it may lead a teacher to remove one difficulty and to make a dozen; to put down one piece of mischief and incite twenty other pieces of mischief. Remember our definition, tact is preventing one evil without raising another.

And then a teacher needs firmness-not harshness nor hardness-but gentle, immovable firmness. Whenever I have stood by a class and have heard one child or another coaxing, saying, "Oh, teacher, please do," or, "Oh, teacher, you might do it," then I know that teacher has given way before. When little ones are managed by a firm, gentle hand, they never coax or wheedle. They understand at once that they may expect or not expect such things without any telling. "You may try if you like, but I know you will not get it, teacher does not approve of it." And the child who says these words has no longing or yearning for the thing the other desires; they know it is out of the question altogether. Give your children as few rules and as few commands

as possible. Remember you are to lead them and

guide them into a right path, far more than you are to forbid them a wrong one. But when you have made a rule-a necessary, just, good rule— then carry it out unflinchingly, and always let the children thoroughly understand why you make it; remove all ignorance or misunderstanding or misconception about it. "It is for the good of all of us, and you must help me to work for the general good." And if the heart of the class is as the heart of the teacher, and it should be so, there will be little difficulty in the matter.

But while a teacher must be firm, decided, prompt, she must have a winning manner. Such a manner as will draw all the little warm impetuous hearts along with her in every part of her work. Draw hearts, I said. Yes, draw them and hold them. There is a good deal of truth in this saying: "It is possible to do even disagreeable things gracefully." A child may not like to be managed; nay, it is not unlikely

that he may much prefer being let alone altogether, but the business may be conducted with pleasure as well as profit to all parties, notwithstanding.

Try, then, to win your children over to your side. Let the feeling be, "Teacher and me, against the world," and teacher will do pretty much as teacher likes.

And, last of all, we must not forget the greatest qualification of all: Conscientious sincerity and thoroughness in one's self.

If any one were to offer a large fortune to a person who should actually train or teach a child, or grown person, to believe what they themselves did not believe, and to put the acquired faith into works which the teacher never practised, I should hope to win it soonest by practising upon the grown person rather than upon the child. For I believe that in the one case it is possible that the desired results may be obtained by the inward convictions of mature age and

ripened thought, irrespective of any teaching whatever. And, further, it is possible to say to one advanced, "I do not believe and practise these things, but they are true and righteous nevertheless," when such words could not be said to a child.

What we wish the children to be we must be ourselves. I do not believe that a child receives into the heart a lesson of goodness or holiness from the lips of a teacher who is neither good nor holy.

God has given to all animals some defence against evil. I believe that He has given to children, the most susceptible of all His creatures of real thorough influence, the power of discerning such thoroughness and reality. It is the same both in good and evil; teach the right and practise the wrong, or say the wrong and practise the right, and the child will do as you do and not as you say. It is as though we could not disguise from a child our actual opinion. We may think we

are succeeding; the little one may be thoughtfully weighing our words; when all at once there comes the steady look into our eyes, which settles the question at once. And if they are not too shy they will say, "Teacher, you don't do it, do you?" or, "I don't think teacher believes it, it's a hoax!"

"As with the people, so it is with the priest."

"Behold, thou that art confident that thou

art a guide of the blind, a light of them that sit in darkness, an instructor of the foolish, a teacher of babes, which hast the form of knowledge and of the truth in the law. Thou, therefore, that teachest another, teachest thou not thyself? Thou that preachest that a man should not steal, dost thou steal? Thou that sayest that a man should not commit adultery, dost thou commit adultery? Thou that abhorrest idols, dost thou commit sacrilege? Thou that makest thy boast of the law through breaking of the law, dishonourest thou God?" (Rom. ii. 17-23).