5. THE PUBLIC SCHOOL TEACHER IN THE REPUBLIC.

UPON every teacher in the public schools of the United States, whether man or woman, the State has laid a dual responsibility:

1. A duty of immediate, but relatively of secondary, importance, namely, to teach the children of the people. those elementary branches of knowledge which shall fit them for self-support, a useful and an honest life, and thus subserve their material interests; and

2. Far above and beyond this plain and simple function, that grave responsibility, peculiar to the office of the American teacher alone, out of which has been evolved during the present century the institution of the American Free Public School, namely, the imperative duty of preparing the children committed to their care to become not only self-supporting and intelligent citizens, but citizens thoroughly loyal to the Republic: noble types of American citizenship, fitted to be governors of men: sovereigns worthy of their birthright as free men, distinctly American in character and purpose." This is a duty which calls for far higher qualities and attainments than that which seeks to promote the merely material interests of the pupil. It is a duty which has to do largely with the moral and spiritual nature of the child, which demands the possession of talents and an intellectual training of a high order, the wise exercise of which elevates the work of the teacher to the importance, rank, and dignity of a profession second to no other.

With all knowledge, so far as the first group of duties is concerned, teachers may be eminently disqualified to teach American boys and girls, in the rudest log schoolhouse, situated in the remotest corner of the Union,

because they are ignorant of, or fail to appreciate, or do not heartily believe in, or are actually hostile to, American institutions and ideals, and are therefore incapable of putting themselves in touch with the spirit of the republic in which they live. Hence, neither by reason of their great learning, their scholarship, or their piety, alone; nor, indeed, by virtue of all these acquirements combined, are they fitted for the noblest work which the American teacher is called upon to perform, if they lack the one indispensable quality of unswerving loyalty to American principles and republican ideals. The questions, therefore, which the American parent is beginning to ask of teachers, of school committees, of superintendents, of commissioners and boards of education, and which are destined to become more urgent, more searching, and more imperative day by day, as these parents come to understand better the true functions of the public school and its relations to a loyal citizenship, are, to what extent are the teachers in our public schools animated by the noble spirit and the high purpose which characterized the fathers of the republic, and which qualifies them to raise up and patriotically train American youths?

First, and most essential of all, teachers should be enthusiastic lovers of their country, understanding well and believing in its characteristic institutions, familiar with its ideals, faithfully obeying its laws, thoroughly in touch with the spirit of the republic, presenting to their pupils in their personal character and daily conduct living examples of the high-minded, high-purposed, broadcultured, large-hearted, and loyal American citizen.

As citizens, they should have a profound appreciation of the civil, educational, and religious liberties enjoyed by the people under our form of government, and be prepared to explain to others, not teachers, who have not had opportunities for study, precisely wherein these liberties

differ from those accorded by other governments, in other lands, to their people. The great principle that “all men are created equal before the law" should not only be made the most vital element of their political faith, but should become an indispensable factor in the discipline, rulings, and daily government of the school. They should make themselves perfectly familiar with the complex yet harmonious relations which they as citizens bear to the several local governments, village, town, county, and state, and to that of the nation under which they live, and are protected in their persons, their property, and their civil and religious rights.

As teachers, they should be filled with a deep and abiding sense of the responsibility resting upon them of so shaping the future lives and so moulding the character of their pupils that in due time these pupils shall become worthy citizens of a country of which each one is an essential and integral part, each competent to do its share in guiding the future life and defending the honor of the republic.

A distinguished educator, in speaking of the public school system as the basis of social unity in a republic, has said: “As I estimate the various professions in their various moral advantages, the moral advantage of the teacher's profession lies in its patrotism, especially as related to the common school system. It has its fascinations in many other directions, but here is its pressing obligation; here is its magnificent opportunity. To these teachers, therefore, is committed the task, not only of training their pupils to be self-supporting citizens, but citizens capable of controlling and guiding, by the wise exercise of a thoroughly trained mind and will, every intellectual power and moral force, every physical impulse, passion, and desire, so that all the powers of both mind and body shall contribute in their maximum degree

to the making of a noble man or woman, a self-reliant, self-poised, self-governing citizen, a citizen distinctly and avowedly American, one whose mental, moral, and spiritual training has been such as to teach not only how to die for, but the nobler purpose, because more difficult, how best to LIVE for one's country."

GEORGE T. BALCH. February 17, 1894.

6. SOULS, NOT STATIONS.

WHO shall judge a man from manners?
Who shall know him by his dress?
Paupers may be fit for princes,
Princes fit for something less.
Crumpled shirts and dirty jacket
May beclothe the golden ore
Of the deepest thoughts and feelings;
Satin vests could do no more.

There are springs of crystal nectar
Ever welling out of stone;
There are purple buds and golden,
Hidden, crushed, and overgrown.
God, who counts by souls, not dresses,
Loves and prospers you and me,
While He values thrones, the highest,
But as pebbles in the sea.

Man upraised above his fellows,
Oft forgets his fellows then;
Masters, rulers, lords, remember
That your meanest hinds are men!
Men by labor, men by feeling,

Men by thought, and men by fame,
Claiming equal rights to sunshine
In a man's ennobling name.

There are foam-embroidered oceans,

There are little weed-clad rills,
There are feeble inch-high saplings,
There are cedars on the hills.
God, who counts by souls, not stations,
Loves and prospers you and me;
For to Him all vain distinctions
Are as pebbles in the sea.

Toiling hands alone are builders
Of a nation's wealth and fame;
Titled laziness is pensioned,

Fed, and fattened on the same;
By the sweat of other's foreheads
Living only to rejoice,

While the poor man's outraged freedom
Vainly lifteth up its voice.

Truth and justice are eternal,

Born with loveliness and light;
Sunset's wrongs shall never prosper
While there is a sunny right;
God, whose world-wide voice is singing
Boundless love to you and me,
Sinks oppression, with its titles,
As the pebbles in the sea.

Anon.

IMMORTALITY.

Он, no! it is no flattering lure, no fancy weak or fond,
When Hope would bid us rest secure in better life beyond.
Nor loss, nor shame, nor grief, nor sin, her promise may

gainsay;

The voice divine hath spoke within, and God did ne'er

betray.

SARAH F. SMITH.