That teacher can accomplish but little, even though he may possess the genius and ardor of a Pestalozzi, whose pupils come wandering along, one by one, during the first hour of b th forenoon and afternoon sessions. Tardiness in a scholar is entirely unpardonable, if caused by parental negligence. Every parent should know that he has no right thus to abridge the privileges of his neighbor. He should fully understand that nothing can be done in school while doors are slamming and children walking about the floor. It is time that these matters received a tithe of the attention which their importance demands. It is certainly high time that parents and guardians should awake to some of the duties and responsbilities of their situation. Awake! awake, ye sleepers, and work for the welfare of your offspring.

II.

To THE SCHOOL OFFICERS.

UPON you, in a great measure, depends the success or failure of our schools, We may speculate in regard to good and bad schools; we may wrangle and quarrel in regard to free schools, taxation aud rate-bills; but unless you assume the responsibility which the law imposes on you-unless you secure the services of a competent teacher, all our talk will be unavailing. It will not be necessary for you to ask the opinion of every man in the district, on every little unimportant matter, before you act. By electing you to office your neighbors virtually recognize you as a man of sense, and now you are called upon to exhibit it. Be not actuated by any low, sordid, soulless and shortsighted parsimony. Remember, you were not placed in your present responsible station to see how many dollars and cents you can save to the district; neither were you placed there to gratify some petty private pique, or to favor some unworthy relative. You have higher and holier duties to perform; you have more exalted rules of action, which should ever govern your conduct. Discard all selfishness and your school will show such an advance during the coming season, as it has never before exhibited. We would not suppose you ignorant of your duties; but alas! many of you are exceedingly negligent. Let us urge upon you a few of your important and necessary duties:

1.-You should engage a whole-souled, well-educated and competent teacher to take charge of your school. Let him, or her, as the case may be, be a qualified teacher, not merely in the eyes of the law and the inspectors of primary schools, who alas! are too often incapacitated from judging, but let him be qualified in the highest sense of the term-mentally, physically, and morally. Young misses, scarcely yet in their teens, too proud to labor as their mothers did in the good old days of primeval simplicity; and boys at sixteen are not supposed to posess all the qualifications necessary to insure success; they are not supposed to have examined all the secret springs of human aetion very closely! Be sure that, with some degree of age, your teacher possess the all-important and necessary item of common sense. Many people have all other sorts of sense but this. They may be well versed in all the isms and ologies taught in our universities, and still lack this essential ingredient of a successful man's character. If there be any station in life where this element is demanded, it is in the teachers.' He must have studied human nature to some purpose; he must know how to approach the parents and children on the right side. If he does not possess this qualification, things will go wrong -perpetual discord will reign triumphant-the parents will shun him-the children will hate him, and the best thing he can do for the interest of the

rising generation, as well as for his own particular benefit, is to resign his station and not add the perversion of God's image to his other sins.

As regards mental development, let your teacher be well educated. You cannot expect a person to teach what he has never learned. You cannot expect a man to pay you ten dollars, who has but one dollar in the world.Equally absurd is it to suppose that a man can teach when he has not acquired the necessary information. Whatever other qualifications your teacher may possess, if he be not familiarly acquainted with the branches he will be obliged to teach, he is entirely unfit for his office. How lamentable to see the "blind leading the blind!" The teacher should be able to detect all common and ordinary instances of incorrect spelling and reading, without reference to the dictionary; he should be able to detect errors in mathematics without a long and laborious investigation; he should be able to find the capital of an important country without searching all over the map for it; he should be able to unite half-a-dozen lines of the English language without making more than twice as many blunders in manner and matter; he should be so well acquainted with the world's history as to know whether Julius Cæsar lived in Rome or the Sandwich Islands; he should be so well versed in the annals of his own country as to be able to state conclusively whether Washington lived before or since the birth of Christ. We are sorry to be obliged to say that all teachers do not posess these necessary qualifications.

Again, your teacher should be well educated in a physical point of view; he should have some definite conception of man's organization; he should have the full use of all of his limbs and faculties. It has been the currently received opinion for years, that the decrepit, the halt, and the lame, were good enough for teachers, but this opinion should prevail no longer. Let your teacher, physically, be a perfect man, and, other things being equal, he will command a greater amount of respect from his pupils. In looking after a person to whom you shall confide the interest of your offspring, ever regard the old adage, "a sound mind in a sound body."

