THE SCHOOLMASTER.

THE

PROPER CHARACTER, STUDIES, AND DUTIES OF THE TEACHER,

WITH THE

BEST METHODS FOR THE GOVERNMENT AND INSTRUCTION OF COM

MON SCHOOLS,

AND THE

PRINCIPLES ON WHICH SCHOOLHOUSES SHOULD BE BUILT, ARRANGED, WARMED, AND VENTILATED.

BY

GEORGE B. EMERSON, A.M.,

President of the American Institute of Instruction, and of the Boston Society of Natural History, Secretary of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Corresponding Member of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, &c., &c.

NEW-YORK:

PUBLISHED BY HARPER AND BROTHERS,

No. 82 CLIFF-STREET.

PREFACE.

In the following pages I have endeavoured to give an outline of what I consider most essential in the character, studies, habits, and duties of a teacher, and to present some of the most important methods and rules of teaching and governing. In doing this, I have made free use of what I found written upon the subject, my object being not so much to write an original treatise, as to collect what would be most valuable to the teacher of a common school. The writers to whom I am most indebted are J. Abbott, T. H. Palmer, and S. R. Hall, from "The Teacher," and "The Teacher's Manual," of the two former of whom I have, with their consent, made large quotations, and should have made still larger if I had not known that these works were in the hands of many persons interested in education, as they ought to be in all. Important suggestions have also been received from Lalor, Colburn, and others.

The great number of subjects of which it was necessary to treat, in a limited space, has prevented my going fully into any of them. This is particularly the case with the chapter on the Cultivation of the Faculties, which is little more than an indication of what should be done. General principles only are commonly given; and if repetition be sometimes observed, let it be understood that certain points

seemed to be so essentially important as to deserve to be reiterated.

The chapter on the General Principles of Instruction I commend to the attention of practical educators, particularly to the superintendents of normal schools, not as being of great value in itself, for it may, perhaps, be considered more defective than any other chapter, but from the importance of a system of didactics, of which this is offered as a rude and imperfect sketch.

Whatever there is of original in the work, is the fruit of many years' experience in teaching, laborious but pleasant years, which have been cheered and rendered still more pleasant by the feeling that I was gradually finding my way to higher and more comprehensive modes of instruction, and more just and generous principles of influence and government.

Of the faults of the work-begun at the suggestion of another, for a particular object, to be completed at a specified time, composed amid numerous cares, and always with a mind and body sufficiently exhausted by daily toil-no one can be more sensible than the writer. With all its faults, I commit it to the generosity of my brother and sister teachers, for whose use it was written, assuring them that no one will rejoice more than myself to see the methods and principles it recommends giving place to better.

G. B. E.

Boston, August 3, 1842.