success think you? Where honors are to be won the sister receives an equal share.

Our own State has at last remembered her daughters by making an appropriation for a Normal school. From a late number of the JOURNAL, we quote the following: "Let us hope that it is a harbinger of brighter days, and its efforts for good, though circumscribed by sex, may prove to our Legislature that we do need training schools for our teachers."

The one vocation prominent above all the rest for which woman possesses special aptitude is the training of young minds.

Possessing quicker and warmer sympathies for the peculiarities of childhood, combined with a deep knowledge of their mental and physical needs and infirmities, surely woman is adapted to the great work of educating the mind and the heart.

As a teacher of elementary schools woman is superior to man, from her greater natural tact, patience, sympathy, and kindliness of heart; and owing also to her intimate association with children in their home-life, by which she is better enabled to study their characters and dispositions. It is the experience of almost every school and family, that the moral sense is appealed to and aroused more effectually by woman than by man. Her moral superiority was early demonstrated :

"Not she with trait'rous kiss the Saviour stung;

Not she denied him with unholy tongue;

She, when apostles shrank, would dangers brave;
Last at the cross, and earliest at the grave."

With her winning moral suasion she is often more successful in the management of boys than her harsher brother, and if she can conquer him, what can resist her influence; for Plato tells us that "the boy is the most unmanageable, insidious, sharp-witted and insubordinate of all animals, inasmuch as he has the fountain of reason in him not yet regulated."

Another fact worthy of note is, that the brother teacher of to-day may be the farmer, merchant or divine of to-morrow; he goes where glory or fortune awaits him, often rejoicing at his emancipation from his irksome duties, using this noble profession as a stepping-stone to some other; whereas, when woman enlists in this work she is a a life toiler, and unless the duties of wifehood or the icy hand of death release her, you will surely find her in the ranks of the noblest of all professions.

Teaching is more exalted than the fine arts; it does not deal in the dead material, but forms the living soul.

Ah! how high above mere physical labor is true teaching! Our weary round of self-sacrificing duties must not be looked upon as drudgery. It is our life-work, and filled with far-reaching hopes, we have ideals before us, and however crude the material, we must recognize the presence of the angel within and work to develop its beauty.

Grace Greenwood says, that "it is love for any work that gives it dignity and propriety," and we endorse her sentiments. We should consecrate our full womanhood to the calling in which we have embarked; knowing that eternal hopes are wedded with our daily round of duty, we should look with joy and faith upon our work. If true to our better selves we do not desire a grander arena of usefulness, we can never be a greater blessing to our country than in that sphere where we can train intellectually, and morally, the rising generation. In our rule over others let us not forget to keep in subjection our own rebellious spirits; the school-room is no place for a display of temper. Yield not to discouragements; how often do we hear, "I am opposed to lady teachers-the school-room is no place for them, and if the trustees give the school to Miss A., I will not send my children." Let such remarks make us more determined to prove to all that more is required in the school-room than the clear, logical, frozen intellect of our honorable co-workers. We hear criticisms on every side. Gladstone says that "criticisms and censure never hurt anybody. If false, they can't hurt you unless you are wanting in manly character; and if true, they show a man his weak points and forewarn him against failure and trouble." If we are conscious of discharging our duty to the uttermost no censure or unjust criticism will worry us.

In conclusion, I will say women know no higher or holier mission than teaching, and by courage and perseverance we will be enabled to carve out for ourselves a niche in life's temple, and can press onward and upward to a higher reward, knowing that we have not labored in vain.

O. T. G.

The State Normal School.

The readers of the JOURNAL feel sufficient interest in the State Normal School, at Farmville, Va., to desire a brief statement of the proceedings of the trustees, at the meeting on the 30th July.

The seventh section of the act of the Legislature, of March, 1884, establishing a State Normal School,, provided for the payment of the annuity of $10,000 “out of the public free school fund." Under legal advice the payment of the same was declined by the Auditor on the ground that this fund was dedicated, by the Constitution, to free school purposes only, and could not be appropriated to a Normal School which, it was alleged, was no part of the public free school system. The trustees (Dr. Curry and others) were compelled to seek a judicial construction of the law, and applied to the Court of Appeals for a mandamus to compel payment of the annuity. On the 24th July, 1884, the court sustained the above position taken by the Auditor, refused and dismissed the petition. Judges Lacy, Richardson and Fauntleroy concurred in the opinion delivered, and Judges Lewis and Hinton dissented.

