THE TEACHER.
MORAL INFLUENCES
EMPLOYED IN
THE INSTRUCTION AND GOVERNMENT
OF
THE YOUNG.
A NEW AND REVISED EDITION.
BY JACOB ABBOTT.
With Engravings.
1873.
Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year one thousand eight hundred and fifty-six, by
HARPER & BROTHERS,
in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the Southern District of New York.
PREFACE.
This book is intended to detail, in a familiar and practical manner, a system of arrangements for the organization and management of a school, based on the employment, so far as is practicable, of Moral Influences, as a means of effecting the objects in view. Its design is, not to bring forward new theories or new plans, but to develop and explain, and to carry out to their practical applications such principles as, among all skillful and experienced teachers, are generally admitted and acted upon. Of course it is not designed for the skillful and experienced themselves, but it is intended to embody what they already know, and to present it in a practical form for the use of those who are beginning the work, and who wish to avail themselves of the experience which others have acquired.
Although moral influences are the chief foundations on which the power of the teacher over the minds and hearts of his pupils is, according to this treatise, to rest, still it must not be imagined that the system here recommended is one of persuasion. It is a system of authority—supreme and unlimited authority—a point essential in all plans for the supervision of the young; but it is authority secured and maintained as far as possible by moral measures. There will be no dispute about the propriety of making the most of this class of means. Whatever difference of opinion there may be on the question whether physical force is necessary at all, every one will agree that, if ever employed, it must be only as a last resort, and that no teacher ought to make war upon the body, unless it is proved that he can not conquer through the medium of the mind.
In regard to the anecdotes and narratives which are very freely introduced to illustrate principles in this work, the writer ought to state that, though they are all substantially true—that is, all except those which are expressly introduced as mere suppositions, he has not hesitated to alter very freely, for obvious reasons, the unimportant circumstances connected with them. He has endeavored thus to destroy the personality of the narratives without injuring or altering their moral effect.
From the very nature of our employment, and of the circumstances under which the preparation for it must be made, it is plain that, of the many thousands who are in the United States annually entering the work, a very large majority must depend for all their knowledge of the art, except what they acquire from their own observation and experience, on what they can obtain from books. It is desirable that the class of works from which such knowledge can be obtained should be increased. Some excellent and highly useful specimens have already appeared, and very many more would be eagerly read by teachers, if properly prepared. It is essential, however, that they should be written by experienced teachers, who have for some years been actively engaged and specially interested in the work; that they should be written in a very practical and familiar style, and that they should exhibit principles which are unquestionably true, and generally admitted by good teachers, and not the new theories peculiar to the writer himself. In a word, utility and practical effect should be the only aim.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I. INTEREST IN TEACHING. Source of enjoyment in teaching.—The boy and the steam-engine.—His contrivance.—His pleasure, and the source of it.—Firing at the mark.—Plan of clearing the galleries in the British House of Commons.—Pleasure of experimenting, and exercising intellectual and moral power.—The indifferent and inactive teacher.—His subsequent experiments; means of awakening interest.—Offenses of pupils.—Different ways of regarding them.
Teaching really attended with peculiar trials and difficulties.—1. Moral responsibility for the conduct of pupils.—2. Multiplicity of the objects of attention.
CHAPTER II. GENERAL ARRANGEMENTS. Objects to be aimed at in the general arrangements.—Systematizing the teacher's work.—Necessity of having only one thing to attend to at a time.
1. Whispering and leaving seats.—An experiment.—Method of regulating this.—Introduction of the new plan.—Difficulties.—Dialogue with pupils.—Study-card.—Construction and use. 2. Mending pens.—Unnecessary trouble from this source.—Degree of importance to be attached to good pens.—Plan for providing them. 3. Answering questions.—Evils.—Each pupil's fair proportion of time.—Questions about lessons.—When the teacher should refuse to answer them.—Rendering assistance.—When to be refused. 4. Hearing recitations.—Regular arrangement of them.—Punctuality.—Plan and schedule.—General exercises.—Subjects to be attended to at them.
General arrangements of government.—Power to be delegated to pupils.—Gardiner Lyceum.—Its government.—The trial.—Real republican government impracticable in schools.—Delegated power.—Experiment with the writing-books.—Quarrel about the nail.—Offices for pupils.—Cautions.—Danger of insubordination.—New plans to be introduced gradually.
CHAPTER III. INSTRUCTION. The three important branches.—The objects which are really most important.—Advanced scholars.—Examination of school and scholars at the outset.—Acting on numbers.—Extent to which it may be carried.—Recitation and Instruction.
1. Recitation.—Its object.—Importance of a thorough examination of the class.—Various modes.—Perfect regularity and order necessary.—Example.—Story of the pencils.—Time wasted by too minute an attention to individuals.—Example.—Answers given simultaneously to save time.—Excuses.—Dangers in simultaneous recitation.—Means of avoiding them.—Advantages of this mode.—Examples.—Written answers. 2. Instruction.—Means of exciting interest.—Variety.—Examples.—Showing the connection between the studies of school and the business of life.—Example from the controversy between general and state governments.—Mode of illustrating it.—Proper way of meeting difficulties.—Leading pupils to surmount them.—True way to encourage the young to meet difficulties.—The boy and the wheel-barrow.—Difficult examples in arithmetic.
Proper way of rendering assistance.—(1.) Simply analyzing intricate subjects.—Dialogue on longitude.—(2.) Making previous truths perfectly familiar.—Experiment with the multiplication table.—Latin Grammar lesson.—Geometry. 3. General cautions.—Doing work for the scholar.—Dullness.—Interest in all the pupils.—Making all alike.—Faults of pupils.—The teacher's own mental habits.—False pretensions.
CHAPTER IV. MORAL DISCIPLINE. First impressions.—Story.—Danger of devoting too much attention to individual instances.—The profane boy.—Case described.—Confession of the boys.—Success.—The untidy desk.—Measures in consequence.—Interesting the scholars in the good order of the school.—Securing a majority.—Example.—Reports about the desks.—The new College building.—Modes of interesting the boys.—The irregular class.—Two ways of remedying the evil.—Boys' love of system and regularity.—Object of securing a majority, and particular means of doing it.—Making school pleasant.—Discipline should generally be private.—In all cases that are brought before the school, public opinion in the teacher's favor should be secured.—Story of the rescue.—Feelings of displeasure against what is wrong.—The teacher under moral obligation, and governed, himself, by law.—Description of the Moral Exercise.—Prejudice.—The scholars' written remarks, and the teacher's comments.—The spider.—List of subjects.—Anonymous writing.—Specimens.—Marks of a bad scholar.—Consequences of being behindhand.—New scholars.—A satirical spirit.—Variety.
Treatment of individual offenders.—Ascertaining who they are.—Studying their characters.—Securing their personal attachment.—Asking assistance.—The whistle.—Open, frank dealing.—Example.—Dialogue with James.—Communications in writing.
CHAPTER V. RELIGIOUS INFLUENCE. The American mechanic at Paris.—A Congregational teacher among Quakers.—Parents have the ultimate right to decide how their children shall be educated.
