2-Desire for improvement. The teacher who seeks to improve furnishes herself with a certificate of success and recommendation for promotion at once. No Superintendent can fail to notice her; no Board of Education can long fail to recognize her merit. Her success will be limited only by her physical endurance and bounded by her mental grasp.

3-Genuine pleasure in her work. I know of nothing that ought to afford so much satisfaction as imparting knowledge and developing power. Lighting torches from your own without loss to yourself. Watching the mind unfold and under favorable conditions put forth leaf and tendral and trunk and countless branches, as do real plants and Meeting a stubborn will and bending it to your purpose! teaching the rude to be civil; shaping uncouthness to something comely; causing the savage to be gentle and lighting a pure flame upon an altar bare and cold. Pleasure in the work. Pleasure in the contemplation of its possible results.

4-A fair conception of the limitations of her pupils and a sympathy with them. To use an old-fashioned figure, a beast of burden knows the limit of its power and will go no farther. Or to employ a modern and more pleasing expression, the child tires even of its quest of flowers or starts back unable to penetrate the dense growth just ahead. A limit in the task assigned; to the recitation; to the experiment to test the child's patience, dwelling too long upon one page or lesson or subject, forgetting that a jaded mind is not a receptive one and that staring helplessly at a blank wall develops no power but that of mischief. To fail to advance a pupil to the next grade as soon as he has completed one step is as great a mistake as it is to advance him when not prepared. "Put yourself in his place" was not spoken only of adults, for adults, but applies even with more force to adults for children.

5-A reasonably correct notion of the object of discipline and the effects of various kinds of punishment. With a child, as with an army, the object of discipline should be to give power. This lost sight of, mistakes are innumerable and often grave. The waters of the estuary rise and fall with the tide alternately, covering and exposing unsightly mud-flats and unfragrant ooze. Cut a channel through the neck that separates it from the calm bay beyond, and, as the tides come and go, the water, rushing in bounds between its banks, gains in torce what it loses in area and the channel is deepened and benefit results. As the attempt, so the outcome. Discipline should be firm and continuous;

not fussy and intermittent. It should take its color from the serenity of the teacher's temper and its form from her mental equipoise.

Teachers A and B take charge of two schools. The thought that possesses A, as he approaches his work, is, "I shall control this school at all hazards;" the feeling that animates Bis, "I am anxious to have these children learn." Each is honest; each is capable. Yet how wide the difference in ruling idea.

Happy is A if discipline is what his school happens to be especially in need of. Thrice happy B if the question of discipline is no great factor in her problem. A in B's school might be called a tyrant. B in A's, a weakling. Fortunate for the average school under average conditions, where the teacher has disciplined herself and without show of authority, but with firm temper and warm heart addresses herself to her task.

6-An intelligent comprehension of the public school system, with an honest purpose to contribute to its success. Let us look at this a moment. An applicant for a school has the required knowledge; she has zeal; she understands the child's wants and capacity; she has learned to govern her own temper; she has firmness, prudence, tact, The moment she secures a position she becomes a part of a system, a participant in a scheme, a soldier in a grand army to free a people from shackles of ignorance and unite them in a national unity of purpose-a common destiny.

etc.

It is said that the rank and file of the German Army of 1870 carried in their knapsacks accurate maps of France, while their hearts beat high with love of Fatherland. It is not doubted that in our Civil War the non-commissioned officers and many privates in the ranks carried to their minds not only a picture of the enemy's country and in their hearts a passionate devotion to the Union, but that even the plan of the battle and the movements of the enemy were divined by that intelligent intuition that free schools do so much to produce.

What, then, shall we say of the teacher, who, while she does the task assigned her with machine-like precision, does not also feel the inspiration that comes from the thought-this is my part in my country's glory. This is my contribution in solving the great problem of many in one and one in many. Cambridge and Oxford, Eton and Harvard and Rugby are famous the world over, but England has no system of elementary public schools that she can be proud of. She can furnish ensigns, lieutenants and captains, intelligent and brave without question, but her rank and file are not comparable in free mental sweep with those who marched to the sea.

Let this inspiring thought of a free school, for a free people, possess the teacher's mind, and a profound thankfulness to a Providence that is felt in it all, fill the public school teacher's heart and the product of our schools cannot fail to be a high type of citizenship, with a generous toleration and keen sense of business as ruling characteristics. After the humiliation of Germany by Napoleon I, William III said, in an address to the German people: "We have, indeed, lost in territory and fallen in internal power and splendor, but we must see to it that we gain in internal power and splendor; and hence it is my earnest desire that the greatest attention be given to the instruction of the people." The young Athenian, upon becoming an elector at the age of twenty, took this oath: "For our sanctuaries and laws I will fight alone and with others. My country I will leave not in a worse, but in a better condition. I will at all times submit willingly to the judges and established ordinances, and will not consent that others infringe or disobey them."

And now, if I have said anything to start you to inquire of yourself—" Wherein have I failed to be equal to my station and task?”—I should stop, but I cannot forbear claiming your attention a little longer to introduce you to one or two old friends of mine and of yours, too, if you but knew it. True these worthy people are dead, but so are the countless friends who live still in their books and are ready to counsel us any day or night.

