The true teacher defends his pupils against his own personal influence. He inspires self-trust. He guides their eyes from himself to the spirit that quickens him. He will have no disciples.
Interpretation
A true teacher empowers students to trust themselves rather than relying on the teacher's influence.
In this quote, Alcott emphasizes that a genuine teacher should not foster dependency but rather inspire self-confidence in their students. The teacher's role is to guide learners towards their own understanding and inner spirit, ultimately fostering independence and self-trust rather than a following or discipleship.
In practice
During a teacher training seminar to emphasize the importance of guiding students rather than dominating them.
Nature is the armory of genius. Cities serve it poorly, books and colleges at second hand; the eye craves the spectacle of the horizon; of mountain, ocean, river and plain, the clouds and stars; actual contact with the elements, sympathy with the seasons as they rise and roll.
Yet the deepest truths are best read between the lines, and, for the most part, refuse to be written.
Observation more than books and experience more than persons, are the prime educators.
We climb to heaven most often on the ruins of our cherished plans, finding our failures were successes.
Our true birthplace is that in which we cast for the first time an intelligent eye on ourselves. My first homelands were my books.
The minute that you're not learning I believe you're dead.
For the speedy reader paragraphs become a country the eye flies over looking for landmarks, reference points, airports, restrooms, passages of sex.
As long as parents and teachers in general shall fall under the established rule, it is clear that politics and modes of government will educate and infect us all. They poison our minds, before we can resist, or so much as suspect their malignity. Like the barbarous directors of the Eastern seraglios, they deprive us of our vitality, and fit us for their despicable employment from the cradle.
Digressions incontestably are the sunshine; they are the life, the soul of reading.
I went to Goucher College in Maryland for the best possible reasons - to learn - but then I dropped out at 19 for the best possible reasons - to become a writer.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.