"
Though not a born educator, not an educator by natural aptitude or
inclination, he made himself an educator by choice; and, having once
chosen his profession, he gradually developed an interest in it, a pride
in it, a love of it which astonished some of his friends. How irksome it
was to him at the beginning we saw just now in his address to the
Teachers. How irksome in many of its incidents it remained we can see in
his published Letters.
"I have had a hard day. Thirty pupil-teachers to examine in an
inconvenient room, and nothing to eat except a biscuit which a
charitable lady gave me."
"This certainly has been one of the most uncomfortable weeks I ever
spent. Battersea is so far off, the roads so execrable, and the rain so
incessant.... There is not a yard of flagging, I believe, in all
Battersea."
"Here is my programme for this afternoon: Avalanches--The
Steam-Engine--The Thames--India-Rubber--Bricks--The Battle of
Poictiers--Subtraction--The Reindeer--The Gunpowder Plot--The Jordan.
Alluring, is it not? Twenty minutes each, and the days of one's life are
only three score years and ten.
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