Good Breeding in Teachers, Part 3

Where the difference between American and English voices originated I am unable to say. To offset the results of imitation, schools for training of teachers should give more attention than they are now doing to training the voices of those who are to serve as models for the young. The burden of improvement lies with them. A teacher should be able to detect and assist in correcting unfortunate qualities in the voices of children; she at least should not be a “horrible example” of what should be avoided.

The Voice

Possibly you have heard a great artist sing a noble production in a foreign language. You did not understand a word, but you were enthralled by the beauty and power of her wonderful voice. Of all instruments of expression, the human voice is the most wonderful. We feel its possibilities when we hear a great singer or a great actor, but unfortunately we are too often neglectful of its value in common life. In America very little attention is given to the speaking voice, even in normal schools. This is a great mistake, and its results may be seen in almost any schoolroom.

I have seen teachers who would have been quite ideal had it not been for an unfortunate voice. I recall a delightful young woman, attractive in personality, charming in her relation to children, effective in handling both subject-matter and classes, whose work was marred by a sharp voice pitched several intervals above the normal. This one defect was such a serious handicap that I would not give her a place in a school under my charge. The harsh, strident voice with a suggestion of the cicada, the loud, metallic voice typical of the old-style stump orator, the weak, vanishing, ineffective voice which does not carry conviction, are other types common in the schoolroom. The difficulty of controlling a school is greatly augmented if the teacher's voice has no authority and resolution in it.

The unpleasant quality in the American voice has been often commented on both by foreigners and Americans who are familiar with the rich tones of the English women. The difference has been charged by some to climate, but I think it due rather to imitation. Children acquire tones of voice quite as they learn language, through imitation of what they hear. The English child has better models than has the American child. 

Where the difference between American and English voices originated I am unable to say. To offset the results of imitation, schools for training of teachers should give more attention than they are now doing to training the voices of those who are to serve as models for the young. The burden of improvement lies with them. A teacher should be able to detect and assist in correcting unfortunate qualities in the voices of children; she at least should not be a “horrible example” of what should be avoided.

It may seem to some that I am over-emphasizing what in reality are relatively insignificant items. Are social conventionalities and language and voice so very essential, after all, in the personality of a teacher? They certainly are, and for two very good reasons, in addition to the purely commercial ones which I mentioned at the opening of the chapter; first, they are refinements of life which the young should acquire. All right-minded parents want their children to possess them, and society in general desires its members to have them. They are social and economic assets to anyone who acquires them. They are therefore accomplishments to which a child has a clear right, and consequently should be taught in the school.

Unconscious Influence

The second reason why the teachers should possess these refinements lies in the manner by which they are most effectively taught by the teacher and taken on by the child; namely, through the unconscious life of the teacher and the unconscious imitation of the child. The tendency to imitate is one of the striking characteristics of children. It is one effective means of their adjustment to the world. They start life with no language, no manners, no methods of dealing with the situations they meet; but nature has given them the imitative instinct. They are unconsciously the keenest observers and the cleverest mimics, and, chameleon-like, easily take the color of their surroundings. 

Observe a group of children at play at “keeping house” or “keeping school” or “going calling” or “tea party,” and note how they reproduce the niceties of manner and voice which they have seen in their elders. Silently, as flowers drink in the dew, children absorb the manners of speech and behavior which they hear and see. Some things may be taught by rule and precept, but true refinement of character comes best by contagion. It is silently and unconsciously taken in.

I am not saying that direct instruction in manners and morals has no value, for I believe it has, but I am saying it will have little value if not reinforced by the daily unconscious life of the teacher; while, on the other hand, a refined teacher will infuse her ideals into her children though no word of precept be spoken. “It is worth the hour to be in her class in the presence of her charming and refined womanhood,” said a student of a certain teacher of literature.

“One lasting benefit I got from his class was an appreciation of beautiful English,” said another student of a teacher of psychology. Says Bishop Huntington: “Still another of the silent but formative agencies in education is that combination of physical signs and motions which we designate in the aggregate as manners.”

What I said of the way by which children acquire speech and manners is true of adults. We were once children. We are still children in that we are yet influenced by our surroundings. But we teachers are now old enough to determine to a considerable degree what elements in our environment we shall appropriate and what reject. I say “to a considerable degree,” for we are not omnipotent in this respect.– From “The Personality of the Teacher,” by Charles McKenny, 1910

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Good Breeding in Teachers, Part 2

I have one perpetual and bitter quarrel with slang, and that is because of its tendency to impoverish and bankrupt the English of the user. Few young people can become proficient in both slang and correct English, and too often they become skilled in the wrong one. Be sure your sin will find you out; you cannot use slang and slovenly English in daily conversation without paying the penalty. The goblin of habit will get you.

Observance of Social Forms

Of equal, or perhaps of greater importance than personal appearance, are personal manners. To be well-mannered stamps one as a gentleman or a lady, and to be a gentleman or a lady, in the true meaning of the terms, is worthy the ambition and effort of every one. The difference between a community of savages and a community of cultured people does not lie wholly in the latter's intellectual superiority, but fully as much in its respect for the gentle courtesies and refinements of life. Many estimable people are totally regardless of even the most obvious social forms. I have known admirable teachers who did not think it worth while to return calls, to send acceptances or regrets in reply to formal invitations, to give heed to be prompt when guests at a dinner, or to make “party calls” afterwards on a hostess. To be remiss in such social courtesies is to cause comment and to reflect on one's good breeding. Young men are especially sinners against the rules of social etiquette. They are often quite oblivious of them, or they look upon them with a species of mild contempt, as something quite beneath the attention of a strong, independent manhood. This attitude of mind is wholly wrong and limits the possibilities of anyone who holds it. Society will not and should not tolerate a boor. A person who has so little regard for cultivated society that he will not attempt to qualify himself to become an agreeable member, should not expect much consideration, and certainly should not be a teacher. I am not pleading for snobbery or foppery, but for culture and refinement in men and women.

