Useful Hints.-Worrying.

In these days, when so much is required of those who serve in our public schools, I feel a deep sympathy for teachers who are just beginning. I long to give them one motto which lies at the foundation of success-"Never worry!"

Even those who may be called veterans know that there are days when all the ills of school-life appear slowly to accumulate, until, as the afternoon draws to a close, it seems as if our tensely strained nerves must snap. We leave our school rooms with the feeling that all our power is gone, and we are a perfect failure. Of course, the most natural way is to go home, and, sitting lonely in our chamber, morbidly attempt to think our way out of the trouble, and cudgel our already jaded brains for plans for the morrow. In nine cases out of ten these plans will be worthless. The only healthy, successful course, at the close of such day's experience, is to seek the society of some congenial friend, who has no particular interest in our profession; or, if such a friend is not at hand, to read a good story.

At any rate, I would say to young teachers, resolutely put all thoughts of school away for an hour or two. If you cannot wholly succeed in this, you may gain some rest by trying to do so. Then, when you are refreshed, you can approach the subject, and will find that it has lost much of the dark horror with which tired nerves had invested it; and you will be surprised to see how readily a remedy will present itself, and how lightly you can begin the morrow's task.

More teachers wear out from the continued tension with which

worry holds the mind than by hard work. As the end of the year looks us in the face, a fine opportunity presents itself to the worrying teacher.

I once asked a friend who had been very successful, if, when she came to sum up a year's work, she ever tortured herself with thoughts of how much more she ought to have accomplished. Her reply had always been a sort of tonic for me. She said, "No! when I begin to worry, I immediately put the strength which I should have used in that way into additional hard work, and I find it is less wearing, and pays better. Then I let it all be."

I remember becoming partly discouraged at Normal School, and going to my respected principal for consolation. He said, "What should you think, if I told you that I sometimes look at the magnitude of the work before me, until just such feelings come creeping

on?" I expressed the utmost astonishment, but eagerly asked, "Well, what do you do then?" His answer has had about as healthy an effect on my whole life as a bracing northwest wind some times has on the physical system. It was this: "I say to myself, You fool, you, go to work and do the best you can, and let the rest go!"

But in no field of our efforts is it possible to become disheartened so thoroughly as in that of the moral training of our children. No conscientious teacher can fix the standard of what her position demands any lower than this: "It is my business, as far as I have opportunity, to see that my boys and girls make the best men and women they are capable of becoming." Or, using the illustration of that beautiful poem, Discipline, “I must try every means to bring the angel out of the marble."

How easy it becomes, with this aim in view, and having for our material the average children of to day, with heart and brain filled to repletion with all the interests which used to wait for riper years, to feel that we accomplish nothing.

Another inspiration from the same loved principal has sustained me through seventeen years of effort in this line. Said he, address ing me at the beginning of my work, "If now you should labor all your life for the moral good of your scholars, and at the close should only be able to point to one boy who had become a good man through your influence, when he would otherwise have been a curse to the world, would you feel that a single endeavor had been in vain?"

I have always said to myself since, "Surely, honest trying must accomplish so much;" and when we look at it with all its far-reaching results, we say it would be a glorious crowning of our work. And in my experience, as the years have gone by and the children have become men and women, many of them dear friends, and have told me of their grief for wrong doing, and how much more they felt than they would own at the time; and as I have seen them filled with an earnest desire to be true men and women for life's duties, I have been more and more deeply impressed with the precious truth of that beautiful and encouraging passage, "He that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious seed, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him.”

The best argument which I know against worry, is, that it defeats its object; for in all cases you are using the very strength you need for work, and thereby insuring just the result of failure which you fear.-Journal of Education.

Dignity of the Teacher's Vocation.

We remember a remark made some twenty-five years ago by an intelligent lady in regard to the work of the teachers employed year after year in graded schools. She said: "I think such work is belittling." Having in mind the constant plodding over the same ground, cramped by a time-established adherence to the text-book, and enervated by the air of poorly ventilated rooms, with small leisure for, and smaller incitement to, improving reading, there seemed a degree of justice in the lady's remark. Indeed, there are few vocations, even among those most laborious, which do not offer greater stimulus to the growth of heart and mind than teaching under such circumstances. We do not, of course, intend to say that all school teaching of twenty-five years ago could be thus described, but that these methods and circumstances by far too much prevailed.

Some observations of the greater inducement given to the teacher by improved methods to use his own originality, and the greater facilities at his command for bringing interesting facts (and even wholesome sentiment) to bear upon almost every subject taught in schools, lead us to say-the teacher's calling is as broad, dignified and ennobling as his choice and abilities can make it. We believe the assertion as true of primary-school teaching as of work of a higher grade. Rightly followed, it means rich and ever-increasing culture to his own mind, and the work of awakening the ambition for and laying the foundation of such culture in the minds of his pupils.

