Chapter 17, Pedagogy, Chapter 18, Psychology Summary and Analysis

Mencken thinks that next to being a priest, the worst is job being a teacher. You are underpaid, get no respect and wear yourself out doing the impossible. Mencken thought in his day that teachers were being pushed to convert learning into an automatic process. On the old view of teaching, you simply taught and left the student to figure out the rest. Mencken thinks the teacher should be required to understand the material and have to pass an IQ test.

In an October, 1928 editorial, Mencken notes that he is sad to seeing the boys going to school in Baltimore. Schoolboys are not happy; in fact, school-days are the least happy in life. The young are forced to associate with adults they don't respect and turn to stimulation from their fellow students and get into...