PAPERS AND DISCUSSIONS THE IDEAL SUPERVISOR FREDRICK H. RIPLEY, PRINCIPAL OF LONGFELLOW SCHOOL, BOSTON, MASS. Theodore Parker once said, Every man has at times in his mind, the ideal of what he should be, but is not. This ideal may be high and complete or it may be quite low and insufficient; yet in all men that really seek to improve, it is better than the actual character. Man never falls so low, that he can see nothing higher than himself. The ideal supervisor of music must be something better than the best that now is; he must be stronger, wiser, and purer, else he would not be ideal; yet his greatness must consist of qualities which all may profitably emulate. He must be a gentleman, a scholar, a musician. He must be deeply sympathetic, profoundly wise, infinitely gentle. He must be a leader, and by his art draw all men after him. He must be a deep student of human nature; yet he must never lose faith in it. He must overcome spite, envy, malice, even hatred, without sharing them. In a word, he must be A combination and a form indeed, Where every god did seem to set his seal, To give the world assurance of a man.-Hamlet. But to be an ideal supervisor of music demands special qualities, additions to that general summation of goods which must characterize all men who stand before the community in the teacher's office. He must have special knowledge and special powers which fit him for his difficult position. The relations which he sustains to the school superintendent, to the school principals, to the teachers, and to the scholars, all demand careful consideration and ideal treatment, for no one may exert a greater influence for good or for evil; no one may enter so closely into the life and thought of the community; no one may raise higher ideals in others; no one should be so well fitted to inspire to heroic action as he. Music is the language of the soul which is the source of spiritual life and worthy action. Music is the means by which all art impulses may be stirred. It is therefore the avenue to heaven. Who therefore controls this mighty influence in the community, controls the community. Who is worthy of this great trust? Truly none but the ideal supervisor. Yet he will not be known, he will never be discovered; like the health-bringing quality of this delightful climate, which thousands come to breathe, he silently, imperceptibly, penetrates to the very source of life, does his work, and passes on, unnoticed. This must be so, because the invisible things of life are eternal, and it is the business of the teacher to render himself useless to his pupils. It is a sad thought, but it is a true one. Those who have influenced your life most profoundly are to you unknown. Here then is a paradox. How is our ideal supervisor to be sustained and appreciated so that he may do his work, and yet be ever invisible, unobtrusive, apparently useless. If to win the popular approval and to enlarge his influence he descends to show, to public exhibitions, to vainglorious display, he clips the very wings by which he must take flight, and falls to earth while on his way to heaven. It is the fact that the deeper influences of life are unknown, unobserved, that brings a lack of public appreciation to the teacher. Yet when the teacher would take by storm the place he fain would have, he loses the fairest jewel in his crown and, if successful in his quest, but proves his own unworthiness. We may not expose our art with any more safety than we may expose our love or our religion, for to expose it is to lose it; or better, we may the fact that we lack it. Carlyle says, but expose Prominent world leaders do prosper by their quackery for a day. It is like a forged bank note, they get it passed out of their worthless hands; others, not they, have to smart for it. Nature bursts-up in fire-flame. French Revolution, and such like, proclaiming with terrible veracity that forged notes are forged. On the other hand, we have the striking example of Bach. Of him Mr. Mason has just said, Bach lived quietly and in almost complete obscurity; for the last quarter century of his life, he held a post as teacher of music and church-music director in Leipsic. He traveled little, sought no worldly fame, took no pains to secure performances of his work, and above all, made no compromise with the popular taste of his day. He produced his great compositions, one after another, in the regular day's work, for performance in his church or by local orchestras and players. He never pined for recognition that in the nature of things he could not have; he wrote the music that seemed good to him and thought that his responsibility ended there, and that his reward lay there. The cynic who said "Every man has his price" was evidently not acquainted with the life of Bach. Steadily ignoring those temptations to prostitute his genius for the public's pleasure, which so materially affected the life course of his contemporary Handel, he followed his own ideals with an undivided mind. As always happens in such cases, since it takes decades for the world to comprehend a sincere individual, or even centuries if his individuality is deep and unique, he was not