this important element of character-industry. How vivid in the memory are those thoughts received from the lips of that teacher whose soul appeared to be alive when he stood before us with a countenance expressing the pleasure he enjoyed while imparting his thoughts. We always partook of his inspiration.

The tendency of industry appears to be to awaken the intuitive faculties of a man's soul in the right direction,

To the ingenious, industrious mechanic, new applications of power are constantly displaying themselves, and he seems to lay his hand on the arcana of nature. There are numerous cases in the career of the teacher, which must be decided promptly and judiciously, for which no special preparation can possibly be made, yet such cases often cause even the educated teacher to fail. Now industry, prompted by benevolence and conscientiousness, will awaken the mind, and urge it to ultimate success by arousing the latent energies of the soul to sudden and unexpected discoveries of means. Many avenues are discovered by which to reach the mind of the pupil. The teacher must learn the inherent disposition of his pupils as expressed by the organization which can only be learned by an application of the means placed in his reach, by observation, reading, and an exercise of the reasoning faculties, assisted by intuition. The true teacher will seek to know the secondary character of his pupil as indicated by his parental influence and family surroundings, and also how this character has been modified by society and previous education in schools, the learning of which will require an application of all the powers of the brightest intellect and unremitting industry. W. B.

For the Journal of Education.

ECONOMY OF THREE-CENT MEN,

OR THE CONVERSATION BETWEEN NEIGHBOR AND MR. 8.

Neighbor-Have they got a teacher yet in this district? asked a neighbor of the Superintendant.

Mr. S.-No! and what's more, I mean to defeat the idea of their getting any school here for the winter. If you will put in with me, we can work that card nicely.

N.-How! there are quite a number of large scholars who intend to go to school, here at home this winter?

Mr. S.—I can not help that. I am not going to pay for their education; our children are small, and we can keep them at home, or we can hire a

girl for ten shillings per week, who can teach them all that is required, besides doing some other work, and I want a hired girl.

Now if you will join in with me in a plan like this, we will pick up a few voters, go early to the annual meeting, there will be but few there, and we can carry any measure which you choose.

All the school money will come into my hands, ex-officio. I will put you in for district treasurer, and in case there is no winter school, we can hold this money for nearly a year. We can loan it for twenty-five per cent. So you see we can reap a fair profit with a little management.

N-Well, I am willing to do any thing to defeat the west end of the district, so here's agreed. Keep the secret careful.

Thus reasoned the Superintendent and his neighbor; but their plan failed, their secret got out previous to the meeting. Mr. Selfish lost his measure, lost the good will of the community, lost his confidence in his own ability, so that he has not been able to address the school in his own district since. * * * *

I give the above as (an illustration. 'Tis not a single instance; there are many similar ones. It only exhibits the selfishness of some human natures.

Mr. Selfish was willing to sacrifice the wants of the district to his own personal uses, and pay the expense with usurious interest, raised from the public money.

We have too many of these three-cent men, who, Judas-like, would sell the dearest interests of community for thirty pieces of silver (all in three cent pieces.)

We want men of more stern integrity of character. Men of more extended genius-of more enlightened views. The world is calling loudly for them, and in order to obtain them, would willingly sacrifice quite a number of these narrow-minded conservative three cent men upon the altar of public opinion. Let us have our schools; let them be taught regularly summer and winter, whether Mr. Selfish sends or not. Let us have teachers who are qualified to carry scholars to any limit in science, so that none are compelled to stay at home simply because Mr. S. wants a three cent teacher. H. M.

HOBBIES.

Every man has his hobby, says some one, and the saying has been repeated until almost every one has come to believe it true of all the world except himself, for it is with this, as with all other defects, we see those of our neighbors clearly enough, but our own "as through a glass, darkly." One idea, one aim in life, may tower high above all others, but we have no

right to let it entirely overshadow those in themselves really important. A mind whose perfect balance is continually maintained, can keep an idea of permanent importance continually in view, and yet give to others due weight and attention. But minds of another stamp, will get in sight some particular article in their creed of belief or action, and to this every thing else must give place, or bend. They can see nothing good, or beautiful, or worthy, which does not take its light from, or reflect light upon this favorite one idea. But of all classes it does seem that the brotherhood and sisterhood of teachers are, if possible, most given to hobby riding. A plan, for instance, which has once worked well in their hands, is thereupon "entered upon the statutes," and whoever tries it and fails, proves his unfitness for the work. Now it not unfrequently so happens, that a certain course which works well in one community, and under one set of circumstances, will utterly fail, even in the same hands, in another community and under another set of circumstances, and even more often is this true where the plan passes into other than the hands of the originator. One makes a hobby of some study. He happens, perhaps, to be himself particularly fond of mathematics, and woe betide the unlucky wight to whom the mysteries of numbers are, as it were, a sealed book. No allowance must be made for "total depravity by nature" here. Grammar, Geography and History must stand one side, and little boys and girls must know all about vulgar fractions and duodecimals, whether they know the name of the capital of their state, and how it is spelled, or not. Another has the organ of language largely developed, and the languages, dead or alive, must his scholars study. Lucky indeed they are, if he allows them to become tolerably familiar with the English, before he hurries them on to study Latin and French. Another teacher will forever harangue you about government, a quiet school, perfect decorum; his school, (and a modle one it is to be sure,) is controlled by love; no boy so wild and unruly, no girl so sullen and stupid, but all is set right by "the mild and sweet inquences of love." To hear another talk and see him act, would make you conclude that the seat of every child's conscience was in the hand or shoulders, and only to be reached through the medium of the ferule.

