There is another circumstance which facilitates the progress of the teacher.  It is a fact that all this general progress has a direct and immediate bearing upon his pursuits.  A lawyer may read in an evening an interesting book of travels, and find nothing to help him with his case, the next day, in court; but almost every fact which the teacher thus learns will come at once into use in some of his recitations at school.  We do not mean to imply by this that the members of the legal profession have not need of a great variety and extent of knowledge; they doubtless have.  It is simply in the directness and certainty with which the teacher’s knowledge may be applied to his purpose that the business of teaching has the advantage over every other pursuit.

This fact, now, has a very important influence in encouraging and leading forward the teacher to make constant intellectual progress, for every step brings at once a direct reward.

10.  THE CHESTNUT BURR.—­A story for school-boys.—­One fine Saturday afternoon, in the fall of the year, the master was taking a walk in the woods, and he came to a place where a number of boys were gathering chestnuts.

One of the boys was sitting upon a bank trying to open some chestnut burrs which he had knocked off from the tree.  The burrs were green, and he was attempting to open them by pounding them with a stone.

[Illustration]

He was a very impatient boy, and was scolding in a loud, angry, tone against the burrs.  He did not see, he said, what in the world chestnuts were made to grow so for.  They ought to grow right out in the open air, like apples, and not have such vile porcupine skins on them, just to plague the boys.  So saying, he struck with all his might a fine large burr, crushed it to pieces, and then jumped up, using at the same time profane and wicked words.  As soon as he turned round he saw the master standing very near him.  He felt very much ashamed and afraid, and hung down his head.

“Roger,” said the master (for this boy’s name was Roger), “can you get me a chestnut burr?”

Roger looked up for a moment to see whether the master was in earnest, and then began to look around for a burr.

A boy who was standing near the tree, with a red cap full of burrs in his hand, held out one of them.  Roger took the burr and handed it to the master, who quietly put it into his pocket, and walked away without saying a word.

As soon as he was gone, the boy with the red cap said to Roger, “I expected that the master would have given you a good scolding for talking so.”

“The master never scolds,” said another boy, who was sitting on a log pretty near, with a green satchel in his hand, “but you see if he does not remember it.”  Roger looked as if he did not know what to think about it.

“I wish,” said he, “I knew what he is going to do with that burr.”