willingness to study
weak or wanting, but the very power of mental perception seems to be
obstructed. The power of attention, the power of apprehension, the power
of memory, the power of reasoning, are all paralyzed by dislike, and are
equally vitalized by love and desire. Mental action, in short, is
influenced by the state of the heart as much as by the state of the
body. If you do not expect great mental efforts from a child that is
sickly, burning with fever, or racked with pain, neither may you expect
the best and highest results from one whose heart is diseased and
alienated, who approaches a subject with feelings of aversion and
dislike, whose conceptions are clouded with prejudice.

A teacher of great intellectual force, and with an overbearing will, may
push forward even a reluctant and a rebellious class with a certain
degree of speed. On the other hand, a teacher who enjoys the unbounded
love of his scholars, may accomplish comparatively little, on account of
lacking the other qualities needed for success. The highest measure of
success in teaching is attained only where these several conditions
meet,--where the teacher has and deserves the full confidence of the
scholars, where he has full confidence in himself, is self-reliant and
self-asserting, and where at the same time he has the warm affection of
his pupils. Love, after all, is the governing power of the human soul,
as it is the crowning grace in the Christian scheme. Love is, in
teaching, what sunshine and showers are in vegetation. By a system of
forcing and artificial culture, the gardener may indeed produce a few
hot-house plants, but for all great or general results, he must look to
the genial operations of nature.

XVII.

GROWING.

Children often use the term "grown-up people." By it they mean persons
who have come to the age of twenty, or twenty-one, and whose bodily
growth is complete. But there are other kinds of growth, besides that of
the body.

What is a "grown-up" _teacher_? It is not difficult, certainly, to find
some, in every locality, to whom this term could _not_ be applied, with
any propriety. They have been engaged for years in the work, and yet
they are the merest babes. They have no more skill than when they first
took a class in hand. When a boy begins to use a penknife, he is very
awkward. He cuts himself about as often as he cuts the stick. After a
while, however, he learns to manage the matter better. He finds ou