nue to be a learner
as long as you continue to be a teacher, and especially strive by all
proper means, and at all times, to enlarge the bounds of your
knowledge.

XV.

A TALENT FOR TEACHING.

There can be no doubt that some persons have a natural aptitude for
teaching. As there are born poets, so there are born teachers. Yet the
man born with the true poetic temperament and faculty will never achieve
success as a poet, unless he add study and labor to his natural gift. So
the man born with a talent for teaching needs to cultivate the talent by
patient study and practice, before he can become a thoroughly
accomplished teacher. No man probably ever showed greater native
aptitude for anything, than did Benjamin West for painting. Yet what
long years of toil and study it took for him to become a really great
painter? In teaching, as in every other profession, while men doubtless
differ as to their original qualifications and aptitudes, yet the
differences are not so great as they are often supposed to be, and they
are by no means so great as those produced by study and practice. The
man who has no special gift for this employment, but who faithfully and
intelligently tries to perfect himself in it, is sure to be a better
teacher than the one who has the natural gift, but adds to it no special
study and preparation. Indeed, if we exclude from consideration those
very nice and delicate touches in education, which are so rare as to be
quite exceptional, there is nothing in the business of teaching which
may not be acquired by any person of average ability.

When, therefore, we see a teacher not succeeding in gaining the
attention of his scholars, or in securing obedience and respect, or in
bringing them forward in their lessons, we are not disposed to free such
a person from blame on the plea of his having no natural aptitude for
teaching. We would respectfully say to such a teacher: if you know not
how to impart knowledge, learn how; if you have no tact, get it.
Teaching is a business, as much as knitting stockings, or planting corn.
Either do not undertake to teach at all, or learn how it is to be done.

If one-fourth of the labor bestowed upon the work of teaching were
devoted to studying the business, the value of the remaining
three-fourths would be quadrupled. It is painful to see the amount of
hard work done in school with so little proportionate effect. If a man
who knew nothing of farming, but who had a