More on this subject, however, in another chapter.
I will mention one other circumstance, which will help to explain the
difference in interest and pleasure with which teachers engage in their
work. I mean the different views they take _of the offenses of their
pupils_. One class of teachers seem never to make it a part of their
calculation that their pupils will do wrong, and when, any misconduct
occurs they are discontented and irritated, and look and act as if some
unexpected occurrence had broken in upon their plans. Others understand
and consider all this beforehand. They seem to think a little, before
they go into their school, what sort of beings boys and girls are, and
any ordinary case of youthful delinquency or dullness does not surprise
them. I do not mean that they treat such cases with indifference or
neglect, but that they _expect_ them, and _are prepared for them_. Such
a teacher knows that boys and girls are the _materials_ he has to work
upon, and he takes care to make himself acquainted with these materials,
_just as they are_. The other class, however, do not seem to know at all
what sort of beings they have to deal with, or, if they know, do not
_consider_. They expect from them what is not to be obtained, and then
are disappointed and vexed at the failure. It is as if a carpenter
should attempt to support an entablature by pillars of wood too small
and weak for the weight, and then go on, from week to week, suffering
anxiety and irritation as he sees them swelling and splitting under the
burden, and finding fault _with the wood_ instead of taking it to
himself; or as if a plowman were to attempt to work a hard and stony
piece of ground with a poor team and a small plow, and then, when
overcome by the difficulties of the task, should vent his vexation and
anger in laying the blame on the ground instead of on the inadequate and
insufficient instrumentality which he had provided for subduing it.
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