other walks of life will assume toward you and toward your work.

When will the good public cease to insult the teacher's calling with
empty flattery? When will men who would never for a moment encourage
their own sons to enter the work of the public schools, cease to tell us
that education is the greatest and noblest of all human callings?
Education does not need these compliments. The teacher does not need
them. If he is a master of his craft, he knows what education means,--he
knows this far better than any layman can tell him. And what boots it to
him, if, with all this cant and hypocrisy about the dignity and worth of
his calling, he can sometimes hold his position only at the sacrifice of
his self-respect?

But what is the relation of the craft spirit to these facts? Simply
this: the true craftsman, by the very fact that he is a true craftsman,
is immune to these influences. What does the true artist care for the
plaudits or the sneers of the crowd? True, he seeks commendation and
welcomes applause, for your real artist is usually extremely human; but
he seeks this commendation from another source--from a source that metes
it out less lavishly and yet with unconditioned candor. He seeks the
commendation of his fellow-workmen, the applause of "those who know, and
always will know, and always will understand." He plays to the pit and
not to the gallery, for he knows that when the pit really approves the
gallery will often echo and reëcho the applause, albeit it has not the
slightest conception of what the whole thing is about.

What education stands in need of to-day is just this: a stimulating and
pervasive craft spirit. If a human calling would win the world's
respect, it must first respect itself; and the more thoroughly it
respects itself, the greater will be the measure of homage that the