successful and easy accomplishment of his wishes by means of it. One is
like the officer, driving by vociferations, and threats, and
demonstrations of violence, the spectators from the galleries. The other
like the shrewd contriver, who converts the very desire to return, which
was the sole cause of the difficulty, to a most successful and efficient
means of its removal.

These principles show how teaching may, in some cases, be a delightful
employment, while in others its tasteless dullness is interrupted by
nothing but its perplexities and cares. The school-room is in reality a
little empire of mind. If the one who presides in it sees it in its true
light; studies the nature and tendency of the minds which he has to
control; adapts his plans and his measures to the laws of human nature,
and endeavors to accomplish his purposes for them, not by mere labor and
force, but by ingenuity and enterprise, he will take pleasure in
administering his little government. He will watch, with care and
interest, the operation of the moral and intellectual causes which he
sets in operation, and find, as he accomplishes his various objects with
increasing facility and power, that he will derive a greater and greater
pleasure from his work.

Now when a teacher thus looks upon his school as a field in which he is
to exercise skill, and ingenuity, and enterprise; when he studies the
laws of human nature, and the character of those minds upon which he has
to act; when he explores deliberately the nature of the field which he
has to cultivate, and of the objects which he wishes to accomplish, and
applies means judiciously and skillfully adapted to the object, he must
necessarily take a strong interest in his work. But when, on the other
hand, he goes to his employment only to perform a certain regular round
of daily toil, undertaking nothing and anticipating nothing but this
dull and unchangeable routine, and when he looks upon his pupils merely
as passive objects of his labors, whom he is to treat with simple
indifference while they obey his commands, and to whom he is only to
apply reproaches and punishment when they do wrong, such a teacher never
can take pleasure in the school. Weariness and dullness must reign in
both master and scholars when things, as he imagines, are going right,
and mutual anger and crimination when they go wrong.

[Illustration: School Master]

Scholars never can be successfully instructed by the power of any dull
mechanical routine, nor can they be properly governed by the blind,
naked strength of the master; such means must fail of the accomplishment
of the purposes designed, and consequently the teacher who tries such a
course must have constantly upon his mind the discouraging,
disheartening burden of unsuccessful and almost useless labor. He is
continually uneasy, dissatisfied, and filled with anxious cares, and
sources of vexation and perplexity continually arise. He attempts to
remove evils by waging against them a useless and most vexatious warfare
of threatening and punishment; and he is trying continually _to drive_,
when he might know that neither the intellect nor the heart are capable
of being driven.

I will simply state one case, to illustrate what I mean by the
difference between blind force and active ingenuity and enterprise in
the management of school. I once knew the teacher of a school who made
it his custom to have writing attended to in the afternoon. The school
was in the country, and it was the old times when quills, instead of
steel pens, were universally used. The boys were accustomed to take
their places at the appointed hour, and each one would set up his pen in
the front of his desk for the teacher to come and mend them. The teacher
would accordingly pass around the school-room, mending the pens, from
desk to desk, thus enabling the boys, in succession, to begin their
task. Of course, each boy, before the teacher came to his desk, was
necessarily idle, and, almost necessarily, in mischief. Day after day
the teacher went through this regular routine. He sauntered slowly and
listlessly through the aisles, and among the benches of the room,
wherever he saw the signal of a pen. He paid, of course, very little
attention to the writing, now and then reproving, with an impatient
tone, some extraordinary instance of carelessness, or leaving his work
to suppress some rising disorder. Ordinarily, however, he seemed to be
lost in vacancy of thought, dreaming, perhaps, of other scenes, or
inwardly repining at the eternal monotony and tedium of a teacher's
life. His boys took no interest in their work, and of course made no
progress. They were sometimes unnecessarily idle, and sometimes
mischievous, but never usefully or pleasantly employed, for the whole
hour was passed before the pens could all be brought down. Wasted time,
blotted books, and fretted tempers were all the results which the system
produced.

