said that little honour, unfortunately, is attached to the post of a teacher, and that a man often takes the position because he can get nothing else, instead of because he really wants to teach, and knows that he can teach. The result is that he thinks more about salary than anything else, and is always looking about for the chance of a higher salary. This becomes his chief desire. While the teacher is no doubt partly to blame for this, it is the system which is mostly in fault, for the teacher needs enough to support himself and his family, and this is a right and natural wish on his part. It is the duty of the nation to see that he is not placed in a position in which he is obliged to be always desiring increase of salary, or must take private tuition in order to earn enough to live. Only when this has been done will the teacher feel contented and happy in the position he occupies, and feel the dignity of his office as a teacher, whatever may be his position among other teachers—which is, I fear, now marked chiefly by the amount of his salary. Only the man who is really contented and happy can have his mind free to teach well.

The teacher should not desire to gain credit for himself by forcing a boy along his own line, but should consider the special talent of each boy, and the way in which he can gain most success. Too often the teacher, thinking only of his own subject, forgets that the boy has to learn many subjects. The one on which most stress should be laid is the one most suited to the boy's capacity. Unless the teachers co-operate with each other, the boy is too much pressed, for each teacher urges him on in his own subject, and gives him home-lessons in this. There are many teachers, but there is only one boy.

Again, the boy's welfare must be put by the teacher before his own desire to obtain good results in an examination. Sometimes it is better for a boy to remain for another year in a class and master a subject thoroughly rather than to go up for an examination which is really too difficult for him. In such a case it is right to keep him back. But it is not right to keep him back merely for the sake of good results for the teacher. On the other hand, a teacher has sometimes to resist the parents who try to force the boy beyond his strength, and think more of his rising into a higher class than of his really knowing his subjects.

Unless the teacher has desirelessness, his own desires may blind him to the aspirations and capacities of the boys in his care, and he will be frequently imposing his own wishes on them instead of helping them in their natural development. However much a teacher may be attracted towards any profession or any particular set of ideas, he must so develop desirelessness that while he creates in his pupils an enthusiasm for principles, he shall not cramp them within the limits of any particular application of the principles, or allow their generous impulses—unbalanced by experience—to grow into narrow fanaticism. Thus, he should teach the principles of citizenship, but not party politics. He should teach the value of all professions to a nation, if honourably filled, and not the superiority of one profession over another.

IV. GOOD CONDUCT

There are six points which are summed up by the Master as Good Conduct. These are:

1. Self-control as to the mind
2. Self-control in action
3. Tolerance
4. Cheerfulness
5. One-pointedness
6. Confidence

We will take each of these in turn.

1. Self-control as to the mind is a most important qualification for a teacher, for it is principally through the mind that he guides and influences his boys. In the first place it means, as my Master has said, "control of temper, so that you may feel no anger or impatience." It is obvious that much harm will be done to boys if their teacher is often angry and impatient. It is true that this anger and impatience are often caused by the outer conditions of the teacher's life, but this does not prevent their bad effect on the boys. Such feelings, due generally to very small causes, re-act upon the minds of the students, and if the teacher is generally impatient and very often angry, he is building into the character of the boys germs of impatience and anger which may in after life destroy their own happiness, and embitter the lives of their relations and friends.

We have to remember also that the boys themselves often come to school discontented and worried on account of troubles at home, and so both teachers and boys bring with them angry and impatient thoughts, which spread through the school, and make the lessons difficult and unpleasant when they should be easy and full of delight. The short religious service referred to in an early part of this little book should be attended by teachers as well as students, and should act as a kind of door to shut out such undesirable feelings. Then both teachers and students would devote their whole energies to the creation of a happy school, to which all should look forward in the morning, and which all should be sorry to leave at the end of the school day.

The lack of control of temper, it must be remembered, often leads to injustice on the part of the teacher, and therefore to sullenness and want of confidence on the boy, and no boy can make real progress, or be in any real sense happy, unless he has complete confidence in the justice of his elders. Much of the strain of modern school life is due to this lack of confidence, and much time has to be wasted in breaking down barriers which would never have been set up if the teacher had been patient.

Anger and impatience grow out of irritability. It is as necessary for the boy to understand his teacher as for the teacher to understand the boy, and hasty temper is an almost insuperable obstacle in the way of such understanding. "The teacher is angry to-day," "The teacher is irritable to-day," "The teacher is short-tempered to-day," are phrases too often on the lips of boys, and they produce a feeling of discomfort in the class-room that makes harmony and ease impossible. Boys learn to watch their teachers, and to guard themselves against their moods, and so distrust replaces confidence. The value of the teacher depends upon his power of inspiring confidence, and he loses this when he gives way to irritability. This is particularly important with young children, for they are eager to learn and eager to love, and only those who have no business to be teachers would dare to meet such eagerness by anger. It is of course true that younger boys are in many ways more difficult to teach than elder ones; for they have not yet learned how to make efforts, nor how to control and guide them when made. The teacher has therefore to help them much more than the elder boys who have learned largely to help themselves. The chief difficulty is to make the best use of the young energies by finding them continual and interesting employment; if the young enthusiasms are checked harshly instead of being guided sympathetically they will soon die out, and the boy will become