to the dollar in discharge of his just obligations. And in addition to this commercial morality, and with a sensitiveness which indicates the longing for an ideal standard, it is sometimes thought advisable to throw into the educational caldron a flavor of self-denial which does not appear in the pages of the ledger, and a little taste, to give piquancy to the otherwise prosy railroad journey of life.

The first condition of having constructed or furnished the human machine with the ability to preserve a state of solvency having been complied with, just as the Indian selected his war-club of sound material, we seem to look for yet another characteristic; viz., fitting a man to be happy as well as solvent, by opening his eyes to the beautiful, and his mind and reasoning faculties to the true in nature, science, and art. More than half the difficulties which have beset the path of education in many countries have proceeded from the desire to magnify the importance of this latter element in education, only that the disagreement has usually come to an issue on the question of morals rather than science

or art.

The tendency of modern education is to elevate the attainments of all, rather than to increase the knowledge of a few; and the great example which America has gloriously offered to the world is making education as free as the light and air of heaven to every human being who is born under her flag.

Neither ancient, mediæval, nor modern times can show a greater spectacle than this-that the delib

erate wisdom of the free American people has decided, and carries out by its own free choice, the principle, that society should guard and protect the young from the neglect or poverty of parents, and insure that every possible citizen of the future shall be qualified by education to discharge his or her duty to the State.

I can find no words in the English language which adequately express my admiration of this feature in American society; and, when the prejudices engendered by my own education in an ancient country sometimes rise up within me, I look out mentally to the school-houses, and then remember the neglected children of England and some other European countries, and all my dissatisfaction vanishes. In place of it comes the sensation that a people capable of performing so far-seeing and profound an act of justice to the weak and defenceless may be trusted in every social relationship; and from the flag-staff of national sentiment I haul down the union-jack, and as a teacher I run up the stars and stripes of my adopted nationality.

Patriotism is virtuous when one's country is in the right; it is mere clannishness when the country to which we owe allegiance is in the wrong; and the sentiment "My country, right or wrong," is not the cry of the man, but the howling of the patriotic slave.

Perhaps the most definite charge made against our systems of education in modern times is that they are too purely intellectual from the first, and

especially so in the lowest schools for children of tender years; that the living senses of the young, which are in a perpetual condition of inquiry, and are therefore the teacher's natural allies, have been very much ignored; while the yet incipient mental and reasoning faculties have been drawn upon out of all proportion to their strength, and with a bad effect upon their future development.

That there is some truth in this view seems to be becoming generally recognized; for in recent years the changes and alterations made in, and the additions made to our educational schemes, have been in the opposite direction to that which we commonly recognize as the intellectual, and have had for their object the more perfect development of the understanding by appeals to the senses, and their cultivation.

Thus the object-lessons which are now so popular, and deservedly so; the experimental, diluted science which is rapidly entering the upper classes; the music and the elementary drawing which is now being introduced into all schools and classes-all these are efforts to reach the individual through his senses. The success attending the Kindergarten system, and its exceedingly humane and gentle methods of instruction, form, perhaps, the most decisive evidence, that, for the education of the very young, we want less of the burden of abstract formulæ, and more honest recognition of the senses. If we remember-what seems generally forgottenthat in the child the senses are developed as strongly

as in the adult, whilst the reasoning faculties are yet but in the condition of instinct, it would seem to be reasonable that education should primarily appeal to those human faculties which will never be more perfectly developed, in order to secure both success in its results, and merciful treatment of the child.

I think that the remarkable success in practical life of many men of distinction and usefulness, to whom the dry education of the school-room with its rules and tables made no appeal, and who, given up as dunces, or securing their freedom as neglected children, sought and found a rough practical education in the fields or woods, among animals, or playing in workshops, proves that even following the natural inclination of the senses, without the advantage of guidance or instruction, is sometimes equivalent to a whole course of school-education.

The fact, also, that to learn something about everything they see, whether in a garden, on the seashore, in the market-place, or the shop-window, is a source of the greatest delight to children, proves to me, that, from natural desire, they should find their greatest happiness in learning; and they do so when information is presented to them as they acquire it out of doors by themselves, or, by persistent questioning, worry their parents or companions out of it.

It is of some advantage to a teacher to have continually under his own eyes and observation a troop of children in various stages of physical and mental development; and if they happen to be his own,

who in the natural course of things look up to him as the source of all knowledge, he will have an excellent opportunity of deciding that a child's motto is, "I want to know;" and its symbol, a note of interrogation.

We are told that the first important act of our first parents was a disobedient onslaught upon the tree of knowledge. From my own observations on juvenile human nature, I should judge that this is perfectly.true, even to the stealing of apples; for there is no one characteristic so inevitably transmitted to their descendants, or which shows itself so early; and any man who disbelieves in the existence of original sin had better try the experiment of bringing up a large family of his own close to an apple-orchard of his neighbors.

Assuming, then, that the young human creature has inherited designs upon the tree of knowledge, and that it is to the manifest interest of society that he should eat and become like one of us, knowing good from evil, the question arises as to what particular apples we should offer to him, so that he may choose the good, and reject the evil, or, in another and more thoroughly nineteenth-century phrase, pay his way, and become a useful member of society.

The first care must be that he shall be taught such common principles of sense as will fit him to understand the common language which is used by the rest of the human race he is likely to come in contact with; then, that he shall be prepared to understand the common arts of civilization, so that the