applied. The title "esquire" is given properly to lawyers, justices of the peace, and notaries public, though common usage has much extended its employment. "Mr." is creditable to anybody in a Republic, and is sufficient for anybody, and may be prefixed to the official designation,―as, "Mr. Justice Parsons," in case the Christian name is not expressed. We like the German custom of giving to all public officials, and indeed to many others, the title indicating their office or employment. They not infrequently say, to put it in English, "Mr. Tax-gatherer," or even "Mrs. Tax-gatheress." If we may not carry the practice to this extreme, or if we may not reform all the bombastic flatteries which adhere to political station, yet we teachers may agree to use, at least in our own assemblies, and in and about our several places of instruction, titles that are proper and true, erring, if at all, on the side of Republican simplicity, and yet making sure that no entire omission of formal designation shall beget in our pupils irreverence, and so, perchance, contempt, as well for ourselves as for those whose names we handle lightly. Note. We desire to commend as a model, with the exception, perhaps, of its occasional multiplicity of titles, but certainly as a model of their accurate use, the official record of the proceed ings of the New York University Convocation, in which record a superintendent is called a superintendent; a regent, a regent; a principal, a principal; a professor, a professor; and a president a president. Shall we do likewise? |