business of life. Example, from the controversy between General and
State Governments. Mode of illustrating it. Proper way of meeting
difficulties. Leading pupils to surmount them. True way to
encourage the young to meet difficulties. The boy and the
wheelbarrow. Difficult examples in Arithmetic.
Proper way of rendering assistance. (1.) Simply analyzing intricate
subjects. Dialogue on longitude. (2.) Making previous truths
perfectly familiar. Experiment with the Multiplication table. Latin
Grammar lesson. Geometry.
3. General cautions. Doing work for the scholar. Dulness. Interest
in all the pupils. Making all alike. Faults of pupils. The
teacher's own mental habits. False pretensions. 64
CHAPTER IV.-MORAL DISCIPLINE.
First impressions. Story. Danger of devoting too much attention to
individual instances. The profane boy. Case described. Confession
of the boys. Success. The untidy desk. Measures in consequence.
Interesting the scholars in the good order of the school. Securing
a majority. Example. Reports about the desks. The new College
building. Modes of interesting the boys. The irregular class. Two
ways of remedying the evil. Boys' love of system and regularity.
Object of securing a majority, and particular means of doing it.
Making school pleasant. Discipline should generally be private. In
all cases that are brought before the school, public opinion in the
teacher's favor should be secured. Story of the rescue. Feelings of
displeasure against what is wrong. The teacher under moral
obligation, and governed, himself, by law. Description of the
Moral Exercise. Prejudice. The scholars' written remarks, and the
teacher's comments. The spider. List of subjects. Anonymous
writing. Specimens. Marks of a bad scholar. Consequences of being
behindhand. New scholars. A Satirical spirit. Variety.
Treatment of individual offenders. Ascertaining who they are.
Studying their characters. Securing their personal attachment.
Asking assistance. The whistle. Open, frank dealing. Example.
Dialogue with James. Communications in writing. 105
CHAPTER V.-RELIGIOUS INFLUENCE.
The American mechanic at Paris. A congregational teacher among
Quakers. Parents have the ultimate right to decide how their
children shall be educated.
Agreement in religious opinion, in this country. Principle which is to
guide the teacher on this subject. Limits and restrictions to religious
influence in school. Religious truths which are generally admitted in
this country. The existence of God. Human responsibility. Immortality of
the soul. A revelation. Nature of piety. Salvation by Christ. Teacher to
do nothing on this subject but what he may do by the common consent of
his employers. Reasons for explaining distinctly these limits.
Particular measures proposed. Opening exercises. Prayer. Singing.
Direct instruction. Mode of giving it. Example; arrangement of the
Epistles in the New Testament. Dialogue. Another example; scene in
the woods. Cautions. Affected simplicity of language. Evils of it.
Minute details. Example; motives to study. Dialogue. Mingling
religious influence with the direct discipline of the school.
Fallacious indications of piety. Sincerity of the Teacher. 152
CHAPTER VI.-MT. VERNON SCHOOL.
Reason for inserting the description. Advantage of visiting
schools; and of reading descriptions of them. Addressed to a new
scholar.
1. Her personal duty. Study card. Rule. But one rule. Cases when
this rule may be waived. 1. At the direction of teachers. 2. On
extraordinary emergencies. Reasons for the rule. Anecdote.
Punishments. Incident described. Confession.
2. Order of Daily Exercises. Opening of the school. Schedules.
Hours of study and recess. General Exercises. Business. Examples.
Sections.
3. Instruction and supervision of pupils. Classes. Organization.
Sections. Duties of superintendents.
4. Officers. Design in appointing them. Their names and duties.
Example of the operation of the system.
5. The Court. Its plan and design. A trial described.
6. Religious Instruction. Principles inculcated. Measures.
Religious exercises in school. Meeting on Saturday afternoon.
Concluding remarks. 181
CHAPTER VII.-SCHEMING.
Time lost upon fruitless schemes. Proper province of ingenuity and
enterprise. Cautions. Case supposed. The spelling class; an
experiment with it; its success and its consequences. System of
literary institutions in this country. Directions to a young
teacher on the subject of forming new plans. New institutions; new
school books. Ingenuity and enterprise very useful, within proper
limits. Ways of making known new plans. Periodicals. Family
newspapers. Teacher's meetings.
Rights of Committees, Trustees, or Patrons, in the control of the
school. Principle which ought to govern. Case supposed. Extent to
which the teacher is bound by the wishes of his employers. 221
CHAPTER VIII.-REPORTS OF CASES.
Plan of the Chapter. Hats and Bonnets. Injury to clothes. Mistakes
which are not censurable. Tardiness; plan for punishing it. Helen's
lesson. Firmness in measures united with mildness of manner.
Insincere confession: scene in a class. Court. Trial of a case.
Teacher's personal character. The way to elevate the character of
the employment. Six hours only to be devoted to school. The
Chestnut Burr. Scene in the wood. Dialogue in school. An
experiment. Series of Lessons in writing. The correspondence. Two
kinds of management. Plan of weekly reports. The shopping exercise.
Example. Artifices in Recitations. Keeping Resolutions; notes of
Teacher's Lecture. Topics. Plan and illustration of the exercise.
Introduction of music. Tabu. Mental Analysis. Scene in a class. 242
THE TEACHER.
CHAPTER I. INTEREST IN TEACHING.
There is a most singular contrariety of opinion prevailing in the community, in regard to the pleasantness of the business of teaching. Some teachers go to their daily task, merely upon compulsion: they regard it as intolerable drudgery. Others love the work: they hover around the school-room as long as they can, and never cease to think, and seldom to talk, of their delightful labors.
Unfortunately there are too many of the former class, and the first object, which, in this work, I shall attempt to accomplish, is to show my readers, especially those who have been accustomed to look upon the business of teaching as a weary and heartless toil, how it happens, that it is, in any case, so pleasant. The human mind is always, essentially, the same. That which is tedious and joyless to one, will be so to another, if pursued in the same way, and under the same circumstances. And teaching, if it is pleasant, animating, and exciting to one, may be so to all.
I am met, however, at the outset, in my effort to show why it is that teaching is ever a pleasant work, by the want of a name for a certain faculty or capacity of the human mind, through which most of the enjoyment of teaching finds its avenue. Every mind is so constituted as to take a positive pleasure in the exercise of ingenuity in adapting means to an end, and in watching their operation;-in accomplishing by the intervention of instruments, what we could not accomplish without;-in devising, (when we see an object to be effected, which is too great for our direct and immediate power) and setting at work, some instrumentality, which may be sufficient to accomplish it.
It is said, that, when the steam engine was first put into operation, such was the imperfection of the machinery, that a boy was necessarily stationed at it, to open and shut alternately the cock, by which the steam was now admitted, and now shut out, from the cylinder. One such boy, after patiently doing his work for many days, contrived to connect this stop-cock with some of the moving parts of the engine, by a wire, in such a manner, that the engine itself did the work which had been entrusted to him; and after seeing that the whole business would go regularly forward, he left the wire in charge, and went away to play.