ed
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 cannot
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 cannot 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 more than ten scholars,
as I intend hereafter to show. The great reliance of the teacher is upon
this art, to reduce to some tolerable order, what would otherwise be the
inextricable confusion of his business. He _must be systematic_. He must
classify and arrange; but after he has done all that he can, he must
still expect that his daily business will continue to consist of a vast
multitude of minute particulars, from one to another of which the mind
must turn with a rapidity, which, few of the other employments of life
ever demand.

These are the essential sources of difficulty with which the teacher has
to contend; but, as I shall endeavor to show in succeeding chapters,
though they cannot be entirely removed, they can be so far mitigated by
the appropriate means, as to render the employment a happy one. I have
thought it best however, as this work will doubtless be read by many,
who, when they read it, are yet to begin their labors, to describe
frankly and fully to them the difficulties which beset the path they are
about to enter. "The wisdom of the prudent is, to understand his way. It
is often wisdom to understand it beforehand."

CHAPTER II.

GENERAL ARRANGEMENTS.

The distraction and perplexity of the teacher's life are, as was
explained in the last chapter, almost proverbial. There are other
pressing and exhausting pursuits, which wear away the spirit by the
ceaseless care which they impose, or perplex and bewilder the intellect
by the multiplicity and intricacy of their details. But the business of
teaching, by a pre-eminence not very enviable, stands, almost by common
consent, at the head of the catalogue.

I have already alluded to this subject