appreciated in his lifetime, nor for many years after his death. Indeed he is not appreciated now, for a man can be appreciated only by his equals, but we have at last got an inkling of the treasure that still lies hidden away in Bach; and while Handel and other idols of the age sound daily more thin and archaic, Bach grows ever richer as the understanding we bring to him increases, and still holds out promise of novel and perennial artistic delight. Our ideal supervisor must emulate this great example; he must reject the unworthy and immediate for the worthy and permanent. This means that he must take a broad view of the field and work it as a whole, not in isolated, unrelated fragments. The whole field is indeed a stupendous one. Let us consider the pupils first. They are in classes; the classes are in grades; the grades reach from the kindergarten to the college; and fourteen years likely are required for their accomplishment. Here stands our ideal supervisor with a scheme of work which shall not only afford pleasure and profit over fourteen different stages, but shall take the little one on the first round of the ladder and lead him step by step to the top. Our ideal carries therefore two distinct phases of his work at all times. He has in mind just what he will do for the individual pupil who is just beginning, what steps shall be provided for his development, at every stage in the course, and he has the immediate problem of ways and means for the various groups of pupils who form the classes along the line of promotion. The ideal supervisor never loses sight of the possibilities locked up in each individual. He regards the individual not as he is, but as he will be after years of training. No provision is made for the removal of the pupil, he must be regarded as a permanent charge, a fixed responsibility, and every offort must be made to develop his several faculties to the highest degree. The plan which the ideal supervisor adopts is a large one, yet in detail it is perfect, it omits nothing that is necessary, nor includes anything that is unimportant. It provides for the employment of every moment of the pupil's time, in activities which are in themselves enjoyable, but which also yield that higher satisfaction which is incident to a feeling of gain in power to do, and of knowledge of art. The technical knowledge which is required, our ideal has always at hand. He understands child-nature, and has faith in it; he understands child-development, and promotes it; he is conscious of child-weakness and dangers, and he avoids them. He inspires with hope, courage, and confidence, and when the end is reached he leaves his pupil, a self-reliant, responsible, thinking creature, prepared not only to do the things he has been taught to do, but to reach out into still wider fields and grapple successfully with new problems. THE TEACHING-FORCE The ideal supervisor studies the teaching-force with the same care that a good soldier looks to his arms when going into battle, for unless the teachers sympathize with the supervisor and co-operate with him, the result will fall from the ideal standard. The teaching-force, that is, the teachers in charge of classes, collectively and individually, must see in our ideal a model of order, precision, punctuality, good teaching, systematic preparation, and sterling character. The music course will unfold before the teacher by such regular and logical steps that she will be inspired to apply the principles involved to her work in other branches. She will catch the spirit of the effort, and realize that unless she takes part in the music her power and influence for good will fall short of the best. It is therefore a main business of the supervisor gently to draw every teacher's attention, to interest her and encourage her to work with him, and finally to render himself so unnecessary to the teacher that she will go on without him and take pride in showing how well she can handle the subject alone. In this part of the work, the supervisor requires the greatest skill. To enumerate the difficulties which the supervisor must overcome would be impossible. No one has expressed more forcibly the one essential element in the work, however, than Carlyle who says, Every man that can be great or have victory in this world, sees, through all entanglements, the practical heart of the matter; drives straight towards that. It is notable how Napoleon in Saint Helena, still, to his last days, insisted on the practical, the real. "Why talk and complain, above all, why quarrel with one another? There is no result in it; it comes to nothing that one can do. Say nothing if one can do nothing!" He speaks so often to his poor discontented followers; he is like a piece of silent strength in the midst of their morbid querulousness there. Our ideal supervisor has no cloudy vision, no dim outline of things; he sees the heart of the matter and strikes at that. He is not impatient; he does not dispute, but he goes straight on; he accepts misunderstandings, misrepresentations, abuse even, as a part of his lot, as an inevitable accompaniment of efforts like his. He does not take time to consider these things