t how
to handle the curious instrument with skill and even with elegance. But
you will see teachers, so called, who seem never to make any of this
progress in their work. They have no more idea now, than they had when
they gave their first lesson, of what they must do to secure attention
and silence, how they must manage to keep all the children busy, how to
secure good attendance, or study of the lesson, how to gain affection
and confidence, how to enforce order and obedience, how to do anything,
except to sit, book in hand, and ask the questions one after the other
round the class, and see that John, George, and James severally say the
answers correctly. This is the idea of teaching with which they begin,
and they make no progress towards anything better. They acquire no
skill. They make no growth. They are "grown-up" bodily. But in all that
pertains to teaching, they are still babes. They whittle as awkwardly
and unskilfully as when the delicate instrument was first put into their
clumsy fingers. They go on from year to year and learn nothing.

Some persons are born teachers, just as some are born poets or
mechanics. That is, they are gifted with a natural aptitude for that
particular work. But those most gifted by nature, are capable of
improvement, and those having least natural gifts for teaching, may
acquire a certain and a very considerable amount of skill, by proper
observation and study. The point which I wish to make, and which I deem
important, is, that teachers should not rest content with their present
qualifications, whatever they may be, whether large or small. Let it be
the aim of every one to be a growing teacher. We come short, if we are
not better teachers this year than we were last. We should aim and
resolve to be better teachers next year than we are now. Our education
as teachers should never be considered as finished. Forgetting the
things which are behind, let us ever press forward. Let us constantly
aim upward. Skill in teaching admits of infinite degrees, and no one
will ever be perfect in it. Efforts at improvement, if persistently
followed up, are always rewarded with success, and success in such a
work brings a most sweet recompense. What satisfaction is equal to that
of feeling that one is steadily increasing in the power of guiding and
moulding the minds of others? Growing skill in anything, even in works
requiring mechanical ingenuity, brings joy to the mind. How much more
intense and p