Qualifications of the Teacher
THE schoolmaster, in common with all persons exercising control for a particular purpose, is a moral teacher or disciplinarian, contributing his part to impress good and evil consequences in connection with conduct. For his own ends, he has to regulate the actions of his pupils, to approve and disapprove of what they do as social beings related to one another and to himself. He enforces and cultivates obedience, punctuality, truthfulness, fair dealing, courteous and considerate behavior, and whatever else belongs to the school. Whoever is able to maintain the order and discipline necessary to merely intellectual or knowledge teaching, will leave upon the minds of his pupils genuine moral impressions without even proposing that as an end. If the teacher has the consummation of tact that makes the pupils to any degree in love with the work, so as to make them submit with cheerful and willing minds to all the needful restraints, and to render them on the whole well-disposed to himself and one another, he is a moral instructor of a high order, whether he means it or not.—Bain.