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

by Jacob Abbott

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, and 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 but 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 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, weary 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 almost 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 cannot 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 connexion 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 cargo composed of ten thousand articles, and worth 100,000 dollars as one: he speaks of it as one: and there is, in many cases, no more perplexity in planning its destination, than if it were a single box of raisins. A lawyer may have a great many important cases, but he has only one at a time; that is, he attends to but one at a time. That one may be intricate,—involving many facts and requiring to be examined in many aspects and relations. But he looks at but few of these facts and regards but few of these relations at a time. The points which demand his attention come, one after another, in regular succession. His mind may thus be kept calm. He avoids confusion and perplexity. But no skill or classification will turn the poor teacher's hundred scholars into one, or enable him, except to a very limited extent, and for a very limited purpose, to regard them as one. He has a distinct, and, in many respects, a different work to do for every one of the crowd before him. Difficulties must be explained in detail; questions must be answered one by one; and each scholar's own conduct and character must be considered by itself. His work is thus made up of a thousand minute particulars, which are all crowding upon his attention at once, and which he cannot group together, or combine, or simplify. He must by some means or other attend to them in all their distracting individuality. And in a large and complicated school, the endless multiplicity and variety of objects of attention and care, impose a task under which few intellects can long stand.

I have said that this endless multiplicity and variety cannot be reduced and simplified by classification. I mean, of course, that this can be done only to a very limited extent, compared with what may be effected in the other pursuits of mankind. Were it not for the art of classification and system, no school could have more than ten scholars, as I intend hereafter to show. The great reliance of the teacher is upon this art, to reduce to some tolerable order, what would otherwise be the inextricable confusion of his business. He must be systematic. He must classify and arrange; but after he has done all that he can, he must still expect that his daily business will continue to consist of a vast multitude of minute particulars, from one to another of which the mind must turn with a rapidity, which, few of the other employments of life ever demand.

These are the essential sources of difficulty with which the teacher has to contend; but, as I shall endeavor to show in succeeding chapters, though they cannot be entirely removed, they can be so far mitigated by the appropriate means, as to render the employment a happy one. I have thought it best however, as this work will doubtless be read by many, who, when they read it, are yet to begin their labors, to describe frankly and fully to them the difficulties which beset the path they are about to enter. "The wisdom of the prudent is, to understand his way. It is often wisdom to understand it beforehand."