If Hamann were right, most teachers might
well despair of success in their work. Most
of them might well fold their hands in their
laps, depressed by the consciousness that the
best in school life was denied them. For what
we commonly call love for children is indeed
shared by most people, but it is nothing more
than liking for the child so far as the child
gives us pleasure. It is too not the strong inner
force that can hold in the same regard the
troublesome and obstinate child, the child of
whims and moods, the malicious child, the awk-
ward child, the Unsocial child and the child
reluctant toward work. The empire of this
love has descended only to a chosen few as
an unearned gift of God. Yet it is an abso-
lute need in the school. If every one could
not acquire it, to reckon it an indispensable
factor in education would not be right. I shall



40 The Way to the Heart of the Pupil

try to point out a feasible way to this goal for
every one.
To this end, I must once more remind the
reader of the yawning gulf between the natural
inclinations of a pupil and his sense of duty as I
have called attention to it in a previous chapter.
