Genuine Dignity 



layman's anticipations. What is ambition of any reasonable 

 and noble kind, but a desire to influence the minds of men 

 in your day ? Agreed ; but you think it an unsatisfactory 

 substitute to influence the minds of boys. All ambition is 

 too eager for rapid results. Those boys will be men — and 

 when do you think you will find their minds so open and 

 accessible to worthy influences as in the tender and com- 

 paratively pure season of their youth ? 



"Do you think, if you were a clever, harassed leader of 

 the House of Commons, with a pack of wrong-headed 

 country gentlemen at your back, you would be influencing 

 the mind of your fellow-creatures more effectually ? 



" I know it is difficult to influence without being a com- 

 panion as well as a teacher ; and it is difficult not to lose 

 some of the magisterial awe and grandeur in that familiar 

 frankness which alone can make a man agreeable to boys. 

 But however the shams of this world demand reserve, 

 whatever is real may be safely open and free. True power 

 comes from real capability, true dignity from real virtue. 

 A truly capable and good man will never lose his power or 

 his dignity among his boys by being too familiarly known : 

 familiarity only breeds contempt when the person we are 

 familiar with is more or less contemptible, which, I fear, in 

 some points, is more or less the case with us all. 



" To be a good teacher requires a more perfect combina- 

 tion of great and well-balanced qualities than any other 

 profession whatever. Other powers are checked, and kept 

 in order by republican elements, out of the clash of which a 

 tolerable approximation to truth and justice is jostled. But 

 the master is a despot, and on him alone depends whether 

 his despotism be for good or evil. It is a very arduous task ; 

 enough to make anybody anxious and uncertain of his 

 capacity for it. 



295 



