree with psychological laws.

To know psychology, therefore, is absolutely no guarantee that we shall be good teachers. To advance to that result, we must have an additional endowment altogether, a happy tact and ingenuity to tell us what definite things to say and do when the pupil is before us. That ingenuity in meeting and pursuing the pupil, that tact for the concrete situation, though they are the alpha and omega of the teacher’s art, are things to which psychology cannot help us in the least.

This monograph will make no attempt to analyze the personality of the ideal teacher. It is assumed that the teacher of history has an adequate preparation to teach his subject, that he is in good health, and that his usefulness is unimpaired by discontent with his work or cynicism about the world. It is presupposed that he understands the wisdom of correlating in his instruction the geography, social progress, and economic development of the people which his class are studying. He is aware that the pupil should experience something more than a kaleidoscopic view of isolated facts. He recognizes the folly of requiring four years of high school English for the purpose of cultivating clear, fluent, and accurate expression, only to relax the effort when the student comes into the history class. He knows that the precision, logic, and habit of definite thinking exacted by the pursuit of the scientific subjects should not be laid aside when the student attempts to trace the rise of nations. Let us go so far as to assume a teacher who is both pedagogical and practical; scholarly without being musty; imbued with a love for his subject and yet familiar with actual human experience.

Though many people may think the ideals put forward are entirely beyond the average teacher, and cannot be put into practice in ordinary schools, I can thus point at least to one institution in which I have seen many of the suggestions made in this book actually carried out. It may be that some of them are, at present, beyond most schools; but they will be recognised and practised as soon as teachers realise them as desirable, and have a proper understanding of the importance of their office.

Most of the recommendations apply, I think, to all countries, and to all religions, and are intended to sound the note of our common brotherhood, irrespective of religion or caste, race or colour. If the unity of life and the oneness of its purpose could be clearly taught to the young in schools, how much brighter would be our hopes for the future! The mutual distrust of races and nations would disappear, if the children were trained in mutual love and sympathy as members of one great family of children all over the world, instead of being taught to glory only in their own traditions and to despise those of others. True patriotism is a beautiful quality in children, for it means unselfishness of purpose and enthusiasm for great ideals; but that is false patriotism which shows itself in contempt for other nations. There are, I am told, many organisations within the various nations of the world, intended to inspire the children with a love for their country and a desire to serve her, and that is surely good; but I wonder when there will be an international organisation to give the children of all nations common ideals also, and a knowledge of the real foundation of right action, the Brotherhood of Man.

1. KRISHNAMURTI