There need be no fear that employers will be dissatisfied if the teacher
acts upon this principle. If he is faithful, and enters with all his
heart into the discharge of his duties during six hours, there will be
something in the ardor, and alacrity, and spirit with which his duties
will be performed which parents and scholars will both be very glad to
receive in exchange for the languid, and dull, and heartless toil in
which the other method must sooner or later result.
* * * * *
If the teacher, then, will confine himself to such a portion of time as
is, in fact, all he can advantageously employ, there will be much left
which can be devoted to his own private employment--more than is usual
in the other avocations of life. In most of these other avocations there
is not the same necessity for limiting the hours which a man may devote
to his business. A merchant, for example, may be employed nearly all the
day at his counting-room, and so may a mechanic. A physician may spend
all his waking hours in visiting patients, and feel little more than
healthy fatigue. The reason is, that in all these employments, and, in
fact, in most of the employments of life, there is so much to diversify,
so many little incidents constantly occurring to animate and relieve,
and so much bodily exercise, which alternates with and suspends the
fatigues of the mind, that the labors may be much longer continued, and
with less cessation, and yet the health not suffer.
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