We modern folks enjoy the fruitage of generations of growth and yet we are apt to claim each particularly fine tree as an original discovery. Listen to John Ames Comenius, born in Moravia (do you know where that is)? in 1592, nearly 300 years ago. Listen, and, recalling your course of study, notice how familiar the lines.

1-Education is a development of the whole man.

2-Educational methods should follow the order of Nature.

3-Both sexes should receive equal instruction, since the end of education is individual development.

4-Learning should be made agreeable. Teachers should always have something interesting and profitable to communicate to their classes. School-houses should be made comfortable and attractive.

5-If the superstructure is not to totter, the foundation must be laid well.
6-Many studies are to be avoided as dissipating mental strength.

7-There should be an easy gradation of studies.

8—Things naturally connected themselves should be joined together in teaching. 9-Nothing should be taught that is not of solid utility.

10-Studies should be adapted to the capacity of the pupil.

11-Nothing is to be learned by heart that is not first thoroughly understood.

12-Let nothing that admits of sensible or rational demonstration be taught by authority.

13-Let no task be assigned until the method of it has been explained.

14-In the sciences the student should have the objects studied before him. 15-Languages should be learned by practice rather than by rule.

Rules should follow, not precede practice.

16-Words should be learned in connection with things-the object first, then the expression.

17-The concrete should precede the abstract; the simple, the complex; the near, the remote.

18-Things to be done should be learned by doing them.

19-Discipline should aim at improving the character.

20-The teacher should be an example in person and conduct of what he requires of his pupils.

Francke, born in Lubeck in 1663, said:

1-A teacher should never punish a child in anger.

2-Children ought not to be punished for little faults inherent in their age, but should be encouraged to be more careful.

3-Children should not be abused with harsh epithets.

4-A child ought never be scolded because it cannot understand.

5-In avoiding too great severity the teacher should not fall into the opposite extreme of being made the sport of his pupils.

Montaigne, born in France in 1533, wrote: "It is not a soul, it is not a body that we are training up, but a man and we ought not to divide him." * * * "It is the custom of schoolmasters to be eternally thundering in their pupil's ears, as if they were pouring into a funnel, while it is the pupil's business only to repeat what their masters have said." * * * "Our pedants plunder knowledge from books and carry it on the tip of their lips, just as birds carry seeds to feed their young.' * * * "We toil and labor only to stuff the memory, but leave the conscience and understanding unfurnished."

And so the criticism runs with a very familiar sound; so familiar, indeed, that had I not quoted Montaigne you might well have thought I was giving to you a fragment of the fault-finding of the day.

In these words of the worthies of three or more centuries ago are found the wisdom, the ideals of the best practice and thought of to-day. The practical side of education-the manual, industrial and physical training-are more than hinted at. The lofty ideal of a teacher and the high standard of teaching are clearly set forth; the challenge to the assertion of unreasonable dicta is boldly made. Pestalozzi, Froebel, Mann, Page, Parker and Swett are all anticipated here. With this retrospect, I hope our deliberations will be found worthy of our ancestors and that criticism will be deprived of its chief delight-the joy of originality.

Leaving you in the hands of Comenius, Francke and Montaigne, I declare the Institute ready for its work.

AN EXPERIMENT IN OBEDIENCE.

"If you could train a boy to mind you, in a few hours, as successfully as you have trained that colt, I would like to have you to train my boy Jeff," said Mr. Gordon, looking at the now docile colt which Paul Wilson was petting. He had been watching, with admiration, the masterly ways Paul had taken to break the three-year-old colt Mr. Gordon had bought from a band of unbroken horses a few hours before.

"It will take a little more work, Mr. Gordon, and then with gentle but firm management when he is driven, your colt will be broken. As to the boy," continued Paul in a quiet tone, "I have no doubt that I could break a boy to obedience in about the same time it would take me to break a colt. I never tried one, but I am certain I could do it."

"Not my boy," said Mr. Gordon, shaking his head. "Jeff has never known what it is to mind any one if he did not want to, and he usually don't want to. He is but eight years old, and I fear he is hopelessly spoiled. The teachers could do nothing with him, and we can't control him. I would gladly give you ten times what I pay you for breaking this colt, if you could teach him to obey."

"I can teach him to obey me," said Paul confidently.

"Whether

he would mind you afterward, depends upon how you would handle him. Just like this colt-after I have broken him you can spoil him again by bad management." And thus it was, after considerable discussion that Jeff Gordan was brought to Paul Wilson's house to be given a lesson in obedience.

Jeff was a good-looking lad when he was pleasant, but he had a furious temper which he had never been taught to control, and Mr. Gordon and his wife had found it easier to coax and give way at times than to use firmness, and the servants naturally did the same.

Jeff had not been told of the bargain with Paul Wilson, and you may imagine how mad he was when his father drove away, and left him struggling and kicking furiously in Paul's arms. Without saying a word, Paul carried the boy into the house, and took a seat in the easy chair, holding both of the boy's hands in one of his, and the lads legs were held just as firmly between Paul's legs, so that Jeff could not move from his seat upon Paul's lap.