in their personal bearing, but he sees ever his great plan, and his plan includes these things and hence must succeed with them. His plan is so large that when seen as a whole these things are but trivial incidents, capable of affecting small, temporary, and non-essential elements only. The ideal supervisor sees from the beginning what each teacher is to become, just as he sees what each pupil is to be. He never regards either teacher or pupil as fixed and unchangeable, but as things to be developed. By action, by doing something however trivial, forces are to be aroused which will direct to another act, and this to another, till a distinct power is developed. Never will the grade teacher leave the room, mark papers, or attend to other work while our ideal supervisor is at work. She will be helping; helping in ways that gradually bring even the most unpromising candidate, into the very center of the arena. Her efforts will be appreciated, her results praised, confidence will grow, and mutual regard be established. THE PRINCIPAL OF THE SCHOOL With the principal of the school our ideal supervisor must also have relations. Here he will cultivate every virtue that will make him truly contribute to the principal's success. He will not regard it beneath his dignity to do things that are quite outside of his prescribed duties. He will remember that some difficulties are distinctly his own, and that he must not increase the burden of his superior officer. He will, therefore, refrain from complaining of the teachers' work, remembering that the teacher is to be won by a long and carefully considered course of kindly treatment. Our ideal supervisor will never allow himself by absence or tardiness or irregularity of any kind to fall under the criticism of the principal. He will restrain his temper, always be polite, never be in haste, and submit gracefully to suggestions which must be tactfully disregarded. The principal, too, must be his pupil and, by a treatment similar to that accorded to the teacher, he must be made to appreciate the importance of music and to recognize its influence on the entire school course. Our ideal supervisor is a student; he is the equal of the principal in scholarship and in general culture; in music he should be his superior. THE SUPERINTENDENT OF SCHOOLS The relations existing between the ideal supervisor and the superintendent will indeed be ideal. Here he comes in contact with the man who is responsible for the success of the entire school system. He should never act independently of him, should never be the cause of weakening his influence, should refrain from all gossip and scandal, or criticism, even, of schools and teachers. He should tell of good, wholesome, helpful things only, and refrain from entanglements that may involve the superintendent and his subordinates. The ideal superintendent regards the school and all that in them is, as his charge. He does not consider even our ideal supervisor as a man in charge of an entirely distinct and unrelated department, but he views him as a valued and trusted lieutenant, who contributes probably more completely to the success of the system than any other one person, and the supervisor without conceit or ostentation may wisely assume that dignity and importance to which his ideal work entitles him. If these relations do not now exist in this form our ideal supervisor will labor to establish them and, being ideal, he will succeed. THE SCHOOL BOARD We now come to the consideration of the relations of our ideal supervisor with the school board. Here again, he is the subordinate, the employed. He is to obey orders, he is to accept what is awarded him, but, as in the other cases, he is to exert a profound influence by his character and his work. He is to show by his character that he is above corruption, and that his recommendations for material are based on conviction. He is to show by his work that he has a broad plan, the product of a broad mind, and that in selecting material the whole plan is in his thought. He must avoid even the slightest appearance of prejudice, of unworthy motives, and having made his recommendation, he must be prepared to accept gracefully whatever decision the board makes. When the decision is made, he must address himself with all earnestness and good faith to the task assigned him, never holding the board responsible for any failure in the course. Being provided with material however inadequate, does not affect the effort of our ideal. He still has his plans matured; the pupils, the teachers, the superintendent are all with him and will assist him-not perhaps to get other material, but to bring the material in hand to the highest stage of usefulness, and by exhausting its resources, demonstrate its value. THE PUBLIC The ideal supervisor is in great danger when he is brought into relation with the public in general. The popular demand is always somewhat below the ideal. Truth and duty lie on one side, therefore, while popularity and general appreciation lie on the other. The ideal supervisor must regard both. He must firmly resist the tendency to exploit school music in public parade and on festive occasions |
