longer and a little longer, because he has fixed a certain time, after which he intends to do better. Perhaps he will assert that his companions, his surroundings, his position must be changed before he can alter his internal conduct. Wherever education or temperament favors sentimentality, we shall find birthdays, New Year's day, confirmation day, etc., selected as these turning points. It is not to be denied that man proceeds, in his internal life, from epoch to epoch, and renews himself in his most internal nature, nor can we deny that moments like those mentioned are especially favorable in man to an effort towards self-transformation, because they invite introspection; but it is not to be endured that the youth, while looking forward to such a moment, should consciously persist in his wrong doing. If he does, when the solemn moment which he has set, at last arrives, he will, at the stirring of the first emotion, perceive with terror that he has changed nothing in himself, that the same temptations are present to him, and the same weakness takes possession of him. In morality

* * *

there are no vacations and no interims." *

The power of voluntary Renunciation is another power which the educator has to develop in the girl. It can be cultivated, of course, only by judicious exer

cise.

But the formation of Character is the great work of the educator, for this may be said to be the object of a woman's existence. Character has been defined as "a completely fashioned Will "-i. e., a completely educated Will. If it is "completely fashioned," it must of neces

* Pedagogics as a System. Rosenkranz, p. 83, Published by William T. Harris, St. Louis, Mo.

sity be consistent. It is scarcely necessary here to call attention to the fact that by character, in any educational sense, we mean that which the woman really is-not what she is thought to be by others.

Character may, it is evident, be either good or bad; for one may be consistently bad as well as consistently good. But we are concerned only with the building of character where that building means the "making permanent the direction of the individual Will towards the actualization of the good."

The woman of good character is she who, while she acts spontaneously, acts in all things consistently; the parts of whose life grow together, as it were, into one organic unity. We know what to expect of her. In her friendship we confide, on her love we safely rely, by her judgment, provided she has been intellectually educated, we regulate our action in times of difficulty and distress. "The heart of her husband doth safely trust in her, and her children rise up and call her blessed," and when she passes through the gate of death, her country should mourn, for it can ill-afford to miss her.

RELIGIOUS CULTURE.

When the girl has learned to accept duty as the decisive guide of her actions, she is acting conscientiously, and passes over into the real religious life. A distinction must be here made between Religion and Theology, the latter of which belongs to special educators. At first, in the child, religion is a feeling, a sentiment, which the mother generally fosters and directs. It appears in the form of wonder at natural phenomena, of fear and terror when these are disagreeable, and of gratitude when they

are agreeable. But this feeling or sentiment of religion the savage has, and it properly belongs, in civilized Christian communities, only to the period of childhood. If the little girl be not educated into a higher religion than this, and if, at the same time, her whole mental horizon have, from unfinished intellectual education, remained narrow, she has nothing on which any teaching of Theology can be based, and nothing which will bear the stress and strain of actual life. In such a case-that is, if her religion is only gratitude for favors, if her only idea of God is that of a Benefactor-when benefits fail, her religion will fail also. While she has all that she can desire, she is full of religious faith. She loses parents, husband, and only child, and her faith has vanished, and she even doubts whether there be any God, since he can allow so much misery. She asks why, if he were good and kind and loved his children, he could not have divided his gifts more equally, why he could not have taken one child from her neighbor who has seven, instead of her one ewe lamb. Allowance must be made for the first unreason of terrible torture to the affections, and the first heartbroken exclamations are not always to be trusted as an index of the religious faith. But when in many a woman, this becomes a chronic state of mind, is it not a serious question for educators to ask, whether the fault does not lie in her narrow education? Ought she not to have had her intellect so cultured that she should be able to hold at once in her thought, and without confusion, these two truths: that God's thought and care for the Universe must be a thought of Law which cannot be broken for individual cases, and also that even one sparrow does not fall without his notice?

Ought she not to have been educated into so wide a

horizon of thought that she herself, and her affairs, her loves, and hates, should not loom up before her in such disproportionate size? A woman is to live in her affections? But what if her affections have been outraged, betrayed, or crushed? The sentiment is a very good one, but it is but sentiment still, and our American girls will not be less strong in their affections if we educate them into thought and knowledge, as well as into emotion and blind belief. If the mere religious feeling which belonged to the child is not led over into a something stronger and surer, it becomes morbid and degenerates into sentimentality and mysticism. Can we afford to let the strong feeling in our American girls be lost for all real good, in this way? Shall we not rather direct it by a sound religious education, into more healthy channels? In such a completed education alone can we find the ground for any active acceptance of our lot. "The constant new birth out of the grave of the past, to the life of a more beautiful future, is the only genuine reconciliation with destiny."

Only when we have accomplished such an education as this for our American girls, the best material the world has ever yet seen, may we safely trust the interests of future generations to their strong, intelligent, and religious guidance.