6. If the branch which you are desiring to introduce appears to you to be an important part of education, and if it seems to you that it can be most successfully attended to in schools, then consider whether the introduction of it, and of all the other branches having equal claims, will, or will not give to the common schools too great a complexity. Consider whether it will succeed in the hands of ordinary teachers. Consider whether it will require so much time and effort, as will draw off, in any considerable degree, the attention of the teacher from the more essential parts of his duty. All will admit that it is highly important that every school should be simple in its plan,-as simple as its size and general circumstances will permit, and especially, that the public schools in every town and village of our country should never lose sight of what is, and must be, after all, their great design-teaching the whole population to read, write, and calculate.
7. If it is a school-book, which you are wishing to introduce, consider well before you waste your time in preparing it, and your spirits in the vexatious work of getting it through the press, whether it is, for general use, so superior to those already published, as to induce teachers to make a change in favor of yours. I have italicised the words for general use, for no delusion is more common than for a teacher to suppose, that because a text-book which he has prepared and uses in manuscript, is better for him than any other work which he can obtain, it will therefore be better for general circulation. Every man, if he has any originality of mind, has of course some peculiar method of his own, and he can of course prepare a text-book which will be better adapted to this method, than those ordinarily in use. The history of a vast multitude of textbooks, Arithmetics, Geographies, and Grammars, is this. A man of a somewhat ingenious mind, adopts some peculiar mode of instruction in one of these branches, and is quite successful, not because the method has any very peculiar excellence, but simply because he takes a greater interest in it, both on account of its novelty and also from the fact that it is his own invention. He conceives the plan of writing a text-book, to develope and illustrate this method. He hurries through the work. By some means or other, he gets it printed. In due time it is regularly advertised. The Annals of Education gives notice of it; the author sends a few copies to his friends, and that is the end of it. Perhaps a few schools may make a trial of it, and if, for any reason, the teachers who try it are interested in the work, perhaps in their hands, it succeeds. But it does not succeed so well as to attract general attention, and consequently does not get into general circulation. The author loses his time and his patience. The publisher, unless unfortunately it was published on the author's account, loses his paper. And in a few months, scarcely any body knows that such a book ever saw the light.
It is in this way, that the great multitude of school-books which are now constantly issuing from the press, take their origin. Far be it from me to discourage the preparation of good school-books. This department of our literature offers a fine field for the efforts of learning and genius. What I contend against, is the endless multiplicity of useless works, hastily conceived and carelessly executed, and which serve no purpose, but to employ uselessly, talents, which if properly applied, might greatly benefit both the community and the possessor.
8. If, however, after mature deliberation you conclude that you have the plan of a school-book which you ought to try to mature and execute, be slow and cautious about it. Remember that so great is now the competition in this branch, nothing but superior excellences will secure the favorable reception of a work. Examine all that your predecessors have done before you. Obtain, whatever may be the trouble and expense, all other text books on the subject, and examine them thoroughly. If you see that you can make a very decided advance on all that has been done, and that the public will probably submit to the inconvenience and expense of a change, to secure the result of your labors, go forward slowly and thoroughly in your work. No matter how much investigation, how much time and labor it may require. The more difficulty you may find, in gaining the eminence, the less likely will you be to be followed by successful competitors.
9. Consider in forming your text-book, not merely the whole subject on which you are to write, but also look extensively and thoroughly at the institutions throughout the country, and consider carefully the character of the teachers by whom you expect it to be used. Sometimes a man publishes a text-book, and when it fails on trial, he says, "It is because they did not know how to use it. The book in itself was good. The whole fault was in the awkwardness and ignorance of the teacher." How absurd! As if to make a good text-book, it was not as necessary to adapt it to teachers as to scholars. A good text-book which the teachers for whom it was intended did not know how to use!! i. e. A good contrivance but entirely unfit for the purpose for which it was intended.
10. Lastly, in every new plan, consider carefully whether its success in your hands, after you have tried it, and found it successful, be owing to its novelty and to your own special interest, or to its own innate and intrinsic superiority. If the former, use it so long as it will last, simply to give variety and interest to your plans. Recommend it in conversation or in other ways to teachers with whom you are acquainted; not as a wonderful discovery, which is going to change the whole science of education, but as one method among others, which may be introduced from time to time, to relieve the monotony of the teacher's labors.
In a word do not go away from the established institutions of our country, or deviate from the great objects which are at present, and ought to be pursued by them, without great caution, circumspection, and deliberate inquiry. But within these limits, exercise ingenuity and invention as much as you will. Pursue steadily the great objects which demand the teacher's attention; they are simple and few. Never lose sight of them, nor turn to the right or to the left to follow any ignis fatuus which may endeavor to allure you away; but exercise as much ingenuity and enterprise as you please, in giving variety and interest to the modes by which these objects are pursued.
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If planning and scheming are confined within these limits, and conducted on these principles, the teacher will save all the agitating perplexity and care which will otherwise be his continual portion. He can go forward peaceably and quietly, and while his own success is greatly increased, he may be of essential service to the cause in which he is engaged, by making known his various experiments and plans to others. For this purpose it seems to me highly desirable that every teacher should KEEP A JOURNAL of all his plans. In these should be carefully entered all his experiments: the new methods he adopts; the course he takes in regard to difficulties which may arise; and any interesting incidents which may occur, which it would be useful for him to refer to, at some future time. These or the most interesting of them should be made known to other teachers. This may be done in several ways.
(1.) By publishing them in periodicals devoted to education. Such contributions, furnished by judicious men, would be among the most valuable articles in such a work. They would be far more valuable than any general speculations, however well conceived or expressed.