way of doing this, and that is
raising the personal characters and attainments of 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 towards 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 most
successfully in the exercise of it, and who by his general attainments,
and public character, stands out most fully to the view of the public,
as a well informed, liberal minded, and useful man.

If this is so, and it cannot well be denied, it furnishes every teacher
a strong motive to exertion, for the improvement of his own personal
character. But there is a stronger motive still, in the results which
flow directly to himself, from such efforts. No man ought to engage in
any business which, as mere business, will engross all his time and
attention. The Creator has bestowed upon every one a mind, upon the
cultivation of which, our rank among intelligent beings, our happiness,
our moral and intellectual power, every thing valuable to us, depend.
And after all the cultivation which we can bestow, in this life, upon
this mysterious principle, it will still be in embryo. The progress
which it is capable of making is entirely indefinite. If by ten years of
cultivation, we can secure a certain degree of knowledge and power, by
ten more, we can double, or more than double it, and every succeeding
year of effort, is attended with equal success. There is no point of
attainment where we must stop, or beyond which effort will bring in a
less valuable return.

Look at that teacher, and consider for a moment, his condition. He began
to teach when he was twenty years of a