LB V185 .86 Copyright^ . COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. LIVING TEACHERS 38p Jftarffaret J&latterp Uniform with this volume LIVING TEACHERS. THE TEACHER'S CANDLESTICK. THE CHARM OF THE IMPOSSIBLE. THE SEED, THE SOIL, AND THE SOWER. THE TEACHER— REAL AND IDEAL. Each, tall i6mo, boards, 35 cents net. TALKS WITH THE TRAINING CLASS. 1 2mo, boards, 60 cents net. Paper, 25 cents net. F. M. BARTON COMPANY Cleveland, Ohio LIVING TEACHERS BY MARGARET SLATTERY // CLEVELAND, OHIO F. M. BARTON COMPANY J 909 *%?Mif*M#! i-, -J j \& Copyright, 1909 By F. M. Barton Company Cla.A,;'' 4 - • 96 T JUL 12 'f 909 LIVING TEACHERS I SHALL never forget my first glimpse of it hanging there on the wall before me as I opened the door of the art gallery. Outside the sun beat fiercely down upon the city streets, and the worn faces of the peo- ple dragging themselves back to work in scorching mills and stores and shops had plunged me into the depths of questioning, as to the why of things in this busy, hurrying world of ours. But I forgot the problems. Forgot everything! There it was in the plain, dark frame, that wonderful picture of, the sea. The fury of a storm was upon it, and the wind had piled up giant waves deep crested with foam as white as snow, just ready to break. 7 LIVING TEACHERS Nicely poised — just ready — and as I looked I half expected to see them dash upon the waiting shore. But all was still. I stood with fascinated gaze — but they did not break — I was look- ing at a picture of the sea. For ten long years and more it might hang there, but that soft, white crest would never break, creep along the sand and dash against the solid rock. It was just a picture — not the sea. Then I remembered that other day when standing upon the rocks of our northern shore, I had seen the sea. It was smooth as glass, deep and charm- ing and still; then a wind in the night, the pouring rain, and morning broke. I braced myself against a rock, not daring to approach the place where yesterday I sat so calmly. Now LIVING TEACHERS the thundering crash of the breakers upon the shore thrilled me, the spray dashed over me, the craft securely an- chored in the harbor plunged and rocked on the giant waves and the steamer dared not try to make her landing. Every wave as it pounded the granite rock seemed to shout to me; over and over on the wild surges it came, "I am strength — force — power — the sea — the real sea." Here on the wall before me in the quiet of the gallery hung "The Sea" — over yonder, breaking upon the northern shore was the sea. There was such a difference. Why did one please my eye and the other thrill my soul? You know — one was a picture — the other was the sea. One was a good copy, a carefully wrought 9 LIVING TEACHERS representation; the other was the sea in reality, with its boundless shores, its hidden secrets, its resistless power wrung from fathomless depths. It was real. Reality, that was what made the difference. Reality gives power. I knew then and I know now that it is even so with men and women. Especially is it true of us who are teachers, that reality alone gives power. What are Living Teachers? They are real, genuine like the great Christ. He was never in any sense a copy, an echo, and so he had strength and force. He was real and therein lay his power. He was a real teacher because he had something to teach. Something he believed would make men better and the world happier. He believed 10 LIVING TEACHERS it so profoundly that he said it would solve all the problems of mankind. He was so glad to teach it that he sat on the mountain side, crossed and re- crossed the lake, met his enemies in the synagogue, stopped in the high- ways and by-ways of Jerusalem, went to the feast and the wedding — yes, even talked by the well with a woman of Samaria. All this that he might have the chance to teach, "I am the way, the truth, and the life." He taught because he wanted to. No one drove him forth, no one pressed his duty upon him, no one ever said, "You ought to." He said, "I must." And so men listened to what he taught, women believed his mes- sage, and little children followed him. After more than nineteen centuries 11 LIVING TEACHERS men trust their souls to what he said. Yes, he had something to teach and taught it, eagerly, with enthusiasm and authority. The real teacher does that today, and he teaches with power wherever he is. The reason there is so much mechanical, empty, forced teaching today is just because men and women have nothing to teach. No vital, life-giving belief, no personal knowledge of the thing to be taught thrills their souls until it must be said. No one can give outward expression to that which is not within. He may say, but unless he is, it will not count. He may say it beautifully, but he will be only like the picture without the moving power of the real sea. Look at a class of school