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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



us of making one of these little ones to 

 offend. Perhaps if I might sum up in a 

 single phrase the teacher's true temper 

 toward his pupils, especially boys in a 

 large school, I should say it is one of 

 sympathetic severity. . . . Severity is 

 not worth much if it stands alone. It 

 may be said that severity without sym- 

 pathy is a guarantee of failure. 



"There is one word, and only one, 

 that I have simply begged my colleagues 

 never to use in their reports of boys — 

 the word 'hopeless.' Masters and mis- 

 tresses may perhaps be hopeless, I can 

 not tell ; but boys and girls — never. 



"An angry schoolmaster, or rather 

 a schoolmaster who can not control his 

 anger, is the drunken helot of the pro- 

 fession. In an angry moment words are 

 spoken, deeds are done, that are irrep- 

 arable. Fling away from you the poi- 

 soned shafts of sarcasm ; they are for- 

 bidden to the humanities of school life. 



" It appears to be the particular 

 danger of schoolmasters and schoolmis- 

 tresses that their profession has natural- 

 ly a cramping or narrowing influence 

 upon the mind ; it is therefore the pri- 

 mary duty of all teachers to take every 

 opportunity of enlarging and liberalizing 

 their views. The schoolmaster must not 

 be a schoolmaster only ; he must be more 

 than a schoolmaster. He must be a man 

 of wide interests and information ; he 

 must move freely in the world of affairs. 

 Fill your pitchers, however humble they 

 may be, at the wide and ever-flowing 

 stream of human culture. It is my coun- 

 sel, as a precaution against narrowness, 

 that you indulge largely and lavishly in 

 reading. You can hardly read too much. 

 It may be a paradox to say so ; but I 

 doubt if it matters much what you read, 

 so long as you read widely. . . . Novel- 

 reading I conscientiously recommend. 

 It will take you out of yourselves, and 

 that is perhaps the best holiday that any 

 one can have. It will give your minds 

 an edge, an elasticity. The peril of 

 reading no novels is much more serious 

 than that of reading too many. . . . 



Apollo himself does not keep his bow 

 on the stretch forever, and most of us 

 need relaxation as much as Apollo." 



The above is good advice, and happy 

 is it for those who can take it to heart 

 and act upon it — for those whose facul- 

 ties have not been already so deadened 

 by a mechanical routine as to be incapa- 

 ble of the ambition of individual culture. 

 Dr. Weldon speaks and writes from the 

 elevated standpoint of head master of 

 one of the great English public schools, 

 a position of as great independence 

 probably as any the educational world 

 affords, and one in which there is infi- 

 nite scope for the exercise of individu- 

 ality. The position of the average pub- 

 lic-school teacher is very different. To 

 the latter functionary individuality may 

 be a personal advantage, but it may 

 easily become, from a professional point 

 of view, a burden and a drag through 

 the lack of encouragement or even op- 

 portunity for its exercise. That the ad- 

 vice given by Dr. "Weldon as to reading 

 is not very widely followed out by teach- 

 ers in this country was proved some few 

 years ago by some one who took the 

 trouble to write to all the principal 

 public libraries to ascertain to what ex- 

 tent teachers took advantage of the 

 privileges which these institutions af- 

 forded. We forget the precise result of 

 the inquiry; but it showed that the 

 teachers, as a body, used the libraries 

 almost less than any other class of the 

 community. We recall this fact in no 

 unfriendly spirit, but solely with a view 

 of showing to a public that is hard to 

 convince on this point how far we are 

 from having as yet commanded the most 

 successful conditions for general educa- 

 tion. 



THE SCIENTIFIC ALLIANCE. 



The formation of the Scientific Alli- 

 ance of New York marks an important 

 step in the scientific movements of this 

 city, and will not be without beneficial 

 influence, we believe, in the advance- 

 ment of research in the country at 