The same teacher afterward acted on a very different principle. He
looked over the field, and said to himself, "What are the objects which
I wish to accomplish in this writing exercise, and how can I best
accomplish them? I wish to obtain the greatest possible amount of
industrious and careful practice in writing. The first thing evidently
is to save the wasted time." He accordingly made preparation for mending
the pens at a previous hour, so that all should be ready, at the
appointed time, to commence the work together. This could be done quite
as conveniently when the boys were engaged in studying, by requesting
them to put out their pens at an appointed and _previous_ time. He sat
at his table, and the pens of a whole bench were brought to him, and,
after being carefully mended, were returned, to be in readiness for the
writing hour. Thus the first difficulty, the loss of time, was obviated.

"I must make them _industrious_ while they write," was his next thought.
After thinking of a variety of methods, he determined to try the
following: he required all to begin together at the top of the page, and
write the same line, in a hand of the same size. They were all required
to begin together, he himself beginning at the same time, and writing
about as fast as he thought they ought to write in order to secure the
highest improvement. When he had finished his line, he ascertained how
many had preceded him and how many were behind. He requested the first
to write slower, and the others faster; and by this means, after a few
trials, he secured uniform, regular, systematic, and industrious
employment throughout the school. Probably there were, at first,
difficulties in the operation of the plan, which he had to devise ways
and means to surmount; but what I mean to present particularly to the
reader is, that he was _interested in his experiments_. While sitting in
his desk, giving his command to _begin_ line after line, and noticing
the unbroken silence, and attention, and interest which prevailed (for
each boy was interested to see how nearly with the master he could
finish his work), while presiding over such a scene he must have been
interested. He must have been pleased with the exercise of his almost
military command, and to witness how effectually order and industry, and
excited and pleased attention, had taken the place of listless idleness
and mutual dissatisfaction.

After a few days, he appointed one of the older and more judicious
scholars to give the word for beginning and ending the lines, and he sat
surveying the scene, or walking from desk to desk, noticing faults, and
considering what plans he could form for securing more and more fully
the end he had in view. He found that the great object of interest and
attention among the boys was to come out right, and that less pains were
taken with the formation of the letters than there ought to be to secure
the most rapid improvement.

But how shall he secure greater pains? By stern commands and threats? By
going from desk to desk, scolding one, rapping the knuckles of another,
and holding up to ridicule a third, making examples of such individuals
as may chance to attract his special attention? No; he has learned that
he is operating upon a little empire of mind, and that he is not to
endeavor to drive them as a man drives a herd, by mere peremptory
command or half angry blows. He must study the nature of the effect that
he is to produce, and of the materials upon which he is to work, and
adopt, after mature deliberation, a plan to accomplish his purpose
founded upon the principles which ought always to regulate the action
of mind upon mind, and adapted to produce the _intellectual effect_
which he wishes to accomplish.

In the case supposed, the teacher concluded to appeal to emulation.
While I describe the measure he adopted, let it be remembered that I am
now only approving of the resort to ingenuity and invention, and the
employment of moral and intellectual means for the accomplishment of his
purposes, and not of the measures themselves. I am not sure the plan I
am going to describe is a wise one; but I am sure that the teacher,
while trying it, must _have been interested in his intellectual
experiment._ His business, while pursued in such a way, could not have
been a mere dull and uninteresting routine.

He purchased, for three cents apiece, two long lead pencils - an article
of great value in the opinion of the boys of country schools - and he
offered them, as prizes, to the boy who would write most carefully; not
to the one who should write _best_, but to the one whose book should
exhibit most appearance of _effort_ and _care_ for a week. After
announcing his plan, he watched with strong interest its operation. He
walked round the room while the writing was in progress, to observe the
effect of his measure. He did not reprove those who were writing
carelessly; he simply noticed who and how many they were. He did not
commend those who were evidently making effort; he noticed who and how
many they were, that he might understand how far, and upon what sort of
minds, his experiment was successful, and where it failed. He was taking
a lesson in human nature - human nature as it exhibits itself in
boys - and was preparing to operate more and more powerfully by future
plans.

