confined to rules, tables, or dates, which may be most profitably committed, exactly as "Mother Goose" is. I take pains to allude to this, because I think great harm has been done of late by the axiom that a child should not learn anything but what it understands. This is not true of any of us, young or old. We must learn many things before we can understand one; and nothing is so unsuited to young brains, as prolonged efforts to understand. Intellectual processes differ after we become old enough to understand; not only in the two sexes, but in every two individuals. Of this fact we must take heed, or all comfort will be destroyed and much unnecessary work done. How then are we to lay the foundations of a sincere education? We must begin with the religious, the moral, and the emotional nature. We must sustain the relations God imposes on parent and child. We must bring the child face to face with the fact that this is a "hard" world. By that I mean, a world in which difficulties are to be fairly met-not shirked, set aside, or "got round." To help her to endure this hardness to the end, she must be taught a simple trust in God, and an obedient but by no means slavish deference towards parents, teachers, and elders. Without this trust and this obedience, every child leads an unhappy and unnatural life; and their existence may be made sure without one word of dogmatic teaching. Having given to the well-poised mind these inward helps, which all true growth requires, we must secure simple food, easy dress, regular meals, and the proper quantity of sleep. The child is then prepared for the steady work of mind and body which will develop both. While we do everything to make knowledge attractive and to stimulate thought when the time for thought arrives, we must be careful never to yield to the superficial demands of our people. The Kindergarten, which is refreshment and help to the plodding German child, may become a snare to the light-minded American. When the period of development arrives, study should be carefully watched to make sure there is no overwork; the character of the reading and the lessons should be guided, so that neither may tend to excite a precocious development of the passions or the senses. Anatomy may be profitably studied at this period; but just as the specialist turned his patient away from his loaded shelves, lest her own maladies should be increased by a morbid study of their source, I would keep developing girls and boys from a careful study of their own functions. If they are trained to quiet obedience, they will grow up in health precisely in proportion to the skill with which their thoughts are diverted from themselves to subjects of wider interest and more entertaining suggestion. In conclusion I must say, that education is to be adapted neither to boys nor to girls, but to individuals. The mother, or the teacher, has learned little who attempts to train any two children alike, whether as regards the books they are to study, the time it is to take, the attitudes they are to assume, or the amusements they are to be allowed. 141 Warren Avenue, Boston. CAROLINE H. DALL. 'Clear away the parasitic forms That seem to keep her up, but drag her down; Within her." |