children with me and see what I mean. 12 LIVING TEACHERS One day, in my early teaching, at a loss for a subject for a language les- son, I finally chose, "Animals of Other Countries." I showed a few pictures, assigned a chapter to be read, talked about two or three animals and gave out the paper. The children were list- less, uninterested, thought long and wrote little. When I collected the papers some had only one paragraph, and that made up of names. The lesson was a dead failure. A year or two ago a circus was com- ing to the city. One had to know it; a blind man could scarcely pass the glaring bill boards and not know. Every child was intensely interested. I made use of the interest and centered it upon the animals, choosing the tiger, lion, elephant and polar bear. I de- 13 LIVING TEACHERS scribed their homes and habits, gave anecdotes with real interest, for I wanted them to see the animals intelli- gently. The "day after" came, and when it was time for the language les- son, I said, "You are no longer chil- dren. Some of you are polar bears, some tigers, some lions. You may choose which one you will be and write your story, using the subject, 'The Story of My Life.' Begin something like this, 'Oh, it is so warm, so warm! These cakes of ice are so small. Where are the great fields of snow and huge icebergs I used — ' or, 'Ha! I wish the bars of this cage were not so strong. How I should like to break them and get back to my beautiful jungle.' " They took their pens eagerly, they wrote hurriedly, they paid no attention 14 LIVING TEACHERS to position. At the end of the period they were disappointed. They had not finished. I saw Harriet steal out her paper during history and write a line and when Jimmy passed out at dismissal he astonished me by the question, "Say, kin I come in early and finish mine? I'm a tiger." Jimmy asking to come early to work! I wish you might have read those stories. Interesting, great freedom of expression, dramatic, every one of them good. Why the great contrast between these and those of my early teaching? You know. The whole thing was real to the latter class of children. It was no longer a dead subject, it lived. They had seen the animals, their interest was keen, they had something to say — they said it. 15 LIVING TEACHERS If we as teachers could only catch the deep significance of it! If to us the great subject we have to teach could be always vital, forceful, real! Then we should have things to say and they would listen because of the irre- sistible power of the living teacher, whose message springs from the depths of reality. I saw another picture in the gallery that afternoon. It was a baby sitting on the floor. One little shoe had been pulled off, playthings were scattered about, but the baby scorned them all. Two tiny hands reached upward and the sweet little face said so eloquently, "Take me, take me," that I almost stretched out my arms in answer to the appeal. Yet this was not the baby I could love. This baby, whose little 16 LIVING TEACHERS outstretched arm would never tire, whose blue eyes would never shut, who would never change through the pass- ing of the years, quickly lost its charm for me. I remembered that other baby as I had seen it in the nurse's arms. Such tiny hands, eyes that could not bear the light, a precious bundle of hungry senses she was then, a promise — that was all. But yesterday as I passed her home, that tiny hand pounded hard on the window, and a sweet little voice speaking words bade me come in. And I knew as I looked at her that in a few years those same little hands would hold a pen, and that little tongue re- peat the wisdom of the ages that are past! A few more, and in some office those same little hands will fly over 17 LIVING TEACHERS the typewriter, or in the parlor bring music from ivory keys, or in the busy school point out the way of knowl- edge, perchance be laid in tender blessings upon the heads of little chil- dren of her own. Who shall say? She has power and potentiality. The dynamic is within her. She is alive! And while she lives she must change. The pictured baby can never change. While she lives she must grow. The pictured baby can never grow. The real baby will grow unless, alas, some dread disease should seize her. Imagine the agony of that mother, if one day the physician, turn- ing away from her anxious face, should say, "It is even as I feared, she may live, but she will never develop, she 18 LIVING TEACHERS cannot grow." To live a score of years and more, a baby still, with the charm of her babyhood gone! It were no wonder if the broken-hearted mother whispered, "It were better she had never been born." Yes, the normal, healthy child must grow, must develop, must change. Change! When it implies develop- ment, what a splendid word it is. And yet some men and women are so afraid of it. Some teachers even, fear it, look at it