The west shore., January 01, 1880, Page 27, Image 27

January, 1880.
THE WEST SHORE.
V
In sad soliloquy the teacher had said:
"I squander on a barren field,
My strength, my life, my all."
But after the dream, when walking
linmc,
"Hia heart was full
Of peaoe, and trust, and love, and praise."
Of course the dream, having seen
the bad and idle boys changed to hon
ored and useful men as though he
had been the cause of this wonderful
transformation had induced him to
alter his mind, and to deem the field,
instead of barren, one of exceeding fer
tility and capable of yielding abundant
and richest fruits. Indeed, what re
markable changes are sometimes
wrought in the human mind! Per
haps his first conclusion, so far as indi
vidual interests are concerned, was cor
rect. The other, one of those senti
mental, immaterial, platonic conclu
sions, very becoming to the white
winged seraphs that hover about the
courts of bliss and fan the brows of
saints with their immaculate pinions,
but rather inappropriate to one of flesh
and blood who has need of something
tangible of this world's goods that he
may be able to sec the bright and en
joyable side of an earthly existence.
Let us review the teacher's profes
sion as it actually appears, divested of
that peculiar sentiment, with which,
for the sake of euphony, it is so often
clothed.
First, years of invaluable time must
be spent, and untold agonies of hard
work must be done in preparing tor
the field. Then when life is brightest
and hope looms highest, the teacher
enters upon his duties i't a salary of,
say $50 per month, or six hundred dol
lars per annum. In ten years from
his first hour's teaching, if he has been
steadily employed in the meantime, and
has been successful, just in the prime
of his life when his powers are at their
best, he may command sixty dollars
per month, or seven hundred and
twenty dollars per annum. Alas! this
is only too true.
Then what extravagant castle build
ing can a teacher indulge in! What
visions of future happiness must pass
liefore his mind in his contemplative
moments! Can he, like the young
physician, look forward to a joyous
home of wealth and luxury, surrounded
by a happy family and everything else
to make life blissful? Or like the
young farmer, know that his labor will
be rewarded with substantial fruits and
that in his old age he will be able to
enjoy peace and comfort? Or like the
young lawyer, who has no more intel
lect and not so much education, an
ticipate fame and fortune, and step
gradually up through his profession to
the forum, to the bench, to the Senate
hall? I pause for a reply.
Such a venture as marriage, for the
man who has chosen teaching as his
life-long work, is entirely out of the
question. It is a luxury of which he
must deny himself. In the first place
he can't aftord it, and in the second
place if he should he so reckless as to
think he can, the woman who would
he willing to join her future with his
cannot be found. If she can 1 have
only to say, that the fortitude, and pure
unadulterated anil deliberate bravery
possessed by such a woman, amounts
to that which is beyond sublimity itself,
sublime.
Then the professional teacher, gen
erally speaking, must be a celibate,
without a home, because his income
won't permit it, a waiulerer on the face
of the earth, contented to pass his best
years his life in preparing others to
win fame that he may have the honor,
if it will bear so exalted a title, of being
himself aware, for few others will ever
know it, that he one time away back
when he was young, taught some boy
arithmetic and grammar, who now
makes the world ring wilh his elo
quence or entrances mankind with bis
enrapturing poetry.
Hul to return to the dream. Soon
after the weary teacher fell asleep,
there appeared to him in his vision, a
vast room.
"It seemed a annate hall, and
addressed a liatoninu throng;
Kai'h buruiuK word all koaoina allrred,
Auplauae rose loud and l"ii(."
And after be took a good look at the
speaker, he recognized him and de
clared his name was in his record book.
Now suppose this had not been a
dream, but that the teacher had lieen a
teacher ever since, and that he really
had beard burning words of eloquence
fall from the lips of him whose name
could le found in one of his old record
books. The teacher would be an ob
scure old man, wrinkled and grizzled,
leaning upon a stair, and moving with
slow and faltering step. He would
probably approach the distinguished
senator ai.d remind him that at one
time he had the honor of being his
teacher. The senator would receive
him with a gracious smile, shake his
hand, licuitily, look admiringly upon
him and be as pleased to see the good
old man as he would to see the trun
dle bed upon which he slept when a
boy, or the cradle in which his mother
rocked him when an infant. Each oc
cupy about the same relative position
in the mind of the senator. After a
brief conversation he would bid bis old
teacher a good afternoon, inviting him
to call some day, and with a coaeh-and-four
be conveyed to his palatial resi
dence. At dinner he would sip his
wine at a table glittering with silver
and china, backed up by a salary of
eight thousand a year, and then in his
princely parlor he would recline upon
magnificently upholstered mahogany,
and listen to "music's voluptuous swell,"
as it arose from a three-thousand dol
lar piano, discoursed by un accom
plished daughter, beautiful as Venus;
and as the hour draws late would lose
himself in sleep on a couch soft as
downy pil'nws are, and awake in tin
morning to read of his fame, thai while
he was sleeping had circled the globe
on the w ings of the lightning.
I low with the teacher? It is soon
lold. lb.- hobbles away to his obscure
and lowly dwelling, enters its cheerless
and chilly precincts and drops wearily
into an uncushioncd chair to think of
"what might have been." lie partakes
of his frugal meal, and retires to rest
not amid laces and linen, satins and
down but ujmmi a bed, fortunate
indeed, if il be even comfortable.
Next, in his dream, he sees a clergy
man dispensing words of grace, whom
he found upou close examination lo be
a boy that he had Hogged the same
day. Yes, but the lioy had decided
not to follow leaching for a living. I Ic
rather bad opened a gate into a field
where are found u Luther, a Spurgeon,
a Talmagc and scores of others wilh a
brilliant fame that will go down to the
end of time, not to say anything of a
Heechcr with a hundred thousand a
year.
Then he saw another who had been
bis idlest lad, and he? He was an au
thor. Ah, yea, my good old friend; be
prefered to go along with a Walter
Scott, who could make a hundred
thousand a year and astonish the entire