112 ON THE EXPEDIENCY AND MEANS OP 



that of the officer there exists this essential variance, that the former 

 implicates the latter, but not conversely. The debasement of the one 

 is general, of the other, individual ; were it otherwise, the instability 

 of the laws would abolish the authority of the office. That universal 

 admission makes this rule absolute, is an experimental truth. What- 

 ever might be the character and genius of a teacher, though he should 

 possess the highest faculties of teaching, though society should aid 

 his plans by all possible means, and though his scholars should pre- 

 sent in their conduct and understanding the most unlooked-for good- 

 ness and intelligence, yet would not the office itself sustain any eleva- 

 tion ; his eflforts would be regarded as a sacrifice to his philanthropy, 

 genius, with an unexampled humility, bowed down to the laborious 

 and disgusting duties of a despised profession. The office would 

 neither receive nor reflect any portion of the honour of its agent. 



Seeing, therefore, the utter prostration of the profession of educat- 

 ing, and that the importance of the teacher is personal and extrinsic, 

 the whole multitude of schoolmasters, who get a precarious subsis- 

 tence by teaching, participate alike in the debasement of their office ; 

 and, inasmuch as it throws them upon other and illegitimate resources 

 to rise into notoriety, plunges this most sacred calling into all the 

 dirt and defilements of an unprincipled commerce. 



The educator, depressed beneath the dead weight of its opprobri- 

 um, so baneful both to the virtues and faculties of the mind and to 

 worldly advantage, that hardly any persons but those who had been 

 already schooled by penury and despair (thus trained to degradation) 



Kraft und zum Bewusstseyn derselben als ihre nothwendige Folge ? Darfst 

 du das nicht ausprechen, aus welcher Gewalt sprichst du denn den hochsten 

 Dienst des Heiligthums unserer Natur, die Sorge fiir die Unschuld und die 

 Bildung der Jugend als dein Amt an ? Mit welchem Recht treibst du ein 

 Geschaft, das beim Mangel an innerer Weihe, ewig nicht dein Amt, ewig 

 nicht dein Beruf seyn kann ? — Wocchenschnftfur MenschenUldung. — And now, 

 educator, which name thou also hast, thou whose office is the service of the 

 sanctuary of our nature, the guardianship of innocence, the education of 

 children, the cultivation of youth, by what authority, by what right, canst 

 thou claim thy vocation ? darest thou think of it, darest thou declare it^ the 

 way and manner in which thou earnest on thy work — thy system, does it 

 arise from the internal dignity of human nature, takes it that pure and per- 

 fect claim, and does it, as a necessary consequence, elevate children to the 

 power and to the consciousness of the same. Darest thou not acknowledge 

 by what power thou claimest the highest service of the sanctuary of our na- 

 ture — the care of innocence and the cultivation of youth — as thy office? By 

 what right dost thou carry on thy vocation, that, with the want of that inter- 

 nal consecration, can never be thy office, can never be thy calling ? 