with suspicion. To them life means growth, development, change, up to a certain point — then there is nothing beyond. I have seen such wrap the cloak of complacent self-satisfaction about them and all unknowing begin to die. Let me show you what I mean. A 19 LIVING TEACHERS while ago I visited a grade in a gram- mar school where I had been myself a pupil. The teacher, the same one I had then, was teaching South Amer- ica. She was teaching it exactly as she had when I was in that grade; the same topics, using the same books. It all came back to me; I could al- most have recited it myself. Think of it! South America in the same way as when I sat in that room and com- mitted the second paragraph to mem- ory! The South America which was then has gone. But there was no word of new railways, no word of revolu- tions, not a whisper of the wonderful awakening just waiting for the canal, nothing of the events taking place that very week in our fascinating sister country. Just names of rivers and 20 LIVING TEACHERS mountains and plains. I asked if she were using the putty maps ; if she were trying the quick sketching to fix rivers and plains in memory and show the slope of the land; if the children had made the canal zone in sand and un- derstand any of the baffling prob- lems the engineers must solve. She shrugged her shoulders, and said she did not take much stock in the new fads, and it would be time enough to teach the canal when it was finished. Her children were listless and unin- terested, and "don't like geography." Men and women, that teacher was dead and didn't know it! It was not the number of years she had taught, not at all; it was, that back there somewhere, she came to a place where she thought she "knew how to teach 21 LIVING TEACHERS geography," knew it all, stopped grow- ing and began to die. I know a man in Sunday school who has a class of boys ranging from eleven to sixteen years of age. He won't have the class divided. He won't have his school graded. He does not believe in the graded work or school. He asks questions from his quarterly around the class in turn, dealing out a few morals in an impres- sive tone at the close. He lives in a community where parents make their boys to go to Sunday school, else he wouldn't have any. He says the good old way is all right, and what was good enough for his father is good enough for him. But the strange thing about him to me is this: His fathers religion is good enough for 22 LIVING TEACHERS him, but that is all. His father used to drive leisurely down to his office, stopping to chat with his neighbors by the way — he rides down in an auto at limit speed. His father kept his own books and wrote his own letters — he has an adding machine and keeps an expert stenographer. His father made two railway journeys during his life time, the longest two hundred miles — he has crossed the continent and the Atlantic. His father lived in a very plain, ordinary house, heated by fire-place and stove, and drew water from a well — he has a modern .home, steam-heated and the water from the reservoir is carefully filtered, some- times boiled and put in the cooler. One day I reminded him of these facts. He said he could not live and 23 LIVING TEACHERS do business as his father had, condi- tions had changed. I said he could not teach as his father had, conditions had changed. He said that was a dif- ferent matter. But I do not yet see it, although I have tried. Yes, growth implies change, and the man or woman who refuses all change ceases to grow. When one ceases to grow he begins to die. The great fundamental laws behind all growth are unchanged, unchang- ing, eternal. But these very laws in operation cause change. Ah, how the old world has changed since that day when Christ went out through the city gates to his cross on the hill! When I ask myself what has been the cause of the great upheavals, and 24 LIVING TEACHERS the marvelous, almost incredible, changes slowly working their way out in the world since He came, I find one answer. He is the cause. His works, His life, His love, His great passion and His greater triumph, these have wrought the changes, these explain the growth. And if I am to be a grow- ing, changing, Living Teacher, I must come into close, direct, uninterrupted contact with that life-giving power which was in Him. I must give myself freely, sincerely, without reserve to the fundamental laws of growth. What are those laws? I must know. I cannot move, sleeping, dying or dead through a living world, throbbing with power, suffering with pain, eager 25 LIVING TEACHERS with longing. A live world demands a living teacher — and I must live. ^7 But I cannot truly live, I cannot grow, unless I take means to support life and develop it. The things needed are so simple, so easy of access, so per- fectly possible, that in our eager searching after means of growth we pass them