"Mr. Peepers was a shy, bumbling, little man, the butt of classroom jokes. Miss Brooks, another teacher of television's past, had a sense of humor, but was more often laughed at than with. Her principal, Mr. Conklin, was a choleric boob. And then came John Novak. here was a teacher the profession could be proud of - a young, aggressive idealist, ready to cope with serious, real-life school problems under the guidance of his wise, crusty principal, Mr. Vane. But television's first series to dramatize a teacher as a human being, Mr. Novak (NBC-TV), starring James Franciscus, shows one who can be all too human. And the reactions have been fascinating.

In his first year as a high-school English teacher, Mr. Novak sent shock waves through the educational community with such extracurricular activities as: smoking: drinking: kissing a substitute teacher; striking a student; romancing a married woman. His conduct caused a flood of "how-dare-you" letters and telegrams to the network, to the National Education Association and to MGM, which is filming the series.

"Novak's drinking whiskey in front of millions of youngsters and their parents," a Texas college professor protested, "is in extremely bad taste, is not a character- elevating activity and does not advance the interests of the profession of teaching." A Florida educator added that the program "gives potential delinquents some fresh, undesirable mannerisms to copy." A teacher who watches the show regularly in Orange California wrote: "Sometimes I feel Mr. Novak show more lack of self-control than most of us." An Iowa college psychology professor declared: "The psychological implications of this series are deadly." And a Portland Oregon, high-school principal concluded his blast with: "Let's not support garbage like this."

Such critics, however, are in the minority, in the teaching profession. The series has the warm endorsement of the NEA, which advises and assists the producers, and is a Tuesday-night favorite in millions of homes. Novak and Vane, played by Dean Jagger (an Academy Award winner in 1949 who once taught all 8 grades in a rural Indiana school), are accepted as the very models of dedicated but unstuffy educators. Both Franciscus and Jagger, as well as the show, have received honorary awards from a dozen professional groups in the educational field.

To calm the critics, Executive Producer E. Jack Neuman, who, with Director Boris Sagal, originated Mr. Novak, points out that it is a dramatic show designed to entertain a mass audience, not a documentary on education. And the NEA reminds teachers who complain of "over dramatization" that, except for occasional lapses, Mr. Novak is preferable to earlier television program that lampooned the profession.

Through its link with the NEA, the show started out with the largest organized fan club ever known in television - 860,000 classroom teachers and school administrators. After seeing the pilot in February, 1963, in Washington, D.C., executives of the NEA opened the doors of high schools across the United States to researchers for the show and actively publicized Mr. Novak in NEA publications. In exchange for screen credit, the NEA established a rotating advisory panel of working teachers that reviews all scripts in advance with Henry S. Noerdlinger, manager of the NEA's Los Angeles information center.

While the marriage of Mr. Novak and the educators has generally been happy, it has had its stormy days. At times, the panel's desire for a stimulating, yet highly professional teacher conflicts with the show's need to be entertaining and dramatic. Since the series deals with education's most serious problems: teen-age sex, racial intolerance, narcotics, classroom cheating, and dropouts - the panel, the network and the producer sometimes disagree.

"Teachers on the panel are not opposed to showing shockers of Mr. Novak as long as these deal with real problems which occur in the schools," explains Noerdlinger. "In fact, they welcome public exposure of the problems."

A case in point was the story of a pregnant student. The panel approved this script because teen-age pregnancies are a growing problem in schools everywhere. They recommended, however, that the script put more emphasis on the humane and understanding was in which schools handle the problem. Unmarried mothers are no longer outcasts. They can continue their schoolwork and get their diplomas by attending special classes or by studying at home under supervision.

An episode entitled Chin up, Mr. Novak alarmed the panel. It was a comedy portrayal of an elderly British exchange teacher who arrived at Jefferson High and set school discipline back several light-years. The panel declared this character "completely unreal, impossible" and warned the producer that the show would damage the carefully planned U.S.- British exchange program under which the two nations traded gifted teachers for one-year tours of duty. Further, they objected the script was written for Margaret Rutherford, a talented actress, but far over the age limit for exchange teachers, who must be under 50.

Producer Neuman, however, insisted that in order to make the show funny, the visiting teacher had to be an oddball who ignored all the rules. Eventually, Hermione Baddeley played the role and did it so amusingly that no one complained. Nevertheless, the NEA has suggested that this episode be eliminated from the reruns.

Often, the producer and the panel agree, and the teachers have at times sided with him in policy debates with the network censors. In X is the Unknown Factor, a bright student trying for a scholarship cheated in class, was given a second chance, cheated again and was tossed out of school. The network wanted the youngster redeemed, but the panel and Neuman felt that a happy ending would be wrong. When the panel argued that the unhappy experience would make a better man of the boy, the network ultimately agreed to go along with the hard ending.

The teachers stood staunchly by Neuman in approving a downbeat ending for The Exile, the story of a dropout. This episode involved a student who had left high school and stayed out until he was overage. When he tried to reenter day school, because he wanted no part of adult education, Mr. Vane turned him away. This ending worried Dan Schreiber, director of the NEA's Project Dropout, who felt it was wrong to show a school rejecting anyone who wanted an education. Wires and phone calls flew back and forth between Washington and Hollywood. In the end, the script was filmed as originally written.

"The panel members were convinced the story needed a tragic ending to shock youngsters and their parents," says Henry Noerdlinger. "As it turned out, the film was so effective in dramatizing the plight of a dropout that educators and sociologists everywhere asked for prints of it, and the Nassua County, N.Y., jail requested it as an educational film for prisoners."

Some educators cringe when he drinks, fights, and makes love.

Mr. Novak's romances have caused the advisory panel the most trouble. In spite of the teacher's efforts to keep him in line, he has gone astray several time. he fell almost instantly in love with a cute, but psychotic substitute teacher in How Does Your Garden Grow? When Mr. Vane suggested that he help the young woman, Novak took her home and when last seen was kissing her ardently. Next day, the girl was happy, her troubles ended. The panel deplored this script because she was a "disturbed person, who in real life would have been removed from school after her first class." The producer went ahead with the show, however, and was swamped by a flood of protests from teachers the day after it appeared on the air.

Another episode, One Way to Say Goodbye, showed Novak's warm romance with a married woman. This time, the panel forgave him because, after all, he did not discover she was married until the affair reached a sizzling stage. In the same script, the panel recommended changes in a scene showing Novak fighting with a delinquent student at a cocktail lounge or - let's face it - a bar. The first script had Novak breaking a bottle and menacing the hoodlum with it, but in the final version, he disposed of his student with a karate blow.

Novak's drinking habits have caused concern among many viewers, particularly in the South and Midwest. The teachers' panel however, is broad-minded on this point and does not object to his social drinking if it is necessary to the drama. In fact, the panel unanimously approved one drinking scene in which Novak, slightly under the influence, made an eloquent statement of the teacher's place in American society.