The Vitalized School
Life and living compared.—There is a wide difference between school-teaching and teaching school. The question “Is she a school-teacher?” means one thing; but the question “Can she teach school?” means quite another. School-teaching may be living; but teaching school is life. And any one who has a definition of life can readily find a definition for teaching school. Much of the criticism of the work of the schools emanates from sources that have a restricted concept of life. The artisan who defines life in terms of his own trade is impatient with much that the school is trying to do. He would have the scope of the school narrowed to his concept of life. If art and literature are beyond the limits of his concept, he can see no warrant for their presence in the school. The work of the schools cannot be standardized until life itself is standardized, and that is neither possible nor desirable. The glory of life is that it does not have fixity, that it is ever crescent.