by. Four things we must have — light and air, food and exercise. Light! It is everywhere. We have but to open the windows, throw wide the blinds, and it streams in. How much we need it! We do not know all there is to know. Our century has not reached God. Those who loved the Christ in the early years believed they knew all. They expected him to return in a little while and looked for their reward. How little even Peter, 26 LIVING TEACHERS James and John knew of the majesty and power of their Lord. They thought their little world was all, while silent, undiscovered, undreamed of, lay the great country where today a mighty people bow in reverence at the mention of His name. Martin Luther, filled with the glory of the fact that "the just shall live by faith," thought he had found "all truth." He stood only at the thresh- old. The Pilgrim Fathers, sailing across the treacherous sea in their tiny ships, to kneel on the bleak shore of the new country, were but opening another door. In their blindness they reached out eager hands to close all others save their own. No, we do not know God. But he 27 LIVING TEACHERS knows us. Sees us put up our high board fences, our granite walls, close our doors, draw the curtains of our prejudice, and shut out the light. Sees us — and waits with the patience which belongs only to omnipotence — waits, until some greater soul breaks down a barrier, pushes a prejudice aside, and lets in another beam of light. "A new truth discovered," men say; some doubt, some accept, and some greatly troubled throw away what truth they have. A new truth? No! Truth is the same. It is fixed, unchangeable, eternal, true! Not new truth, just another beam of light re- vealing a little more of the glorious whole. Last fall when the harvest moon was full and hung so big and round and 28 LIVING TEACHERS low in the sky, a little eight-year-old went to the postoffice with me. As we walked along he suddenly looked up. "See, the moon is following us," he said, "it goes right along as fast as we do." I explained that the moon did not really move along with us, just looked as if it did. He did not be- lieve it. When we reached the office, pointing his small finger straight at the tower he said in most convincing tone, "There's that moon right over the tower; it did follow us, look!" I shook my head but said nothing. There was nothing I could say. We went home, the great shining ball fol- lowing us all the way, and when I left him at his door, with glad trium- phant voice he called out, "Look, look 29 LIVING TEACHERS at it! There it is right over your house ; it came back with us again." When he went in, I stood looking up at it, so bright, so still, so near. I knew that it was far, far away; that it was cold and dark, shining only with borrowed light. I knew I told the child the truth. I knew it did not follow us. I knew how to explain the delusion — but I could not explain it to him. He was so little, so limited, his knowledge was so meagre, there were no words, no terms, no medium through which I might give my knowledge to him. For several years yet the moon will follow him up town and return with him. But little by little, step by step, I shall teach him, until some day he reaches the place where I can explain it all, and have 30 LIVING TEACHERS the joy of seeing the light break over his face, and hear those words a teacher loves, "Oh, now I see." Then I can open his eyes to new mysteries and teach him again to "see." And so he grows. Men and women, I have often won- dered if life does not mean that I am being taught, little by little, step by step, until I shall reach the place where the Great Teacher can explain, and I can understand and cry out with my small boy, "Oh, now I see." And when I have seen, He will show me a new mystery and teach me to understand. And so I grow. But alas for me, if I shut out the light. Then the healthful, bracing, life-giving air goes too, and leaves me weak and anaemic, ready to receive the 31 LIVING TEACHERS deadly germs that lurking in the dark, easily find lodgment in my soul. If one is to grow he must have food. Not any kind of food that will satisfy hunger for the moment, but food of the right sort. Have you ever seen them, the tiny babies brought by careworn mothers to city clinics? So small, weak and puny, suffering from no disease, Just starving for food? The little faces haunt one for days. I saw one baby I shall never forget. I should have been almost afraid to hold the tiny, frail, little thing; but the mother held it so tenderly, so close. The doctor thought a long time and then gave the formula for the milk which he hoped would save it. It was successful — just the food the child needed. At the end 32 LIVING TEACHERS of three months the little face was round, eyes bright and hands so differ- ent. With joy in her face the mother told of the weekly gain. The doctor listened and