DOCENDO DISCIMUS, 223

getting stronger and stronger. While it was far from
his nature to put on any airs of command, or seek
authority over his lads by looking big, Carl perceived
that they respected him, and gradually felt his strength.
A hundred little experiments in teaching or govern-
ment, which he would once have shrunk from, he now
felt free to undertake, As his confidence and skill in-
ereased, he took the same lively and indescribable in-
terest in managing his boys which a dexterous driver
has in controlling and guiding spirited horses, four or
six in hand. Or, to use his own figure in hig journal,
“the same pleasure which a sculptor feels, as the statue
comes into shape and beauty under his chisel.”

“WE LEARN BY TEACHING,” says a Latin proverb.*
Carl met with this remark in an old writer: “I seem
to myself to have no accurate knowledge of a subject
until I have tried to teach somebody else.” There is
nothing which gives such exactness of knowledge as
endeavouring to communicate it. “It is,” said Mr.
Mill, “a benignant provision of our adorable Creator,
who thus, as it were, puts a bounty upon what might
otherwise be a task and a drudgery.” This was
exemplified in the lessons which Carl gave in his own
language. If there was one thing which he thought he
_ knew above all things else, it was German; yet, when.
he came to teach a class of the higher boys, he found
that they put questions to him which he could not an-

* Docendo discimus.