and aptitude and an especial fitness for this work, above all other work, if it is to be successful work.

Yes, great men with great minds, we said, puzzle over this matter. Years are spent investigating and experimenting on old systems of education, and in considering new ones. And there is a good deal of agitation among teachers themselves, in order to make it a law that none but qualified persons shall be allowed to teach at all.

And there is as much diversity of opinion as to the extent of the teaching as there is as to its processes. Some cry out, "We have no business to limit in this matter. Give the children the chance of learning everything-enlarge their minds, extend their ideas, elevate their aspirations. Let them learn something of every 'ology' and 'ism' under the sun. Store their minds with

useful knowledge, and you will make them good citizens."

But others think differently. "Cramming the heads with all this is not likely to benefit them," they say; “the children get a smattering of everything and a good knowledge of nothing. They leave off before they have even acquired the least idea of what there is yet to learn. If they have 'passed' in so much of the subject as they are required to go over, they think they have done the whole affair. And with everything unfinished in their minds, no wonder it all gets into a tangle, and that knots and snarls warp their judgment and disfigure their whole lives. Let them learn to be good men and true, and they will be wise enough."

How is it possible in such a paper as this, then, to deal in any just measure with a subject so divided?

Just because there is one common ground where all teachers may join hands, setting all plans and schemes and opposing opinions aside. The highest aim in the heart of every real true

teacher should not be popularity, not "passes," but THE GOOD OF THE TAUGHT.

A child stands before a teacher as the block of marble stood before the sculptor. Every power for good needs guiding into a right channel, every capability and especial gift or beauty needs bringing out. Whatever hinders such development must be removed, chip by chip, until, with the best and purest of its whole nature untrammelled, it goes forth to do its life work.

But you will say, "Doubtless the sculptor knew what he was doing when he chose that block of marble. He saw in it special beauties and qualifications; it was just what his contemplated work required. We have to do the best we can with all and any material that

comes to hand."

It may have been so; I cannot tell. This I do know. The great merit in the whole matter lay in his skill, and not in the marble. He met with flaws, doubtless; discolourations which

spoiled its purity, and cross grains which would have altered, but for his care and gentle dealing, the whole perfection of outline. But he managed them all so that the marble should stand, at last, at its very best,-be that what it might.

And consider his aim. He sought to bring out of the stone he chiselled a kneeling angel, the figure of one who stood near the throne of the Highest, and yet a figure bending in reverence and worship. Blessed indeed will it be for our country, when the great aim of all who have to do with the teaching of her young, have for their aim the production of something even a little below this-kneeling men and women! then we may well be content to leave the angels in the Master's hands.

The good of the taught! Good for this life and good for the life which is to come. We may seek to give the first alone,-to make them clever and bright and quick and intelligent; and we leave them as vessels without anchors,

to become only a miserable wreck at last,-all the more to be deplored because of the bright promise of the beginning. Better give them a knowledge of God and His Word, and make them peaceable, honest, true, and industrious men; and though they make little noise in their day and generation, they will at least do no harm. Many men have become castaways through a proud conceit in their own worldly wisdom; but never yet was a man a castaway because of his purity of life and the holiness of his heart.

But, thank God, the two things are not incompatible. "Godliness is profitable for all things, having a promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come." Because the things of this world are not to occupy the first place in our hearts, are we therefore to think them of no consequence to us? We are to labour, working with our hands the things that are good; we are to follow after charity, which doth not behave itself unseemly; we are to avoid