Teacher Jensen by Maud Van Buren
Near a prison known as the Living Cemetery, schoolchildren grow accustomed to the sight of its towers, its masked prisoners, and the excitement of occasional escapes. Lauritz Thomsen, whose father cooks for the prison, lives close to it and feels ashamed whenever the other children question him. His mother fears the prison and dreams of leaving it, while his father speaks of the prisoners almost as comrades. The children’s new teacher, Teacher Jensen, is small and frail but possesses an unusually compelling voice and a way of making them think. He answers their questions honestly, admitting when he does not know something. He teaches them that cruelty, evil thoughts, and acting without one’s will may be worse than murder. When he brings a sick, dirty little cat into class and tenderly cares for it, the children are moved to pity and resolve to cure it. On a Sunday excursion through the forest near the prison, Teacher Jensen sees Lauritz enter the prison grounds and appears to have been crying. In a grove of firs, he tells the children to imagine themselves prisoners, each confined to a separate cell beneath a tree, forbidden to speak for an hour. What begins as a game becomes a grave experience: the children feel the weight of isolation, silence, and captivity. When the hour ends, Teacher Jensen tells them that a prison watchman’s lot is also hard, because he may wish to help prisoners but cannot do so. He adds that he knew a man who spent seventeen years in prison and died there. Lauritz returns home and unexpectedly declares that he will become a prison warden. Soon the schoolchildren form a plan, born from their imagined imprisonment, to bring Christmas to the prisoners. Teacher Jensen refuses to carry out the plan for them, insisting that it is their own idea and that they must stand by their beliefs. For two months, the children earn and save money honestly, sacrificing sweets, stamps, and private savings. They collect contributions, make ornaments and gifts, and buy three hundred and ten little fir trees—one for every prisoner, including the sick. Teacher Jensen contributes the contents of an old, cracked purse that had belonged to the man who spent seventeen years in prison. The children and their families add tobacco, chocolate, fruit, cards, handkerchiefs, writing paper, old Christmas books, cookies, and nuts. Every tree is decorated with candles, flags, roses, stars, tinsel, and presents, and each bears a letter written by a child. Although the prison inspector has declared the scheme impossible under the regulations, the children do not learn this. On Christmas, they carry the trees to the prison, singing before the inspector. Overcome by their singing, he permits the celebration. When the masked prisoners return from church, every cell contains a Christmas tree, and the cell doors remain open until the candles burn out. The prisoners may visit one another, compare their trees and gifts, and sing the carols of their childhood late into the night, released for a time from grief, bitterness, and distress. Outside the prison wall, a thin, concealed man hears them singing “Stille Nacht, heilige Nacht.” Raising his clasped hands into the darkness, he thanks his father and says that his father’s guilt has been atoned for ten times over.
By Maud Van Buren · First published 1927 · Genre: Bildungsroman, Philosophical Fiction, Inspirational Fiction · 3,717 words
First lines
_Karin Michaelis_
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Genres
- Bildungsroman — The narrative centers entirely on the moral and spiritual education of school children through Teacher Jensen's transformative pedagogy and philosophy, depicting their progression from moral naivety to ethical awakening.
- Philosophical Fiction — The text explores fundamental moral questions about the nature of wrongdoing, human dignity, compassion, free will, and the implications of crime and punishment through both dialogue and narrative reflection.
- Inspirational Fiction — The core plot—children organizing a collective Christmas gift for imprisoned people—serves as an inspirational narrative about compassion in action, faith in belief, and the power of innocent idealism.
- Social Commentary Realism — The story directly addresses the prison system, the suffering of the incarcerated, and the societal impact of imprisonment, grounded in realistic social critique rather than fantasy.
Tags
fiction · school life · education · rural community · American literature · early twentieth century · social relationships · youth · coming of age · family life · small-town setting · moral lessons
What this Textopian page supports
Teacher Jensen is listed on Textopian as a short story by Maud Van Buren, dated 1927 CE.
This source record anchors work identity, reading entry points, and catalog context for checking claims about the work.
- Work type: Short story
- Author: Maud Van Buren
- Date: 1927 CE
- Language: English
- Genres: Bildungsroman, Philosophical Fiction, Inspirational Fiction, Social Commentary Realism, Children's Literature
- Length: 3,717 words
- Structure: 1 section, 43 paragraphs
- Reading fit: Fairly Easy (7th Grade)
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- Work identity for Teacher Jensen by Maud Van Buren
- Canonical title URL and first readable passage URL
- Genre and topic classification from the Textopian catalog
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