(2.) Never get out of patience with dullness. Perhaps I ought to say,
never get out of patience with any thing. That would, perhaps, be the
wisest rule. But, above all things, remember that dullness and
stupidity--and you will certainly find them in every school--are the
very last things to get out of patience with. If the Creator has so
formed the mind of a boy that he must go through life slowly and with
difficulty, impeded by obstructions which others do not feel, and
depressed by discouragements which others never know, his lot is surely
hard enough without having you to add to it the trials and suffering
which sarcasm and reproach from you can heap upon him. Look over your
school-room, therefore, and wherever you find one whom you perceive the
Creator to have endued with less intellectual power than others, fix
your eye upon him with an expression of kindness and sympathy. Such a
boy will have suffering enough from the selfish tyranny of his
companions; he ought to find in you a protector and friend. One of the
greatest enjoyments which a teacher's life affords is the interest of
seeking out such a one, bowed down with burdens of depression and
discouragement, unaccustomed to sympathy and kindness, and expecting
nothing for the future but a weary continuation of the cheerless toils
which have imbittered the past; and the pleasure of taking off the
burden, of surprising the timid, disheartened sufferer by kind words and
cheering looks, and of seeing in his countenance the expression of ease
and even of happiness gradually returning.
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