Saturday, 31st.
Your comrade Stardi never complains of his teacher; I am sure of
that. "The master was in a bad temper, was impatient,"--you say it
in a tone of resentment. Think an instant how often you give way to
acts of impatience, and towards whom? towards your father and your
mother, towards whom your impatience is a crime. Your master has
very good cause to be impatient at times! Reflect that he has been
laboring for boys these many years, and that if he has found many
affectionate and noble individuals among them, he has also found
many ungrateful ones, who have abused his kindness and ignored his
toils; and that, between you all, you cause him far more bitterness
than satisfaction. Reflect, that the most holy man on earth, if
placed in his position, would allow himself to be conquered by
wrath now and then. And then, if you only knew how often the
teacher goes to give a lesson to a sick boy, all alone, because he
is not ill enough to be excused from school and is impatient on
account of his suffering, and is pained to see that the rest of you
do not notice it, or abuse it! Respect, love, your master, my son.
Love him, also, because your father loves and respects him; because
he consecrates his life to the welfare of so many boys who will
forget him; love him because he opens and enlightens your
intelligence and educates your mind; because one of these days,
when you have become a man, and when neither I nor he shall be in
the world, his image will often present itself to your mind, side
by side with mine, and then you will see certain expressions of
sorrow and fatigue in his honest countenance to which you now pay
no heed: you will recall them, and they will pain you, even after
the lapse of thirty years; and you will feel ashamed, you will feel
sad at not having loved him, at having behaved badly to him. Love
your master; for he belongs to that vast family of fifty thousand
elementary instructors, scattered throughout all Italy, who are the
intellectual fathers of the millions of boys who are growing up
with you; the laborers, hardly recognized and poorly recompensed,
who are preparing in our country a people superior to those of the
present. I am not content with the affection which you have for me,
if you have it not also for all those who are doing you good, and
among these, your master stands first, after your parents. Love him
as you would love a brother of mine; love him when he caresses and
when he reproves you; when he is just, and when he appears to you
to be unjust; love him when he is amiable and gracious; and love
him even more when you see him sad. Love him always. And always
pronounce with reverence that name of "teacher," which, after that
of your father, is the noblest, the sweetest name which one man can
apply to another man.