without the chamber, their defeat is inevitable. To use the beautiful metaphor of Mr. Shiel, the first Irish orator after O'Connell, the church of Ireland will be the cemetery of toryism and Protestant intolerance. {477} THIRD LECTURE Of the Course on the Obstacles and Hindrances to Education, arising from the peculiar faults of Parents, Teachers and Scholars, and that portion of the Public immediately concerned in directing and controlling our Literary Institutions. _On the Faults of Teachers_. It will be recollected, my friends, that my last effort was to expose the vices and faults of parents, so far as they obstruct the progress of education. Those of instructers shall next be exhibited, since they are certainly entitled at least to the second in rank in their power to do mischief. I might sum up all _their_ faults in one sweeping condemnation, by saying that they render the persons guilty of them enemies to themselves, to their professional brethren, and to the public. But specifications are wanting, and such I propose to give, as minutely and distinctly as I can. In the first place, they injure themselves by the style and language often used when they tender their services to the public. The expressions are frequently such as to encourage the idea, already too prevalent, that _they_ are the only party to be obliged—_they alone_ to be the receivers of favors never to be adequately compensated. Whereas the truth is, if they are really fit for their business, and desirous to perform it faithfully, they never receive the millionth part of a cent for which they do not make a most ample return—a return, the real value of which can never be measured by mere dollars and cents. But the language in which they seek or acknowledge employment, often expresses a degree of humility below the lowest gospel requirement—a doubt of their own qualifications to teach, which, if true, ought forever to exclude them from the class of instructers. It sometimes, in fact, deserves no better name than a servile begging for patronage, as if they considered it a species of gratuitous alms. Ought it to be wondered at, when this is the case, that the public should understand them literally, and treat them accordingly? If they avoid this extreme in tendering their services, it by no means follows, as a necessary consequence, that they should run into the other, which is also very common, of making themselves ridiculous by extravagant pretensions. The middle course in this, as in many other things, is best. Let them always state plainly and explicitly, without exaggeration, what they believe they can do—their willingness to make the attempt with persevering fidelity, and the pecuniary compensation expected for their services. If this were always fairly and fully done, there could not be even the shadow of a pretext on the part of any who might then choose to accept their