ment. Let this be generally done, and teaching will soon be
raised, in public estimation, to the rank of a learned profession; and
the _fourth learned profession_--the vocation of the practical
educator--will be taken up for life by as great a proportion of men and
women eminent for talent, cultivation, and moral worth, as either of the
other three professions have ever been able to boast.

* * * * *

SCHOOLS SHOULD CONTINUE THROUGH THE YEAR.

Schools should be kept open at least ten full months during the
year; in other words, _the entire year_, with the usual quarterly or
semi-annual vacations.--_Michigan School Report._

It is not enough that good school-houses be provided and well-qualified
teachers be employed. Our schools should be kept open a sufficient
length of time during the year to make their influence strongly and most
favorably felt. The work of instruction, while it is going forward,
should be the business of both teachers and scholars. If children are
habituated to industry, to close application, to hard study, and to good
personal, social, and moral habits during the period of their attendance
upon school, these habits will be favorably felt in after life, in the
development of characters whose possessors will be at once respectable
and useful members of society, and a blessing to the age in which they
live. On the contrary, if children are allowed to attend an indifferent
school three months during the year, to work three months, to play three
months, and are permitted to spend the remaining three months in
idleness, the influence of this course will be felt, and it will be
likely to give character to their future lives.

Under such circumstances, the good, if any, that children will receive
while attending an indifferent school one fourth of the year, will be
more than counterbalanced by the evil influences that surround them
during the half of the year they devote to play and idleness. We can not
reasonably expect that children brought up under such unfavorable and
distracting influences will become even respectable members of society,
much less that they will be a blessing to the generation in which they
live.

In villages and densely-settled neighborhoods schools should be kept
open at least ten full months during the year; in other words, _the
entire year_, with the usual quarterly or semi-annual vacations; and, if
possible, they sho