Lewis, though cares and labors had seriously impaired his health, was the acknowledged leader. His charm of manner, the justness of his views and the earnestness of his purpose, caused him to be head not only with interest and pleasure, but with affectionate reverence. Whenever he spoke all present gathered near him— often so near, that if he made a gesture, he touched their garments. When he failed to attend, the club meetings were comparatively dull. The fluent speech and winning manner which Mr. Lewis displayed in that club were recognized early in his life. He was the son of a sea captain, and was born at Falmouth, Massachusetts, on the 17th of March, 1799. The common rudiments of an education were not all within his command in boyhood, but he loved to read and write, and being a studious and conscientious lad, at ten years of age he was a member of the Methodist Church. Before he was twelve years old he had attracted attention as an exhorter. His father having met with reverses in seafaring removed to the West in 1813. He settled on a farm near Cincinnati, and when Samuel was fifteen years of age hired him at seven dollars a month to a neighbor who had the contract for carrying the mail between Cincinnati and Chillicothe. Samuel was the mail boy for nearly a year. Seven days on horseback, and at certain seasons of the year, two nights, were required for the trip. Samuel met all the dangers and fatigues of his journeys uncomplainingly, but when an opportunity was offered him to go with a party of surveyors into Indiana, he gladly accepted. He had been in the forest but a few months, however, when he determined to learn a trade. He engaged himself to a house carpenter, serving out his apprenticeship with industry and intelligence he became a respected workman. No opportunity to improve his mind had escaped him from the time he was first permitted to go with his father on coasting voyages, until he became a journeyman carpenter. No enticements of idle or vicious boys or men, had ever led him, for one hour, from the faithful pursuit of whatever duties had been assigned him, consequently he was not only respected for intelligence, but was honored for his upright deportment and for his freedom from vulgar associations. The enlarged views of society, which reading and reflection had given him, inspired an ambition for a wider sphere of action. He determined to study law. He was then, in 1819, twenty years of age. He had paid his father, for his time, $50 a year for five years, and must pay him $50 more for the year yet to transpire before his majority. On account of his honesty and available intelligence, he was given a clerkship in the office of the clerk of the Court of Common Pleas for Hamilton County. His salary was $30 a year and board. He boarded himself and was allowed for it one hundred and twenty-five dollars. He has often said his diet was literally bread and water and his raiment the cheapest he could purchase. He worked faithfully all day at his clerk's desk and studied his law books only at night, yet in April, 1822, was admitted to the Bar with encouraging compliments by his examiners. His industry, intelligence and probity were known to many influential men, and he immediately obtained a lucrative practice, out of the profits of which he purchased his father's farm and assisted to educate his brothers and sisters. He was distinguished as an advocate and was much sought for as a speaker at public meetings. He had so closely identified himself with good works that when, in 1830, William Woodward, at his advice, endowed the College which is now known as Woodward High School, Mr. Lewis was appointed Life Trustee, and had the chief direction of the funds and plans. He was an early and active member of the Western College of Teachers, and when in 1837, through the influence of members of that Association, the office of Superintendent of Common Schools for Ohio was created the unanimous voice of educational men was for Samuel Lewis. He was Superintendent during 1837, 1838 and 1839. He infused new life into the school system, and gave wholesome direction to public education-he prepared and procured the passage of an adequate law-protected the school lands from alienationsecured a State fund of $200,000—saw school houses improved― the standard of qualification for teachers elevated, and the time for keeping open schools prolonged. He laid the foundation for schools higher in grade-secured increased wages for teachers, and procured the employment of women more generally. In 1837, the year he was first Superintendent, $317,730 were paid for tuition. In 1839, $701,091 were paid. In the same time the number of schools increased from 4,336 to 7,295, and the number of scholars from 150,402 to 254,612, and the number of months taught, from 22,168 to 29,199. The cost of school houses built in 1833 was $61,890; in 1839 it was $206,445. When Mr. Lewis resigned his office, in December, 1839, it was conceded among all classes of men, who were acquainted with his self-sacrificing labors, that his speeches, reports and articles in the School Director, which he conducted and published by State authority, had been the instruments of a general school reform. The parents and children of Ohio owe Mr. Lewis a debt of gratitude which should make his memory precious to them all. He died on the 28th of July, 1854, and was mourned as an honest man, an eloquent advocate for popular education, and moral and political reform; an exemplary citizen-a devoted husband and parent. His wife, to whom he was married in 1823, and one son and daughter survive him. THE TRUE TEACHER OF THE HIGHEST TYPE. BY BENJAMIN W. DWIGHT, OF CLINTON, N. Y.