questioned, changing and adapting his formula to meet the need of the child. Years ago that child would have died, starved, in the moth- er's arms. But now we have learned that food of the right sort means nour- ishment, life and growth. We are be- ginning to understand, too, that that which is true of physical life is true of mental and spiritual; that our prob- lem is often just to find the formula, to be able to supply food that will nourish and build up the tissue of mind and soul. Yet how slow we are to do it. How little the average teacher 33 LIVING TEACHERS thinks. He says there is no time to think, but that is not quite true,. One may think in so many places when he has learned how. I may stand some rainy night in a crowded trolley car holding on to the strap, pushed and jostled by people who are tired and cross, and think thoughts that reach down to the heart of things and up to the heart of God. Or I may simply hold on, and frown and fret at the weather and the crowd. Pleasant, helpful, broadening, stimulating, satis- fying thoughts may be mine, if I but fill my mind, in odd moments, if I have no other time, with material out of which thought and the power to think is made. Imagination, that great door through which thought passes from the seen to 34 LIVING TEACHERS the unseen, how little we use it! Per- haps not at all after twenty. I stepped into a school-room a while ago where forty bright-eyed boys and girls of nine and ten years were sitting. Out- side the dull gray clouds hung low, and suddenly the snow began to fall, lazily at first, then in great flurries. It was the first snow of the winter. The children turned around and looked out of the window and at each other, happiness on every face. One little fellow forgot where he was, and said in a loud whisper, "Look, it's snowing!" The teacher Had been annoyed by the wandering eyes, and this brought a reprimand. "We all know it's snow- ing; we have seen snow before," she said in her calm, cold voice, "we are 35 LIVING TEACHERS drawing maps now." It was true, they were and they must. But where were memory and imagination? Starved! She had forgotten the first snow when one is ten and just before Christmas! Ah, one does not feel then that he has "seen it many times be- fore." If in imagination she could only have gone back she would have been a better teacher that day. What men and women miss who have starved the imagination and let it die! They cannot stand before the crowded counter at Christmas and know what it means as they watch the rough Italian laborer, just from the street, buy a curly-haired, blue-eyed doll for ten cents, and go out holding it carefully under his arm. It is not possible for them to hear the angels 36 LIVING TEACHERS sing over Judean hills. It is not pos- sible while walking home some still, clear night when the stars are shining, to go far away over sea and land to the house outside Jerusalem and watch the Pharisee, Nicodemus, going slowly up the hill to the Master with his burning question. Such an one can- not feel the thrill of power in the an- swer nor catch a sudden glimpse of its meaning while he breathes from the depth of his own soul — teach me also, thou Christ, teach me! To him the stars are ordinary, the sky just as always, and the story, words. How many men and women every- where in this world are living starved lives— sympathies blunted by disuse, the emotions shallow and limited, ca- pacity for deep friendships and large Z7 LIVING TEACHERS interests growing less with every year. They are daily feeding their souls on the little, the petty, the mean in human life. If I am to be a living teacher, these things must not be true of me. I must give mind and soul food of the right sort, that I may daily take up my work with a spirit that is health- ful, well nourished and sane. Then the powers within me will cry out for exercise, and I shall plunge cheerfully into the work of my world with all that I am. There is room for exercise every- where. The world offers an unlimited athletic field. If your faith is weak, go to work, and it won't be so long. That eighteen-year-old girl, who came to me troubled by doubts of every kind, lost them all before she had finished giv- 38 LIVING TEACHERS ing the fourth music lesson to a fac- tory girl whose soul hungered for mu- sic, beauty and friendship. The splen- did courage and sweet womanliness of the girl with no chance, opened her eyes. That young man, intelligent, full of energy, beginning to drift away from the church, to shrug his shoulders a little at its Sunday school, to spend his Sunday evenings in a purely social way, turned around completely when given charge of a boys' club with a room equipped for gymnastics. The hard work he put into it, the personal contact two nights each week witbu twelve and fourteen-year-old boys who so frankly admired him, made a fine man of him. The weak