The Rutland daily globe. [volume] (Rutland, Vt.) 1873-1877, 1877-02-06
OUR WORK.

&Ah Azooor AAoau uoioio tno VOL mOuL bLaL6
Teachers Association at Bennington, on
Friday, February Q, 1877, by Miss Marcia
p. Brown, Of the Rutland High School.
When Aurora Leigh had turned away
from ease, luxuriance and material happi-
ness, and, obeying the intuitions of her
higher nature. had courageously taken her
place among life's toilers, Mrs. Browning
puts into her mouth these words:
acct leave 70 work
In this world,-'tis the best you get at all;
For GOD, in cursing, gives US better gifts
Than men in benediction. God says, Sweat
For foreheads,' men say 'crowns;' and 80 we
are crowned
Aye, gashed by some tormenting circle OF steel
Which snaps with secret spring, Get work !;
get work;
Be sure It's better than what you work TO get"
And so in our case, fellow teachers, per-
sonal ease, social distinction, pecunarY re-
ward, are not our crown but we hold in
our grasp commission that trandscends
all these. This commission confers upon
US leave to work, and that too in field
where it is possible to become 30 absorbed
in the work that all merely personal and
selfish considerations will disappear. Can
we ask for any thing better this side of
heaven than sphere of action where all
our moral and intellectual powers are be-
Ing continually educated into a more per-
feet forgetfulness of self and more con-
slant thought for the good of others To
the man or woman consecrated to the
work, teaching furnishes such a sphere.
The center, around which all the best eff
forts of the teacher cluster, his highest
thoughts crystalize, is not his own happi-
uess and success, but the good of the chill
dren entrusted to his care. The strongest
motive, that inspires him, year after year,
| often amidst the greatest announcements
TO strive after higher intellectual growth
himself, is that he may constantly lead his
pupils to streams of living waters instead
OF stagnant pools and one of the highest
sources of delight that comes to him as
teacher is the hope that possibly some word
he drops may prove the germ of an inspira-
ton which will carry the pupil onward in
to realms of achievement impossible to him
self, and which otherwise would never
have been attempted. Perhaps there Is no
class of persons who receive less recogni-
ton for the real work they do than teach
ers. The sculptor, the painter, the arch
itect, is always identified with his work
the name of the author appears upon the
title-page of the book he has written; every
article Of use In our school rooms, from
the teachers desk TO the steel pen, bears a
mark by which the inventor or manufac-
turer is Enthusiastically known but our
work, more enduring than all, passes out
of our hands and goes TO help form that
great aggregate which Is called human So
ciety in which our efforts are scarcely ever
recognized, our names never. Nor would
we have 1t otherwise the browning glory
| of our commission is that 1t permits us to
work with God In the unfolding of the i'm
mortal powers of the human mind without
any hope of name or fame. A friend once
said to me have been happier since teach
Ing In MIR. BE- school than l was while
teaching In Mr.. L. 9. Why Is this asked
She replied, Mr.. L. always treated me as
though l was teaching for him, while Mr..
d. makes me feel that am teaching with