list their co-operation, and by one or all these measures you may save him." "I'll try," was the response, and not long after word came from that faithful teacher, "John is now one of my best boys." So many scholars within my knowledge have been dismissed in disgrace whom gentler influences might have reclaimed, and sometimes expelled by the teacher while in a passion, and at heart more culpable than the pupil, that I have grown bold in imploring teachers never to abandon any boy as a "hopeless case," until they have exhausted all the measures which skill and kindness can wisely employ.

A quiet moral power ought to reign in the school-room, rather than coercive and extreme measures. Its influence is more happy, effective, and permanent. True wisdom and skill in school government consists in the prevention rather than the punishment of offences; in interesting and occupying pupils, cultivating the better feelings of their nature, truthfulness, generosity, kindness and self-respect. Refined manners, winning tones, and an earnest spirit, will exert a peculiar sway even upon the rudest and most unmannerly youth. There is a silent power in the very face of a teacher beaming with love for his pupils, and enthusiasm in his noble work.-B. G. Northrop.

EARLY WITHDRAWAL FROM SCHOOL.

PREMATURE GRADUATION is a serious evil in our schools. Too many close their books and "finish their education" when that great work ought to be regarded as just begun. Not unfrequently children are permanently withdrawn from school at twelve years, and sometimes at a still earlier age. The law in regard to the employment of children in manufacturing establishments, although admitted to be wise and important, is not faithfully executed, especially in some of our smaller manufacturing towns. There are not a few agents, overseers, and owners of mills who are to-day liable to the just penalty of this law. I have often had occasion

to remind school committees that the general statutes made it their duty to "prosecute for all such forfeitures." Some children are kept from school at a very tender age to engage in branches of industry not dignified with the name of manufactories, carried on in small shops or private families—such as closing shoes and braiding straw. This early withdrawment of children has become a common as well as a great evil. The small portion of children who complete the full course in the high or even grammar schools of our cities, indicates the same tendency to finish their education when that great work ought to be regarded as just begun. This premature graduation proves to many an injury lasting as life, closing against them the doors to the highest and noblest sciences, the most important and practical topics, those best fitted to liberalize and expand the mind, and which are indispensable to any thing like a complete common school education. In education as in architecture-such is the relation between the foundation and the finishing, the preparation and the completion-that the same time and effort seem to accomplish at the close, manifold greater results than at the beginning. Thus a more marked change in mental character often seems to be wrought during the last year of a full school-course than during any two or three previous years.— B. G. Northrop.

THE TEACHER'S REWARD.

WHAT is the nature of this reward? Is it simply the attainment of a livelihood? Is it only to answer the great question of what shall we eat and drink and wherewithal shall we be clothed? Is the teacher's vocation merely to be used by the ambitious aspirant as the stepping stone to something higher-a kind of half-way station house where he halts in transilu on the way to his final destination, which lies beyond? Nay, verily, it is something above and beyond all these. And yet, there are those who seem to have no more exalted idea of the teacher's mission, than that it con

sists in manipulating for some cosy snuggery, where they will have good pay and but little to do. There are others again who, ever itching for praise, and angling for compliments, look forward to the day of examination and the applause of the multitude, as the goal of their ambition and the theatre of their glory. For this the student studies, and for this the teacher teaches; and when the memorable day arrives, the unsuspecting multitude are imposed upon by deceptive artifices, or else astonished by wonderful feats of intellectual tumbling or rope-dancing, that remind us of nothing so much as the legerdemain of a juggler, or the tricks of a mountebank. Is this the reward of the teacher? If so, then have I altogether mistaken its character. The teacher's vocation may be most humble in its origin, and yet it is most sublime in its issue. Like Saul, the son of Kish, he goes in quest of his father's asses and finds a kingdom. He is at the same time high up and low down. Like the lark, he builds his nest upon the ground, and then, dashing the dew-drops of the morning from his pinion, mounts upward into the sunlight, and even when lost to the aching vision, ravishes the earth with the melody of his song. He may go through the world unobtrusive and unobserved, and yet, like underground streams in a meadow, he will spread life and beauty and verdure all around. He may be excluded from the beau monde of the aristocratic and fashionable world, but he cares not, for, like St. John, he is thereby banished to some Patmos of contemplation, only to be ravished with the splendors of an apocalyptic vision.

