"After all, a man acts so because he is so. And what each man is, that Shakespeare reveals to us most immediately; he demands and obtains our belief, even for what is singular and deviates from the ordinary course of nature. Never perhaps was there so comprehensive a talent for characterization as Shakespeare. It not only grasps every diversity of rank, age, and sex, down to the lispings of infancy; not only do the king and the beggar, the hero and the pickpocket, the sage and the idiot, speak and act with equal truthfulness; not only does he transport himself to distant ages and foreign nations, and portray with the greatest accuracy (a few apparent violations of costume excepted) the spirit of the ancient Romans, of the French in the wars with the English, of the English themselves during a great part of their history, of the Southern Europeans (in the serious part of many comedies), the cultivated society of the day, and the rude barbarism of a Norman foretime; his human characters have not only such depth and individuality that they do not admit of being classed under common names, and are inexhaustible even in conception,--no, this Prometheus not merely forms men, he opens the gates of the magical world of spirits." What is true of Shakespeare in a preëminent degree is true to a marked extent of all the great novelists and poets. The teacher needs to possess great versatility and tact in social situations. A quick insight, social ease, freedom, and self-possession are of the first importance to him. The power of sympathy, of appreciation for others' feelings and difficulties, is wholly dependent upon such social cultivation. Otherwise the teacher will be rude, even uncouth and boorish in manner, producing friction and ill-will where tact and gentleness would bring sympathy and confidence. Many people absorb this refinement of thought and manner from the social circles with which they mingle, and it is, of course, a smiling fortune that has placed a teacher's early life in a happy and cultured atmosphere, where the social sympathies and graces are absorbed almost unconsciously. But even where the earlier conditions have been less favorable, the opportunity for rapid social development and culture is most promising. The numberless cases in our country in which young people, by the strength of their energetic purpose and desire for improvement, have raised themselves not only to superior knowledge and scholarship, but also to that far greater refinement of social life and manner which we call true culture,--the numberless instances of this sort are a surprising indication of the power of education. Literature has been a potent agent in this direction. It emancipates, it sets free, the spirit of man. It lifts him above what is sordid and material, and gives him those true standards of worth with which to measure all things. It contains within itself the refining elements, the æsthetic and ethical