Sayings for Teachers

R.G. Moyles is a professor of English at the University of Alberta and
the co-author of Imperial Dreams and Colonial Realities: British Views
of Canada, 1880–1914.

As long as you don’t believe everything you read, this little book can
be just the right gift for any teacher beginning the profession. As a
collection of pithy platitudes, it’s as good as most. And when the
sayings run something like the few that follow, they may be of value to
any person (teacher or otherwise) who can take the advice with a grain
of salt: “‘The time to relax is

when you don’t have time for it.’—Sidney J. Harris.” “‘We
can scarcely hate anyone that we know.’—William Hazlitt.” “‘A
critic is a man who knows the way but can’t drive the
car.’—Kenneth Tynan.”

The trouble with the whole lot, maybe 250 such sayings, is that they
are all so seemingly serious. Not much levity here. Nothing like the
famous quip of Thomas Cullen, Canadian-born head of gynecology at Johns
Hopkins: “About teaching I have only one important thing to say: never
start a lecture at half past two. Everybody goes to sleep on you.” Nor
anything as funny as Stephen Leacock’s “I owe a lot to my teachers
and mean to pay them back someday.” But then, maybe teachers get their
fun in other ways.