Train your Pupils for Life's Duties.

sure that your example is a worthy one, and also that your views are correct in themselves, and clearly understood by your pupils. Consider that, when a few brief years shall have passed away, the boys and girls now under your training will be men and women, — acting their parts in the great drama of life. How those parts shall be acted depends, in a great degree, upon the instructions and impressions they receive from you, their teacher. Constantly and earnestly, then, try so to train and influence them that they will become men and women in the highest and truest sense, ever acting well their parts, and diffusing good to all around them. In an important sense teachers reproduce themselves in their pupils, and what they are, their pupils will become. Aim, therefore, to teach them such lessons as they will most need when they become men, such as will tend to make them good citizens, agreeable associates, faithful in the discharge of every duty that may devolve upon them.

I wish more particularly, in this letter, to call your attention to a few points to which you should direct attention frequently, as tending to the formation of habits which are alike essential to happiness and usefulness. In many cases your known and clearly expressed views in relation to these habits will be sufficient. Aim, then, not only to have your views so clearly understood that they will be felt, but also be sure to have them fully confirmed by examples of the clearest propriety. Precept

A

Regularity.

without example may accomplish somewhat; precept followed by wrong example will often prove worse than powerless; but precept and example, in harmonious action, will be powerful indeed. How often is the usefulness of one who is eminent for scholarly attainments greatly abridged by the indulgence of some unfortunate or unbecoming habit! In view of this, let me urge you to inculcate, by constant example and precept, attention to the following particulars :

1. Regularity. It is too true that many pupils in our schools are very irregular in their attendance. Reasons wholly unimportant or quite frivolous draw them from the school-room, and cause them to regard their school duties as of secondary importance. Strive to impress upon their minds the importance of regularity in the performance of their duties. He only is successful as a merchant, mechanic, farmer, or professional man, who applies himself with regularity to the peculiar duties of his calling: he, and he only, can become what he ought to be, as a scholar, who applies himself with undeviating regularity to the duties of the school. Habits of regularity formed here will be felt for good in all subsequent life, while habits of indifference and irregularity in relation to school duties will manifest themselves for evil in all the business relations of life.

2. Punctuality.-The habit of punctuality is as

The Quaker's View.

rare as it is important. In all the arrangements of life, inconvenience, and often loss, are experienced from a want of promptness or punctuality on the part of some. In how many of our churches are the exercises interrupted by the entrance of tardy ones! How often are the operations of some committee delayed by the dilatoriness of some member or members! How much annoyance would be avoided in all business operations, if all were scrupulously punctual! A certain committee, consisting of ten members, were to meet at ten o'clock, and the business was such as to require the presence of all. Nine were promptly on the spot, but the tenth came a half-hour behind the time. As he entered the room, he gave a very indifferent apology for his tardiness, when an honest Quaker who was a member of the committee rebuked him in these words: "Friend, thee may have some right to waste thirty minutes of thine own time, but thee certainly has no right to waste two hundred and seventy minutes of the time of those on the committee with thee." Daily inculcate the importance of exact punctuality in relation to every duty and every engagement. If you can train your pupils to exactness in all their school duties and exercises, you will, at the same time, do much to establish a habit of punctu ality. He that is punctual in regard to little things will be so in regard to matters of greater impor

tance.

3. Neatness.

Habits of neatness and cleanli

Courtesy and Politeness.

ness are so essential to our comfort and happiness, that no opportunity for urging attention to them should be allowed to pass unimproved. Do what

you can, from time to time, to promote a regard for tidiness of personal appearance and apparel, and care and neatness in the use of books, arrangement of desk, etc. Not only inculcate the importance of having a "place for everything and everything in its place," but also of having all things arranged with a due reference to neatness. Habits of neatness formed in youth will be permanent, but if a lad indulges in careless and slovenly habits during the first twelve or fifteen years of his life it will be almost impossible to eradicate the same. "Good or bad habits formed in youth generally accompany us through life."

4. Courtesy and Politeness.-Many a man of high qualifications and rare talents has, in a good degree, been lost to the community on account of a lack of courteousness, or from some forbidding trait of character. True courtesy and politeness, manifested on all occasions and in an unassuming way, will give to him who exhibits them a most desirable influence and power. Let a regard to these be daily encouraged in your school. Make it one of your requirements that all questions shall be properly proposed, and all answers courteously given, — and also that the entire demeanor of your pupils, not only towards their teacher, but also towards each other, and all with whom they may have to do, shall

True Symmetry of Character.

be in strict accordance with rules of propriety and courtesy. Attention to these particulars in the school-room will be promotive of good order and happiness there, and at the same time tend to establish such habits as will be strong helps to success and usefulness in any department of business. If merchants could realize the difference between a truly courteous boy, and one who is the reverse, the former would always be preferred, and the latter left to seek employment of a different nature. The instances are not uncommon in which a customer is driven from a store by direct rudeness or lack of politeness on the part of some lad there employed.

Let me then urge you, not only to give attention to the cultivation of such habits as I have named, but also to encourage and promote, in every suitable way, the formation of all habits that will tend to make good citizens and agreeable associates. Let your aim be, not only to teach the lessons of the book, but also to form true symmetry of character by duly developing every pleasing and desirable trait, and by checking the growth of every habit which may tend to impair one's usefulness, or to detract from one's influences as a companion or friend.