of the class of educators. Their condition immediately indicates the average estimate of society for their work. And, perhaps, not a more painful illustration could be found, of the prevailing low estimate of society for mental and spiritual toil, than is presented in the rate of worldly remuneration customarily provided by dissenting congregations for their ministers. It is a well-known and disgraceful fact, and simply as a fact is it stated here, without implying any opinion as to the principle of religious establishments (which would here be quite out of place)— it is a fact, that the "voluntary principle" by which the worldly remuneration of the dissenting clergy is adjusted, allots to them, in most instances, a rate of remuneration utterly disproportionate to their attainments or to their duties.

If this, then, is the case where strong religious principle and feeling dispose people to esteem the teacher "very highly in love for his work's sake," and to act conscientiously up to their own conviction of what is right towards him; here is a most convincing proof that the general appreciation of labours which bring no palpable material results, even though they are believed to promote the very highest spiritual purposes, is pitifully low and inadequate in fact, whatever it may be in words and professions.

Can it be a matter of surprise, then, that if the work of the religious educator is thus practically disesteemed, that of the secular educator should be in no higher honour ?— In some instances, indeed, by a certain class of parents, the latter may be the more valued of the two, in consideration of the worldly advantages derivable to their children from a good secular education; but the parallel is sufficiently exact, and it shows yet more pointedly than the instances of the fine arts and literature, that the case of the educator is not a solitary instance of a pre

vailing disappreciation for the most important offices in society, but that the same disappreciation attaches, in vulgar and gross minds, to everything that is not palpable to the senses, and tributary to the comfort or luxury of the material life.

That the prevailing tone of society among us is, in this sense and to this degree, vulgar and gross, is only too evident. There can be no more decisive proof of the want of thorough intellectual civilization than those already adduced. But the same conclusion is borne out by the general aspect of society, by the eager devotedness with which wealth is pursued as the sole good of life, and by the costly rivalries of equipage, and dress, and establishment, which characterise the upper, and still more the rising, classes. The energies of life seem to be concentrated upon the pursuit and display of externals, to a degree that could not be the case with a people of high intellectual culture. Indeed, those who possess a higher degree of culture, when compared with the generality of persons possessing an equality of worldly resources, are invariably found to be less ostentatious of the outward signs of wealth; they value life for higher purposes, and wealth chiefly for its subserviency to intellectual and social aims. A higher general standard of education would effect a general improvement in this respect. Meanwhile, this prevailing sensualism, this general preference of material to mental wealth, tends doubly to depress the profession of the educator. It first makes him poor, and then despises him for his poverty. It neglects to call into requisition, or adequately to reward, the talents and exertions which he is ready to contribute to the general welfare; and then it dooms him to an inferior grade in society, because he cannot outshine in wealth those whose wealth may be perhaps their only lustre.

These remarks will not be understood to imply that

our own notion of elevating the educational profession is to make it wealthy. By no means; though we are fully prepared to maintain the urgent necessity of rendering it comfortably, nay, liberally remunerative. We have been speaking of the estimate in which the profession is held by society at large; and having alleged that society at large adopt wealth too prevailingly as their standard of respectability, we point out their disesteem for the educators of their children, as indicated in the niggardly remuneration with which they requite those services, and in the social inferiority which they stamp upon the class in question. We have been expounding the prevalent standard of honour and respect, as commonly applied by vulgar minds to the educational profession; we have not been applying it as our own standard.

But while thus we assign, as the fundamental cause of the low esteem in which educators are held, the low estimate prevalent in respect to education, we must, in all justice, ascribe the effect partly to the INEFFICIENCY OF THE EDUCATORS. It is to be admitted, and regretted most deeply, that the actual state of the educational profession, if it does not justify contempt, at least requires great internal improvement.

As already hinted, its low state is the natural result of a low state of general feeling respecting it, in a country where it is left to find the level of public will in open competition. Whether this state of intire freedom of competition, and almost total absence of public provision for the education of the young or for the preparation of teachers, be, on the whole, the best possible state of things, will demand our after consideration. At present, we notice the existing state of the profession; and we declare at once, as matter of deep regret, that the average of attainment and ability on the part of the educators is far below what the more enlightened part

of the community are prepared to demand that it should be. This deficiency we ascribe more immediately to the trading competition of the educators, and ultimately to the taste of those more numerous but less enlightened classes of the community who collectively regulate the effective demand for education.

Education, in this country, is at present completely a trade; a trade, often in the grossest sense, with all the accompaniments of rivalry and competition, of underselling and over-professing, of puffing and quackery. It is the most completely open trade in the community. It may be entered without apprenticeship or preparation, without examination, or certificate of fitness. It therefore embraces, as might naturally be expected, a great variety of professors. It is, in fact, taken up continually by multitudes as a last resource for a livelihood, when some other kind of business, or perhaps when almost every kind, has proved unsuccessful. The teacher advertises his own plans, proclaims his own abilities, and proposes his own prices; and if he can gain credit for all his professions, and if his prices suit the general standard, he obtains scholars.

Where, then, is the harm of this bargain being struck like most other bargains? It consists in this:- that his customers, the parents, or at least many of them, are much more competent to estimate the price they pay, than the quality of the instruction received for it. Indeed, from the nature of the case, the latter is not easily discoverable, even by the best judges, without more ample opportunites of judging than are generally afforded. How are the parents to form an accurate estimate, either of the teacher's competency in point of knowledge, or of his aptness in communicating information and disciplining the mental habits, or of his general temper and the tacit influence which his character and manners will

be likely to exercise? They can know all this only by the result, when perhaps the result is seen too late to be rectified. The most intelligent and observant parents may be mistaken in their estimate of the teacher, and those who are less so, are liable to be deceived besides. In fact, the competitive rivalry of advertising teachers addresses itself expressly to the assumed ignorance and weakness of parents. On the one hand it appeals to their sordidness, by adopting lower than adequate charges (or else to the pride of an exclusive class, by adopting charges exorbitantly high); on the other hand, it appeals to their love of ostentation and display, by professing to communicate a variety of showy rather than useful accomplishments. By the process of cheapening prices, it necessarily diminishes the average of attainments brought into the service of education; while, at the same time, pretensions are enlarged in an inverse proportion, and trickery of the paltriest kind is adopted, to induce the fond parents to believe that their children are becoming prodigies of wisdom or models of refinement. Boys are "crammed" with a ready-made translation of a Latin or Greek author, when they cannot explain the first principles either of the ancient language or of their own; girls are "finished" with the aid of catechisms of universal knowledge, and a few specimens of fancy needlework or Poonah-painting. Such are the kind of pretensions put forth and sustained, not by schools universally, but so numerously as to place their average merits deplorably low, in the view of those well-informed parents whose own idea of education is worthy of the name.

The most grinding competition that perhaps any trade or profession can exhibit, takes place at this moment among female teachers. This is owing, probably, to the very limited number of occupations which the customs of society allow young women to follow. The three grades