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Safety valve.--Martin Luther.-Remarks.

good reading and speaking, by disciplining the ear to distinguish sounds; and it also facilitates the cultivation of the finer feelings of our nature. It aids very much in the government of the school, as its exercise gives vent to that restlessness which otherwise would find an escapement in boisterous noise and whispering, -and thus it often proves a safety valve, through which a love of vociferation and activity may pass off in a more harmless and a more pleasing way. "The schoolmaster that cannot sing," says Martin Luther, "I would not look upon." Perhaps this language is too strong; but it is usually more pleasant to look upon a school where the schoolmaster can sing.

I have thus gone through with a list of studies which, it seems to me, every one who means to be a good teacher, even of a common school, should make himself acquainted with. I would not condemn a teacher who, having other good qualities, and a thorough scholarship as far as he has gone, might lack several of the branches above named. There have been many good teachers without all this attainment; but how much better they might have been with it!

I have made this course of study as limited as I possibly could, taking into view the present condition and wants of our schools. No- doubt even more will

be demanded in a few years. I would have the present race of teachers so good, that they shall be looked

General knowledge desirable.-A suggestion.

upon by those who succeed them as their "worthy and efficient predecessors."

I ought in this place to add that the teacher increases his influence, and consequently his usefulness, in pro portion as he makes himself conversant with general knowledge. This is too much neglected. The teacher, by the fatigue of his employment and the circumstances of his life, is strongly tempted to content himself with what he already knows, or at best to confine himself to the study of those branches which he is called upon to teach. He should stoutly resist this temptation. He should always have some course of study marked out, which he will systematically pursue. He should, as soon as possible, make himself acquainted generally with the subject of astronomy, the principles of geology, in short, the various branches of natural history. He will find one field after another open before him, and if he will but have the perseverance to press forward, even in the laborious occupation of teaching, he may make himself a well-informed man.

I will venture one other suggestion. I have found a most profitable thing in the promotion of my own mmprovement, to take up annually, or oftener, some particular subject to be pursued with reference to writing an extended lecture upon it. This gives point to the course of reading, and keeps the interest fixed. When the thorough investigation has been made, let the lecture be written from memory, embodying all the prominent points, and presenting them in the most striking and systematic manner. It should be done,

A point gained.

too, with reference to accuracy and even elegance of style, so that the composition may be yearly improved. In this way certain subjects are forever fixed in the mind. One who carefully reads for a definite object. and afterwards writes the results from memory, never loses his hold upon the facts thus appropriated

The true ideal.-Illustration.

CHAPTER V

RIGHT VIEWS OF EDUCATION.

EVERY teacher, before he begins the work of instruction, should have some definite idea of what constitutes an education; otherwise he may work to very little purpose. The painter, who would execute a beautiful picture, must have beforehand a true and clear conception of beauty in his own mind. The same may be said of the sculptor. That rude block of marble, unsightly to the eyes of other men, contains the godlike form, the symmetrical proportion, the life-like attitude of the finished and polished statue; and the whole is as clear to his mental eye before the chisel is applied as it is to his bodily vision when the work is completed. With this perfect ideal in the mind at the outset, every stroke of the chisel has its object. Not a blow is struck, but it is guided by consummate skill; not a chip is removed, but to develop the ideal of the artist. And when the late unsightly marble, as if by miraculous power, stands out before the astonished spectator in all the perfection of beauty,-when it almost breathes and speaks,-it is to the artist but the realization of his own conception.

Now let the same astonished and delighted spectator,

A spectator's efforts.-The difference.

with the same instruments, attempt to produce another statue from a similar block. On this side he scores too deep; on the other he leaves a protuberance; here by carelessness he encroaches upon the rounded limb; there by accident he hews a chip from off the nose; by want of skill one eye ill-mates the other; one hand is distorted as if racked by pangs of the gout; the other is paralyzed and deathlike. Such would be his signal failure. Thus he might fail a thousand times. Indeed it would be matter of strange surprise if in a thousand efforts he should once succeed.

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Now the difference between the artist and the specator lies chiefly in this, the one knows beforehand what he means to do; the other works without any plan. The one has studied beauty till he can see it in the rugged block; the other only knows it when it is presented to him. The former, having an ideal, produces it with unerring skill; the latter, having no conception to guide him, brings out deformity.

"What sculpture is to the block of marble," says Addison, "education is to the human soul;" and may I not add, that the sculptor is a type of the true educator,—while the spectator, of whom I have been speaking, may aptly represent too many false teachers who without study or forethought enter upon the delicate business of fashioning the human soul, blindly experimenting amidst the wreck of their heaven-descended material, maiming and marring, with scarcely the possibility of final success, -almost with the certainty of a melancholy failure!

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