Introductory Remarks
Teaching has been considered an undesirable profession in many parts of the world. Education may be respected and highly valued, but teachers are not. Their pay and prestige are low in most countries. They work long hours both during the day and in the evening and their hard wok often goes unnoticed and unappreciated Yet, there have always been people who love the teaching profession and choose teaching as their life-long career. Here , Mr. Beidler, Professor of English at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania, U.S.A, Who was named 1983’s professor of the Year by the Council for Advancement and Suppon of Education, gives his reasons why he teaches.
Henry David Thoreau
American writer, philosopher, and naturalist (18171862)
Born in Concord, Thoreau was educated at Harvard University. In the late 1830s and early 1840s, he taught school and tutored in Concord and on Staten Island, New York. After graduation from Harvard University in 1837, Thoreau started a school that was perhapsthe first in America to introduce field trips for nature study. In 1845 he built a small cabin at Walden Pond with his own hands and lived there until 1847, spending 27 cents a week for food to supplement the vegetables he raised. In 1854, he published his masterpiece Walden or, Life in the Woods. In Walden, Thoreau records his life in the woods and describes freshly and vividly the changing seasons and other natural events and scenes that he observed. Thoreau had kept a journal since 1837, and this journal formed the basis for several books published after his death.