Above all things, let the moral developments of your teachers, be of the proper character. How lamentable is the fact that this matter receives so little attention! Every low scout, too lazy to work, who can muster brass enough to go before the inspectors(?) gets his certificate of qualification, and goes forth to contaminate innocence and purity, to fatten on the life-blood of community. This should not be, and we entreat you, as you value the wellbeing of your children, as you love your country and the human race, as you regard your accountability to your God, make some specific inquiries in reference to the moral qualifications of him who is to be the example for your children. Suffer no teacher to go into your school-house, who will not "labor in season and out of season," for the elevation of his youthful charge. Be not the means of introducing the unworthy within the pale of the teachers' vocation. Let your teacher be exempt from all the low vices so prevalent in community-such as drinking, smoking, chewing, &c. Examine his character and habits critically, and if the least taint averse to a dignified and whole-souled manliness is found upon hm, suffer not your children to come within the poisoned circle of his influence. On the other hand, if you are satisfied that he is one in whom you can confide the eternal interests of your offspring, let not the secondary matter of dollars and cents prevent you from engaging him. Remember the old adage, "The clergyman can scarcely mend what the

schoolmaster mars."

WATCH, MOTHER.

Mother! watch the little feet
Climbing o'er the garden wall,
Bounding through the busy street,
Ranging cellar, shed and hall.
Never mind the time it cost;
Little feet will go astray,

Guide them, mother, while you may.

Mother! watch the little hand

Picking berries by the way,
Making houses in the sand,

Tossing up the fragrant hay.
Never dare the question ask,
"Why to me this weary task?”
These same little hands may prove
Messengers of light and love.

Mother! watch the little tongue
Prattling, eloquent and wild.
What is said and what is sung,
By the happy, joyous child.
Catch the word while yet unspoken.
Stop the vow before 'tis broken;
This same tongue may yet proclaim
Blessings in a Saviour's name.

Mother! watch the little heart

Beating soft and warm for you;
Wholesome lessons now impart ;

Keep, O keep that young heart true,
Extricating every weed,

Sowing good and precious seed,
Harvest rich you then may see,
Ripening for eternity.

Professional.

THE TEACHER'S SOCIAL RANK-REMEDIES.

EXTRACT FROM AN ADDRESS BEFORE THE NEW YORK STATE TEACAERS' ASSOCIATION,

BY D. B. SCOTT,

By what has it come about, then, that the teacher-I mean always the common school teacher--has neither status nor influence corresponding to the nobility of his calling; that for the most part, he is reckoned simply a school keeper, and nothing else; that the lowest seats at feast and synagogue are left for him, if he be left any; that he must sit so often wisely dumb, and prove a willing listener to others' wisdom; that church and state must be pillared and governed, but not by him; that, in short, he must be committed to the eternal silences, to comfort himself as he may.

The finest school-houses rise on all hands, better than many of the ancient temples of the gods. They are so numerous, too, that in fact they make

style of architecture, distinct and readily understood. Even the very furniture has become a separa e branch of manufacture, lucrative and extensive. A stranger is shown with pride, amid the notable things, the school-houses. How often is he shown the school master or the school mistress? One would like to see amid a fair garden the gardener himself. The roses are sweet, the exotics are rare, the grounds are in excellent taste, but where is the mind that arranged them thus, is there no honor due him; some visible token of respect; shall we go cap in hand to the garden or the gardener?

Or, is it in an assembly of that best society, where wit, good breeding and culture reign, you will find the teacher of the village or the city common school? Ask yourselves this question and answer it too. When Dr. Hamel

comes on a scientific tour from St. Petersburgh, I should much like to see him in private, to hear him, to learn of him, mayhap, if he were willing to communicate; or sit with Emerson, when he is genial beside his friend's chimney corner; or mingle with wisdom, wit or genius, as it curves and sways in social life. But how many of such opportunities do the most favored of us get; and when some of us do get them, so seldom have they come, that we are often too awkward, or oppressed or uneasy to profit by them. In social life a man or woman must be easy, to prove a cheerful absorbent.

