The aggrieved party still looked perplexed.  “Well, Mr. B.,” she continued, “what shall I do?  How shall I write it?  I can not say any thing about civil in it, can I?”

A form was given her which would be proper for the purpose, and the case was brought forward, and the evidence on both sides examined.  The irritation of the quarrel was soon dissipated in the amusement of a semi-serious trial, and both parties good-humoredly acquiesced in the decision.

9.  TEACHERS’ PERSONAL CHARACTER.—­Much has been said within a few years, by writers on the subject of education in this country, on the desirableness of raising the business of teaching to the rank of a learned profession.  There is but one way of doing this, and that is raising the personal characters and attainments of the teachers themselves.  Whether an employment is elevated or otherwise in public estimation, depends altogether on the associations, connected with it in the public mind, and these depend altogether on the characters of the individuals who are engaged in it.  Franklin, by the simple fact that he was a printer himself, has done more toward giving dignity and respectability to the employment of printing, than a hundred orations on the intrinsic excellence of the art.  In fact, all mechanical employments have, within a few years, risen in rank in this country, not through the influence of efforts to impress the community directly with a sense of their importance, but simply because mechanics themselves have risen in intellectual and moral character.  In the same manner, the employment of the teacher will be raised most effectually in the estimation of the public, not by the individual who writes the most eloquent oration on the intrinsic dignity of the art, but by the one who goes forward most successfully in the exercise of it, and who, by his general attainments and public character, stands out most fully to the view of the public as a well-informed, liberal-minded, and useful man.

If this is so—­and it can not well be denied—­it furnishes to every teacher a strong motive to exertion for the improvement of his own personal character.  But there is a stronger motive still in the results which flow directly to himself from such efforts.  No man ought to engage in any business which, as mere business, will engross all his time and attention.  The Creator has bestowed upon every one a mind, upon the cultivation of which our rank among intelligent beings, our happiness, our moral and intellectual power, every thing valuable to us, depend; and after all the cultivation which we can bestow, in this life, upon this mysterious principle, it will still be in embryo.  The progress which it is capable of making is entirely indefinite.  If by ten years of cultivation we can secure a certain degree of knowledge and power, by ten more we can double, or more than double it, and every succeeding year of effort is attended with equal success.  There is no point of attainment where we must stop, or beyond which effort will bring in a less valuable return.