has to
operate, but he stands, like the carpenter at his columns, making
himself miserable in looking at it after it occurs, and wondering what
to do.

"Sir," we might say to him, "what is the matter?"

"Why, I have such boys I can do nothing with them. Were it not for
_their misconduct_, I might have a very good school."

"Were it not for their misconduct? Why, is there any peculiar depravity
in them which you could not have foreseen?"

"No; I suppose they are pretty much like all other boys," he replies,
despairingly; "they are all hair-brained and unmanageable. The plans I
have formed for my school would be excellent if my boys would only
behave properly."

"Excellent plans," might we not reply, "and yet not adapted to the
materials upon which they are to operate! No. It is your business to
know what sort of beings boys are, and to make your calculations
accordingly."

Two teachers may therefore manage their schools in totally different
ways, so that one of them may necessarily find the business a dull,
mechanical routine, except as it is occasionally varied by perplexity
and irritation, and the other a prosperous and happy employment. The one
goes on mechanically the same, and depends for his power on violence, or
on threats and demonstrations of violence. The other brings all his
ingenuity and enterprise into the field to accomplish a steady purpose
by means ever varying, and depends for his power on his knowledge of
human nature, and on the adroit adaptation of plans to her fixed and
uniform tendencies.

I am very sorry, however, to be obliged to say that probably the latter
class of teachers are decidedly in the minority. To practice the art in
such a way as to make it an agreeable employment is difficult, and it
requires much knowledge of human nature, much attention and skill. And,
after all, there are some circumstances necessarily attending the work
which constitute a heavy drawback on the pleasures which it might
otherwise afford. The almost universal impression that the business of
teaching is attended with peculiar trials and difficulties proves this.

There must be some cause for an impression so general. It is not right
to call it a prejudice, for, although a single individual may conceive a
prejudice, whole communities very seldom do, unless in some case which
is presented at once to the whole, so that, looking at it through a
common medium, all judge wrong together. But the general opinion in