INFLUENCE OF SCHOOLMASTERS.
We wish every schoolmaster, whose eye falls upon this article, to ponder it
attentively, until he feels the responsibility of his station. As an incentive
to this, we promise every one who does it a rich reward, in the satisfaction
which will result from the reflection that his labors are closely connected
with the highest interest of his country. Detach your thoughts from the influence
of your labors, and they will indeed seem irksome. The hours will seem to linger,
which are spent in the school-room. But they will seem too short, to one who
thinks of the demands which are made on him, by his country and his God:- Traveller.
"At the recent general election of this state, (N. Y.) the votes of 276,000
persons were taken. In thirty years the great majority of these will have passed
away. Their rights will be exercised and their duties assumed by those very
children, whose minds are now open to receive the earliest and most durable
impressions from the ten thousand schoolmasters of this state.- What else is
there in the whole of our social system of such extensive and powerful operation
on the nation's character? There is one, other influence more powerful, and
but one. It is that of the MOTHER. The forms of free government, the provisions
of wise legislation, the schemes of the statesman, the sacrifices of the patriot,
are as nothing compared with these. If the future citizens of your republic
are to be worthy of their rich inheritance, they must be made so principally
through the virtue and intelligence of their mothers. It is in that school of maternal tenderness,
that the kind affection must be first roused and made habitual- the earliest sentiment of
piety awakened and rightly directed- the sense of duty and moral responsibility
unfolded and enlightened. But next in rank and in efficacy to the pure and holy
source of moral influence is that of the schoolmaster. It is powerful already.
What would it be, if in every one of those school districts which we now count
and are annually increasing by the thousands, there were to be found one teacher,
well informed without pedantry, religious without bigotry or fanaticism, proud
and fond of his profession, and honored in the discharge of its duties? How
wide would be the intellectual and moral influence of such a body of men!-
Verplank's Address. |
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