sponsible for efforts, but for their results; and when,
notwithstanding all his efforts, his pupils will do wrong, his spirit
sinks, with an intensity of anxious despondency, which none but a
teacher can understand.

This feeling of almost _moral accountability for the guilt of other
persons_, is a continual burden. The teacher in the presence of the
pupil never is free from it. It links him to them by a bond, which,
perhaps, he ought not to sunder, and which he cannot sunder if he would.
And sometimes, when those committed to his charge are idle, or
faithless, or unprincipled, it wears away his spirits and his health
together. I think there is nothing analogous to this moral connexion
between teacher and pupil, unless it be in the case of a parent 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 100,000 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. That 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 and character must be consider