The Teacher / Moral Influences Employed in the Instruction and Government of the Young

by Jacob Abbott

"Yes, sir," say the boys. Children always think they can do every thing which is proposed to them as a new plan or experiment, though they are very often inclined to think they can not do what is required of them as a task.

"You may have," continues the teacher, "the words read to you once or twice, just as you please. Only, if you have them read but once, you must take a shorter lesson."

He pauses and looks round upon the class. Some say "Once," some "Twice."

"I am willing that you should decide this question. How many are in favor of having shorter lessons, and having them read but once? How many prefer longer lessons, and having them read twice?"

After comparing the numbers, it is decided according to the majority, and the teacher assigns or allows them to assign a lesson.

"Now," he proceeds, "I am not only going to have you study in a different way, but recite in a different way too. You may take your slates with you, and after you have had time to hear the lesson read slowly and carefully twice, I shall come and dictate to you the words aloud, and you will all write them from my dictation. Then I shall examine your slates, and see how many mistakes are made."

Any class of boys, now, would be exceedingly interested in such a proposal as this, especially if the master's ordinary principles of government and instruction had been such as to interest the pupils in the welfare of the school and in their own progress in study. They will come together in the place assigned, and listen to the one who is appointed to read the words to them, with every faculty aroused, and their whole souls engrossed in the new duties assigned them. The teacher, too, feels a special interest in his experiment. Whatever else he may be employed about, his eye turns instinctively to this group with an intensity of interest which an experienced teacher who has long been in the field, and who has tried experiments of this sort a hundred times, can scarcely conceive; for let it be remembered that I am describing the acts and feelings of a new beginner, of one who is commencing his work with a feeble and trembling step, and perhaps this is his first step away from the beaten path in which he has been accustomed to walk.

This new plan is continued, we will suppose, for a week, during which time the interest of the pupils continues. They get longer lessons and make fewer mistakes than they did by the old method. Now, in speculating on this subject, the teacher reasons very justly that it is of no consequence whether the pupil receives his knowledge through the eye or through the ear; whether they study in solitude or in company. The point is to secure their progress in learning to spell the words of the English language, and as this point is secured far more rapidly and effectually by his new method, the inference is to his mind very obvious, that he has made a great improvement—one of real and permanent value. Perhaps he will consider it an extraordinary discovery.

But the truth is, that in almost all such cases as this, the secret of the success is not that the teacher has discovered a better method than the ordinary ones, but that he has discovered a new one. The experiment will succeed in producing more successful results just as long as the novelty of it continues to excite unusual interest and attention in the class, or the thought that it is a plan of the teacher's own invention leads him to take a peculiar interest in it. And this may be a month, or perhaps a quarter; and precisely the same effects would have been produced if the whole had been reversed, that is, if the plan of dictation had been the old one, which in process of time had, in this supposed school, lost its interest, and the teacher, by his ingenuity and enterprise, had discovered and introduced what is now the common mode.

"Very well," perhaps my reader will reply, "it is surely something gained to awaken and continue interest in a dull study for a quarter, or even a month. The experiment is worth something as a pleasant and useful change, even if it is not permanently superior to the other."