What Teachers Have.

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are, vicegerents of God, placed in authority over the richest of all his provinces, and responsible to a great extent, for their beauty and grandeur and moral well-being.

Here is a boy who seems headstrong and obstinate,―stubborn almost to sullenness;-analyze the case; it may be, that this exhibition of character is founded upon the noble, though untrained principles of conscience and firmness; and if it so be, you have only to manage the case wisely, to make another Martin Luther of him;-a man who will defy the Papal anathemas of his day, as did the old hero of Wittenburg, in the fifteenth century. Here are two playmates, bound together as it were by some congenial affinity, diligent in study, conspicuous in recitation; but vehement and vociferous, almost beyond endurance. Do not alienate these youthful Boanerges, by the base motive of rivalry and emulation; but rather strengthen their attachment and guide them aright, and by and by, perhaps from different parts of the union, they may meet on the floor of congress, not to contend with each other, at the head of hostile factions, but to lift their voices together, like true sons of thunder, against corruption in high places. Here is an unsophisticated child, whose voice falters and his eye moistens, as he reads the story of some wounded or imprisoned bird, or of a hare pursued to its death by hounds, quadruped and biped. It was a beaming seraph from the throne of God, then nestling in his heart, which choked that voice and bedewed that eye. Save him from the profanation of ridicule and levity. In the fullness of time, he will go forth to give sight to the blind, to loose the tongue of the dumb, to gather the insane from their living tombs and heal demoniacs in the spirit and with the power of Christ. There sits a little girl, distinguished from all the rest by the simplicity of her dress, and by the tenderness with which she watches the little ones of the school however ill-clad or ill-mannered they may be. No gaudy ribbons delight her eye; no gleeful games can make her forgetful of the safety or the comfort of others. Rescue her from the pride of wealth, from the frivolity and emptiness of fashionable life; and when others shall be wasting their time at theatres and assemblies, she will be a ministering angel to the poor, in their crowded hovels and cellars, and sweetening the earth with her footsteps, as she goes on her errand of mercy and love. Another, as quiet of mien, but of bolder resolve, like Mrs. Fry or Miss Dix, will stand before Governors and Legislatures, hushing the storm of partizan warfare by her rebukes, and making them, for very shame, if for no better reason, provide for the woes of humanity.

These, my friends, and such as these, are the lofty motives, with which every teacher should go to his school, in the morning; with which he should live among his pupils during the day; and in the sustaining consciousness of which, he should seek, at night, the rest which will prepare him for the renewal of his labors. With the faithful and fruitful teacher, not a day will pass, in which he will not so modify and ennoble the character of his pupils, that they will choose a wiser and more exalted course of conduct in the eventful crises of life. He will be making better husbands and wives, better fathers and mothers, and scattering from afar, blessed eras of goodness and joy all along the future course of his pupils' lives. Horace Mann.

PATIENCE.

WHAT special need is there to exhort teachers to possess their souls in patience? A teacher has no more excuse for passion, because of the thousand oversights and cases of forgetfulness, and carlessness, and waywardness in a group of young children, than an orchardist has for indulging in fits of anger, because his fruits are acrid while they are yet immature, or untouched by the hues of the rainbow while they are yet unripe. Waywardness and what Carlyle calls "un-wisdom," are in the nature of childhood, as much as sourness is in the nature of an apple or a berry, before it has had time to be ripened; or, if any one objects to this expression as too condemnatory of the nature of chidhood, still it can not be denied that such have been the transgressions of parents that children do inherit painful susceptibilities of evil. Yet infinitely more blameworthy are the fathers who ate the grapes, than the children whose teeth have been set on edge by their sourness. While human nature remains as it now is, we must expect much of inconsiderateness and aberration in the young. It is the special function and office of a teacher to supply the necessary ameliorating influences. But this transforming work can not be done by one day's labor, any more than harvests can be ripened by one day's sunshine. The sun and clouds might well refuse to shine. and shower, because the various growths of the summer are not perfected in a day. Yet with what calm constancy they pursue their work; and not the waste and loss of the wide wilderness restricts their bounty. Under the slanting beams of the vernal sun, the corn germinates, the fruit trees bud

