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Lord Brougham.-An epitaph.-Cease repining.

hand findeth to do," towards raising his fellow-beings to happiness and heaven.

It is such a teacher that the eloquent and gifted Lord Brougham describes in the following beautiful language:

"He meditates and prepares, in secret, the plans which are to bless mankind; he slowly gathers around him those who are to further their execution,-he quietly, though firmly, advances in his humble path, laboring steadily, but calmly, till he has opened to the light all the recesses of ignorance, and torn up by the roots the weeds of vice. His progress is not to be compared with any thing like the march of the conqueror, but it leads to a far more brilliant triumph and to laurels more imperishable than the destroyer of his species, the scourge of the world, ever won. Each one of these great teachers of the world, possessing his soul in peace, performs his appointed course, awaits in patience the fulfillment of the promises, and resting from his labors, bequeaths his memory to the generation whom his works have blessed, and sleeps under the humble, but not inglorious epitaph, commemorating one in whom mankind lost a friend, and no man got rid of an enemy."

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In view of what has been said, let the teacher cease to repine at his hard lot. Let him cast an occasional glance at the bright prospect before him. He deserves, to be sure, a higher pecuniary reward than he receives; and he should never cease to press this

Magnify his office.-How?-Moral recompense.

truth upon the community, till talent in teaching is as well compensated as talent in any other calling. But whether he gains this or not, let him dwell upon the privileges and rewards to be found in the calling itself, and take fresh encouragement.

The apostle Paul exhibited great wisdom when he said, "I magnify mine office." If the foregoing views respecting the importance of the teacher's calling are correct, he may safely follow the apostle's example. This is not, however, to be done merely by boastful words. No man can elevate himself, or magnify his office in public estimation, by indulging in empty declamation, or by passing inflated resolutions. He must feel the dignity of his profession, and show that he feels it by unremitted exertions to attain to the highest excellence of which he is capable,-animated, in the midst of his toil, chiefly by the great moral recompense which every faithful teacher may hope to

eceive.

Let every teacher, then, study to improve himself intellectually and morally; let him strive to advance in the art of teaching; let him watch the growth of mind under his culture and take the encouragement which that affords; let him consider the usefulness he may effect and the circumstances which make his calling honorable; let him prize the gratitude of his pupils and of their parents and friends; and above all, let him value the approval of Heaven, and set a proper estimate upon the rewards which another world will unfold to him,--and thus be encouraged to toil on in faithfulness

Final reward.

and in hope,-till, having finished his course, and being gathered to the home of the righteous, he shall mest multitudes, instructed by his wise precept and profited by his pure example, who "shall riserve call lim blessed."

1

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH

OF

DAVID PERKINS PAGE.

Taken from Barnard's Journal of Education.

AMONG the self-educated teachers of our time, the men who, as was said of old, of poets, "were born, not made" teachers, and in whom the instinct for knowledge, and for imparting it to others, was sufficiently strong to overpower all obstacles, and carry them to the highest eminence in their profession, there are none who have excelled the subject of this brief memoir.

DAVID PERKINS PAGE was born at Epping, New Hampshire, on the 4th of July, 1810. His father was a prosperous, though not an affluent farmer, and his early life was passed as a farmer's boy, with that scant dole of instruction which forty years ago fell to the lot of farmers' sons in small country villages in New Hampshire, or, for that matter, anywhere in New England. From his earliest years, however, the love of books was the master-passion of his soul, and in his childhood he plead often and earnestly with his father for the privilege of attending an academy in a neighboring town, but the father was inexorable; he had determined that David should succeed him in the management of the farm, and he did not consider an academical education necessary for this. His refusal doubtless exerted a good influence on his son; for a mind so active as his, if denied the advantages of the school, must find vent in some exercise, and the admirable illustrations he drew from nature, so often, to embellish and enforce his instructions in after years, showed conclusively that, at this period of his life, the pages of the wondrous book

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