The lesson which he learned by the experiment was this, that one or two
prizes will not influence the majority of a large school. A few of the
boys seemed to think that the pencils were possibly within their reach,
and _they_ made vigorous efforts to secure them; but the rest wrote on
as before. Thinking it certain that they should be surpassed by the
others, they gave up the contest at once in despair.

The obvious remedy was to _multiply_ his prizes, so as to bring one of
them within the reach of all. He reflected, too, that the real prize, in
such a case, is not the value of the pencil, but the _honor of the
victory_; and as the honor of the victory might as well be coupled with
an object of less, as well as with one of greater value, the next week
he divided his two pencils into quarters, and offered to his pupils
eight prizes instead of two. He offered one to every five scholars, as
they sat on their benches, and every boy then saw that a reward would
certainly come within five of him. His chance, accordingly, instead of
being one in twenty, became one in five.

Now is it possible for a teacher, after having philosophized upon the
nature of the minds upon which he is operating, and surveyed the field,
and ingeniously formed a plan, which plan he hopes will, through his own
intrinsic power, produce certain effects - is it possible for him, when
he comes, for the first day, to witness its operations, to come without
feeling a strong interest in the result? It is not possible. After
having formed such a plan, and made such arrangements, he will look
forward almost with impatience to the next writing-hour. He wishes to
see whether he has estimated the mental capacities and tendencies of his
little community aright; and when the time comes, and he surveys the
scene, and observes the operation of his measure, and sees many more are
reached by it than were influenced before, he feels a strong
gratification, and it is a gratification which is founded upon the
noblest principles of our nature. He is tracing, on a most interesting
field, the operation of cause and effect. From being the mere drudge,
who drives, without intelligence or thought, a score or two of boys to
their daily tasks, he rises to the rank of an intellectual philosopher,
exploring the laws and successfully controlling the tendencies of mind.

It will be observed, too, that all the time this teacher was performing
these experiments, and watching with intense interest the results, his
pupils were going on undisturbed in their pursuits. The exercises in
writing were not interrupted or deranged. This is a point of fundamental
importance; for, if what I should say on the subject of exercising
ingenuity and contrivance in teaching should be the means, in any case,
of leading a teacher to break in upon the regular duties of his school,
and destroy the steady uniformity with which the great objects of such
an institution should be pursued, my remarks had better never have been
written. There may be variety in methods and plan, but, through all this
variety, the school, and every individual pupil of it, must go steadily
forward in the acquisition of that knowledge which is of greatest
importance in the business of future life. In other words, the
variations and changes admitted by the teacher ought to be mainly
confined to the modes of accomplishing those permanent objects to which
all the exercises and arrangements of the school ought steadily to aim.
More on this subject, however, in another chapter.

I will mention one other circumstance, which will help to explain the
difference in interest and pleasure with which teachers engage in their
work. I mean the different views they take _of the offenses of their
pupils_. One class of teachers seem never to make it a part of their
calculation that their pupils will do wrong, and when, any misconduct
occurs they are discontented and irritated, and look and act as if some
unexpected occurrence had broken in upon their plans. Others understand
and consider all this beforehand. They seem to think a little, before
they go into their school, what sort of beings boys and girls are, and
any ordinary case of youthful delinquency or dullness does not surprise
them. I do not mean that they treat such cases with indifference or
neglect, but that they _expect_ them, and _are prepared for them_. Such
a teacher knows that boys and girls are the _materials_ he has to work
upon, and he takes care to make himself acquainted with these materials,
_just as they are_. The other class, however, do not seem to know at all
what sort of beings they have to deal with, or, if they know, do not
_consider_. They expect from them what is not to be obtained, and then
are disappointed and vexed at the failure. It is as if a carpenter
should attempt to support an entablature by pillars of wood too small
and weak for the weight, and then go on, from week to week, suffering
anxiety and irritation as he sees them swelling and splitting under the
burden, and finding fault _with the wood_ instead of taking it to
himself; or as if a plowman were to attempt to work a hard and stony
piece of ground with a poor team and a small plow, and then, when
overcome by the difficulties of the task, should vent his vexation and
anger in laying the blame on the ground instead of on the inadequate and
insufficient instrumentality which he had provided for subduing it.

