self to be "there"? "Do not make a child read," some educators say, "until he finds the need of reading, and learns for his own pleasure. Do not enfeeble his mind by forcing it." "Do not enfeeble his mind," one might answer, "by letting it go undisciplined." If he begins late, when he has felt the need, he may learn to read rapidly; but will he have the patience for those small accuracies which form the basis of accuracy in later life, and which, unless learned early, are seldom learned at all? Do not give the child long hours; do not take away the freshness of his mind by pressing him; go slowly, but go thoroughly. Teach him, whatever he does, to do it as well as he can. Then show him how next time he can do better; and when next time comes, make him do better. However short the school hours may be, however much outside of the school may rouse or charm his mind, make him feel that school standards are high, that

school work is to be done, and done well. If you are teaching a girl to sweep, you do not let her sweep the lint under the table. Why, if you are teaching a child to study, should you let him study in a slovenly way? Why, for instance, should you teach him reading without spelling? Get into him as early as you can a habit of thoroughness as an end in itself, of thoroughness for its own sake, and he will soon find that being thorough is interesting; that against the pain of working when he feels indolent, he may match the pain of not doing what ought to be done, just as one kind of microbe is injected to kill another. When he once gets this habit firmly fixed in him (I may say, when it has once fixed itself upon him), he may have all sorts of intellectual freedom and be safe.

Immature people constantly cry out against routine. Yet routine is an almost necessary condition of effective human life. An undisciplined genius, like Shel

ley's, inspires now and then; a spirit like Milton's, as eager for liberty, and as impatient of bondage, yet forced, by the man it animated, to do his bidding, which rightly or wrongly he believed to be the bidding of God, inspires oftener and deeper. If routine is forced upon us, we are delivered from the great temptation of letting industry become a matter of caprice, and of waiting for perfect mental and physical conditions (Italiam fugientem) before we settle down to our work. If routine is not forced upon us, we must force it upon ourselves, or we shall go to pieces. "Professor X is a dry teacher. Shakspere is the greatest of poets, and hence one of the greatest inspirers of men. Why is n't it better to cut Professor X's lecture and read Shakspere, or even to read Kipling?" First and obviously, because you can read Shakspere at another time, whereas Professor X's lecture is given at a fixed hour, is part of a course, and a link in an im

portant chain. Next, because attending Professor X's lecture is for the time being your business. The habit of attending to business is a habit you must form and keep, before you can be regarded as "there." Moreover this habit does away with all manner of time-wasting indecision. If you take the hour for Shakspere, you may spend half of it in questioning what play to begin, or whether to read another author after all,

– and meantime a friend drops in. "I know a person," says Professor James, "who will poke the fire, set chairs straight, pick dust-specks from the floor, arrange his table, snatch up the newspaper, take down any book which catches his eye, trim his nails, waste the morning anyhow, in short, and all without premeditation, - simply because the one thing he ought to attend to is the preparation of a noon-day lesson in formal logic which he detests-anything but that!" It is astonishing how eagerly men strug

gle to escape from the training that prepares them for life, how they labor to convince themselves that what they long to do is worthier and nobler than what they ought to do—and must do if they are to succeed in what they long to do. I once knew a student, against all advice, to leave college in the middle of the Freshman year, because, since he was going into the ministry, he was eager to devote his whole time to the Bible. Later he saw his mistake, and came back. I knew another and a wiser student who, having gone into the ministry without a college education, left it for years of sacrifice in money and of the hardest kind of work, to win that knowledge of books and men without which no modern minister is equipped for efficient service. The efficient people are those who know their business and do it promptly and patiently, who when leisure comes have earned it, and know they have earned it; who when one