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2 [1] Teachers of small children should be appointed in each and every land, in each and every region, and in each and every village.
If a village does not have children who study Torah, its populace is placed under a ban of ostracism until they employ teachers for the children. If they do not employ teachers, the village [deserves to be] destroyed, since the world exists only by virtue of the breath coming from the mouths of children who study Torah. [2] Children should be brought to study [under a teacher's instruction] at the age of six or seven, according to the child's health and build. Below the age of six, he should not be brought [to a teacher].
A teacher may employ corporal punishment to cast fear upon [the students]. However, he should not beat them cruelly, like an enemy. Therefore, he should not beat them with a rod or a staff, but rather with a small strap.
[The teacher] should sit and instruct them the entire day and for a portion of the night, to train them to study during the day and night. The children should not neglect [their studies] at all, except at the end of the day on the eve of the Sabbaths and festivals and on the festivals themselves. On the Sabbath, they should not begin new material. However, they should review what was learned already.
The children should never be interrupted from their studies, even for the building of the Temple. [3] A teacher of children who leaves the children and goes out, or [remains] with them but performs other work, or is lazy in their instruction, is included in [the admonition (Jeremiah 48:10)]: "Cursed be he who performs God's work deceitfully.” Therefore, it is only proper to select a teacher who is God-fearing, teaches them at a fast pace, and instructs them carefully. [4] A man who is unmarried should not teach children, because of the mothers who visit the children. No woman should teach children, because of the fathers who visit the children. [5] [A maximum of] 25 students should study under one teacher. If there are more than 25, but fewer than 40, an assistant should be appointed to help him in their instruction. If there are more than forty students, two teachers should be appointed. [6] A child may be transferred from one teacher to another teacher, who is capable of teaching him at a faster pace, whether with regard to the Written Law itself or grammar. This applies when both are located in the same city and there is not a river between them. However, a child should not be forced to travel from city to city, or even from one side of the river to the other in the same city, unless there is a strong bridge, which is not likely to fall readily, over the river. [7] If a person [whose house opens] to an alleyway [to which other houses open] - or even one [whose house opens] to a courtyard [to which other houses open] - desires to become a teacher of children, his neighbors may not protest against his decision.
Similarly, should one teacher of children come and open a schoolroom next to the place [where] a colleague [was teaching], so that other children will come to him or so that the children [studying under his] colleague shall come to him, his colleague may not lodge a protest against him, as [Isaiah 42:21 states]: "God desired, for the sake of His righteousness, to make the Torah great and glorious."
Version: Mishneh Torah, trans. by Eliyahu Touger. Jerusalem, Moznaim Pub. c1986-c2007
Source: https://www.nli.org.il/he/books/NNL_ALEPH001020101/NLI
License: CC-BY-NC