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A journal or common-place book.-Why?-A demonstration.

who have enjoyed better advantages in early life, and at the same time have the superadded enjoyment of feeling that he has been his own teacher.

3. Keep a journal or common-place book. The habit of composing daily is very valuable to the teacher. In this book he may record whatever plans he has devised with their results in practice. He may enter remarkable cases of discipline,-in short, any thing which in the course of his practice he finds interesting. Those valuable suggestions which he receives from others, or hints that he may derive from books, may be epitomized here, and thus be treasured up for future referSometimes one's best thoughts fade from his own mind, and he has no power to recall them. Such a book would preserve them, and would moreover show the character of one's thoughts at any particular period, and the progress of thought, from one period to another, better than any other means.*

ence.

To these means of self-culture I would add the practice of carefully reading and writing on chosen subjects, more fully described in the chapter on Habits of the Teacher.

By all these means and such others as may come within his reach, if a teacher succeeds in his attempts at progress, he does much for his profession. The very fact that he has given practical demonstration that a man may teach and still improve; that the temptations

* For further remarks on the Common-place Book, see chap. vii. p. 108, Note.

Encouragement to others.-Mutual aid.-Selfishness.

of his profession may be resisted and overcome; that the life of the pedagogue which has required him to keep the company of small minds, and to be occupied with minute objects, has never prevented his holding communion with the greatest men our earth has known, nor circumscribed in the least the sphere of his grasping research, I say the very fact that he has thus shown what a man may do under such circumstances, may do much to encourage others to like effort.

But there are other and direct duties which he owes to his profession, which I proceed to consider under the head of

SECTION II.-MUTUAL AID.

Every teacher should be willing to impart as well as to receive good. No one, whatever may be his personal exertions, can monopolize all the wisdom of the world. The French have a proverb that "Everybody is wiser than anybody." Acting on this principle, the teacher should be willing to bring his attainments into the common stock, and to diffuse around him as far as he is able the light he possesses. I have no language with which to express my abhorrence of that selfishness, which prompts a man, after attaining to some eminence as a teacher by the free use of all the means within his reach, self-complacently to stand aloof from his fellow teachers, as if he would say, "Brethren, help yourselves-I have no need of you, and you have no claim upon me. I have toiled hard for my emi

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A journal or

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To these means

tice of carefully rea more fully described Teacher.

By all these means within his reach, if a t at progress, he does muci. fact that he has given p. man may teach and still in.

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An exclusive spirit-without excuse.-Mutual visitation.

nence, and the secret is with me. will enjoy it alone. When you have toiled as long, you may be as wise. Brethren, help yourselves." Such a spirit would perhaps be tolerated by the world in an avaricious man, who had labored to treasure up the shining dust of earth. But no man may innocently monopolize knowledge. The light of the sun is shed in golden refulgence upon every man, and no one if he would, may separate a portion for his own exclusive use, by closing his shutters about him, for that moment his light becomes darkness. It is thus with the light of knowledge. Like the air we breathe, or like the rain from heaven, it should be free to all. The man who would lock up the treasures of learning from the gaze of the whole world, whether in the tomes of some dusty library, as of old it was done, or in the recesses of his narrower soul, is unworthy of the name of man; he certainly has not the spirit of the teacher.

An exclusive spirit may be borne where meaner things, as houses, and lands, and gold, are at stake; but in education and religion-light and love,-where giving doth not impoverish nor withholding make rich, there is not even the shadow of an excuse for it. The man who is exclusive in these things, would be so, I fear, in heaven.

How can teachers encourage each other?

1. By mutual visitation. Very much may be done by social intercourse. Two teachers can scarcely converse together an hour without benefiting each other. The advantages of intercourse with friends,

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