educators in the land, but the principal of
Verbumpersonale College is not one of them.

There are thousands of fine-hearted and
full-headed Quemaribuses in all ranks of the
scholastic profession. I believe in my heart,
that as there is not a happier or nobler
occupation in the world than that of developing
the minds that are to work in the next
generation, so, there are in this country very
many good men now occupied in teaching
children conscientiously and with exceeding
care.

Yet, upon this subject of teaching I have
long had crotchets of my own, of which Dr.
Quemaribus and many other clever men used
to declare to me that they were purely theoretical,
that they were quite impossible of
execution. Every practical man would tell
me so. Every practical man did tell me so.
"My dear fellow," said Quemaribus, "it is a
very pretty amusement to plan model school
systems, but you don't know the difiiculties
with which we have to contend. There is not
time for all you would have done, and you
set out with a wrong notion of the nature of
a boy. Your method never could be worked."
"Doctor," I said, "by the thunder of Jove,
and by the whistle of the steam engine, I'll
try." "Then," said the doctor, "if you
mean that seriously, you are mad. Every
man will say so when he sees you lay your
bread and butter down to make a harlequin's
leap out of one profession into another —out
of a business you understand into one of
which, permit me to say, you know nothing
whatever. And how will you try? Where will
you go?"  "I will go into some town where
there are a great many people, and say
plainly: Thus I desire to teach. There may be
a dozen who will answer, fanciful as you think
me, Thus I desire my children to be taught."

I carried out that scheme and met with
the result that I expected. After two years
of school-keeping, during which I put my
crotchets to a full and severe test, I left in a
town, which I had entered as a stranger, some
of the best friends I have ever made or ever
shall make. I left there, also, children whom
I never shall forget, by whom too I hope
never to be forgotten. Moreover, I did not
lose money by the venture; in a commercial
sense, the experiment succeeded to my perfect
satisfaction.

When it is possible to add a demonstration
to a theory, it ought to be done, and it would
certainly be unjust towards the little crotchets
that I here wish to set forth if I did not (as
in truth I can) make evident that they are
something more to me than idle fantasies.
At the same time, let nobody interpret
anything here said as a puff composed during
the Christmas holidays for the replenishing
of anybody's forms; the writer's occupation
as a schoolmaster is over, he has now no
school and takes no pupils, nor can he name
any school in this country that is carried on
according to his plan. Furthermore let it be
said that if he did know of such a school, it is
quite possible that he might entertain a low
opinion of it, for a reason that will be made
evident by the crotchet next and first to be
detailed.

Crotchet the First. Concerning plans of
teaching. Nobody has any right to impose
his plan of teaching on his neighbour. There
is no method that may call itself the method
of education. There is only one set of right
principles, but there may be ten thousand
plans. Every teacher must work for himself
as every man of the world works for himself.
There is for all men in society only one set
of right principles, yet you shall see a
thousand men in one town all obeying them,
although all in conduct absolutely differ
from one another. They will present among
themselves the widest contrasts, and yet
every one may be prospering and making
friends. Thompson talks little, avoids
company, sticks to a few good friends, and does
his work in a snug corner. Wilson speaks
freely and cheerily, delights in associating
with his fellows, and works with a throng of
helping hands about him. Jackson is nervous,
fidgety, and constitutionally irritable; he
does his duty, though, and gains his end.
Robson, on the contrary, is of an easy temper,
lets a worry rest, and never touches it when
he comes near; he does his duty, too, and
gains his end. But let the shy Thompson
undertake to make his way in the world by
being, like Wilson, sociable and jolly; and he
will make himself contemptible by clumsy
efforts, and the end of them will be a dismal
failure. In the school, as in the world, a man
must be himself if he would have more than a
spurious success: he must be modelled upon
nobody. The schoolmaster should read books
of education, and he may study hard to reason
out for himself by their aid, if he can, what are
the right principles to go upon. A principle
that he approves, he must adopt; but another
man's plan that he approves, he must assimilate
to the nature of his own mind and of his
own school before he can adopt it. Even his
school he must so manage that it shall admit
of great variety of plan within itself, and
suffer him so to work in it as to appeal in
the most effective way to the mind of each
one of the scholars.

The practical suggestion that arises from
this crotchet, is, that each teacher should take
pains not to make an abstraction of himself;
but to throw the whole of his individuality
into his work; to think out for himself a
system that shall be himself; that shall be
animated by his heart and brain naturally
and in every part; that shall beat as it were
with his own pulse, breathe his own breath,
and, in short, be alive.

Crotchet the Second. Upon the qualifications
of the teacher. He may be mild or
sharp, phlegmatic or passionate, gentle or
severe, he may thrash or not thrash —but I
would rather he did not thrash. As men