where a little larger salary is paid than you are getting, you are apt to receive a letter from the bureau suggesting that for a consideration your name will be put in at the better paying place, and that your election will be forthcoming. Though you may be well situated and paid and would not think of changing were it not for this outside temptation, off you start, breaking invaluable ties, all for $100 or $200 extra salary. Teacher friends, if you want to be influential in teaching, don't move until you are as good as forced to. Generally, young teachers should remain where they are and become powers for good in their schools, get well acquainted with citizens and parents, interested in church work, in community enterprises, in the growth of their municipalities. The influence of such teachers over communities and the blessedness they put into human lives is incalculable.

The country school ought to have country air. There is not a school in the state that does not suffer from bad air. Arithmetic examples, spelling exercises, the literary

matter placed before pupils, deal almost exclusively with city affairs and do not breathe the country atmosphere. There are, of course, lessons in nature, but all these approach subjects as the city mind apprehends them. School atmosphere must suggest the country and breathe rural things. There is no need that we take over exercises and examples intended primarily for city pupils. Our skies, our stars, our sun, our moon, our fields, our grass, our brooks, our lakes, our cattle, our homes, furnish ample and eligible material for all school literature and texts covering the subjects to which they relate. The question of suitable matter for textbooks and school literature is further worked out in the following chapter.

Having started our wards with the best home influences and schooled them as well as we may, we are called upon to give each of them a helpful and inspiring send-off into life, instead of leaving them at graduation wholly to themselves, to grope and wander about until some accident makes or breaks them.

Parents' and preceptors' duty at this allimportant juncture in the life of the young connects itself mainly with four points: 1. Aspiration. 2. Choice of calling. 3. The necessity and blessing of work. Steadiness and persistence in what is undertaken.

4.

Imagine a wise and loving father having a heart-to-heart talk with his son the day the latter completes his one-and-twentieth year.

"My son," he says, "you are of age. You possess sound health and morals. Sacredly preserve these. You are now your own man, and must henceforth, in a new sense, be the creator of your own destiny. I love you no less than ever, but just because I love you I leave you to yourself, subject only to my counsel when you seek. If I had great wealth I would not give it to you. Gold gotten without his own effort curses a young man instead of aiding him. If you would succeed, cherish large ambitions and lofty aspirations. 'Hitch your wagon to a star,' not to a stump. Believe in yourself. Let your business be a calling, not a job. Aim

at and plan for a career with large-minded, far-sighted, rational resolution.

"Much depends on your choice of calling. Take due account of your powers, preferences and propensities, and then adopt the line of life which appeals to you the most. Aim too high rather than too low. If in doubt here, consult your wisest friends. Friends often know our strength better than we do. If a sagacious parent, teacher or other acquaintance thinks you are fit for a given enterprise, you can safely undertake it.

"It is not necessary, however desirable, that your life work should lie in the field. for which school or college is supposed to have specially fitted you. A man's real bent often appears only after school days are over and serious responsibilities confront him. What has been taught him will, in any event, be found of service. No mental attainment of the slightest importance is ever lost.

"It is also not necessary, however desirable, that you should take up your father's

calling. If you are averse to it for any good reason, turn elsewhere, and turn resolutely. Among the worst mistakes parents ever make in planning for their children is the effort to coax or force sons into the old business at the old stand. Let us, by all means, urge the dignity and promise of life upon the farm, yet it is as good as certain that some of our sons would best leave farming for some other pursuit. Perhaps my boy, reared at the old homestead, will acquire fame and fortune as an artist, a surgeon, a preacher, a statesman. Do not try to down what is clearly a native bent.

"Work-with energy, enthusiasm and unflagging perseverance. Nothing is achieved in any calling without this.

"The great teacher, Francis Wayland, from whom came the idea that bystanders often size up a man better than he can do. it himself, used to say, 'If sagacious people near you think you able to master a difficult and desirable position offered you, accept it; only, when you get it, work like Satan.' "Work at high voltage. Never dawdle.