attention, and is considerate for them ; in sickness, especially, she may often show her womanly feeling and pity. If she meets with this addition to her discomforts, and cannot remedy it, let her bear it with patience until better times.

With the family and visitors, a young governess will do wisely to be very guarded, and to avoid any appearance of obtrusiveness ; although there is no need to act the part of a sycophant. By keeping in her place, she will command respect; by going out of it, she invites and exposes herself to neglect. Be not ready to take affronts, or to fancy unkindnesses are meant when they are not. Never speak or write to your own family and friends of the private affairs of your employers. Do not judge hastily of the situation you are in: you will seldom find it quite so bad or so good as at first entrance it may appear; and, by committing yourself to an opinion, you lay yourself open to the charge of inconsistency or want of judgment. Indeed, it is unwise and selfish to trouble those who love you with more complaints than you can avoid. If it is necessary to remain in a situation, it can do no good to dwell on its disagreeables. If you cannot endure them, you can leave.

Avoid boasting of your family or former position, if you have formerly occupied a higher station. It is of little moment to your employers what your father or grandfather was, provided you have had the education of a gentlewoman. What you can do, and what you yourself are, are the great considerations. Show that you respect your position, and that you think your occupation an honourable one, by building your claims to consideration on it, Dignify your office, and you will be honoured in it.

Try to get the habit of looking at the bright side of things. This is more in our own power than many imagine. Remember the injunction, to “be wise as serpents" as well as "harmless as doves.” In the words of the great poet of nature and humanity,

“ To thine own self be true,
And it will follow, as the day the night,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.”

276

CHAP. XVI.

THE ART OF TEACHING.

" It requires all our learning to make things simple."

AFTER having gone through the usual routine of study at school, and acquired a knowledge of French, Italian, German, the piano, &c.—not to mention geography, arithmetic, and such other indispensable matters—a young lady fancies that she has nothing further to do to fit herself for a situation as governess. It never seems to strike her that, to have learnt and to be able to teach are two different things, and not by any means always found combined.

Satisfied with having acquired a language or a science, she never asks herself, “ Can I impart this knowledge to a child ? How shall I bring this subject to the level of her capacity? How shall I explain that rule so that she may thoroughly comprehend it?”

Take the simplest definition of a part of speech in Murray's Grammar, and try to explain it to your little sister,

and you will soon discover both how difficult an art the art of teaching is, and how deplorably it is neglected.

A governess who wishes to simplify the acquisition of knowledge to her pupils is therefore too often driven, from want of a proper understanding of the nature of her duty, to adopt one of the many quack systems of the day, which, substituting rules for reasons, and practice for principle, gives its votaries the name of having learnt a great deal ; whilst heart, hand, and mind are alike guiltless of anything that the utmost stretch of courtesy could term KNOW

These “royal roads," these "eighteasy-lesson” paths, lead to ignorance and selfconceit only, instead of to knowledge. They may serve to disguise the teacher's ignorance, and to impose upon a mother who is equally ignorant; but every one who is competent to teach, and understands the art of making knowledge simple, looks with contempt upon these short cuts to the temple of learning.

Are there, then, no improvements in the science of teaching ? Certainly there are. There are many works now, on almost every subject,

LEDGE.

B B

which will serve to imóme a teacher's mind with the leating principles of that which she is tesirous of teaching But these works are not intended for beginnes. They are for the study of the governess, to enable her fully to master the subject herself; but it is from the stores in her own mind that she should teach her pupils.

The first thing I would impress upon your mind is, that the object of teaching is not to enable your pupils to say "I have learnt, but to let them feel that they thoroughly know. What, for instance, is the use of their having gone through all the four first rules of arithmetie, if they cannot detect the errors in a small account? Your pupil may be able to do a sum in the Role of Three, on the slate, with tolerable facility, without knowing much of the science of numbers; but if she can rapidly go over her mamma's weekly accounts, or put her study to any other practical purpose, without thought or hesitation, you may be congratulated on having taught her a very essential branch of knowledge-she is learning arithmetic to some purpose. Before, however, you can so teach it, you must have mastered it thoroughly yourself