Teachers
should have faith in humanity, and should labor constantly to inspire
others with the belief that the true law of our nature is the law of
progress.
Those who come early in life to the conclusion that the many cannot be
moved by the higher sentiments and ideas which control a few favored
mortals, cease to labor for the advancement of the race. They
consequently lose their hold upon society, and society neglects them.
For such men there can be no success.
Others, like Jefferson and Channing, never lose confidence in their
species, and their species never lose confidence in them. When the
teacher comes to believe that the world is worse than it was, and never
can be better, he need wait for no other evidence that his days of
usefulness are over.
The school-room will teach the child, even as the prison will instruct
maturity and age, that few persons are vicious in the extreme, and that
no one lives without some ennobling traits of character and life. The
teacher's faith is the measure of the teacher's usefulness. It is to him
what conception is to the artist; and, if the sculptor can see the image
of grace and beauty in the fresh-quarried marble, so must the teacher
see the full form of the coming man in the trembling child or awkward
youth.
The teacher ought not to grow old. To be sure, time will lay its hand on
him, as it does on others; but he should always cultivate in himself the
feelings, sentiments, and even ambitions of youth.
Pages:
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226