of will, faith and charac- 39 LIVING TEACHERS ter in the world, like the weak of muscle and brain are not those who w r ork, but those who stand by waiting. Reward for work has always been strength and ability to do more work. Exercise means increased capacity. Light and air, food and exercise for mind and spirit, as well as body — these will send me to my class a living teacher with a real answer to the prob- lems of the every day in which my pupils live and work out their salva- tion. Living teachers, then, will have power born of the depths of reality. They will change, they will grow and develop steadily through the years. But that is not all. They will awaken life. Life begets life. To awaken, to 40 LIVING TEACHERS quicken, to produce life in mind and soul — this is the teacher's greatest mis- sion. And life is interest. Without interest there can be no real life. When I left the art gallery that afternoon and walked again down the hot, dusty street, I saw the same look on the faces of men and women that you see today in your own city or town. Where are the happy, inter- ested faces filled with eager anticipa- tion? I did not find them. Neither can you. The tired, fretful, anxious, hurried, care-worn faces, some which seem bored by life, and many marked by sins of passion and indulgence, all these are there. They seem to say that life is naught but toil and grind, and 41 LIVING TEACHERS to find pleasure is such a struggle that it hardly pays to seek it. Ah! it is after a walk through crowded city streets that I love my children with their bright, eager faces filled with interest, with pleasure, present and anticipated. Then I know what it means to be a teacher of chil- dren. Often as I pass from one room to another, I feel like whispering to them, "Don't grow up — you will lose it, the keen interest in life and things — you will be like them, the men and women I see on train and trolley, on ocean liners, in great hotels, at theatre doors and in church pews — don't grow up." I never look into the face of an audience of girls in their early teens, filled with hope, joy and life, without 42 LIVING TEACHERS longing to cry out to them, "Don't grow up." For I remember how their older sisters look after three or four years of business, or, worse still, of social life. I recall the faces of others who have lived longer and have lost it— lost it — the keen interest in living which is life. But some have kept it. Some have grown up, and enthusiasm, genuine in- terest, love of life is with them still. I saw such an one on the train one dreary November day. He was a man about fifty, quiet in manner, but peo- ple glanced up as he passed. It was a face one was glad to see. The man sitting in front of me made room for him and went on looking at his paper. He had interested me because he studied the column "Male Help 43 LIVING TEACHERS Wanted" so earnestly and, though a young man, seemed discouraged and dejected. Finally, he folded the paper with a sigh. The older man looked keenly at him for a moment, then spoke. I could not hear the conversation, but it was earn- est. A card was passed to the younger man and his face brightened. He gave his own name and it was written in a pocket diary. As we drew into the station at Boston they both stood. I can see that handshake now. I have not seen many like it. The younger man's face showed the response he felt, and his voice trembled as he said, "It's the first encouragement I've had for months, and if I don't get the place, you've put a little heart into me any- way." 44 LIVING TEACHERS I understood the power and peace of that face then. He had been for years putting "a little heart" into men. As he hurried into the crowd to greet a friend, he walked as if he loved to live, and a deep happiness and joy seemed to be his. I have seen others, both men and women, who have kept it. Alice Freeman Palmer never lost it. She put out her hand and spoke to all sorts and conditions of men and their world became new. I suppose it was the secret of Lincoln. There are many in whom the great funda- mentals which make men brothers throb warm and deep. There ought to be more. Perhaps there would be, if we teachers had more interest and love of life to implant deeply in the hearts of our children. 