Good English

If one should give heed to his manners and dress, much more should he give heed to his speech. It would be difficult to over- estimate the importance to a teacher of a command of English that is at once correct, effective and graceful. A great thought or a fine sentiment in slovenly English is like a genius in soiled linen; our attention is attracted from the thought to its garb as from the genius to his clothes. I have one perpetual and bitter quarrel with slang, and that is because of its tendency to impoverish and bankrupt the English of the user. Few young people can become proficient in both slang and correct English, and too often they become skilled in the wrong one.

Be sure your sin will find you out; you cannot use slang and slovenly English in daily conversation without paying the penalty. The goblin of habit will get you. At the very moment when you desire to appear at your best your speech will betray you. How many times have I seen young men and women humiliated (at least they should have been) by using slang in company where such language was most inappropriate! Many times the teachers in normal schools are compelled to criticise the use of slang on the part of practice teachers. I have known students, and high school graduates at that, who were withdrawn from practice teaching because of their inability to use good English. Slang expressions kept creeping into their conversation in the schoolroom. The goblin of habit caught them. On the other hand, few characteristics of a teacher are more quickly noticed by a good superintendent than his ability to use good English; and as I have already said, this ability counts for promotion.

Even were it otherwise, I should still put in a plea for our noble language and urge upon every teacher the duty of preserving to future generations its dignity and its beauty, undiminished and uncorrupted. Our mother tongue is one of our great inheritances. It is a priceless treasure. It is incomparable as a medium of expressing every shade of human thought and emotion. It proved equal to the genius of a Shakespeare and a Milton, a Thackeray and a Webster, an Emerson and a Tennyson. This language, which more than any other seems destined to become the world language, it is the especial duty of the school to keep pure and uncorrupted; but the schools will fail in this responsibility if the teachers are slack and indifferent in their use of their Esther tongue. To be a master of good English should be a goal of daily effort.– From “The Personality of the Teacher,” by Charles McKenny, 1910

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Good Breeding in Teachers

No teacher should be conspicuous either for the neglect she gives her personal appearance nor for the over-attention she puts on it. One extreme is quite as objectionable as the other. To dress appropriately is an art which should claim the attention of every young man and every young woman, and especially of those who are teachers or are preparing to become teachers.

CHAPTER VI

GOOD BREEDING

Besides the basic virtues which we have been discussing, there are other attributes of personality which, while not so vital to worthiness of character, are nevertheless essential in one who essays to be a companion and teacher of the young. Among these are those evidences of good breeding which appear in the personal manner, the dress, the speech of a person, and in his recognition of the amenities of life.

These things have a commercial value which few young men and women recognize. In my experience as head of a normal school I have received hundreds of letters of inquiry from school boards and superintendents concerning candidates for position; and the four qualifications usually insisted upon in a teacher are character, scholarship, ability to teach, and refinement in manner and dress. The best positions can be had by no other sort of person. I have known many young men and women who have failed to secure the positions that character and general ability clearly qualified them to fill, because they lacked refinement in dress and manner. I have advised young people to give up their purpose to teach, simply because they lacked, and, I believed, would never be able to acquire, the social refinements necessary to a teacher.

Personal Appearance

A man or woman who has a good bearing, who dresses appropriately and whose general appearance is pleasing, has a decided advan- tage before a superintendent, a school board, or a school, over one who is lacking in these particulars. A man who is careless about his personal appearance, whose linen is soiled, whose shoes are not polished, whose clothes are untidy, whose general appearance, from finger-nails to shirt front, gives evidence of his disregard for the standards which cultivated society sets up for a gentleman, need never look for great advancement in the teaching profession. 

And it is equally certain that a woman who makes personal application for a position in “gloves that once were white” or in gloves of any color that once were whole, or in any attire bespeaking a serious lack of taste, has taken great chances of wasting her time and money. No teacher should be conspicuous either for the neglect she gives her personal appearance nor for the over-attention she puts on it. One extreme is quite as objectionable as the other. To dress appropriately is an art which should claim the attention of every young man and every young woman, and especially of those who are teachers or are preparing to become teachers.

Good Form in Letter Writing, Etc…

It should also be observed that many persons make written applications to school officers and superintendents, and that social and business forms regulate such correspondence quite as much as custom regulates dress and etiquette. To be able to write a letter of application that shall in a modest way state what a school officer needs to know about a candidate, and that in stationery and composition conforms to social standard, is no mean accomplishment, as anyone knows who annually reads scores of letters from applicants for positions. An “exhibit” of a collection of letters of application would be interesting and instructive both as to what is excellent and what should be avoided.

I recently received a letter of application from a woman of unusual scholarship and experience; moreover, her testimonials were uncommonly strong; but her letter was written on a nondescript piece of stationery, in a careless and untidy manner, and I gave her no consideration. Another energetic and enterprising young woman, a graduate of college of good repute, recently wrote me about as follows:

“Am a graduate of ✗__________ College. Have studied Expression under Professor Y. Have coached winning speakers. Think I could interest you.” She did not have an opportunity to “interest” me, as I have no time for candidates who omit the subjects from their sentences. A teacher should be as careful to send her letter of application in appropriate attire as she would be to appear in appropriate dress if she made a personal application. – From “The Personality of the Teacher,” by Charles McKenny, 1910

 🍽️Etiquette Enthusiast, Maura J. Graber of The RSVP Institute of Etiquette, is the Site Editor of the Etiquipedia© Etiquette Encyclopedia