DUTIES OF PARENTS AND TEACHERS.

Ir is matter of deep regret, that a profession, which affords so extensive a field for usefulness as the teacher's, should be so generally crowded with difficulties and discouragements, as to compel a large portion of the talent, which might otherwise be engaged in it, to seek employment and distinction elsewhere. In high hopes and with flowing spirits, many a young man enters upon the business of instructing, carrying to the work a well-furnished mind, and a large share of zeal,- when suddenly and unaccountably to himself, he finds that he is surrounded by trials he had never foreseen, - troubles which have come without his seeking, and of such a nature as to render his situation any thing but desirable. He does what his ingenuity and his own warm, fresh heart suggest to remove the evils; but, though he may change the place, he too often still keeps the pain. A few weeks, or perhaps months pass heavily away in vain attempts to find some mitigation of his difficulties; his days being spent in patience-trying effort, and his nights disturbed by dreams of the future, which are but a literal transcript of the past; or, if they take not their form from the finished day, they still can hardly be so extravagant as to be beyond the probability of fulfilment on the morrow. Between his waking and his sleeping labors, his rest being a toil, and his toil a pain, finding daily his strength failing him, his flesh wasting away, his health suffering, and his soul sinking, he de

termines to have RELIEF; not, however, by committing suicide, for that would violate the law of nature and the law of God; but by abandonment of his profession, which neither violates that instinct, teaching that "self-preservation is the first law of nature," nor that passage of scripture which declares, that "if any provide not for his own, he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel." This probably is in substance the history of more than one half of those who commence schoolteaching with a view to make it a permanent profession.

There are others, however, who have nerve enough to outlive their first six months, and who devote themselves unreinittingly to their labors for a longer period; but very few among these ever become so attached to their chosen employment as to be unwilling to leave it for some other occupation, which may offer; an expedient which, we believe, almost every professional teacher has taken into his calculations for the future, and to which he looks forward with no very particular reluctance.

The profession of the teacher is certainly an important one; it should be a happy one. The adverse influences should be removed, and the teacher should be left free to devise his own plans, and to find his enjoyment in witnessing the success attendant upon their execution. We would not ask for greater emolument, though considering the fact, that a teacher's best years are spent in his duties, and when his best years are passed away, an enlightened community usually judges him not only unfit for school-keeping, but for every thing else, we are constrained to believe, that the matter of compensation has been little enough thought of. We would not ask for greater respect and attention; we believe, that in New England, the instructer has received his share of these, in proportion to his merits. But we would ask for sympathy; for soul-cheering sympathy, on the part of the parents of those we are called to instruct; we would plead for their aid as far as they can assist us, and then we could go to the work at least with some gleamings of encouragement.

We have spoken of the difficulties of the school-teacher. It is not our purpose to enter into a detailed enumeration of these; it is sufficient, perhaps, for us to allege, THAT A LARGE PART

OF THEM HAVE THEIR ORIGIN IN THE WANT OF CO-OPERATION, OR THE MISDIRECTED INFLUENCE OF THE PARENTS.

Nor shall we on this occasion labor to arrange proofs of this

position. It is a remark among teachers, as common as household words, that "school-keeping might be a delightful employment, if one could take his pupils entirely out of the reach of their parents." The experience of those who have had charge of academies in the country, where the pupils chiefly were away from their own homes, goes to establish the same point; and any one, who has attentively watched the course of events in one of those important communities which we call a school district, cannot have failed to draw the conclusion to which we have come.

We would not, however, advocate the removal of the young from their parents for the purposes of education, except in extreme cases. We believe that our Creator has wisely established the family relation, and that it is our duty to draw out and render available its uses, rather than by extinction of the relation to destroy its abuses. We believe, indeed, that the child can be best educated among those of his own kindred, provided parents and teachers can by any means be made to understand one another's relative duties and obligations.

Enough has now been said to show that the subject assigned by the government of the Institute for my consideration, to wit: "THE MUTUAL DUTIES OF PARENTS AND TEACHERS," is one of no minor importance; it is for me to regret that it fell not into abler hands.

Between parties, who are so often brought into collision, it is highly desirable there should exist some well defined mutual understanding. In many of our public schools the usefulness of one teacher after another is effectually destroyed; the youth not only suffering from the interruption of their studies, but also from the angry looks and harsh words witnessed at home, the parents meantime working themselves up into the exercise of bad feeling, where, perhaps, nothing is designed but good. They are often parents, who feel sufficiently the importance of education, whose impulses are sufficiently powerful, if only moved in the right direction, to carry them into the performance of every good word and work. They make, it may be, liberal appropriations for the support of their schools, - but after all, the atmosphere is unhealthy. One sun after another rises upon them, only to raise the vapor and the mildew, and shorn of their beams and robbed of their warmth, they go down in clouds and tempests, while the district over which they have passed is left in still greater darkness, and the

chill and the gloom of a winter's midnight yet hang over them, perhaps only to be again made more visible by the rising of another luckless luminary.

But why is this? Why all this waste of strength, of money, and of talent? Why so often must the teacher on the one hand, and the parent on the other, row in opposite directions? Let us for a few moments inquire into the causes of the difficulty, and then we may hope the better to adapt a prevention or devise a remedy.

What, then, are some of the causes of misunderstanding between parents and teachers?

1. Parents do not sufficiently feel the importance of schools. After all that has been said in our halls of legislation, in our political assemblies, in our public journals, and in our pulpits, upon the importance to a free and independent people, of a good education, there are many, very many, who have no adequate notion of its value. This lack of appreciation will show itself in many ways, to make the duties of the teacher more arduous. One man keeps his son from the school on the slightest occasion; another, by the same spirit, refuses to furnish the various facilities, which the teacher may deem necessary for the prosecution of study. Now while such is the state of feeling in the parent's mind, the business of instructing his child, who will most assuredly partake of his father's spirit, will be more arduous than the making of bricks and furnishing the straw under the task-masters of the Egyptian monarch.

2. A false standard of excellence and attainment for our schools in the minds of parents, is another source of much difficulty and inconvenience to the teacher. The standard of their own attainments and of the school of their boyhood is put by many parents, for the youth and schools of the present day. They seem not to reflect that a child, in order to maintain his comparative standing in society now, must know more than if he had lived fifty years ago, - because the progress in education, without claiming much for the "march of intellect," having kept pace in some ratio with other things, the whole body of the people are more advanced. Having in view a standard so low, the parent grudgingly furnishes the books and apparatus, which may be needed to carry his son beyond his own level, and he sees no beauty or fitness in the plans and measures of the teacher, so unlike the instructer of his own early years. He has serious objection to all classification in