The lawyer is confined as much.  It is true there are not throughout the year exact hours which he must keep, but, considering the imperious demands of his business, his personal liberty is probably restrained as much by it as that of the teacher.  So with all the other professions.  Although the nature of the confinement may vary, it amounts to about the same in all.  On the other hand, the teacher enjoys, in reference to this subject of confinement, an advantage which scarcely any other class of men does or can enjoy.  I mean vacations.  A man in any other business may force himself away from it for a time, but the cares and anxieties of his business will follow him wherever he goes.  It seems to be reserved for the teacher to enjoy alone the periodical luxury of a real and entire release from business and care.  On the whole, as to confinement, it seems to me that the teacher has little ground of complaint.

There are, however, some real and serious difficulties which always have, and, it is to be feared, always will, cluster around this employment; and which must, for a long time, at least, lead most men to desire some other employment for the business of life.  There may perhaps be some who, by their peculiar skill, can overcome or avoid them, and perhaps the science of teaching may, at some future day, be so far improved that all may avoid them.  As I describe them, however, now, most of the teachers into whose hands this treatise may fall will probably find that their own experience corresponds, in this respect, with mine.

1.  The first great difficulty which the teacher feels is a sort of moral responsibility for the conduct of others.  If his pupils do wrong, he feels almost personal responsibility for it.  As he walks out some afternoon, wearied with his labors, and endeavoring to forget, for a little time, all his cares, he comes upon a group of boys in rude and noisy quarrels, or engaged in mischief of some sort, and his heart sinks within him.  It is hard enough for any one to witness their bad conduct with a spirit unruffled and undisturbed, but for their teacher it is perhaps impossible.  He feels responsible; in fact, he is responsible.  If his scholars are disorderly, or negligent, or idle, or quarrelsome, he feels condemned himself almost as if he were himself the actual transgressor.

This difficulty is, in a great degree, peculiar to a teacher.  A physician is called upon to prescribe for a patient; he examines the case, and writes his prescription.  When this is done his duty is ended; and whether the patient obeys the prescription and lives, or neglects it and dies, the physician feels exonerated from all responsibility.  He may, and in some cases does, feel anxious concern, and may regret the infatuation by which, in some unhappy case, a valuable life may be hazarded or destroyed.  But he feels no moral responsibility for another’s guilt.