"Why—yes—that will do; and yet it is not exactly right. You see this is what they call a civil case."
"I don't think it is very civil."
"No, I don't mean it was civil to take your seat, but this is not a case where a person is prosecuted for having done any thing wrong."
The plaintiff looked a little perplexed, as if she could not understand how it could be otherwise than wrong for a girl to usurp her seat.
"I mean, you do not bring it into court as a case of wrong. You do not want her to be punished, do you?"
"No, I only want her to give me up my seat; I don't want her to be punished."
"Well, then, you see that, although she may have done wrong to take your seat, it is not in that point of view that you bring it into court. It is a question about the right of property, and the lawyers call such cases civil cases, to distinguish them from cases where persons are tried for the purpose of being punished for doing wrong. These last are called criminal cases."
The aggrieved party still looked perplexed. "Well, Mr. B.," she continued, "what shall I do? How shall I write it? I can not say any thing about civil in it, can I?"
A form was given her which would be proper for the purpose, and the case was brought forward, and the evidence on both sides examined. The irritation of the quarrel was soon dissipated in the amusement of a semi-serious trial, and both parties good-humoredly acquiesced in the decision.
9. TEACHERS' PERSONAL CHARACTER.—Much has been said within a few years, by writers on the subject of education in this country, on the desirableness of raising the business of teaching to the rank of a learned profession. There is but one way of doing this, and that is raising the personal characters and attainments of the teachers themselves. Whether an employment is elevated or otherwise in public estimation, depends altogether on the associations, connected with it in the public mind, and these depend altogether on the characters of the individuals who are engaged in it. Franklin, by the simple fact that he was a printer himself, has done more toward giving dignity and respectability to the employment of printing, than a hundred orations on the intrinsic excellence of the art. In fact, all mechanical employments have, within a few years, risen in rank in this country, not through the influence of efforts to impress the community directly with a sense of their importance, but simply because mechanics themselves have risen in intellectual and moral character. In the same manner, the employment of the teacher will be raised most effectually in the estimation of the public, not by the individual who writes the most eloquent oration on the intrinsic dignity of the art, but by the one who goes forward most successfully in the exercise of it, and who, by his general attainments and public character, stands out most fully to the view of the public as a well-informed, liberal-minded, and useful man.