improved only by the pressure of public opinion, and cannot rise higher than the average intelligence of the community of which they are the outgrowth. But being under the direct control of the people, they are vitalized by the American spirit, and their progress is as certain as the advancement of civilization.

In addition to the present system of normal schools, the colleges and universities-especially those maintained by the state-should establish professorships of the science and art of education, and provide postgraduate courses for those who intend to become school-teachers or superintendents. It is true that a college course, of itself, may fit a graduate for some kinds of special teaching; but it certainly fails to prepare one to become a good general teacher or principal of a public school. "Professors of the theory, history, and practice of education" have been appointed in the universities of Edinburgh and St. Andrew's, Scotland; and there is a movement to establish similar chairs in some of the English universities. In our own country, this measure has been urged by many prominent educators who consider it essential to the future well-being of the common-school system. "Mr. William Harold Payne has been recently appointed Professor of the Science and Art of Teaching in the University of Michigan. The University of Wisconsin maintains a course of lectures in Didactics. The University of Iowa has maintained her normal department, with modifications and improvements on the original plan, uninterruptedly since 1855. The University of Missouri established a normal professorship in 1856, and a normal college in 1867." The colleges and universities, combined with state and city normal schools, and normal classes in connection

with high-schools, could in twenty years supply the nation with a corps of trained and enthusiastic teachers. With a body of professional teachers under the wise supervision of trained superintendents and inspectors, the commonschools would be well equipped to educate the people.

Meanwhile, in many parts of our country still under rude social conditions, we must expect the statement to hold true that was made by Roger Ascham, "scholemaster" to Queen Elizabeth:

"And it is pity that commonly more care is had, yea, and that among very wise men, to find out rather a cunning man for their Horse than a cunning man for their Children. For to the one they will gladly give a Stipend of two hundred crowns by the year, and are loth to offer to the other two hundred Shillings. God that sitteth in Heaven laugheth their choice to scorn, and rewardeth their Liberality as it should. For he suffereth them to have tame and well-ordered Horses, but wild and unfortunate Children; and, therefore, in the end they find more Pleasure in their Horse than Comfort in their Children."

VI. THE SCHOLARSHIP OF TEACHERS.

Before teaching can take rank as a profession, teachers must command respect for their scholarship. If they confine themselves to the schoolroom; if they write nothing, say nothing, and do nothing-society will estimate them for value received. Teachers who would stand high in public opinion must read, study, think, observe, and take an active part in the affairs of society outside of school lessons.

"The hardest thing to do in the world," says Emerson, "is to think." But the true teacher must do more-he

must take the step from thought to action. His work is done, not in the retirement of the closet, but in living contact with other minds. The best teacher is not the one who has devoured the most books, but he who can best kindle young hearts into enthusiasm by a spark of electric fire from his own soul. "The first principle of human culture," says Carlyle, "the foundation of all but false, imaginary culture, is that men must, before every other thing, be able to do somewhat."

Mere learning is often mistaken for scholarship, and a walking library for an electric battery of thought. "No person can be called educated," says Whipple, "until he has organized his knowledge into faculty, and can wield it as a weapon."

The scholarship of the teacher ought to be liberal, embracing some knowledge of many things; and any teacher can make his culture liberal if he uses rightly the leisure time which his pursuit affords. It is a good thing to be many-sided; but the teacher must be a specialist in whatever relates directly to the science of education. He is judged by his success as a teacher, not as a scientist, writer, lecturer, or poet. In his own profession, when he rises above his routine drudgery, he gets into the region of hard thinking. Climbing mountains is hard work, and the strain is hardest near the summit. The teacher who gets out of the sphere of imitation into that of invention and discovery will find ample scope for his powers. One reason why self-educated men so often succeed is, they concentrate their energies upon what they need to use. Like Napoleon, they fight without tents or baggage. They acquire a concentrated force of character, that stamps its impress upon everything with which it comes in contact.

Above all things, the true teacher should avoid recast、 ing everything in the mould of his own egotism. Dealing mostly with young and immature minds, he is in continual danger of overestimating his own powers. Seldom questioned in his assertions, he is peculiarly liable to become dogmatic and opinionated. Everybody knows of pedantic pedagogues whose conceit is insufferable and ineffable. They look wiser than it is possible for any mortal to become. They gain credit, like Wouter Van Twiller, for knowing a vast deal by saying nothing at all. The egotistical teacher reverses the old maxim "All men know more than one man so that it reads "One man knows more than all men," he himself being that one man. But the true teacher will not dream his life away, like a Hindoo god, in contemplating his own perfections.

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It is often said that teaching school belittles a man and sours a woman. It may be so; it sometimes is so; but not from any law of nature. It can never be true of any teacher made alive by keeping his intellectual and spiritual faculties and emotions in healthful play. "The original and proper sources of knowledge," says Blackie," are not books, but life, experience, personal thinking, feeling, and acting." These sources are open to the teacher all his life. By imparting knowledge he enriches himself, and the freshness of childhood becomes to him a fountain of youth. "All really superior teachers," says Mr. Philbrick, "are every day growing better." "The teacher," says Mr. William Russell, " is himself a primary observer, authority, and reporter in the science of mind. His work is that of a living philosopher in act.”

Aside from the course of general reading which every teacher ought to pursue, there must be some regular study

of the science and art of teaching. For general principles in education, let him read the works of Herbert Spencer; for rugged practical suggestions, Bain and Huxley; for enthusiasm, the life and works of Horace Mann. He should peruse all such good books on teaching as those of Russell, Page, Phelps, Hart, G. B. Emerson, Wickersham, and Orcntt; and also all the school reports he can get; and all the educational journals he can afford to pay for. Let him critically examine all new text-books in the various branches of study; he will glean some new method from each one. He ought to attend teachers' conventions, institutes, and associations, and to take part in the proceedings. The original thinkers, the discoverers, and inventors may be few; but the efficient workers are many, whose mission is to aid the progress of the race by earnest, skilful, intelligent teaching. "Be ashamed to die," said Horace Mann, "until you have won some victory for humanity."

VII. TEACHERS' ASSOCIATIONS.

It is no wonder that the solitary teacher in some rural district, surrounded by the protoplasm of humanity, his labors unappreciated, his motives misunderstood, his services half paid-it is no wonder that he sometimes becomes moody, loses his enthusiasm, and imagines that the sky is only a vast concave blackboard upon which he is doomed to work out the problem of a bare subsistence. He needs the pleasant intercourse of professional gatherings to make the heavens brighten with the stars of hope and glow with the aurora of enthusiasm. As well expect a hermit on a desolate island to advance in civilization as to suppose that an isolated teacher can rise far above his surroundings. Association is the motive power of prog