perplexed, as if she could not understand
how it could be otherwise than wrong for a girl to usurp her seat.

"I mean, you do not bring it into court as a case of wrong. You do not
want her to be punished, do you?"

"No, I only want her to give me up my seat; I don't want her to be
punished."

"Well, then, you see that, although she may have done wrong to take your
seat, it is not in that point of view that you bring it into court. It
is a question about the right of property, and the lawyers call such
cases _civil_ cases, to distinguish them from cases where persons are
tried for the purpose of being punished for doing wrong. These last are
called criminal cases."

The aggrieved party still looked perplexed. "Well, Mr. B.," she
continued, "what shall I do? How shall I write it? I can not say any
thing about _civil_ in it, can I?"

A form was given her which would be proper for the purpose, and the case
was brought forward, and the evidence on both sides examined. The
irritation of the quarrel was soon dissipated in the amusement of a
semi-serious trial, and both parties good-humoredly acquiesced in the
decision.

9. TEACHERS' PERSONAL CHARACTER.--Much has been said within a few years,
by writers on the subject of education in this country, on the
desirableness of raising the business of teaching to the rank of a
learned profession. There is but one way of doing this, and that is
raising the personal characters and attainments of the teachers
themselves. Whether an employment is elevated or otherwise in public
estimation, depends altogether on the associations, connected with it in
the public mind, and these depend altogether on the characters of the
individuals who are engaged in it. Franklin, by the simple fact that he
was a printer himself, has done more toward giving dignity and
respectability to the employment of printing, than a hundred orations
on the intrinsic excellence of the art. In fact, all mechanical
employments have, within a few years, risen in rank in this country, not
through the influence of efforts to impress the community directly with
a sense of their importance, but simply because mechanics themselves
have risen in intellectual and moral character. In the same manner, the
employment of the teacher will be raised most effectually in the
estimation of the public, not by the individual who writes the most
eloquent oration on the intrinsic dignity of the art, but by the one who
goes forward mo