He may be devoid of titles, and yet, if he is a true and genuine man, he has a patent direct from God Almighty. After the death of Humboldt, the friends of royalty were greatly shocked to find the patents and decorations, which kings and emperors had delighted to bestow upon him, stowed carelessly away with other rubbish in a drawer. What were ribbons and stars to the author of Cosmos?

The true teacher lives for something more than this. He may experience all the sharps and flats of a teacher's monody, but he knows full well that this is not his singing or his VOL. IX.

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shining place. He lives for eternity. He works for eternity. His motto is that of the immortal Luther, "Labor on earth,. reward in heaven."

It seems, somehow, to be the order of Divine Providence, that the world shall be regenerated through the instrumentality of human suffering. Teachers may be called to suffer, but in a certain sense they thus become the Messiahs of the world. But while they thus toil and suffer and weep, they look forward, amidst their smiles and their tears, to the hour of their death as to the day of their final coronation, when their names shall be enrolled upon the bead-roll of eternal fame.

We repeat it, then, that the christian teacher lives for eternity. His life is the life of a true Methuselah. For in every pupil he educates, he re-produces himself as in a multiplying glass, and thus lives on forever. His years are not measured by waxing and waning moons, but upon the great dial plate of eternity, by a pendulum whose oscillations are infinite.

My friends, I do not magnify our mission. Imagination falters and language fails to portray to you the greatness of our calling.

Then let us be faithful to our great and God-like mission. Let us labor for eternity-let us work as if an angel was working by our side-and when the labor of life is ended, may we receive from the Great Teacher himself, the welcome plaudit, "Well done, good and faithful servants."— Spencer.

TEACHING, A PROFESSION.

THE first question for a young person to determine, when the impulse to teach school, presents itself, is, Do I intend to make teaching my profession? The responsibility which rests upon a teacher is a grave one, and one that is not at first fully realized by those who take it upon them. To lay the foundation, broad and deep, of healthy intellectual,

moral, social, and physical development of the hundreds or thousands of boys and girls who may be entrusted to his or her care, is the true mission of the teacher.

Every calling in life has its own peculiar characteristics, and requires in those who would embrace it, the possession of corresponding qualifications. Scientific attainments, aptness to teach, genius for command, industry, patience, and love for the work, are the leading requisites of a good teacher. If you find that you possess these, and have at the same time concluded that you can be contented with a teacher's honors and a teacher's pay, do not hesitate to enter the profession and devote to it all the talents God has given you. But if after a careful study of the teacher's duties and a searching look into your own heart, you discover that you do not possess the essential qualifications we have mentioned, and that you could not be contented with a teacher's lot, at once turn your back upon the school-room you had thought to enter, and seek elsewhere for honorable employment of your hands, your head and your heart. Do not, under any consideration, do violence to the better impulses of your nature, and lasting injury to that portion of the rising generation which would come under your influence, by entering a profession for which you possess no special qualifications and which you do not love for its own sake. Justice to yourself, the respect of community, and the approbation of your own conscience require that you should in this matter, as in all other circumstances in life which are under your control, do that which is right. It may be that your forte-for every man has his forte-lies in the law, civil engineering, literature, the fine arts, agriculture, theology, or the healing art. If not, you certainly possess the capacity to be a good mechanic; and to be a good mechanic, is always more respectable and vastly more profitable than to be an indifferent school teacher. Brains and a true heart, disciplined by an earnest purpose, will secure honorable regard and an honest livelihood in any legitimate profession or calling. But, whatever you do, having determined in which direction your duty lies, set about its performance imme