The human mind is always essentially
the same. That which is tedious and joyless to one, will be so to
another, if pursued in the same way, and under the same circumstances.
And teaching, if it is pleasant, animating, and exciting to one, may be
so to all.
I am met, however, at the outset, in my effort to show why it is that
teaching is ever a pleasant work, by the want of a name for a certain
faculty or capacity of the human mind, through which most of the
enjoyment of teaching finds its avenue. Every mind is so constituted as
to take a positive pleasure in the exercise of ingenuity in adapting
means to an end, and in watching the operation of them--in accomplishing
by the intervention of instruments what we could not accomplish
without--in devising (when we see an object to be effected which is too
great for our _direct_ and _immediate_ power) and setting at work some
_instrumentality_ which may be sufficient to accomplish it.
[Illustration: Steam Engine]
It is said that when the steam-engine was first put into operation,
such was the imperfection of the machinery, that a boy was necessarily
stationed at it to open and shut alternately the cock by which the steam
was now admitted and now shut out from the cylinder. One such boy, after
patiently doing his work for many days, contrived to connect this
stop-cock with some of the moving parts of the engine by a wire, in such
a manner that the engine itself did the work which had been intrusted to
him; and after seeing that the whole business would go regularly
forward, he left the wire in charge, and went away to play.
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