ay 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
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, and it seems to be
reserved for the teacher, to enjoy alone the periodical luxury of a
_real and entire release from business and car