ABSTRACT
If you had been a student in an American teacher education class or a schoolteacher attempting to buy a book on self-improvement during the first several decades of the 20th century, most likely you would have been given a textbook that told you how to become The Ideal Teacher (Palmer, 1908/1910), The Excellent Teacher (Avent, 1931), or to succeed at Getting Ahead as a Teacher (Duke, 1923) or Developing a Teacher Personality That Wins (Sandford, 1938). Even if your textbook had a more negative approach-Problems of the Teaching Profession (Almack & Lang, 1925) or Clarifying the Teacher’s Problems (Gist, 1932)—you would have read about the authors’ conception of a teacher paragon, an exemplary or ideal teacher.1 If you had doubts about the qualities you would need, checklists of ideal traits could explicitly guide you2 (Charters & Waples, 1929; Overn, 1935; Sandford, 1938). The textbook writers would not just explain about classroom management, school organization, or curriculum; they would implore you to become an archetype of this virtuous profession. Paragons of teaching would be described with flourishing style or pedantic rhetoric, entreating or commanding you to make yourself into the image esteemed by the authors.3