[Illustration]

It is, of course, one essential part of a man's duty, in engaging in any
undertaking, whether it will lead him to act upon matter or upon mind,
to become first well acquainted with the circumstances of the case, the
materials he is to act upon, and the means which he may reasonably
expect to have at his command. If he underrates his difficulties, or
overrates the power of his means of overcoming them, it is his
mistake - a mistake for which _he_ is fully responsible. Whatever may be
the nature of the effect which he aims at accomplishing, he ought fully
to understand it, and to appreciate justly the difficulties which lie in
the way.

Teachers, however, very often overlook this. A man comes home from his
school at night perplexed and irritated by the petty misconduct which he
has witnessed, and been trying to check. He does not, however, look
forward and endeavor to prevent the occasions of such misconduct,
adapting his measures to the nature of the material upon which he has to
operate, but he stands, like the carpenter at his columns, making
himself miserable in looking at it after it occurs, and wondering what
to do.

"Sir," we might say to him, "what is the matter?"

"Why, I have such boys I can do nothing with them. Were it not for
_their misconduct_, I might have a very good school."

"Were it not for their misconduct? Why, is there any peculiar depravity
in them which you could not have foreseen?"

"No; I suppose they are pretty much like all other boys," he replies,
despairingly; "they are all hair-brained and unmanageable. The plans I
have formed for my school would be excellent if my boys would only
behave properly."

"Excellent plans," might we not reply, "and yet not adapted to the
materials upon which they are to operate! No. It is your business to
know what sort of beings boys are, and to make your calculations
accordingly."

Two teachers may therefore manage their schools in totally different
ways, so that one of them may necessarily find the business a dull,
mechanical routine, except as it is occasionally varied by perplexity
and irritation, and the other a prosperous and happy employment. The one
goes on mechanically the same, and depends for his power on violence, or
on threats and demonstrations of violence. The other brings all his
ingenuity and enterprise into the field to accomplish a steady purpose
by means ever varying, and depends for his power on his knowledge of
human nature, and on the adroit adaptation of plans to her fixed and
uniform tendencies.

I am very sorry, however, to be obliged to say that probably the latter
class of teachers are decidedly in the minority. To practice the art in
such a way as to make it an agreeable employment is difficult, and it
requires much knowledge of human nature, much attention and skill. And,
after all, there are some circumstances necessarily attending the work
which constitute a heavy drawback on the pleasures which it might
otherwise afford. The almost universal impression that the business of
teaching is attended with peculiar trials and difficulties proves this.

There must be some cause for an impression so general. It is not right
to call it a prejudice, for, although a single individual may conceive a
prejudice, whole communities very seldom do, unless in some case which
is presented at once to the whole, so that, looking at it through a
common medium, all judge wrong together. But the general opinion in
regard to teaching is composed of a vast number of _separate_ and
_independent_ judgments, and there must be some good ground for the
universal result.

It is best, therefore, if there are any real and peculiar sources of
trial and difficulty in this pursuit, that they should be distinctly
known and acknowledged at the outset. Count the cost before going to
war. It is even better policy to overrate than to underrate it. Let us
see, then, what the real difficulties of teaching are.

