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go peremptorily, as Hagar's offspring into the wilderness, while it was sweet. He never missed it. The streams were perennial which fed his fisc. When new supplies became necessary, the first person that had the felicity to fall in with him, friend or stranger, was sure to contribute to the deficiency.

8. For Bigod had an undeniable way with him. He had a cheerful, open exterior, a quick, jovial eye, a bold forehead, just touched with gray (cana fides). He anticipated no excuse and found none. And, waiving for a while my theory as to the great race, I would put it to the most untheorizing reader who may at times have disposable coin in his pocket, whether it is not more repugnant to the kindliness of his nature to refuse such a one as I am describing, than to say no to a poor petitionary rogue (your bastard borrower), who, by his mumping visnomy, tells you that he expects nothing better, and, therefore, whose preconceived notions and expectations you do in reality so much less shock in the refusal.

9. When I think of this man; his fiery glow of heart; his swell of feeling; how magnificent, how ideal he was; how great at the midnight hour; and when I compare with him the companions with whom I have associated since, I grudge the saving of a few idle ducats, and think that I have fallen into the society of lenders and little men.

CXII. THE UNHAPPY LOT OF A SCHOOL

MASTER.

CHARLES LAMB.

The following selection exhibits the relations between teacher and pupil as they were many years ago. In recent years, the teacher and pupil have come much nearer to each other.

1. Why are we never quite at our ease in the presence of a school-master? Because we are conscious that he is not

quite at his ease in ours.

He is awkward and out of place
He comes like Gulliver from

in the society of his equals.
among his little people, and he cannot fit the stature of his
understanding to yours. He cannot meet you on the square.
He wants a point given him, like an indifferent whist-player.
He is so used to teaching, that he wants to be teaching you.

2. One of these professors, upon my complaining that these sketches of mine were anything but methodical, and that I was unable to make them otherwise, kindly offered to instruct me in the method by which young gentlemen in his seminary were taught to compose English themes. The jests of a school-master are coarse or thin. They do not tell out of school. He is under the restraint of a formal or dictative hypocrisy in company, as a clergyman is under a moral one. He can no more let his intellect loose in society, than the other can his inclinations. He is forlorn among his coëvals; his juniors cannot be his friends.

3. "I take blame to myself," said a sensible man of this profession, writing to a friend respecting a youth who had quitted his school abruptly, " that your nephew was not more attached to me. But persons in my situation are more to be pitied than can well be imagined. We are surrounded by young, and, consequently, ardently affectionate, hearts, but we can never hope to share an atom of their affections. The relation of master and scholar forbids this. 'How pleasing this must be to you, how I envy your feelings!' my friends will sometimes say to me, when they see young men whom I have educated, return after some years' absence from school, their eyes shining with pleasure, while they shake hands with their old master, bringing a present of game to me, or a toy to my wife, and thanking me in the warmest terms for my care of their education. A holiday is begged for the boys; the house is a scene of happiness; I, only, am sad at heart.

4. "This fine-spirited and warm-hearted youth, who fancies he repays his master with gratitude for the care of his boyish years -this young man-in the eight long years I watched over him with a parent's anxiety, never could repay me with one look of genuine feeling. He was proud, when I praised; he was submissive, when I reproved him; but he did never love me;—and what he now mistakes for gratitude and kindness for me, is but the pleasant sensation, which all persons feel at revisiting the scenes of their boyish hopes and fears, and the seeing on equal terms of the man they were accustomed to look up to with reverence.

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5. "My wife, too," this interesting correspondent goes on to say, "my once darling Anna, is the wife of a schoolmaster. When I married her, knowing that the wife of a school-master ought to be a busy, notable creature, and fearing that my gentle Anna would ill supply the loss of my dear, bustling mother, just then dead, who never sat still, was in every part of the house in a moment, and whom I was obliged sometimes to threaten to fasten down in a chair, to save her from fatiguing herself to death,—I expressed my fears that I was bringing her into a way of life unsuitable to her; and she, who loved me tenderly, promised for my sake to exert herself to perform the duties of her new situation.

6. "She promised, and she has kept her word. What wonders will not woman's love perform? My house is managed with a propriety and decorum unknown in other schools; my boys are well fed, look healthy, and have every proper accommodation—and all this performed with a careful economy that never descends to meanness. But I have lost my gentle, helpless Anna! When we sit down to enjoy an hour of repose after the fatigue of the day, I am compelled to listen to what have been her useful (and they are really

useful) employments through the day, and what she proposes for her to-morrow's task.

7. "Her heart and her features are changed by the duties of her situation. To the boys she never appears other than the master's wife, and she looks up to me as the boys' master, to whom all show of love and affection would be highly improper, and unbecoming the dignity of her situation and mine. Yet this my gratitude forbids me to hint to her. For my sake she submitted to be this altered creature, and can I reproach her for it?”

CXIII. THE TRUE TEACHER.

J. G. HOLLAND.

1. I hold the teacher's position second to none. The Christian teacher of a band of children combines the office of the preacher and the parent, and has more to do in shaping the mind and the morals of the community than preacher and parent united. The teacher who spends six hours a day with my child, spends three times as many hours as I do, and twenty fold more time than my pastor does. I have no words to express my sense of the importance of your office.

2. Still less have I words to express my sense of the importance of having that office filled by men and women of the purest motives, the noblest enthusiasm, the finest culture, the broadest charities, and the most devoted Christian purpose. Why, sir, a teacher should be the strongest and most angelic man that breathes. No man living is intrusted with such precious material. No man living can do so much to set human life to a noble tune. No man living needs higher qualifications for his work. Are you "fitted for teaching"? I do not ask you this question to discourage you, but to stimulate you to an effort at preparation which shall continue as long as you continue to teach.

CXIV. THE MORAL DIGNITY OF THE EDUCA TIONAL PROFESSION.

W. E. CHANNING.

1. One of the surest signs of the regeneration of society will be the elevation of the art of teaching to the highest rank in the community. When a people shall learn that its greatest benefactors and most important members are men devoted to the liberal instruction of all its classes,to the work of raising to life its buried intellect,—it will have opened to itself the path of true glory.

2. There is no office higher than that of a teacher of youth; for there is nothing on earth so precious to the mind, soul, and character of the child. No office should be regarded with greater respect. The first minds in the community should be encouraged to assume it. Parents should do all but impoverish themselves, to induce such to become the guardians and guides of their children. To this good all their show and luxury should be sacrificed.

3. Here they should be lavish, whilst they straiten themselves in everything else. They should wear the cheapest clothes, live on the plainest food, if they can in no other way secure to their families the best instruction. They should have no anxiety to accumulate property for their children, provided they can place them under influences which will awaken their faculties, inspire them with pure and high principles, and fit them to bear a manly, useful, and honorable part in the world. No language can express the cruelty or folly of that economy which, to leave a fortune to a child, starves his intellect, impoverishes his heart.

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