regard to teaching is composed of a vast number of _separate_ and
_independent_ judgments, and there must be some good ground for the
universal result.

It is best, therefore, if there are any real and peculiar sources of
trial and difficulty in this pursuit, that they should be distinctly
known and acknowledged at the outset. Count the cost before going to
war. It is even better policy to overrate than to underrate it. Let us
see, then, what the real difficulties of teaching are.

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. 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 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 of teaching 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