ajority, especially of those who are
beginners in the work, find it such as I have described. I think it need
not be so, or, rather, I think the evil may be avoided to _a very great
degree_. In this chapter I shall endeavor to show how order may be
produced out of that almost inextricable mass of confusion into which so
many teachers, on commencing their labors, find themselves plunged.

The objects, then, to be aimed at in the general arrangements of schools
are twofold:

1. That the teacher may be left uninterrupted, to attend to one thing
at a time.

2. That the individual scholars may have constant employment, and such
an amount and such kinds of study as shall be suited to the
circumstances and capacities of each.

I shall examine each in their order.

1. The following are the principal things which, in a vast number of
schools, are all the time pressing upon the teacher; or, rather, they
are the things which must every where press upon the teacher, except so
far as, by the skill of his arrangements, he contrives to remove them.

1. Giving leave to whisper or to leave seats.
2. Distributing and changing pens.
3. Answering questions in regard to studies.
4. Hearing recitations.
5. Watching the behavior of the scholars.
6. Administering reproof and punishment for offenses as they occur.

A pretty large number of objects of attention and care, one would say,
to be pressing upon the mind of the teacher at one and the same
time--and _all the time_ too! Hundreds and hundreds of teachers in every
part of our country, there is no doubt, have all these crowding upon
them from morning to night, with no cessation, except perhaps some
accidental and momentary respite. During the winter months, while the
principal common schools in our country are in operation, it is sad to
reflect how many teachers come home every evening with bewildered and
aching heads, having been vainly trying all the day to do six things at
a time, while He who made the human mind has determined that it shall do
but one. How many become discouraged and disheartened by what they
consider the unavoidable trials of a teacher's life, and give up in
despair, just because their faculties will not sustain a six-fold task.
There are multitudes who, in early life, attempted teaching, and, after
having been worried, almost to distraction, by the simultaneous pressure
of these multifarious cares, gave up the employment in disgu