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

by Jacob Abbott

"In your efforts to promote your principles, you are limited, or you ought to be limited, to modes that are proper and honorable. I employ you for a distinct and specific purpose, which has nothing to do with questions of government, and you ought not to allow your love of republican principles to lead you to take advantage of the position in which I place you, and interfere with my plans for the political education of my children."

Now for the parallel case. A member of a Congregational society is employed to teach a school in a district occupied exclusively by Friends—a case not uncommon. He is employed there, not as a religious teacher, but for another specific and well-defined object. It is for the purpose of teaching the children of that district reading, writing, and calculation, and for such other purposes analogous to this as the law providing for the establishment of district schools contemplated. Now, when he is placed in such a situation, with such a trust confided to him, and such duties to discharge, it is not right for him to make use of the influence which this official station gives him over the minds of the children committed to his care for the accomplishment of any other purposes whatever which the parents would disapprove. It would not be considered right by men of the world to attempt to accomplish any other purposes in such a case; and are the pure and holy principles of piety to be extended by methods more exceptionable than those by which political and party contests are managed?

There is a very great and obvious distinction between the general influence which the teacher exerts as a member of the community and that which he can employ in his school-room as teacher. He has unquestionably a right to exert upon the community, by such means as he shares in common with every other citizen, as much influence as he can command for the dissemination of his own political, or religious, or scientific opinions. But the strong ascendency which, in consequence of his official station, he has obtained over the minds of his pupils, is sacred. He has no right to use it for any purpose foreign to the specific objects for which he is employed, unless by the consent, expressed or implied, of those by whom he is intrusted with his charge. The parents who send their children to him to be taught to read, to write, and to calculate, may have erroneous views of their duty as parents in other respects. He may know that their views are erroneous. They may be taking a, course which the teacher knows is wrong. But he has not, on this account, a right to step in between the parent and child, to guide the latter according to his own opinions, and to violate the wishes and thwart the plans of the former.

God has constituted the relation between the parent and the child, and according to any view which a rational man can take of this relation, the parent is alone responsible for the guidance he gives to that mind, so entirely in his power. He is responsible to God; and where our opinions in regard to the manner in which any of the duties arising from the relation are to be performed, differ from his, we have no right to interfere, without his consent, to rectify what we thus imagine to be wrong. I know of but one exception which any man whatever would be inclined to make to this principle, and that is where the parent would, if left to himself, take such a course as would ultimately make his children unsafe members of society. The community have a right to interfere in such a case, as they in fact do by requiring every man to provide for the instruction of his children, and in some other ways which need not now be specified. Beyond this, however, no interference contrary to the parent's consent is justifiable. Where parents will do wrong, notwithstanding any persuasions which we can address to them, we must not violate the principles of an arrangement which God has himself made, but must submit patiently to the awful consequences which will in some cases occur, reflecting that the responsibility for these consequences is on the head of those who neglect their duty, and that the being who makes them liable will settle the account.

Whatever, then, the teacher attempts to do beyond the specific and defined duties which are included among the objects for which he is employed, must be done by permission—by the voluntary consent, whether tacit or openly expressed, of those by whom he is employed. This, of course, confines him to what is generally common ground among his particular employers. In a republican country, where all his patrons are republican, he may, without impropriety, explain and commend to his pupils, as occasion may occur, the principles of free governments, and the blessings which may be expected to flow from them. But it would not be justifiable for him to do this under a monarchy, or in a community divided in regard to this subject, because this question does not come within the objects for the promotion of which his patrons have associated and employed him, and consequently he has no right, while continuing their teacher, to go into it without their consent. In the same manner, an Episcopal teacher, in a private school formed and supported by Episcopalians, may use and commend forms of prayer, and explain the various usages of that church, exhibiting their excellence, and their adaptation to the purposes for which they are intended. He may properly do this, because, in the case supposed, the patrons of the school are united on this subject, and their tacit consent may be supposed to be given. But place the same teacher over a school of Friends, whose parents dislike forms and ceremonies of every kind in religion, and his duty would be changed altogether. So, if a Roman Catholic is intrusted with the instruction of a common district school in a community composed of many Protestant denominations, it would be plainly his duty to avoid all influence, direct or indirect, over the minds of his pupils, except in those religious sentiments and opinions which are common to himself and all his employers. I repeat the principle. He is employed for a specific purpose, and he has no right to wander from that purpose, except as far as he can go with the common consent of his employers.

Now the common ground on religious subjects in this country is very broad. There are, indeed, many principles which are, in my view, essential parts of Christianity, which are subjects of active discussion among us. But, setting these aside, there are other principles equally essential, in regard to which the whole community are agreed; or, at least, if there is a dissenting minority, it is so small that it is hardly to be considered. Let us look at some of these principles.

1. Our community is agreed that there is a God. There is probably not a school in our country where the parents of the scholars would not wish to have the teacher, in his conversation with his pupils, take this for granted, and allude reverently to that great Being, with the design of leading them to realize his existence and to feel his authority.

2. Our community are agreed that we are responsible to God for all our conduct. Though some persons absurdly pretend to believe that the Being who formed this world, if, indeed, they think there is any such Being, has left it and its inhabitants to themselves, not inspecting their conduct, and never intending to call them to account, they are too few among us to need consideration. A difference of opinion on this subject might embarrass the teacher in France, and in other countries in Europe, but not here. However negligent men may be in obeying God's commands, they do almost universally in our country admit in theory the authority from which they come, and believing this, the parent, even if he is aware that he himself does not obey these commands, chooses to have his children taught to respect them. The teacher will thus be acting with the consent of his employers, in almost any part of our country, in endeavoring to influence his pupils to perform moral duties, not merely from worldly motives, nor from mere abstract principles of right and wrong, but from regard to the authority of God.

3. The community are agreed, too, in the belief of the immortality of the soul. They believe, almost without exception, that there is a future state of being to which this is introductory and preparatory, and almost every father and mother in our country wish to have their children keep this in mind, and to be influenced by it in all their conduct.

4. The community are agreed that we have a revelation from Heaven. I believe there are very few instances where the parents would not be glad to have the Bible read from time to time, its geographical and historical meanings illustrated, and its moral lessons brought to bear upon the hearts and lives of their children. Of course, if the teacher is so unwise as to make such a privilege, if it were allowed him, the occasion of exerting an influence upon one side or the other of some question which divides the community around him, he must expect to excite jealousy and distrust, and to be excluded from a privilege which he might otherwise have been permitted freely to enjoy. There may, alas! be some cases where the use of the Scriptures is altogether forbidden in school; but probably in almost every such case it would be found that it is from fear of its perversion to sect or party purposes, and not from any unwillingness to have the Bible used in the way I have described.