For the thoughtful teacher of to-day has caught the infection of observing closely, and tracing results in both nature and art to their causes. He gathers help from common things around him in regard to which his pupils may be profitably informed. To this work he brings not only his own observation and reason, but stimulates his pupils to do the same, and so far as may be brings the results to bear upon the subjects which he is required to teach, at once making them more practical, and teaching that all science and art are the servants of eternal truth. He will not allow those under his care to feel that their school study affects their material interests alone, but will show them that it touches infinite truth at every point, and is at all times made subservient to it.

The variety, naturalness, and devout feeling which enter into such teaching cannot fail to inspire interest, enthusiasm and reverence.

The teacher is not led to respect the text-book less, but more-as being the foundation and framework upon which he may build a structure of use and beauty, according to his taste and ability.

As a sense of the breadth and dignity of his work fills his mind, the need of perfecting himself for it by every available facility will be apparent to him. Among these, there are to-day a greatly improved variety of school apparatus and appliances. He will defraud himself and his pupils if he neglect a faithful and intelligent use of these. The wise and thoughtful teacher is also an industrious. gleaner from literature; seeking ever to train his own taste and understanding, that he may guide his pupils aright in this direction. To this end it is not so necessary that he should read and be able to discuss many books, as that his taste and judgment should be formed by those which are excellent.

We think it a good rule that no scholar should go out either from the graded city schools or from the district schools in the country, without a general, correct, though of course limited, idea of English literature, and of its importance as a factor in education.

Above all, a taste for religious reading should not be neglectedfor in many instances if not formed under the teacher's guidance at school it will never be formed through life. Happily, the School Readers now in use include some religious reading in their wellselected variety. A heartfelt interest in and entertaining talk about such reading will be one of the most pleasurable and profitable employments of the school-room, and will do much toward inspiring a taste for it. It can be made forcible, impressive, and touching, without occupying a large amount of time. It is only necessary that the heart of the intelligent teacher should be earnestly engaged in it.

We believe the improved methods in the school room to-day are generally worthy of the large place they hold. But in the best teaching the observation, invention, taste, and principle of the teacher enter into and modify all methods, making the work of each individual in some sense a new and original one. Freedom and enthusiasm in using these enhances both his responsibility and usefulness.

Happy he who, while carefully studying the abilities and needs of those whom he teaches, studies also with as careful accuracy the world of nature and thought around him, and gleans with constant industry the fruits of noble minds which have worked before himlearning through all to love his profession through an evergrowing consciousness of its weight, breadth, and beauty, as a consecrated work. The Student.

William and Mary College.

In his recent "Old South" lecture on Samuel Adams and Patrick Henry, Mr. Edwin D. Mead, having expressed the wish that a movement might be begun in the "Old South" for fitly marking the neglected tomb of Samuel Adams, spoke as follows concerning the present sad condition of William and Mary College, in Virginia:

"It is a pity, when one considers the educational needs of the South, that something should not be done to perpetuate this old college, second only to Harvard in age and historical interest, both in memory of its great past, and in the active service of the present. Such great traditions as those of William and Mary College are themselves of the highest utility in education, and ought not to be wasted.

"I wish, too, that here in the old South Meeting House, or better still, at the coming Harvard celebration, might begin some movement for the help of the old college at Williamsburg, the college of William and Mary. Williamsburg was the capital of Virginia in those revolutionary days-the heart of the rebellion, the Southern Boston. Whoever has been to Hampton, as I know some of you have to Hampton and Fortress Monroe-and looked out on the waters where the Monitor fought the Merrimac, and heard the funeral march which tells that another of the sixteen hundred veterans of the Soldiers' Home has joined the bivouac of the dead, has not failed to take to heart, I think, not only what an important place was that little peninsula between the York and the James, in the history of the war for the Union, but that it was also the scene of almost everything important in the early history of Virginia-of the career of John Smith, and of Pocahontas, of Bacon's Rebellion, and was the theatre, as well, of almost all the Virginian acts in the drama of the Revolution, ending with the great scene at Yorktown. Williamsburg is the centre of it, midway between Yorktown and Jamestown. I wish I had the time to picture for you the fine life of the fine old Virginia town in the royal days--to tell you about the Governor's Palace, and how the rich planters used to come up to the Capital with their families, and many a young Jefferson, studying at the college, used to dance with many a sweet Belinda in the Apollo Room at the old Raleigh Tavern. You will read all about it in John Esten Cooke's book on Virginia; or in Parton's Life of Jefferson. William and Mary College-founded by William and Mary in 1693, next to Harvard, the oldest college in the country-was a central point in the