can be no question but that such a process of training would also powerfully influence the thinking of children. Just as constant contact with good society influences the manners of youth, so would the habit of memorizing beautiful thoughts in time affect the mind, and weave itself in with all the processes of thought.

There can be doubt that an exact memory is an immense blessing. The power of producing at pleasure not only the thought but its very form and texture just as it left the writer, every word marshaled in its proper place, instinct with life and vigor and beauty-what would not one give for this in certain moods? But the words have floated away, the form has gone; we are like one who wearily seeks to restore the matchless but shattered ruins, or to carve anew the limbs of the mutilated Grecian torso. With poetry this is still 'more true than prose. With the latter, it is possible to make some approach to the thought, although we may not be able to repeat the exact words. Much may still be saved. But with poetry, how different! Try it with some extract from Shakespeare, from Byron, from Wordsworth, from Tennyson, or from some of our own renowned poets. The mind wanders, if there be a break; to confusion follows vexation, and what would otherwise be an unpurchasable pleasure becomes an unsatisfactory as well as demoralizing regret over our own feeble memory. These attempts are, perhaps, in the seclusion of our own thoughts. Of what pleasure are we bereft when we wish to recall, for the enjoyment of our friend, the passages that gave us exquisite satisfaction? In society, as well as before the public, to quote incorrectly is to involve us in ridicule. It is not only a mistake, it is a serious blunder. Society did not ask the quotation. If it accept it, it will only take it as a perfect thing, or not at all. The same is true with quotations from scripture. Woe betide the poor wight who, among bible-taught people, substitutes a word for the old King James' translation.

This admirable faculty of exact memory teaches other things besides society and solitude. It enters into business, and powerfully affects the advanced student; it gives definiteness to our general thinking and a consciousness of power, a firm tread to the paths over which the mind travels. Its more immediate training in the school will be further considered when we come to speak of the proper use of text-books, in another paper.-Schermerhorn's Monthly.

RELATIONS BETWEEN TEACHER AND PUPIL.

BY A. E. NEWELL..

HE'S a funny teacher: she isn't cross one bit," was the remark I heard

"SHE'S

drop from the mouth of a boy, as I passed, one day, on my way to school. The words set me to thinking. Why should the child speak them, and what did they import? I have asked myself the question over and over again. Is it that the large proportions of our teachers "are cross," as he expressed it, that he should think it remarkable for his present one to be otherwise, or is there something defective in our school discipline? Do we not forget the child-nature in our desire to reach a certain standard of intellectual development?

That there is oftentimes an antagonism between teacher and pupil, is a sad truth. Can we not, as teachers, place ourselves a little nearer our restless, impetuous children than we do? Do we not often maintain a forbidding, heartless, exterior, for which there is no necessity? Does not the teacher, in her superiority, place herself upon the pinnacle of her position, and look down upon those under her care, without being herself aware of it? There is, of course, a certain dignity which every teacher should throw around her, in order that her influence shall be beneficial; but can she not be to her boys and girls their best and truest friend-one whom, in the coming years, they can still consult in their trials and perplexities, rather than be the one opposing element of their schoollife?

I once heard a gentleman say that of all his public-school teachers there were only three (two ladies) whom he cared to remember, they being the only ones who tried to interest him, a restless, frolicsome boy in his studies. Here, again, was food for my troubled mind, and it seemed to me there must be a defect somewhere, that the spirit of kindliness was on the downward grade.

"Is it the teacher or the system?" again comes up to me, and my answer is, a mixture of both. System places a large number of children under our care during too short a period for us to learn each one's individuality—indeed, it is hardly necessary to perceive an individuality; they must be viewed as one great whole, and as such, trained along! System places a high standard of scholarship before the teacher's mind and eye, and the tendency is the manufacture of machines and automata; it loses sight of the finer qualities and traits, in order to bend to the unyielding tyrant-per cent! System places the quick, restless, mischievous boy or girl by the side of the dull, plodding one, with, oftentimes, detrimental effect. System claims that every child shall be similar to every other one, and often loses sight of everything except what must be the final result.

