Jacob Abbott - The Teacher

The great principle which is to guide the teacher, in this part of his duty, is this; Assist your pupils, in such a way, as to lead them, as soon as possible, to do without assistance . This is fundamental. In a short time they will be away from your reach; they will have no teacher to consult; and unless you teach them how to understand books themselves, they must necessarily stop suddenly in their course, the moment you cease to help them forward. I shall proceed, therefore, to consider the subject, in the following plan:—

1. Means of exciting interest in study.

2. The kind and degree of assistance to be rendered.

3. Miscellaneous suggestions.

1. Interesting the pupils in their studies. There are various principles of human nature, which may be of great avail, in accomplishing this object. Making intellectual effort, and acquiring knowledge, are always pleasant to the human mind, unless some peculiar circumstances render them otherwise. The teacher has, therefore, only to remove obstructions, and sources of pain, and the employment of his pupils will be, of itself, a pleasure.

"I am going to give you a new exercise to-day," said a teacher to a class of boys, in Latin. "I am going to have you parse your whole lesson, in writing. It will be difficult, but I think you may be able to accomplish it."

The class looked surprised. They did not know what parsing in writing could be.

"You may first, when you take your seats, and are ready to prepare the lesson, write upon your slates, a list of the ten first nouns, arranging them in a column. Do you understand so far?"

"Yes sir."

"Then rule lines for another column, just beyond this. In parsing nouns, what is the first particular to be named?"

"What the noun is from."

"Yes; that is, its nominative. Now you may write, at the head of the first column, the word Nouns , and at the head of the second, Nom. , for nominative. Then rule a line for the third column. What shall this contain?" "The declension." "Yes; and the fourth?" "Gender." "The fifth?" "Number."

In the same manner the other columns were designated; the sixth, was to contain case; the seventh, the word, with which the noun was connected, in construction; and the eighth, a reference to the rule.

"Now I wish you," continued the teacher, "to fill up such a table as this, with ten nouns. Do you understand how I mean?"

"Yes sir;" "No sir;" they answered, variously.

"All who do understand may take their seats; as I wish to give as little explanation, as possible. The more you can depend upon yourselves, the better."

Those who saw clearly what was to be done, left the class, and the teacher continued his explanation to those who were left behind. He made the plan perfectly clear to them, by taking a particular noun, and running it through the table, showing what should be written opposite to the word, in all the columns; and then dismissed them.

The class separated, as every class would, in such a case, with strong interest in the work before them. It was not so difficult as to perplex them, and yet it required attention and care. They were interested and pleased;—pleased with the effort which it required them to make, and they anticipated, with interest and pleasure, the time of coming again to the class, to report and compare their work.

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