* There is, as is everywhere known, and by none so well as teachers themselves, but little intensity of interest felt in high and true views of education. Religious, ecclesiastical, political and monetary matters, and even the pettinesses of social gossip, kindle excitement in every community; but the educational necessities, crises, forces and movements of the age-who knows anything about them? Who cares for them? Who even recognizes their existence, as a great essential part of the fabric of society? It is a sad evidence indeed of the wide spread want of a high and pure Humanity, that those interests which Heaven magnifies as the only real ones of earth, both for what they are in themselves and as being the proper end and issue of all the other appointed elements and influences of Time, should be not only quite unappreciated, but almost even unrecognized as such among men. ety must reach a far more perfected state of development than now, before moral and intellectual claims shall find their proper elevated rank among things material and visible. * Author of the Higher Christian Education, and Modern Philology. Soci But nowhere is it so needful that the true glory of the teacher's vocation should be seen and felt to be what it is, as among teachers themselves. So unconsciously and yet strangely imitative are all men of each other, and so magnetically sympathetic, that they everywhere live in groups and move in masses, not only in their outward but also in their inward life. This law of gregariousness is as manifestly at work through all the external elements of society, as is the law of habit throughout the interior mechanism of the mind; in order to strengthen our power of action, by increasing its volume in the one case, as by increasing its facility and certainty in the other. In all occupations accordingly earnest thinkers irresistibly leaven others with their ideas. Leaders there are and there must be even to flocks of birds and swarms of bees and herds of beasts; and leaders always in like manner thrust forth themselves in one shape and another, as if by an inward divine instinct, in every form and degree of social activity. And, as, in matters of mechanical skill we search most eagerly for the workmanship of those who are masters of their art; so, in our opinions we involuntarily turn for illumination toward those who stand at the central point of light and action, and wield the energies that are gathered there. He therefore who would have others magnify his office, must magnify it himself. No men in monarchial countries are estimated so highly as those who attend to state affairs, because they themselves have for many generations set such an estimate on the privileges and powers of their position; and, among our own free democratic institutions, no profession stands in such honor for general deference to its claims, as that of the ministry, the incumbents of which are so frank and frequent in magnifying their vocation beyond all others. But alas! how few educators seem to have any high mastering sense of the splendid possibilities of their calling! How very few have entered upon it with any large-hearted, heroic, life-long choice of its duties and labors. As this noble profession, which, however, scarcely any one yet thinks of so describing, is so depreciated in the public regard, those, who have for various reasons entered upon it seem, many, if not most, of them to have accepted it as a sort of forlorn hope: not for the grand purpose indeed, well worthy of their ambition, of bearing erect its banners now trailing in the dust, with shouts of victory in the end before the eyes of all men; but as a dernier resort, where they may find a safe retreat from the disappointment with which they meet everywhere else, or at best a quiet watch-tower, where they may look and wait for something better in the chances and changes of the times. But as no human hands can damage or help the church, save those which are in it; so none can depress or elevate the divine calling of the teacher, except those who are its standard-bearers; and in the low general estimate of this most needful of all public vocations for the perpetuation of the advancement of society, we see revealed as in a mirror a true image of their own low estimate of its worthiness, for the most part, who have been hitherto its managers. There is certainly no finer field for genius, in which to carve out great plans or to perform great deeds than that of education; and the wonder is that no more of those higher minds, which God has purposely made seers for the rest of their generation, seem to have any deep quickening insight of this truth. Surely the age has never before been, in which there were so many and so great necessities and opportunities for acting the patriot, philanthropist and hero as this; and there is no calling in it equal, for the whole assemblage of its forces, influences and issues, unless it be that of the true, manly, earnest Christian statesman, to that of the accomplished and devoted Christian teacher. To act the great man is as much nobler than to describe one, with whatever power of the pencil or the pen, as a man himself is nobler than his picture or his shadow. And what spot on earth is so favored, in which to act the hero, as that in which not only all the sentiments and deeds of the most magnanimous soul have at all times full scope and stimulus for the highest activity; but where also the indirect influence alike and the direct effort are, to form a procession of other heroes in annual succession? How delightful to plant one's higher self in the fertile soil of other minds and younger hearts, quick with natural instincts from above to catch and grow such immortal seed. To cultivate with sublime appreciation, and studious skill, and prayerful yearnings of desire for the right result, a harvest, a great and glorious harvest, of true and noble hearts that, long after one's own passage to the skies, shall stand up for good to others and for honor to themselves upon the earth, ready with manly courage for great crises, yet not waiting for them, but |