The Teacher

The Teacher, by Jacob Abbott

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Title: The Teacher Or, Moral Influences Employed in the Instruction and Government of the Young
Author: Jacob Abbott
Release Date: August 6, 2007 [EBook #22251]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
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Chapter IX
is the additional chapter on "The First Day in School" mentioned on the title page. There is no entry in the Table of Contents for this chapter.
* * * * *

THE TEACHER:
Or Moral Influences Employed in the Instruction and Government of the Young.
New Stereotype Edition; With an Additional Chapter on "The First Day in School."
* * * * *
By JACOB ABBOTT, Late Principal of the Mt. Vernon Female School, Boston, Mass.
* * * * *
BOSTON: PUBLISHED BY WHIPPLE AND DAMRELL, No. 9 CORNHILL. 1839.
* * * * *
Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1839, by
JACOB ABBOTT,
In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts.
* * * * *
POWER PRESS OF WILLIAM S. DAMRELL.

TO THE TRUSTEES AND PATRONS OF THE MT. VERNON FEMALE SCHOOL, BOSTON.
GENTLEMEN:
It is to efforts which you have made in the cause of education, with special regard to its moral and religious aspects, that I have been indebted for the opportunity to test by experiment, under the most pleasant and favorable circumstances, the principles which form the basis of this work. To you, therefore, it is respectfully inscribed, as one of the indirect results of your own exertions to promote the best interests of the Young.
I am very sincerely and respectfully yours, THE AUTHOR.

PREFACE.
This book is intended to detail, in a familiar and practical manner, a system of arrangements for the organization and management of a school, based on the employment, so far as is practicable, of Moral Influences, as a means of effecting the objects in view. Its design is, not to bring forward new theories or new plans, but to develope and explain, and to carry out to their practical applications, such principles as, among all skilful and experienced teachers, are generally admitted and acted upon. Of course it is not designed for the skilful and the experienced themselves; but it is intended to embody what they already know, and to present it in a practical form, for the use of those who are beginning the work and who wish to avail themselves of the experience which others have acquired.
Although moral influences, are the chief foundations on which the power of the teacher over the minds and hearts of his pupils is, according to this treatise, to rest, still it must not be imagined that the system here recommended is one of persuasion. It is a system of authority,--supreme and unlimited authority, a point essential in all plans for the supervision of the young. But it is authority secured and maintained as far as possible by moral measures. There will be no dispute about the propriety of making the most of this class of means. Whatever difference of opinion there may be, on the question whether physical force, is necessary at all, every one will agree that, if ever employed, it must be only as a last resort, and that no teacher ought to make war upon the body, unless it is proved that he cannot conquer through the medium of the mind.
In regard to the anecdotes and narratives which are very freely introduced to illustrate principles in this work, the writer ought to state, that though they are all substantially true, that is, all except those which are expressly introduced as mere suppositions, he has not hesitated to alter very freely, for obvious reasons, the unimportant circumstances connected with them. He has endeavored thus to destroy the personality of the narratives, without injuring or altering their moral effect.
From the very nature of our employment, and of the circumstances under which the preparation for it must be made, it is plain that, of the many thousands who are, in the United States, annually entering the work, a very large majority must depend for all their knowledge of the art except what they acquire from their own observation and experience, on what they can obtain