45 LIVING TEACHERS The keen interest of living — if I could only give it back to those who have lost it! That is what Christ did. With splendid enthusiasm, sane zeal, genuine interest he faced that dead system of religion which had lost its power over life. The tithes of mint and annis, the washings and the sacrifices, the hope- lessly dead letter of the law — empty, its warm, vital spirit gone; into that world he poured his living, loving, eager soul, and it awoke! The Phari- sees listened, Sadducees asked ques- tions, lawyers debated great problems, the rich young ruler sought him out, men and women wept tears of real re- pentance and began to live new lives. Everywhere men awoke, threw the husks of a dead system away and be- 46 LIVING TEACHERS gan to live. Interest, deep, real, life- giving, came back to men, and made Peter, John and Paul possible. How sadly the world needs him to- day! How much it needs men and wo- men who have caught something of his spirit. The church needs them that it may have living preachers in its pul- pits, living Christians in its pews, liv- ing teachers of its children. If life, genuine, warm, rich, abund- ant, filled the hearts of those of us in the church today, men and women would not wait so long outside. I know it. So do you. Nor would there be so many empty chairs in the Sun- day school rooms. The business of every teacher is* to encourage and enthuse every pupil he teaches. He is an artist, and the pic- 47 LIVING TEACHERS ture he paints should awaken the am- bition of each child, stir his soul with desire to be, and inspire him with con- fidence that he can be. And if the teacher is keenly alive, a lover of the world, feels the response of its great heart, his task is perfectly possible. I never can forget a magazine story, "The Artist's Masterpiece," told me by a friend some years ago. It is a wonderful story and shows just what all I have been saying means. Back into the country town that gave him birth, the story says, came the great artist, proud of all the honor and success hard work had brought to him. He wanted rest, to see the old places he loved and live all over again the simple, natural life of his boyhood. At first the people were afraid of 48 LIVING TEACHERS his fame, but in a few weeks he was the interested friend of men, women and children, trusted and loved by all save one — Mr. A . Ten years before, Mr. A — come a stranger to the town. He said nothing about himself, had no letters of introduction, would answer no ques- tions. He opened a law office where he spent his days ; at night he studied. He was a mystery. Rumor said that an important position awaited him in a distant city, but he would not return. One day the town was greatly excited over a consulship in a distant land which was offered him. He refused to accept it. After a time they grew accustomed to him, spoke of him in half suspicious tones, and left him to himself. 49 LIVING TEACHERS The artist had tried in vain to know him. But one day, in response to the confidence in him which he had ex- pressed, Mr. A said that he had made a mistake in his life, lost his courage, and wished to forget. He would say no more. After that, seeing him walk slowly along, head down, listless and not caring, a great desire to help him find life again, filled the artist's soul. He had promised himself a full year of rest, but now sought out a studio and began to paint. Eagerly, steadily, with keenest enthusiasm he labored. Months passed and his picture was finished. That day he sought Mr. A in his office and asked him to come down and see the picture. "It is my masterpiece," he said, "I shall 50 LIVING TEACHERS never do anything better, I have put all my art into it. No one has seen it yet. Will you look at it?" Mr. A seemed pleased. They walked together to the studio. The artist stepped behind the great canvas stretched across the room. He pulled aside the crimson curtain, and there before him Mr. A saw himself. Yet it was not he, for the man upon the canvas faced the world straight, shoulders thrown back, head erect, am- bition, desire, hope, in attitude and ex- pression. For a long time he gazed in silence. The artist waited breathlessly to see if his masterpiece were a success or fail- ure. At last Mr. A spoke. "He thinks I'm that," he said. "He sees that in me." Then a pause. "Am I 51 LIVING TEACHERS that? Can I be that?" In a moment the artist stood beside him. Together they looked at the man on the canvas while the other asked again, "Can I be that?" "Yes," said the artist, and it seemed the voice of the masterpiece. Then said Mr. A , gazing straight at it, "I will go back, I will be that!' And he went from the studio, courage, hope, confidence in every step. Men and women, that is what I mean. The living teacher is an artist. He paints for every one he teaches, a masterpiece, and brings him face to face with it. Whether it be a boy with the world all new before him, or a girl filled with the joy of living, a man or woman who has tried life and found it hard — as he looks at the pic- ture of himself there is a new liqht in 32 LIVING TEACHERS his eyes and a new look on his face as he says, "Am I that? — Can I be that? 1 ' And perchance the teacher who stands by to answer "Yes," may hear him say, "I will be that," and see him go with courage and confidence into his world. A living teacher! "Am I that?" "Can I be that?" The Great Artist answers "Yes," and with courage, hope and confidence my soul replies, "I will be that." 53