and blossom and the vine shoots up its branches. As yet, however, for all purposes of human utility, they are worthless. But is the sun wearied or discouraged? Does he not ascend the heavens? does he not lengthen his day, and pour down upon them his solstitial fervor? Still, neither in the corn, nor in the fruit is there any sustenance for man, and the young grape is more bitter than wormword to the taste. For weeks and months that sun labors on, increasing in the ardor of his beams; till at length, the rich fields wave a welcome to the harvester; the orchards glow with orientcolored fruitage; and in the fulness of gratitude, the grape bursts with its nectarious juices. It is the euthanasia of the year. It is like the dying psalm of a righteous man. Look at that miracle of beauty, the century plant. For lustrums and decades, the seasons.and the elements labor on to bring it to perfection, but seem to labor in vain. It absorbs the nurture of generations of cultivators, yet appears to make no requital for their care. But at length its slow maturing powers approach their crisis. The day of its efflorescence comes. The gorgeous flower bursts forth, queenly, beautiful as Aphrodite from the waves, and loading the air with the gathered perfumes of a hundred years. And to you, my friends, this is the moral;-Not a ray of sunshine ever fell upon that plant; not a rain-drop nor a dew-drop ever fertilized or refreshed it; not a kind office of its guardian was ever expended upon it, which is not now remembered and proclaimed in the grandeur of its bloom and the richness of its fragrance. Learn a lesson from the ancient oaks, which you pass daily in your walk to the school-room. In rearing them to their loftiness and majestic proportions, has nature ever grown weary or impatient, since the day when these tiny germs left the shell? Of all the occupations among men, the teacher, who knows the nobility of his work, and feels its divine impulses, has the least need of patience. The delver among the insensate clods, the hewer of wood; the operative who spins the lifeless thread or casts the monotonous shuttle; the statesman who declares himself constrained to warp the eternal principles of rectitude to accommodate bis policy to the ignorance and selfishness of men; the minister who tries to soften hearts, which inveterate sins have ossified; the judge who sends human beings to the state's prison or the gallows, one day's work of whom is enough to crush the life out of a man's heart;-the soldier who slays his fellow-man in battle, or is himself slain; these have need of patience, or something else I know not what; but to

enjoin patience upor those whose very office and mission it is to prepare children for all the happiness of this world, and to bring the kingdom of heaven round about them, is an intolerable indignity and grievance.

What I long, above all other things upon earth, to see,what prophets and kings might well desire to see, but as yet have never seen,-is a glorious brotherhood of teachers, whose accomplished minds and great hearts are bound to gether by their devotion to one object,—and that object a desire to reform the world,-to re-impress upon the heart of man the almost obliterated image of his Maker. Were teachers animated by the spirit which inspires the martial hero, such a union and for such an object would not be postponed to be seen by happier men in some happier age, but we ourselves should behold it. And can not the sublimer motive give birth to the sublimer effort? Can not those whose office it is to reform their fellow-men, be as devoted and as valiant as those whose office it is to destroy their fellow-men? Is not theirs as good a fight? Will their songs of triumph be less exultant? Will not palms as fadeless crown their victories? If we marvel greatly at the bravery of men engaged in war, have we not far greater reason to marvel at the lukewarmness and unconcern of those who. are engaged in the holy cause of enlightening and redeeming the race? Look at the pages of history for thousands of years, and see what those who have sought for militaryg lory, such lurid glory as it is,-have borne and done. Not commanders only, but subalterns and common soldiers perform feats of valor that seem incredible; and their bodies might be blown to pieces a thousand times, before the bravery of their hearts could be subdued. They scale mountainlifted forts, whose sides are precipices, while rocks like hailstones are falling around them. The blazing hill of the terraced battery they charge to the topmost tier. They rush to the field where the grape is showered whose vintage is blood. As siegers and besieged they fight by day and sleep by night, within range of that newly-invented and terrific engine of destruction, which can be compared to nothing earthly but a volcano on wheels. At the battle of Waterloo, Marshal Ney had five horses shot under him, and he dismounted from the sixth and charged the British infantry sword in hand. In naval engagements, how often do officers and men ply their guns, till the very ship,-which to them is the earth, and their only earth,— is swallowed in the waves. When Paul Jones engaged the Serapis, he lashed his ship

to the foe in the embrace of death. He received the enemy's broadsides, until his own vessel was almost reduced to a heap of floating splinters. Apparently sinking, he was summoned to surrender. "Surrender," said Jones, "I hav'n't yet begun to fight." Where in our ranks are the Neys and Joneses and a thousand others of the mighty men of valor? Where, amongst us, are the men who will forfeit all prospects of worldly distinction, surrender their ease, pledge their fortunes, sacrifice health, and life too, if need be, to uphold and carry forward the cause of education, which more than any other, is the cause of God and Humanity? If our motives are stronger than those of the shedders of human blood, why should not our arms and hearts be stronger than theirs also? And what do we know under the heavens, or,-I speak it with reverence,—what do we know above the heavens, which can excel the high emprise in which we are embarked? The world is to be redeemed. For six thousand years, with exceptions "few and far between," the earth has been a dwelling-place of woe. There has not been an hour since it was peopled, when war has not raged, like a conflagration, on some part of the surface. In the haughtiness of despotism, on the one hand, and the debasement of vassalage, on the other, the idea of human brotherhood has been lost. The policy of the wisest nations has been no higher than to punish the crimes they had permitted, instead of rewarding the virtues they had cherished. Throughout the earth, until lately, and now, in more than three of its five grand divisions, the soldier and the priest have divided and devoured it. The mass of the human race has sojourned with animals,-that is, in the region of animal appetites; and though the moral realms have been discovered, yet how feebly have they been colonized. But it is impiety to suppose that this night of darkness and blood will always envelope the earth. A brighter day is dawning, and education is its day-star. The honor of ushering this day, is reserved for those who train up children in the way they should go. Through this divinely appointed instrumentality, more than by all other agencies, the night of ignorance and superstition is to be dispelled, swords beat into plowshares, captives ransomed and rivers of Plenty made to run, where the rivers of Intemperance now flow. At this sight "Angels look on and hold their breath, burning to mingle in the conflict."

But the joys and triumphs of this conflict are not for angels; they are held in trust for those teachers, who, in the language of scripture, will take them by violence, that is,