It is not, however, as is generally supposed, _the confinement._ A
teacher is confined, it is true, but not more than men of other
professions and employments; not more than a merchant, and probably not
as much. A physician is confined in a different way, but more closely
than a teacher: he can never leave home: he knows generally no
vacation, and nothing but accidental rest.

The lawyer is confined as much. It is true there are not throughout the
year exact hours which he must keep, but, considering the imperious
demands of his business, his personal liberty is probably restrained as
much by it as that of the teacher. So with all the other professions.
Although the nature of the confinement may vary, it amounts to about the
same in all. On the other hand, the teacher enjoys, in reference to this
subject of confinement, an advantage which scarcely any other class of
men does or can enjoy. I mean vacations. A man in any other business may
_force_ himself away from it for a time, but the cares and anxieties of
his business will follow him wherever he goes. It seems to be reserved
for the teacher to enjoy alone the periodical luxury of a _real and
entire release from business and care_. On the whole, as to confinement,
it seems to me that the teacher has little ground of complaint.

There are, however, some real and serious difficulties which always
have, and, it is to be feared, always will, cluster around this
employment; and which must, for a long time, at least, lead most men to
desire some other employment for the business of life. There may perhaps
be some who, by their peculiar skill, can overcome or avoid them, and
perhaps the science of teaching may, at some future day, be so far
improved that all may avoid them. As I describe them, however, now, most
of the teachers into whose hands this treatise may fall will probably
find that their own experience corresponds, in this respect, with mine.

1. The first great difficulty which the teacher feels is a sort of
_moral responsibility for the conduct of others_. If his pupils do
wrong, he feels almost personal responsibility for it. As he walks out
some afternoon, wearied with his labors, and endeavoring to forget, for
a little time, all his cares, he comes upon a group of boys in rude and
noisy quarrels, or engaged in mischief of some sort, and his heart
sinks within him. It is hard enough for any one to witness their bad
conduct with a spirit unruffled and undisturbed, but for their teacher
it is perhaps impossible. He feels _responsible_; in fact, he is
responsible. If his scholars are disorderly, or negligent, or idle, or
quarrelsome, he feels _condemned himself_ almost as if he were himself
the actual transgressor.

This difficulty is, in a great degree, peculiar to a teacher. A
physician is called upon to prescribe for a patient; he examines the
case, and writes his prescription. When this is done his duty is ended;
and whether the patient obeys the prescription and lives, or neglects it
and dies, the physician feels exonerated from all responsibility. He
may, and in some cases does, feel _anxious concern_, and may regret the
infatuation by which, in some unhappy case, a valuable life may be
hazarded or destroyed. But he feels no _moral responsibility_ for
another's guilt.

It is so with all the other employments in life. They do, indeed, often
bring men into collision with other men. But, though sometimes vexed and
irritated by the conduct of a neighbor, a client, or a patient, they
feel not half the bitterness of the solicitude and anxiety which come to
the teacher through the criminality of his pupil. In ordinary cases he
not only feels responsible for efforts, but for their results; and when,
notwithstanding all his efforts, his pupils will do wrong, his spirit
sinks with an intensity of anxious despondency which none but a teacher
can understand.

This feeling of something very like _moral accountability for the guilt
of other persons_ is a continual burden. The teacher in the presence of
the pupil never is free from it. It links him to them by a bond which
perhaps he ought not to sunder, and which he can not sunder if he would.
And sometimes, when those committed to his charge are idle, or
faithless, or unprincipled, it wears away his spirits and his health
together. I think there is nothing analogous to this moral connection
between teacher and pupil unless it be in the case of a parent and
child. And here, on account of the comparative smallness of the number
under the parent's care, the evil is so much diminished that it is
easily borne.

2. The second great difficulty of the teacher's employments is _the
immense multiplicity of the objects of his attention and care_ during
the time he is employed in his business. His scholars are individuals,
and notwithstanding all that the most systematic can do in the way of
classification, they must be attended to in a great measure as
individuals. A merchant keeps his commodities together, and looks upon a