diversity of character and intelligence, arises from a different physical organization, from different treatment and instruction when at home with their companions and parents, and from a great diversity of other causes which never have been noticed. These circumstances make each individual a different being for the teacher to become acquainted with. It is true that all children have many things in common; yet it is as true that each pupil has something, and a something which the teacher must understand, that is unlike any other individual. The teacher's business is not so much to inquire into the causes of these peculiarities, as it is to study them. There is as great a variety in the minds of your pupils, as there is in their faces; and, after a little discrimination, it will be as perceptible.

Teachers usually have but one government for every scholar in school. The timid, sensitive pupil receives the same treatment that the fearless and the obdurate do; and the dull and inattentive the same instruction with the sprightly and diligent. The child that should be won with tenderness and affection, is crushed with harshness and tyranny; and the pupil who is daringly vicious and impertinent, has not a tighter rein than the well-disposed and obedient. The pupil who is without restraint at home, controlled neither by parents, friends, nor conscience, the teacher attempts to govern by the same means which should be used over those who are obedient to their parents, and generally F

correct in their conduct. He does not perceive the government that is necessary for the scholar in school, from the nature of that which he is under while out. No; it often happens that the most amiable and the most unamiable, the obedient and the disobedient, those of almost intuitive perceptions and the dull and the stupid, are brought under the same form of government, and the same method of instruction! The result is, that the teacher finds that his government and punishments do not answer their end, and his pupils are not benefited by his instructions. They have not been such as their peculiar dispositions and capacities required. The pupil, who with proper management would have been an excellent scholar, is now marked out as a dunce; and he who would have been submissive and obedient, is now sent from school as irreclaimable.

This is the lamentable consequence of not discriminating character and mental abilities. O how much do teachers need this power! Who can be a fit teacher without this qualification! Then, let every teacher acquire this discriminating power and use it.

A teacher should be able to illustrate and simplify. Many of the elementary books which have appeared within two or three years have done much to make the studies of children attractive and intelligible; yet simple, familiar illustration from the teacher is required in every step of the scholar's progress. The book alone will be of little

value to the pupil; it must be accompanied with the living voice; and this voice should create an understanding between the child's mind and the book. The teacher should illustrate whatever the pupil may be attending to in a variety of ways; he should show the connexion which the lesson has to other branches of knowledge, and he should be able to apply the lesson to the objects or business the pupil is acquainted with.

The greatest truth may be made level with the capacities of the younger pupils, if the teacher is apt in his comparisons and illustrations: the most abstract truth may be invested with magical attractions, if the teacher is familiar with the subject, and sees its intimate and harmonious relations which run through all the living and visible creation. The same truths may be put into a thousand child-like forms, yet not adulterated nor divested of their power; and this the teacher should study to do by a beautiful simplicity in his language and ideas. By luminous illustrations he may make truth as cheering and nourishing to the soul as light is to the eye, or the "spirit-giving air" to the lungs; he may make the exercise of learning something new, the most delightful employment for the pupil that this world will ever give.

O why is it that children "go tardily to school?" Why is it that they dislike instruction? They were 'made to know and to learn from others :-it is because they are not taught as nature teaches,simply, variedly, pleasantly: the great teacher of

teachers should be Nature: let them watch her pouring light and truth into the infant mind, and learn a lesson which no other can teach.

Teachers must be well acquainted with the studies before they can possess this simplicity: the most learned men are always the most simple; the half-educated are those who make a pompous parade of long words and intricate unmeaning sentences. The man who is master of his subject is plain, pure, and perspicuous in his style, and always luminous and eloquent in thought: but none need this purity and simplicity of language and thought so much as the common school instructer; he is in a mental world, which is fresh from the Creator, and with narrow boundaries; he is where the world with all its duplicity and error has not yet intruded; he is in that young and small part where truth and simplicity dwell; and he should be like his citizens.

O! it has made my heart pity human weakness, to see a conceited, pompous, arrogant man, the teacher and associate of children; I would that such might learn that true greatness does not consist in appearing what they are not; nor in their ridiculous formality and magisterial bearing. The teacher, from always being the oracle of his society, is very apt to form such manners. Let me say to all such, get your scholars' respect and affection by honesty, simplicity, and truth; and not by attempting the "unheard-of and the wonderful."

SECTION IV.

QUALIFICATIONS OF TEACHERS CONCLUDED.

TEACHERS should love their business. To succeed in any art or profession, we must give to it all our energies, thoughts, and sympathies. But this we will not do except we love this art or profession. A teacher will have to make many sacrifices; he will meet with trying difficulties, and he will have to be indefatigable in his labours. Now unless he loves his employment, he will be of all men the most miserable, and will, as soon as possible, engage in something else.

I can scarcely conceive of a more unhappy man, than a district school teacher, who heartily dislikes his business; and I know not of a more useless one. He dreads the hour when he will be obliged to meet his thirty or forty cares and troubles. He is wearied with impatience for the moment when he can send them from him; and then is glad the task is done. But the morrow presents the same miserable prospect, and he enters upon his duties loathingly, and with sickness of heart.

No teacher can make his school pleasant, and his scholars contented and happy, unless he loves