All this is wrong, and we often hear the remark that there is no sympathy between teacher and pupil. We cry “system, system," and we make that our only excuse; yet I think it is not all. There is within the heart of every teacher something which, if she will, may draw her nearer to the many placed under her charge, no matter for how short a time. It is easy to gain the love of a bright, pleasant, well-mannered child, who has a happy, loving home, but there are others whose homes are destitute of all that is cheering; these are the ones we should take to our hearts to care for and love! I know that it is hard to love disagreeable things. Some one has said, "Any of you can get along with children who are beautiful and well-bred, but can you take those who are ugly and are ugly to you, in all their unloveliness, in all the distortions of their disjointed and unset characters, and look upon them with compassion for their wickedness, with a desire to make them better?”

· Did you ever visit the home, or rather dens, of some of your less fortunate, pupils? I often think no better task can be undertaken than that; sometime in the course of a teacher's work, she should see how one-half of her pupils live. 'Twould make her more sympathetic, more loving; she would excuse where now condems; she would lead where she now compels; and the lesson she would learn would be the one great lesson of her life! Did

you ever think of the effect which some interest shown in the welfare of such children would have? I wish I could portray some of the haunts many of our boys and girls return to after school duties! Many of you do know them-many more should! All our effort for intellectual progress is of no avail unless we carry the loving, thoughtful heart with it.

"Brutal and coarse and mean enough,

God knows, some natures are;
But He, compassionate, comes near,
And shall we stand afar?"

In reading the autobiography of John Stuart Mill, one thing impressed me strongly—the lack of love and sentiment in his early youth. At twenty-one, the young man was tired of life; he had lived, in intellect, the lives of many, but the heart was almost a desert waste! all feeling was repressed; and a spirit of sadness crept over me as I pictured him at the period when youth is the brightest, and years, never too long, so utterly desolate.

What constitutes the beauty of Arnold of Rugby? what endeared him so strongly to those under his care? His sympathy, kindly love, and ever-ready, open ear to the wants and wishes of his pupils! So, it seems to me, we should be. Our tendency is toward austerity; it is often marked on our faces. The more disagreeable and unpleasant our pupils are, the more reason have we to study into their natures, their homes, and shall often find, if we try, ample cause for deficiencies.

As the boy or girl leaves our care, he or she should look back to the short time spent with us, with pleasure; and no matter what the condition in life, rich or poor, high or low, we should always greet them with a heartiness and cheer which will render us dearer and truer. Show me one who has gained an influence over the heart as well as the mind, who can smooth away furrows and ugly looks, as well as smile with the sweetest and the loveliest, and I will show you a true teacher. I love my teacher all over," as I heard a boy say, is worth as much as the knowledge that he had perfected himself in all his studies.

66

I think in the time to come, we shall have much to learn in this respect; that we shall understand the humanity of all,-which is but partially comprehended now; and that she will be accounted worthy who cheers the lowliest, knows their sufferings and wrongs, and seeks to help, rather than she who only leads through the thorny road to knowledge.-New England Journal of Education.

THE CHILDHOOD AND SCHOOL DAYS OF LORD MACAULAY.

[From his "Life and Letters." By G. O. Trevelyan, M. P.]

WHEN, in after days, Mrs. Macaulay was questioned as to how soon she began

to detect in the child a promise of the future, she used to say that his sensibilities and affections were remarkably developed at an early age which, to hearers, appeared next to ihcredible. He would cry for joy on seeing her after a few hours' absence, and, till her husband put a stop to it, her power of exciting his feelings was often made an exhibition to her friends. She did not regard this precocity as a proof of cleverness, but, like a foolish young mother, only thought that so tender a nature was marked for early death.

HIS CHILDHOOD.

At Clapham the boy passed a quiet and most happy childhood. From the time that he was three years old, he read incessantly, for the most part lying on the rug before the fire, with his book on the ground, and a piece of bread and butter in his hand. He did not care for toys, but was very fond of taking his walk, when he would hold forth to his companion, whether nurse or mother, telling interminable stories out of his head, or repeating what he had been reading in language far above his years. He talked, as the maid said, "quite printed words," which produced an effect exceedingly droll. On a visit to Lady Waldegrave, a servant spilt some coffee on his legs. The hostess was all kindness and compassion, and when after awhile she asked him how he was feeling, the little fellow looked up in her face and replied, “Thank you, madam, the agony is abated."

HIS FIRST SCHOOL.