A wise teacher will avoid these antipodes of theory and practice. He will be on the look out for new common sense theories, and carefully and patiently will he put them to the only true test-that of experiment.

A teacher who is forever harping on the same string, never willing to let old systems give place to new ones, shows the same kind of sense and as much of it, as the person who insists upon always using tallow candles, because he once thought they gave good light. We wan't good, well-tried systems, not hobbies, and then we want resolute, working men and women, not to ride hobbies, but able to carry triumphantly the system they choose. Lazy teachers are fast going out of vogue. Teachers institutes, school journals, state and county conventions are teaching school patrons what schools can and ought to be. Living, breathing men are beginning to see that here is a field of usefulness, hitherto nearly overlooked. The

truth has actually dawned upon some, that an individual to be a good teacher must have good sense, industrious, energetic habits, and a wholesome, moral character, in addition to a good education. The idea that any body will do to teach a primary department in a graded school, or a country district school, is near exploding; it will burst like a bombshell by and by, and the expansive force will carry entirely out of sight the whole set of pedagogues too lazy and selfish and miserable to fit themselves decently for the work. Their places will be filled by persons capable of magnifying their office and making it honorable. Let us look forward hopefully to the time, the good time which is surely coming. We foretell its approach by the shadow it casts before.

E. L. B.

HARTFORD, Wis.

EARNESTNESS.

HOWEVER far advanced in life we may be, we invariably bow to the mandate of a will stronger than our own, whenever brought in contact with the mightier purpose.

The greater the disparity of power, ours being the weaker will, the more willingly do we yield to its influence. Sitting at the feet of a Gamaliel in goodness, we may, by worshiping his superiority, become superior to those who are beyond the magic circle of direct influence.

I know of no quality of soul more attractive, more instinctively imitated, and more zealously to be cultivated, than an active, earnest spirit. It is indispensable in those who intend to become teachers, as well as in those who have already entered upon active labors in the school-room.

We see it in the first dawnings of intellect-the will of the meek child bowing to that of the earnest loving mother. A command is given to the child-how quickly that little face is upturned to the mother's eye to peer into her very soul. If there he reads a deep fixed purpose to be obeyed, how cheerfully he complies, but on the contrary does he read a wavering purpose, a vacillating will, he scruples not to disobey.

A teacher enters the school-room with a smile, underlying which, is a firm resolve to do his duty unflinchingly, and having a deep sense of his responsibilities. How soon the fair young faces become shaded with intense thought as they bend to their books,-their lessons, tasks no more, because they are learning to think. How promptly and with spirit, each request is complied with, and how pleasantly the hours glide on uncounted, and the last "good night," trilled by sweet child voices, lingers like a benison on the teacher's soul, to make the night good indeed, and beautiful with pleasant dreamings.

Children are subtle thinkers and close reasoners. Nothing escapes their searching scrutiny. No act of the teacher's, however trivial to him, passes without comment by his pupils. They note every change of countenance however slight-every intonation of voice, every gesture, and by these, regulate their conduct in the school-room. If they read a weak will, easily swayed from the right by entreaty, or cajoled by flattery, they seek every opportunity to turn him aside, to further some selfish, childish purpose, and soon lose all respect for one, who thus becomes impotent for good in the school room. Earnest teachers make earnest pupils; earnest pupils become earnest men and women, who are noble, high souled, and who constitute the "bone and sinew" of our social structure.

"Let us then be up and doing

With a heart for any fate,

Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to labor and to wait."

To wait for the harvest of earnest endeavor which shall surely be garnered by the earnest teacher.

WHITEWATER Wis. Feb., 1858.

NETTIE ROBERTS.

HOW WILL YOU HELP YOURSELF?

A farmer once hired a laborer to prune and trim an orchard of valuable fruit trees, and to graft upon some of the branches some more choice varieties. After two or three days he went to see the work, when he found to his great dismay, that the limbs of some of his favorite trees had been carelessly lopped, that the grafting was worse than useless, and in short that many of the trees, by means of the ignorance of the workman, were nearly ruined. The laborer upon beholding the chagrin and anger of the owner of the orchard, at first laughed at the useless rage, and then asked derisively, "well, how will you help yourself?" Sure enough, the work was done, and how was he to help himself? Nothing but time and careful nursing could restore his orchard, and for the present he must content himself by eating fruit grown by others.

Whoever hires a laborer to work in his vineyard, must either interest himself in the work, or run the risk of finding it poorly done or his vineyard ruined. Just so, if you hire a teacher for your school, and sending your children thither, fail yourself to look after the work done, if by and by you find that your money has been worse than uselessly spent, how will you help yourself? If little Johnny, just forming his reading habits, acquires one of mechanically calling the nomes of the words before him,