The Monticellonian., 1895-04-05

charged sentiment and the para dox that abound in Rousseau's masterpiece; But our hearts are touched and we are won back to admiration and gratitude when we read a sentence like this: 70 men, be humane! it is your highest duty; be humane to all conditions of men, to every age, to every thing not alien to mankind" What higher wisdom is there for you than humanity? Love childhood; encourage it's sports, it's pleasures, it's iovable instincts" Who among us has not at times looked back with regret to the age when a smile was continually on our lips, when the soul was always at peace? Why should we rob the little innocent creatures of the enjoyment of time so brief, so transient, of boon so precious, which they can not misuse2 It is Rousseau's ardent humanity that gives degree of unity, consisten- cy, and even of beauty, to a life otherwise disordered and full of wretched inconsistencies. Rous seau was himself man of the peo- pie and i'll him there seems to have been concentrated conscious suffering ot his class; but while the peasantry were dun, benumb- ed, perhaps, by their secular op- pression and sufferings Rousseau was full of pathos and persuasive eloquence. It spoke through the Emile and awoke tho people to self-consciousness. The man whose ruling passion was love for the people, was, in the hands of providence, and unconscious agent in moulding the institutions of a new world. Going back a century from Rousseau's time, We find an- other man whose greatness was 
 due to his ardent and exalted hn- manity. This was Comenius, the Moravlan pastor, whose fame reached even these shores, for he was invited to become the prcsi- dent of Harvard college in 1854. Conenius had more balance than Rousseau. In him sentiment was tempered, governed, and directed by reason religion. He not only felt, but he saw; he was not a guide-post but n guide. He was not only q great educator, as Rousseau was, but he was what Rousseau was not and could not be, a great teacher. Coming back now to period little nearer our own time we find another Swiss youth, whose soul was wrought into almost preternatural activity by bis love for the poor, opprcss- ed, degraded people. This was the great Pestalozzi, the story of whose life and labors and suffer- ings is among the most pathetic ever written. In these cases the element of power is nearness through sympathy, benevolence, humanity and philanthrophy. A love for reading and study, and a confirmed taste for investigation in any field of natural history are most tpotent preoccupations against the encroachments of vice.
 ?. Teaching offers an exhaust less field for self-improvment, and for those pleasures that are deriv. ed from the companionsbip of no ble books.
 The prime element of constitu tional fitness for teaching, is to be imbued with the scholarly spirit and the teacher will not only gair knowledge for it's own sake, but will delight in gaining that he may have the pleasure of giving With respect to breadth of schol arship, the general teacher has ar advantage over any other class Teaching is also favorable to the study of mental science, and to the cultivation of the philosophic al spirit and teachers also have rare opportunities for the inde pendent study of educational science, theories may here be brought to the test of actual prac. tice.
 8. Teachers, if worthy of their calling, find cordial admission to the society of the cultivated and ,ba rof nod Tha insp;rot;op ond