The trustees met on the 30th July. Finding themselves, by this decision, without means to execute the legislative will, they reported to the Governor the "condition" of the school, as required by law, and will apply to the Legislature, which will convene in special session on the 13th August, for an amendment of their act, and to direct the payment of the annuity out of the general treasury by the Auditor. It is hoped and believed that the Legislature will comply with the petition, and establish the school as designed by the act of 7th March last. A grave and important question has arisen in connection with this matter. The State, through the Legislature, by the act of 7th March, made a contract with the town of Farmville, by which it was agreed that if that town would acquire title to, and make to the State a deed conveying the "Farmville College" buildings, that then the State would establish the State Normal School in Farmville. The corporate authorities of the town have, in good faith, bought and paid for, at a cost of several thousand dollars, the property mentioned, and conveyed it to the State of Virginia. It is not believed that Virginia will repudiate its obligations in the premises. W.

Some Ways to Elevate the Teacher's Profession.

BY HOMER B SPRAGUE, Ph. D.

I. We should, perhaps, reverence more highly our calling. We should be more keenly alive to the fact that the most vital interest of any community is the right education of the young; that the greatest service that can be rendered to a child is to train him up in

the way he should go; and that the five or six hours a day in school give the instructor a greater opportunity than the minister, or even the average parent possesses.

II. Teachers should make themselves more worthy of respect, fitting themselves with the utmost care and with endless painstaking for their work. This involves, among other things, a higher standard than now of the following requisites:

a. General intelligence on the part of the instructor. Something of everything, or, at least, something of many branches of knowledge, he should know. Therewith should come greater breadth and a better perspective.

b. A clear conception and steady view of the results to be aimed at in the training of a child.

c. Mastery of the special subjects taught. On every side the teacher should stand on the vantage ground, able to construct, offhand, from his own brain, a sufficient text-book, and able, like the best German instructors, to dispense with text-books altogether during recitations.

d. Skill in conducting class-exercises. This involves tact, quickness, avoidance of errors, daily planning, daily study by the teacher. For ten, twenty, or even thirty years, the best lawyer, clergyman or physician is growing more expert. It must be so with the true teacher; every school performance by him should be a work of art, adding new skill, and revealing more and more the hand of a master-workman.

e. A hearty love of children, and an intense delight in seeing them grow day by day in grace, in knowledge and in strength. Without this love and joy, this great condition and rich reward of success, the teacher has mistaken his calling. With them, however lofty the ideal, there will be no impatience toward the weak and erring; no sarcasm in his wit, no ridicule in his humor; cheerfulness, courage, and hope will rise into inspiration.

f. Health of body and of soul on the part of the teacher, in order that there may be tenderness without morbidness, firmness without undue severity in dealing with the pupil. Religious consecration, taking hold of every fibre of the teacher's nature, is the indispensable basis.

III. In aid of this self-improvement the literature of the profession should be in the instructor's hands and on his library shelves. The works on education, now within reach, are already rich in the fruitage of deep thought and wide experience. Some of the educa

tional newspapers and magazines are valuable. They cannot be neglected without loss. The work that is going on in school and college, the successes and failures of the many experiments that have been tried, the biographies and systems of the great educators, ought to be in some good measure known to every teacher of long experience.

IV. Teachers should regard their occupation not as collateral, incidental or temporary, but as central and permanent; not as a convenience or a stepping-stone, but as a life-work.

V. They ought to combine for mutual improvement, mutual cheer and mutual aid. Teachers' clubs; town, county, state, national associations; teachers' insurance companies; the American Institute of Instruction; such organizations should be fostered, their membership increased, their meetings attended and made more useful. In all proper ways an esprit de corps, earnest, yet never degenerating into clannishness, should be promoted. Teachers, above all other men, need to look each other in the face and see how strong they are if they will but pull altogether. To hold one's self aloof from these gatherings, to be a sort of idiotes, argues conceit or selfishness, or ignorance sadly at variance with the essential spirit of the profession.

VI. Teachers should be alive to their social and civil duties, and disposed, modestly, yet bravely to maintain their rights; not afraid to take sides on any question that divides the community; having an opinion and ready to maintain it, a vote and ready to cast it. There is hardly a more pitiable spectacle than a teacher too stupid to know, or too selfish to care for, or too cowardly to assert the just claims of his country, his party or his religion. Here should come a quiet but sleepless vigilance, industry and adroitness in elevating public sentiment on school matters, in securing the best men as members of school committees, and in shaping school legislation so as to honor God and bless mankind.

VII. Akin to the preceding, teachers should cherish such a high sense of honor as will not submit tamely to unjust aspersions upon their profession, nor to unfair treatment of any of their number by those in authority over them. It may not at all times be wise to speak out; but when their vocation, or their fraternity, or any one of their number, is publicly slighted, or disparaged, or wronged,whenever action is taken that appears to be based upon the theory that teachers, as a class, are untrustworthy, or incompetent, or pachydermatous,-they should somehow make the perpetrators