As to public life, I only make a passing allusion, for I find but few of my mates that have risen to any celebrity therin. One or two, I know, have fledged at once into aldermen; but an alderman in my own city is rather an ascent downwards. Another-a man of spirit and genius, by the way—had the terrible audacity to placard the fences in his recent canvass for Register, with great letters, "Vote for John Roe the school master;" thus throwing his calling in the very teeth of the public, and in spite of this, as I verily believe, was successful. There are, no doubt, a few other instances, but these partial exceptions only prove a strong rule the other way.

Thus it has come about that in the year of our Lord, 1855, we have reached a point in our common school system, where the public praise much, where the orators have many ready rounded periods, and where are vastly better school houses than formerly, but where I do not find the social position of the teacher correspondingly improved.

It is easy to find fault with this state of things and so organize a great army of grumblers; to supply officers and orators for such an army enough; to growl out in the plainest English, "Less talk-less talk, and better treatment." But will this remedy the matter thoroughly?

By way of a remedy any words have been spent on the recognition of teaching as a profession As though there had been some defrauding of us by the public out of the worth of a name, or a calling us out of our true name. According to this, it would appear that the true social remedy, is to get this name of a profession, because we see that professional men have a certain status, which we have not, and which we very much long to get. It is the Tyrian purple, the robe of errnine, the fasces, the very thunderbolts of Jove, the encompassing around of a great robe of influence, this name of a profession. Thus honestly say some, and no doubt believe what they say.

A good name is a good thing; a noble name is also a good thing; but what makes the name noble or good? The worth or worthiness of the wearer. If my license to be a teacher shall introduce me to a circle of noble men or women, as a cross of the legion of honor at once inducts the wearer into the

order of a'l brave spirits, then it is something to have the license of a teacher. But does any profession really do this? Does the ministry which fences itself round with the highest barriers, which guards itself by a jealous and exclusive watchfulness? Any such arrangement, though it may guard against looseness of doctrine or irregularity of life, does not of itself give professional status. The rank is but the guinea's stamp. A man's a man for a' that."

A man must show himself a man in this, as elsewhere. The day of drones is passing away in this as everywhere. Do you doubt it? Look round on the ministry, and count those who have character and influence, who have not in some way or other deserved it. Justice is not blind, although the old mythology wrapped a bandage about her eyes. This is to be reckoned one of our American blessings: by no means the smallest. For, why should my brethren of the law, or divinity or medicine, be professional and respected because it is law, or divinity or medicine they profess? And it will be found, I fancy, if we examine deeper, that it is not law and divinity as things that do ennoble the men in them. But it is the noble living of those who have been in them, that has come down on the present, and each generation enters, in a measure, into the reputation of the past. There are others who contend that as the teacher has been paid shamefully low, and yet is so paid in many places; that the value of a man's services is not to be underrated without lowering the man, and that salary is often the foundation of social consideration. With them the true way to give social position, is to pay the teachers better. Perhaps this might, in some cases, have the desired effect, but there is a very simple way to dispose of this position, and that is by the question, "Why are better salaries paid than formerly?" Simply because the services of teachers are worth more, because they are better. If this be likely to improve our social grade, the matter would seem to lie greatly within our own reach.

At this point, bear with me when I say that perhaps in this matter society is not wholly to blame, and that we are ourselves to blame not a little. And this brings me to speak of the remedies within our power.

Highest, I place a consciousness of the worth of our calling; no human being ever yet worked well in what he felt to be a worthless work. It makes little difference what others may think of its value, what the Honorable Governor This, or the Reverend Doctor THAT, may say. Your own thought influences you, because your own thought stays by you: their sayings are to you at second hand. If nothing but the face of drudgery, sad, weary drudgery, looks up at you, out of your calling, rid yourself by looking at it earnestly, and settle it decidedly, whether this face cannot be turned into the noble face of most pleasant duty. If there be any love in the business, a good heart and hope, teaching will stand such an examination. If we will look with a right spirit how much shall we see! These are noble lines in that fine old poet, Herbert:

VOL. 2. 22

"A MAN that looks on glass

On it may stay his eye,

Or, if it pleaseth, through it pass,

And then the heaven espy.

All may of thee partake,

Nothing can be so mean,

Which, with this tincture, for thy sake,
Will not grow bright and clean.