252 Begin with mothers.-Be honest.-No false pretences. He may fix the time, and arrange the party, so that those who would assimilate, should be brought together. It will frequently be wise to begin with the mothers, where visitation has been unusual. They will soon bring in the fathers. As often as they come they will be benefited. When such visits are made, the teacher should not depart from his usual course of instruction on their account. Let all the recitations and explanations be attended to, all praises and reproofs, all rewards and punishments be as faithfully and punctually dispensed as if no person were present. In other words, let the teacher faithfully exhibit the school just as it is, its lights and its shadows, so that they may see all its workings, and understand all its trials as well as its encouragements. Such visitations under such circumstances, it is believed, would ever be highly beneficial. The teacher's difficulties and cares would be better understood, and his efforts to be useful appreciated. The hindrances, thus seen to impede his progress, would be promptly removed, and the teacher would receive more cordial sympathy and support. But if the teacher makes such visits the occasion for putting a false appearance upon the school; if he takes to himself unusual airs, such as make him ridiculous in the eyes of his pupils, and even in his own estimation; if he attempts to bring before the visitors his best classes, and to impress them with his own skill by showing off his best scholars, they will, sooner or later, discover his hypocrisy, and very likely despise him for an attempt to deceive them. Be frank and true with parents.-No evasion. 4. The teacher should be frank in all his representations to parents concerning their children. This is a point upon which many teachers most lamentably err. In this, as in every other case, "honesty is the best policy." If an instructor informs a parent during the term that his son is making rapid progress, or as the phrase is " doing very well," he excites in him high expectations; and if at the end of the term it turns out otherwise, the parent with much justice may feel that he has been injured, and may be expected to load him with censure instead of praise. Let a particular answer, and a true one, always be given to the inquiry— "How does my child get along?" The parent has a right to know, and the teacher has no right to conceal the truth. Sometimes teachers, fearing the loss of a pupil, have used some indefinite expression, which, however, the doating parent is usually ready to interpret to his child's advantage. But sooner or later the truth will appear; and when the teacher is once convicted of any misrepresentation in this particular, there is rarely any forgiveness for him. For this reason and for his own love of truth, for his own reputation and for the child's welfare, he should keep nothing back. He should tell the whole story plainly and frankly,—and the parent, if he is a gentleman, will thank him for his faithfulness to him; and if he has any sense of justice, he will be ready to cooperate with him for his child's improvement. At any rate such a course will ensure the reward of a good conscience. The teacher, as I have before urged, should have 254 Study the art of conversation.-Be modest.-" Out-door work." the habits and manners of a gentleman. He should no incident to the profession, should be carefully avoided ; and while the teacher should ever endeavor to make his conversation instructive, he should assume airs of superior learning or infallible authority. He should remember the truth in human nature, that men are best pleased to learn without being reminded that they are learners. I have known some teachers, who have sneered at what they have termed, the "out-door work" here recommended. They have thrown themselves upon their dignity, and have declared that when they had done their duty within the schoolroom, they had done all that could he expected, and that parents were bound to co-operate with them, and sustain them. But, after all, we must take the world as we find it; and since parents do not always feel interested as they should, I hold it to be a part of the teacher's duty to excite their interest, and to win Its result. them to his aid by all the proper means in his power. In doing this, he will, in the most effectual way, secure the progress of his school, and at the same time advance his own personal improvement. Many invalid teachers.-Reasons. CHAPTER XII. TEACHER'S CARE OF HIS Health. No employment is more wearing to the constitution than the business of teaching. So many men falter in this employment from ill health, and so many are deterred from entering it, because they have witnessed the early decay and premature old age of those who have before pursued it; so many are still engaged in it who almost literally "drag their slow length along,' groaning under complicated forms of disease and loss of spirits, which they know not how to tolerate or cure,—that it has become a serious inquiry among the more intelligent of the profession, "Cannot something be known and practised on this subject, which shall Is it absolutely remove the evils complained of?" necessary that teachers shall be dyspeptics and invalids? Must devotion to a calling so useful, be attended with a penalty so dreadful? A careful survey of the facts, by more than one philanthropist, has led to the of health is not a necessary conclusion, that the loss attendant upon the teacher of the young. It is believed, indeed, that the confine ment from the air and sunlight, and the engrossing |
