92 M. J. EENDALJ., ESQ., ON THE TEACHER's VOCATION. 



several manifestations in tlie field of Art, make a splendid starting- 

 point for eager youth. 



This brings me to the third section of life in which the teacher's 

 example will tell. Roughly speaking, half the world appreciate 

 beauty and half are blind to it. Among the educated classes — 

 and this seems to show that love of beauty is teachable, or, rather, 

 is asleep and waiting for some electric shock to awaken it — the 

 proportion is higher. I look forward to a time when the purified 

 taste of the people will rise in revolt against the pubhc vulgarity 

 of this age. 



Somehow in the past schoolmasters have been half afraid of 

 beauty ; yet it is one of God's revelations of Himself, and the 

 culture of it, if governed by austere rules and principles, can be 

 a potent force for good in young lives. If unguided it will 

 break out in less desirable ways. Are teachers awake to this 

 aspect of their vocation ? Have they given thought and study 

 to the different revelations of beauty ? Have they trained them- 

 selves to admire and understand the simple and beautiful things 

 which God and man have put before them ? Have many of 

 them made Art or Music a real study, and introduced it bravely 

 into school hfe ? Many young minds are thirsting for it. I have 

 touched very briefly, by way of suggestion only, upon an aspect 

 of school life which has been slow to gain recognition. Milton, 

 who. like the full man that he was, was anxious to " fetch out any 

 secret excellences of his boys," adopted the Platonic view that 

 music has a great power to " smooth (our tempers) and make 

 them gentle from rustic harshness and distempered passions." 

 The same is true of other forms of great Art — (J)t\oKa\etv fxer' 

 evreXela^ is a great end if it be not half the aim of hfe. 



In the latter part of my paper I have touched briefly upon the 

 teacher's training for his vocation. Here we differ toto caeJo from 

 the Germans, who spend six or seven years in equipping them- 

 selves ior their profession. Pubhc School boys often leap into it 

 untrained and unequipped at the age of 22 or 23. Wisdrm hes 

 between the two extremes. The German method trains all 

 freshness and elasticity out of the man : he has forgotten what 

 boyhood was like before he comes back to it ; it leaves him little 

 scope for grooving on hues of his own selection. The Enghsh 

 meihoQ — or lack of method- — gives a young man good hohdays 

 and some leisure and expects him to use it wisely. If only a 

 decent interval can be secured between the University and the 

 beginning of his hfe's work, I beheve in the unchartered hberty 



