Helena weekly herald. [volume] (Helena, Mont.) 1867-1900, 1875-01-07

ton for himself and family, would go into
the market and buy good teacher. Royal,
noble and wealthy families have hired their
| teachers as they did their buffers and hound
keepers, and ranked and paid them alike.
The church held the monopoly of general
popular education for centuries, and starved
the nations with tritles or poisoned them with
bigotry and superstition. It is only very re-
Gently that the desirability, possibility and
even necessity Of anything like a general
education took form and shape and living
organism, so as to create demand for teach
ers beyond ready supply, and offer such
steady employment and fair remuneration as
to draw thither fair average of the cultiva-
ted talent OF the age. With numbers, per-
manent employment and fair remuneration,
good ability and cultivation, began also Or
ganization, at first partial and ill concerted,
but extending and compacting as evident ad-
vantages led on to thorough and permanent
forms. Having now vantage ground, a
'Pou Sto, rs Archimedes would have said,
it was not long ere confidence, self-respect,
with ample and disciplined abilities co-opera-
ting, made the name and business of teacher
take its rightful rank in utility and dignity,
demanding respect and compensation pro-
portioned more to value OF services rendered,
and attracting the admiring interest and
hearty good wishes Of all philanthrophic and
intelligent men of all classes.
| AS members of that newborn but already
honored profession you are here, and now
summoned to take your places and parts in
the sublime drama of discriminating and
awakening the great slumbering mass of hu-
man mind, and giving character some suita-
bic and worthy basis in self-conscious and
self-reliant intelligence. Your numbers are
few and surrounding difficulties and disad-
vantages great and numerous. But brave men
only count their foes to fire their own hearts
to greater daring and endurance. Surely
there is much to be done for your individual
and the general welfare. and you can every
one do something, and much more by con-
certed systematic and persistent than by in
dependent and desultory action. know of
no class of persons in the world to whose in
telligence and conscientious views of profess
sional duty and self-culture l could appeal
with more confidence than to teachers. They
recognize readily and in full the advantages
of combination, and none among them labor
simply for the pay they receive; or rather
they count as the larger and more satisfying
part OF their pay the serene, solid happiness
of an approvins conscience clear of acquit-
ting itself fairly according 10 its own high
standard of duty to God and man.
Many or even most Of you may not have
deliberately adopted the profession Of teach
ING for an indefinite period OF time. yet while
YOU continue teachers, though under stress OF
disappointment. in other aims. you surely
: want to know how you can do the most and
. the best work with the least wear and worry
upon your spirits, and with the utmost OF
profitable self-culture. We all of US have to
admit, when we retire to the silent cham.
! bers of our souls and stand alone with oul
, God, looking out from the narrow foOt-hold
| of time over the endless perspective of eter.
, nifty, that what we sometimes misjudge and
2 miscall our rewards and remunerations for
f services done are not deserving the name,
while other fruits unnamed and unnoticed &C
l to increase the souls great permanent wealth.
/; invested beyond peradyenture of loss, yield
ing dividends at compound ratio as far as
: we can contemplate into eternity. We are
! but scholars ourselves, the Oldest and wises1
t of us, in Gods great infant school of this
e world, and the lesson that We SO often re-
:. iterate to our scholars and can not too otter
f repeat or too forcibly impress, that more i'm
e portant than all that they actually learn, is
s the manner of learning, the Ho1o instead OF
: the WHAT'S equally applicable to us, and finds
s expression in the old adage that whatever il
r worth doing at all is worth doing well. True
r progress in any direction is marked not by
: the quantity but the quality of work accom-
/ plished The habit of thoroughness, ,mastershir
t once acquired, in either scholar or teacher
: is worth more than the contents OF all the
$ books ever printed. 1t contains in itself po
tentially all knowledge. It is at once the
) promise and incentive to knowledge 1t is as
! valuable as trait of character, considered
e either on it's mental or moral side. 1t is worth
/ any persons highest endeavor in any station
i or occupation in life 1t is one of the high
q est prizes offered to human exertion. 1t Car
: be obtained as easily and is worth just a:
!, much if obtained in a log school-house will
S rafting slab seats as in the most COSTLY taste
II