Jacob Abbott - The Teacher

GENTLEMEN:

It is to efforts which you have made in the cause of education, with special regard to its moral and religious aspects, that I have been indebted for the opportunity to test by experiment, under the most pleasant and favorable circumstances, the principles which form the basis of this work. To you, therefore, it is respectfully inscribed, as one of the indirect results of your own exertions to promote the best interests of the Young.

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 develope and explain, and to carry out to their practical applications, such principles as, among all skilful and experienced teachers, are generally admitted and acted upon. Of course it is not designed for the skilful and the 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 cannot 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.

Boston, June 20, 1833.

There is a most singular contrariety of opinion prevailing in the community, in regard to the pleasantness of the business of teaching. Some teachers go to their daily task, merely upon compulsion: they regard it as intolerable drudgery. Others love the work: they hover around the school-room as long as they can, and never cease to think, and seldom to talk, of their delightful labors.

Unfortunately there are too many of the former class, and the first object, which, in this work, I shall attempt to accomplish, is to show my readers, especially those who have been accustomed to look upon the business of teaching as a weary and heartless toil, how it happens, that it is, in any case, so pleasant. The human mind is always, essentially, the same. That which is tedious and joyless to one, will be so to another, if pursued in the same way, and under the same circumstances. And teaching, if it is pleasant, animating, and exciting to one, may be so to all.

I am met, however, at the outset, in my effort to show why it is that teaching is ever a pleasant work, by the want of a name for a certain faculty or capacity of the human mind, through which most of the enjoyment of teaching finds its avenue. Every mind is so constituted as to take a positive pleasure in the exercise of ingenuity in adapting means to an end, and in watching their operation;—in accomplishing by the intervention of instruments, what we could not accomplish without;—in devising, (when we see an object to be effected, which is too great for our direct and immediate power) and setting at work, some instrumentality , which may be sufficient to accomplish it.

It is said, that, when the steam engine was first put into operation, such was the imperfection of the machinery, that a boy was necessarily stationed at it, to open and shut alternately the cock, by which the steam was now admitted, and now shut out, from the cylinder. One such boy, after patiently doing his work for many days, contrived to connect this stop-cock with some of the moving parts of the engine, by a wire, in such a manner, that the engine itself did the work which had been entrusted to him; and after seeing that the whole business would go regularly forward, he left the wire in charge, and went away to play.

Such is the story. Now if it is true, how much pleasure the boy must have experienced, in devising and witnessing the successful operation of his scheme; I do not mean the pleasure of relieving himself from a dull and wearisome duty; I do not mean the pleasure of anticipated play; but I mean the strong interest he must have taken in contriving and executing his plan. When, wearied out with his dull, monotonous work, he first noticed those movements of the machinery which he thought adapted to his purpose, and the plan flashed into his mind, how must his eye have brightened, and how quick must the weary listlessness of his employment have vanished. While he was maturing his plan, and carrying it into execution;—while adjusting his wires, fitting them to the exact length, and to the exact position,—and especially, when, at last, he watches the first successful operation of his contrivance,—he must have enjoyed a pleasure, which very few, even of the joyous sports of childhood, could have supplied.

It is not, however, exactly the pleasure of exercising ingenuity in contrivance , that I refer to here; for the teacher has not, after all, a great deal of absolute contriving to do,—or rather his principal business is not contriving. The greatest and most permanent source of pleasure to the boy, in such a case as I have described, is his feeling that he is accomplishing a great effect by a slight effort of his own; the feeling of power; acting through the intervention of instrumentality , so as to multiply his power. So great would be this satisfaction, that he would almost wish to have some other similar work assigned him, that he might have another opportunity to contrive some plan for its easy accomplishment.