moderate independence, with a genteel position, to wealth, with the drawback of a vulgar occupation. The liberal professions gratify this love of gentility, not only for their more successful members, but to a great extent for all who enter their pale. The briefless barrister, the unemployed physician, the humblest starving curate of the establishment, is still, according to common notions, undeniably in the position of a gentleman. This feeling works powerfully. Men submit to the most extreme privations, to live thus outwardly, and in the opinion of society. Barristers, medical men, clergymen, officers on half-pay, professors of the fine arts, with what are commonly understood as the tastes and habits of gentlemen, live,— nay, rear up families,-on incomes less than are derived from ordinary mechanical labour, and succeed in "keeping up appearances;" but with what unseen struggles and miseries the imagination may picture: so deeply rooted in men's minds is the love of position. The custom of primogeniture throws every year into society a supply of younger brothers, poor and proud, to get into the public service, if they can; and failing that, to take up the professions. Thus the prime ability of the aristocratic classes is poured into these channels. Parents, in the middle classes, think that nothing can be better for a promising child than a profession.—“ It will be so respectable; and if he succeeds, which no doubt he will-so splendid to be Sir Blank Blank, at the head of the college of surgeons, or court physician, with a practice worth fifteen thousand a-year; or, who can tell? — boys with less prospects have become lord chancellors." Then, great pains are taken, according to the light people have, to fit the child for the calling so chosen. Great cost is incurred, for the most part injudiciously; but still, preparation is made: the ability, and above all, the enthusiastic perseverance of the youth

himself, turn the opportunities to account, in the cases where success is attained. Of late years, commerce has risen in estimation as an employment to be deliberately adopted. The power of wealth has forced a position which is now steadily rising. Aspirants are prepared with great cost of pains and money for the different branches of commerce. It furnishes, at least, as many instances as any other pursuit, of minds fitted by appropriate education, for the successful performance of its business.

Thus, the estimation which attaches to these different modes of life, secures an abundance of the suitable ability in their followers. But education, as a profession, stands in a wholly different position. It obtains but little respect from society, and confers no social advantages on its members. To a very few, such as dignitaries of universities, head-masters of ancient and endowed schools, and to such as by a knowledge of the arts of managing parents acquire wealth, it may be considered to give a certain rank. High character, knowledge, and breeding command a degree of respect wherever they are found. But of the great body of those engaged in teaching, some hold an equivocal position; and the majority, who are employed in the nominal instruction of the children of the poorer classes, are not removed from the level of those classes.

The feeling which is entertained for instructors, even of high education and attainments, is perhaps best shown when they are brought into close contact with the other classes in society, by being domesticated under the same roof, as tutors or governesses. Amongst those whom necessity compels to go into families as tutors or governesses, there are many of high attainments, imbued with classical literature, familiar with science, of varied accomplishments, superior alike in mind and manners to

their employers, and with the susceptibility of slight, which such cultivation is apt to engender. Yet, how are these persons treated, not in a few families where natural good-feeling and politeness interfere, but generally? What slights, what humiliations, what insults, must they endure, from the wealthy ignorance or aristocratic pride they are condemned to serve! Does the tutor receive the respect to which his character and talents entitle him, and which is even necessary for the preservation of any influence over his pupils? No: he is a hireling; his value is measured by his wretched salary. He is not a free man, performing important duties with honour to himself, and for a just remuneration. Smooth obsequiousness becomes him. He has no right to indulge in the luxury of an opinion; or, at all events, if he is admitted to his master's table, he will take care to interfere with no discussion which takes place there. He may count himself happy, if some peculiarity does not convert him into a capital butt for the jokes of rude hilarity, and if the very children under his charge are not taught by the example to persecute him with wicked tricks and laugh at him to his face. The governess what is she? A genteel upper servant: best, if a meek and pliant spirit qualifies her for a flatterer, and a patient bearer of mamma's ill humour. She must have the faculty of submitting to the worst tempers in others, without evincing any herself. She must be ready for the side table, or the nursery, at a hint or a nod. She must have the dress and demeanour of a lady, (the respectability of her employer requires it,) with the humility and submission of a slave. And all this for a pittance scarcely more than sufficient to keep up that external appearance which is peremptorily required of her.

The position of those who are engaged as assistants in educational establishments is not much better. For

a wretched remuneration they undergo almost incessant toil, which neither gives pleasure, nor secures respect. The unfortunate system in which they work, keeps them in an atmosphere of constant strife and unhappiness. They have rarely the cordial friendship of the master, and almost never the respect or attachment of the boys. Thus, their life is a harassing struggle, with little prospect of relief but in the grave. The principals of establishments have something of the pleasure of independence; but they too feel the worry and anxiety of a bad system, and there is no compensation in the rank or importance which it confers. An eminent barrister goes through more toil than half a dozen negro slaves; but the high distinction and rich rewards make smooth the severest drudgery. Any successful professional man undergoes labour and privation which would be thought intolerable, with any stimuli but those of choice. But a schoolmaster labours from morning to night, at what, from the absence of sound principles of education, is perhaps the most exhausting occupation in society; and all to eke out a subsistence, and to find himself merely tolerated in society, and excluded from those circles where his intelligence would find most sympathy, and which are thrown open freely to other professional classes.

It is not wonderful then, when education is so ill requited either by money or respect, that none should choose to engage in it who can enter any other profession. Fathers who can spend money on the education of their sons, rarely think of educating them to be teachers; and least of all in the very cases where the boys possessed the requisite abilities. Whatever mental superiority is shown by children, is destined for a higher sphere. Whoever can choose, chooses some more pleasant and more honoured path of life. The necessitous and the incapable are flung upon education. Incapacity of all kinds

gravitates thither as to a common centre. Any one, according to the vulgar opinion, is fit to be a teacher. If a man can do nothing else, he can keep school. Talent, too, there is great talent-as has been observed; but driven to this bleak extremity of society by necessity, and therefore almost deprived of its efficacy. It comes, not with its hopes or its enthusiasm—the springs of its gigantic energy in other fields of exertion; but spiritless, feeble, and hardly retaining its identity.

Can it be necessary to show that this state of things is fatal to the best interests of society? What is there that men desire or hope for that is not involved in the question, whether this shall be changed. We have seen how the happiness of the individual, and therefore of society, depends on the formation of moral habits in early life; how the seeds of virtues or vices are sown in early education; and how powerful an impulse towards good might be given, by a course of treatment founded on the laws of the human constitution. We have seen that good education requires, above all things, good teachers; that the best system that human ingenuity can devise must be worthless until it is realised in the intellect and moral habits of a man fitted to work it; and, therefore, that the first step in educational improvement must be to call into existence a class of real educators, imbued with the most enlarged views of the objects of education, and animated by an enthusiastic attachment to their profession as the noblest department of human exertion. If the contempt with which this kind of mental labour is regarded, be a barrier to such improvement, what can be deeper than the interest of society in its removal?—what is the end of its manifold struggles for a better state, if this great matter be neglected? Wealth may pay some for the happiness they lose in acquiring it-fame and high station may