according to your wishes, he falls to criticising and condemning it; he
finds fault with this, and ridicules that, and tells you you ought to
make such and such an alteration in it. It is perfectly right for him to
give his opinion, in the tone and spirit of _recommendation or
suggestion_, with a distinct understanding that with his employer rests
the power and the right to decide. But how many teachers take
possession of their school-room as though it was an empire in which they
are supreme, who resist every interference of their employers as they
would an attack upon their personal freedom, and who feel that in regard
to every thing connected with school they have really no actual
responsibility.

In most cases, the employers, knowing how sensitive teachers very
frequently are on this point, acquiesce in it, and leave them to
themselves. Whenever, in any case, they think that the state of the
school requires their interference, they come cautiously and fearfully
to the teacher, as if they were encroaching upon his rights, instead of
advancing with the confidence and directness with which employers have
always a right to approach the employed; and the teacher, with the view
he has insensibly taken of the subject, being perhaps confirmed by the
tone and manner which his employers use, makes the conversation quite as
often an occasion of resentment and offense as of improvement. He is
silent, perhaps, but in his heart he accuses his committee or his
trustees of improper interference in _his_ concerns, as though it was no
part of _their_ business to look after work which is going forward for
their advantage, and for which they pay.

Perhaps some individuals who have had some collision with their trustees
or committee will ask me if I mean that a teacher ought to be entirely
and immediately under the supervision and control of the trustees, just
as a mechanic is when employed by another man. By no means. There are
various circumstances connected with the nature of this employment, such
as the impossibility of the employers fully understanding it in all its
details, and the character and the standing of the teacher himself,
which always will, in matter of fact, prevent this. The employers always
will, in a great many respects, place more confidence in the teacher and
in his views than they will in their own. But still, the ultimate power
is theirs. Even if they err, if they wish to have a course pursued
which is manifest