When still the merest child, he was sent as a day-scholar to Mr. Greaves, a shrewd Yorkshireman, who had at one time charge of almost the entire rising generation of the Common. Mrs. Macaulay explained to Tom that he must learn to study without the solace of bread and butter: "Yes, mamma, industry shall be my bread and attention my butter." But, as a matter of fact, no one ever crept more unwillingly to school. Each several afternoon he made piteous entreaties to be excused returning after dinner, and was met by the unvarying formula, No, Tom, if it rain cats and dogs, you shall go."

6.

HIS WRITINGS IN CHILDHOOD.

It is worthy of note, that the voluminous writings of his childhood, dashed off at headlong speed in the odds and ends of leisure from school study and nursery routine, are not only perfectly correct in spelling and grammar, but display the same lucidity of meaning, and scrupulous accuracy in punctuation and the other minor details of the literary art, which characterize his mature works.

HIS TREATMENT BY HIS PARENTS.

Nothing could be more judicious than the treatment that his parents at this time adopted towards their boy. They never handed his productions about, or encouraged him to parade his power of conversation or memory. They abstained from any word or act which might foster in him a perception of his own genius with as much care as a wise millionare expends in keeping his son ignorant of the fact that he is destined to be richer than his comrades. One effect of this early discipline showed itself in his freedom from vanity and susceptibility, those qualities which coupled together, in our modern psychological dialect, under the head of "self-consciousness," are supposed to be the besetting defects of the literary character.

HIS SECOND SCHOOL.

Mr. Macaulay fixed upon a private school, kept by the Rev. Mr. Preston, at Little Shelford, a village near Cambridge. The motives which guided this selection were mainly of a religious nature. The choice proved singularly fortuMr. Preston knew both how to teach his scholars and when to leave them to teach themselves. His pupils got far beyond their share of honors at the University, and of distinction in after life.

nate.

AT ASPENDEN HALL.

In 1814, Mr. Preston removed his establishment to Aspenden Hall, near Buntingford, in Hertfordshire, a large old-fashioned mansion, standing amidst extensive shrubberies, and a pleasant undulating domain, sprinkled with timber. Here Macaulay spent four most industrious years, doing less and less in the class room as time went on, but enjoying the rare advantage of studying Greek and Latin by the side of such a scholar as Malden. In this seclusion, removed from the delight of family intercourse, the boy read widely, unceasingly, more than rapidly.

HIS POWER OF MEMORY.

The secret of hise immense acquirements lay in two invaluable gifts of nature an unerring memory and the capacity of taking in at a glance the contents of a printed page. During the first part of his life he remembered whatever caught his fancy without going through the process of consciously getting it by heart. As a child, he accompanied his father on an afternoon call, and found on a table the "Lay of the Last Minstrel," which he had never before met with. He kept himself quiet with his prize while the elders were talking, and, on his return home, sat down upou his mother's bed, and repeated to her as many cantos as she had patience or strength to listen to. At one period of his life he was known to say that, if by some miracle of Vandalism, all copies of "Paradise Lost" and the "Pilgrim's Progress" were destroyed off the face of the earth, he would undertake to reproduce them both. from recollection whenever a revival of learning came.

HIS FELLOW PUPILS.

Macaulay was not unpopular among his fellow pupils, who regarded him with pride and admiration, tempered by the compassion which his utter inability to play at any sort of game would have excited in every school, private or public alike. He troubled himself very little about the opinion of those by whom he was surrounded at Aspenden. It required the crowd and the stir of a university to call forth the social qualities which he possessed in so large a measure. The tone of his correspondence during these years sufficiently indicates that he lived almost exclusively among books. His letters, which had hitherto been very natural and pretty, began to smack of the library, and please less than those written in early boyhood.

HOME EXAMPLE.

It is easy to see whence the great bishop (Wilberforce) and the great writer derived their immense industry. Working came as naturally as walking to sons who could not remember a time when their fathers idled. Fortitude, and diligence, and self-control, and all that makes men good and great, cannot be purchased from professional education. Charity is not the only quality which begins at home. It is throwing away money to spend a thousand a year on the teaching of three boys if they are to return from school only to find the elder members of their family intent on amusing themselves at any cost of pain or trouble, or sacrificing self-respect in ignoble efforts to struggle into a social grade above their own. The child will never place his aims high, and pursue them steadily, unless the parent has taught him what energy and elevation of purpose mean not less by example than by precept.