efforts that he might safely promote a class without a stated examination.

Few, very few, are the teachers, who can not become fairly earnest, faithful, efficient workers under the kindly, wise, persevering influence of a worthy principal.

The principal, too, should so arrange the time of examinations and promotions that there should be no uncertain delay, but that teacher and pupil should start off strong and hearty for their work, at the beginning of the second and third terms as of the first, without the loss of five, ten, or fifteen days, in doubt where they are or what they are to do, and with an impulse and impetus that shall carry them on with spirit and zeal undiminished to the very end of the year, till they pass the line, as it were, at the end of the race, with the closing exercises of the year.

There is no school, perhaps, which has not some points of marked excellence, some teacher, unknown to herself, it may be, who in her wholesome influence over her pupils, in awakening interest, securing attention, in the presentation of some subject, or in winning a ready and thoughtful consideration and clear expression of topics and judgments, shows an unquestioned superiority in mental or moral gifts. There is, I think, rarely a teacher who does not present some meritorious indications deserving recognition; at least she may display some fault in common with ourselves which we had not before seen in its true deformity.

Not the least important of the principal's duties is to perceive the excellencies and to promote their spread among the other teachers, to assist the contagion of good and establish a quarantine against the bad.. The good of one room should be carried to all the rooms of the school, like the fertilizing dust of the flowers, now borne

by the busy bee in his search for hidden sweets, now wafted by the floating insect in his pleasurable rounds, and now on the soft air that breathes around us.

Let the teacher, weak in one point, visit another who there is strong, and discuss what she has seen with the principal; let her visit other schools and bring back the report of her experiences. In her own school the principal himself can take her room for a half-hour, and for a halfday even, in her visits to other schools, ascertaining thus the progress of her class, or its deficiencies.

In spite of the frequent complaints of poor teachers, they are not all or generally unqualified; they have been under able and skillful teachers, have passed a scholastic examination to which many of our successful teachers would not care to submit ; they have served two, six, ten months under the principal's eye as apprentices or cadets; and if they now fail, is it not fair, is it not just and right to look for the reasons of the failures in most cases to the principal ?

Herein do I find the most. important part of the principal's work and a partial answer to the question so often asked, "How shall we secure good teachers?" To the common reply of the theoretical teacher and pedagogical writer, that we must have normal schools, I desire to offer no word of dissent. If all our teachers could have a good normal training it can hardly be doubted that the school systems of our city, our State, and country, would be lifted to a higher plane, with a clearer and more life-giving atmosphere.

The normal school can do much; it gives something of the history of education and the work of its great leaders; teaches the elements of psychology in its direct application to pedagogy; leads its pupils to observe the thought of the child and the working of its yet unde

veloped mind, and carefully and systematically to note the results of this or that method; it teaches its pupils to think, to think for themselves, to reason upon their own closely observed facts, and to express their thoughts clearly, concisely, and freely; it makes them familiar with various ways for interesting the childish heart and opening up his mind to the study of the things around. him; and, best of all, it inspires them with a love of the work, a kindling enthusiasm that shall go far to make them true students of childhood and successful workers, at last, in this noblest and most entrancing of pursuits.

And yet, with all this, so unlike are the conditions of the normal class-room and the school-room with its sixty embodied activities that the normal graduate, with her training, her theories, her enthusiasm, and her high expectations, will at the first prove a partial failure if left to herself without the guidance, the encouragement, the help of the sympathetic, the great-hearted, capable principal.

Our good teachers must be made largely in our own schools; sooner and better for the fitting preparation, but in the actual school-room must she learn to interest, to instruct, to develop, and at the same time to control with a quiet, discerning watchfulness, an easy grace, and an ever-growing power, and by the aid and wise direction. of her principal.

In

Vacancies in our schools are of daily occurrence. one there are always those below ready and willing to advance to the vacant place-the double-division teacher to the single room, the cadet to the double-division—all alive to the work, ambitious, able, progressive, with no necessity for looking beyond the walls of the school.

In another, how different the situation! the cadet is weak, unequal to the charge of a room, for which a

supply is sought elsewhere; the first-grade teacher has become acquainted with her duties, and shrinks from the effort needed for a higher grade; a sixth, a seventh grade becomes vacant, and the city must be searched, the country scoured for a teacher equal to the place, while the several grade teachers plod on as before in their old, familiar round, without promotion, without ambition, and without meritorious desert.

Many an excellent teacher do we draw from the outlying districts and from the normal schools; but the best, most progressive, most thoroughly in earnest, and successful schools are those which make their own teachers; and from no one thing would I judge of the worth of a principal so confidently as from his success in converting these young, inexperienced, but bright and educated girls, into earnest, studious, skillful, and inventive teachers, ready at the principal's call to take this or that position, whatever it be, with full reliance upon his wisdom and discrimination, nor standing upon any supposed or imaginary rights that may be in the way of the best interests of the school.

Not long since I read in an educational journal an article upon school discipline, in which the writer said. that "obedience must be immediate and absolute." In a well-ordered school the discipline should make a small demand upon the teacher's time or strength-should not be as the same writer states, "the most painful part of a teacher's work," but kindly, loving, winning. What more pleasing than to observe with watchful care the daily development of the mind, the will, the character? "Obedience immediate and absolute"? For the soldier on the battle's edge-yes; but for the child with his instincts of self-hood, his budding reason, his untrained will, and his intuitions of freedom, the thing is unreason

able, absurd, and impossible. Which of us can at all times control his will or command his attention to a dull discourse, a stupid book, or an uninteresting recital? Prompt and cheerful compliance, I admit; but "immediate and absolute"? the words savor of the drillmaster, the martinet, the tyrant, the despot, rather than of the teacher and guide of youth, and are destructive of all true education and worthy development.

With the quality of the discipline of the school the principal has much to do; the animating spirit that shall give shape to it all is his. Obedience, indeed, is a necessity, but an obedience based upon a respect for authority and an appreciation of good order and regard for a respected teacher.

I should probably be misunderstood if I should say, as I firmly believe, that the principal should always sustain the teacher; he should make her feel, should let the pupil know that he is with her, even when in error, as a firm and faithful friend and support. And in any untoward event should he kindly see her through and out of her difficulties before the thought of censure has taken shape. Not censure, but counsel, should be his, showing where was the error; how the direct issue might have been judiciously avoided and the insubordinate pupil led and lifted to a wiser way and a higher life, where the beauty of order and the necessity of subjection to reason and properly constituted authority would be clearly discerned and gladly acknowledged.

The principal, too, has much to do with the mental growth of his teachers. Our teachers' meetings are of necessity largely given to the discussion of methods, of the ways and means of school-teaching. She who would make teaching a profession must know of the underlying principles of which these methods are but the flower,