Like food and sleep, her attitude of worship conserves
her powers and preserves her balance. When physical weariness comes, she
sends her spirit out to the star, or the sea, or the mountain, and so
forgets her burden in the contemplation of majesty and beauty. In short,
her spirit is attuned to all beauty and sublimity and truth, and so she
is inherently an artist.
=Professor Phelps quoted.=--In his very delightful book, "Teaching in
School and College," the author, Professor William Lyon Phelps, says: "I
do not know that I could make entirely clear to an outsider the pleasure
I have in teaching. I had rather earn my living by teaching than in any
other way. In my mind, teaching is not merely a life work, a profession,
an occupation, a struggle; it is a passion. I love to teach. I love to
teach as a painter loves to paint, as a musician loves to play, as a
singer loves to sing, as a strong man rejoices to run a race. Teaching
is an art--an art so great and so difficult to master that a man or a
woman can spend a long life at it, without realizing much more than his
limitations and mistakes, and his distance from the ideal. But the main
aim of my happy days has been to become a good teacher, just as every
architect wishes to be a good architect, and every professional poet
strives toward perfection. For the chief difference between the ambition
of the artist and the ambition of a money-maker--both natural and
honorable ambitions--is that the money-maker is after the practical
reward of his toil, while the artist wants the inner satisfaction that
accompanies mastery.
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