lege will continue to be the kind of teacher
he is, and will continue to belong to what seems to many, at least, the
sentimental and superstitious and pessimistic profession he belongs to
now. Why should a teacher allow himself to teach without inspiration in
the one profession on the earth where, between the love of God and the
love of the opening faces, inspiration--one would say--could hardly be
missed? Certainly, if it was ever intended that artists should be in the
world it was intended that teachers should be artists. And why should we
be artisans? If we cannot be artists, if we are not allowed to make our
work a self-expression, were it not better to get one's living by the
labour of one's hands,--by digging in the wonder of the ground? A
stone-crusher, as long as one works one's will with it, makes it say
something, is nearer to nature than a college. "I would rather do manual
labour with my hands than manual labour with my soul," the true artist
is saying to-day, and a great many thousand teachers are saying it, and
thousands more who would like to teach. The moment that teaching ceases
to be a trade and becomes a profession again, these thousands are going
to crowd into it. Until the artist-teachers have been attracted to
teaching, things can only continue as they are. Young men and women who
are capable of teaching will continue to do all that they can not to get
into it; and young men and women who are capable of teaching, and who
are still trying to teach, will continue to do all that they can to get
out of it. When the schools of America have all been obliged, like the
city of Brooklyn, to advertise to secure even poor teachers, we shall
begin to see where we stand,--stop our machinery a while and look at it.

The only way out is the return to nature, and to faith in the freedom of
nature. Not until the teacher of the young has dared to return to
nature, has won the emancipation of his own instincts and the
emancipation of the instincts of his pupils, can we expect anything
better than we have now of either of them. Not until the modern teacher
has come to the point where he deliberately works with his instincts,
where he looks upon himself as an artist working in the subject that
attracts him most, and in the material that is attracted to him most,
can we expect to secure in our crowded conditions to-day enough teaching
to go around. The one practical and economical way to make our limited
supply of passio