t and
child. And here, on account of the comparative smallness of the number
under the parent's care, the evil is so much diminished that it is
easily borne.

2. The second great difficulty of the teacher's employments is _the
immense multiplicity of the objects of his attention and care_ during
the time he is employed in his business. His scholars are individuals,
and notwithstanding all that the most systematic can do in the way of
classification, they must be attended to in a great measure as
individuals. A merchant keeps his commodities together, and looks upon a
cargo composed of ten thousand articles, and worth a hundred thousand
dollars, as one; he speaks of it as one; and there is, in many cases, no
more perplexity in planning its destination than if it were a single box
of raisins. A lawyer may have a great many important cases, but he has
only one at a time; that is, he _attends_ to but one at a time. The one
may be intricate, involving many facts, and requiring to be examined in
many aspects and relations. But he looks at but few of these facts and
regards but few of these relations at a time. The points which demand
his attention come one after another in regular succession. His mind may
thus be kept calm. He avoids confusion and perplexity. But no skill or
classification will turn the poor teacher's hundred scholars into one,
or enable him, except to a very limited extent, and for a very limited
purpose, to regard them as one. He has a distinct and, in many respects,
a different work to do for every one of the crowd before him.
Difficulties must be explained in detail, questions must be answered one
by one, and each scholar's own conduct must be considered by itself. His
work is thus made up of a thousand minute particulars, which are all
crowding upon his attention at once, and which he can not group
together, or combine, or simplify. He must, by some means or other,
attend to them in all their distracting individuality. And, in a large
and complicated school, the endless multiplicity and variety of objects
of attention and care impose a task under which few intellects can long
stand.

I have said that this endless multiplicity and variety can not be
reduced and simplified by classification. I mean, of course, that this
can be done only to a very limited extent compared with what may be
effected in the other pursuits of mankind. Were it not for the art of
classification and system, no school could have m