but to save the profession of ignorance, and the disgrace of their advanced age, they assume the name and office of instructer. Their labour in acquiring the studies prevents them from attending to the children, in giving them that aid which they require the teacher's acquirements are suspected, and being measured by the acquisitions of some of the more advanced scholars, are frequently seen to suffer from the comparison; this makes the teacher either embarrassed or arrogant, and therefore impatient and techy.

These are some of the defects of many of our teachers. Much more might be said in the way of finding fault, but I have not space or inclination to pursue this unpleasant task. One mend-fault is worth ten find-faults, all the world over. I will now, in the second place, mention some of the qualifications which every teacher should have; and from these, others, which I may not notice, may be inferred.

In the first place, teachers should well consider the nature of their business. You are now acting upon mind-mind that is young and flexible. Your example, your opinions, your address, are to form in your pupils such characters as will make them either useful and happy, or useless and miserable. You are acting upon minds which will act upon other minds, and your whole influence will go towards the formation of the character of society. You should, then, consider well the nature of your business. You should examine yourselves, and see

if you are prepared for an office at once so honourable, influential, and responsible.

It will be necessary for you to examine your acquirements, for you should thoroughly understand the branches you will be expected to teach. The improvement of the scholars is your whole duty. You cannot, while an instructer, attend to the improvement of yourself, especially in those branches of knowledge which you are teaching your scholars. You cannot give what you have not; and you will not be able to teach others unless you have first learned yourself. Before you commence the duties of instructing, you should have a thorough knowledge of the studies usually pursued in common schools.

The grace,

You should be a good reader. beauty, and expression of this art cannot be taught by oratorical rules, nor by the machinery of punctuation. The feeling, and the force of reading, your pupils must learn from your example. By reading with that tone of voice which the sentiment demands, and with correct emphasis, you will be able to make a passage intelligible to your younger pupils, which you could not do by verbal definition or ingenious illustration. To read well is to produce all the effect the sentiment is capable of doing. It is not, as many teachers would lead their scholars to suppose, the punctilious observance of pauses, the certain rise and fall of voice at the commencement and termination of every period, the continuous loud explosions of the high tones of the

voice, or all these, that make agreeable or affecting reading. Yet we should think that many teachers supposed it was, from the manner they permit or teach their scholars to read. How many disagreeable, powerless readers, either from the carelessness or the ignorance of teachers ! Teachers may see that punctuation is entirely artificial, and that it is impossible for it to graduate the reading as the sense would direct. You should practically believe, that nothing can make your scholars read well but a full understanding, and a deep, adequate feeling of what they utter. You should be able to convince them of this by your own correct, impressive reading. You should, by your reading, compel their minds to know, and believe, that a book has ideas-that it contains something which they do not know, but which they may comprehend, and make their own.

Your scholars, from the manner they are taught, suppose that reading well consists in nothing else but a correctness and facility in pronouncing words. The meaning they do not get themselves, nor do they pretend to give it to others. Now, you should correct this; you should read as if your mind saw something, and as if you wished to show it to them-as if their minds were to attend to the thought, and not to the words, and stops, and manner. Show them that the same sentiment may produce a variety of dissimilar ideas and feelings, according to the way in which it is read; and at all times, produce in them the conviction that good reading

is to make the hearers feel and perceive all that the author felt and perceived. Now, unless you read well yourself, you will not be able to teach your pupils to read in this manner. If you read with an unnatural tone, with false emphasis and cadence, without distinct articulation, without intending to communicate any meaning, or with bad pronunciation, or with hesitation, or stammering, or indistinct rapidity, or in a careless, awkward position and manner, your scholars will do the same: and on the other hand, if you read with grace, with feeling, with intelligence, and with a voice pitched in harmony with the sense, your scholars will be likely to read in the same style. After all your instruction, and with the help of all the rules they can learn, your pupils will be sure to get into bad habits of reading, unless your own example of good reading prevents them. I would say it then, again, let every teacher be a good reader.

I have dwelt at some length on this qualification in a teacher, from its vast importance. A child, or a youth, is liable at all times to be called upon to read; it is a little service, which all in good courtesy expect from each other, and we may be asked to render it by the family fireside, or in the drawing-room; in the private circle, or at the public meeting; at all times, and in every variety of circumstances; now to amuse the cheerful, and now to instruct the thoughtful; now before the learned, and now before the unlearned. Then, let what is always expected, and may be called for at

any time, have every attention from the teacher, and the highest regard from the scholar.

A teacher should be a good penman. He should write a round, smooth, free hand, yet one that is bold and rapid. You may compel the scholars to hold the pen correctly—you may keep them in a proper position-you may enforce a good degree of attention to their pen and marks; but after all this, unless you can present them a good copy for imitation, your labours will be in vain. It is not by being told what is good, but it is by seeing it, that will make scholars improve in writing; or in almost any thing else. Then, to be a teacher, you should be a good penman, and know how to make others excel you.

You should be ready and accurate in the science of arithmetic. Your ability to make the scholars perform the most obvious examples, or understand the most simple rule, will be in proportion to the knowledge you have of the whole science. You cannot be an instructive teacher, one that will make the thing simple and easy, except you have studied the science sufficiently to see something of its nature and application. In the science of numbers and quantity, each step teaches and illustrates the succeeding step. A man should be a good arithmetician to be a good teacher even in the simple rule of addition. You should be so familiar with this science, that you will know how the mind acquires this knowledge. You should be able to perceive at once, whether or not the pupil under