I admit the propriety, and, in fact, have urged the duty, of paying to
them a little more than their due share of attention. What I now condemn
is the practice, of which all teachers are in danger, of devoting such a
disproportionate and unreasonable degree of attention to them as to
encroach upon their duties to others. The school, the whole school, is
your field, the elevation _of the mass_ in knowledge and virtue, and no
individual instance, either of dullness or precocity, should draw you
away from its steady pursuit.
(6.) The teacher should guard against unnecessarily imbibing those
faulty mental habits to which his station and employment expose him.
Accustomed to command, and to hold intercourse with minds which are
immature and feeble compared with our own, we gradually acquire habits
that the rough collisions and the friction of active life prevent from
gathering around other men. Narrow-minded prejudices and prepossessions
are imbibed through the facility with which, in our own little
community, we adopt and maintain opinions. A too strong confidence in
our own views on every subject almost inevitably comes from never
hearing our opinions contradicted or called in question, and we express
those opinions in a tone of authority, and even sometimes of arrogance,
which we acquire in the school-room, for there, when we speak, nobody
can reply.
These peculiarities show themselves first, and, in fact, most commonly,
in the school-room; and the opinions thus formed very often relate to
the studies and management of the school.
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