desire to be useful, were to
dig a pit and bury therein a bushel of corn, and imagine that he was
planting, his labor would not be wider of the mark than much that is
bestowed in school. A man must learn how to do even so simple a thing as
planting corn. Let the teacher also learn how to plant the seeds of
knowledge, how to prepare the soil, how to open it for the reception of
truth, where and when to deposit the precious grains.

I have no desire to discourage those faithful men and women who are so
nobly striving to do good as teachers. But I cannot help expressing the
regret that so much of this labor is without adequate result. Why
should persons act so differently in this matter from what they do in
any other? If a woman wants to make a pair of stockings, she goes to
some other woman who understands knitting, and sees how it is done, and
learns the stitches, tries and experiments, and studies the matter,
until it is all familiar to her. So of any other ordinary business. Yet
when it comes to teaching, anything like definite study or observation
of the mode of doing it, is almost unknown! It is really no exaggeration
to say that many teachers bungle in their work as egregiously as would a
woman who should put yarn into a churn, and expect, after a proper
amount of churning, to draw out stockings.

In our schools are many professional teachers of approved skill. Why
should not a school-teacher, who is conscious of not succeeding as he
would desire, spend an hour occasionally in observation? Find out the
name of some teacher who is particularly successful, and look on while
the work is being done, and if possible see how it is done.

Then again, there are books on the subject, in which the business of
teaching is explained in all its branches. Get some of these books and
read. The mere reading will not make you teachers. But it will set you
to thinking. It will quicken your power of observation. It will help you
to learn from your own experience.

Make a note of the difficulties you encounter, and the points in which
you cannot accomplish what you desire. Very likely you will find these
very difficulties discussed in the books on teaching which you are
reading. If not, lay your difficulties before some friend who is a
successful teacher, and get advice. _Anything_, rather than going on,
week after week, without improvement. There _is_ a way of interesting
your class in their lessons, of securing good order and pun