God made them She was evidently a

the other boys are brighter than you. so, and you cannot help that.

good mother and a wise woman.

Parents and teachers make a mistake when they compare one child with another. The mother who said to her daughter, "Your teacher says that Jane has a higher rank in the class than you have; you must study harder," did not mean to be cruel, but she was. She incited the daughter to unwonted effort through unworthy motives. This saying by Ruskin should be kept in mind: "It is the effort that deserves praise, not the success; nor is it a question for any student whether he is cleverer than others or duller, but whether he has done the best he could with the gifts he had."

A lady applicant for a position once sent me two specimens of scholar's work, as an evidence of her ability as a teacher. They were good specimens of their kind, but what did they show? It is difficult to say. Of her ability to control, of her judgment, of her power to awaken thought, of her good influence over her pupils, of that teaching which sets the seal of the teacher's personal character upon the scholar, literally nothing.

What did they show regarding her pupils? That they were able to produce a neat, orderly paper, which I grant is an attainment worth having; but they told little of their everyday habits of study, of their moral culture, of their physical training, of their reverence for sacred things,-nothing of the growth of those powers which make the child sensitive to truth, the youth sensitive to honor, and the whole man sensitive alike to truth, honor, and duty.

We must fix upon the product, and then adjust the

orary motive which does not endure beyond the presat is a terrible mistake. It is sowing the wind and rgetting the whirlwind which is sure to follow. The ain which binds together yesterday, to-day, and forer has never been broken. "Whatsoever ye sow, at shall ye also reap," is nature's law. When rough any process the child comes to understand at eighty per cent is success, and seventy-nine per nt is failure, it would be better for him that he had ever seen the inside of the schoolroom.

ks.

It is sometimes asserted that the spirit of the latest hase of education is hostile to the use of text-books, especially in the hands of the teacher. We se of text need to be careful that we are not misled by mere catch-words and popular phrases. is a very excellent thing when a teacher knows how use the text-book. It is as necessary for him to udy it, to know what is in it, as for the pupil, in der to produce a perfect recitation.

I have seen teachers who were really very little in vance of the text-book fill themselves so full of it, ter so thoroughly into the spirit of the author and of s illustrations, as to make the lesson fairly luminous; hen it was finished it was bristling all over with ints, every one of which impressed itself upon the ind of the child. And I have seen other teachers, no discarded the text-book as too old-fashioned for em, proceed in their own way to amplify and illusate and simplify and mix things up until every point as almost as clear when the recitation ended as when commenced. (See page 193.)

There is actually some danger that the teacher will ow too much. Better draw water from one clear

metic and grammar from one end to the other, had in his favor some strong points which are wanting in the more modern teacher, who knows-or thinks he knows —something of everything.

I say, without hesitation, to every teacher who reads this, be sure you know just what is in the book your pupils are studying, and after that learn as much more as possible. Let us not be hasty; text-books have their The need is, that we know them to use them and yet not be in bondage to them. The power of personality will not be increased by discarding them, nor decreased by employing them.

uses.

The

Freedom in teaching sometimes means something very different from personality in teaching. teacher must rise superior to the text-book; not in knowledge, but in spirit; not in the abundance of that which he knows, but in his ability so to present knowledge that whatever the child has acquired by diligent study may become the germ of inward growth, inducing thought and self-activity, awakening him to "the inner consciousness of his powers, which is the object of the education of nature.

The real

between old

and new.

If you have read this closely, you have clearly seen that the difference between the old and the new is more in spirit than in matter or method. The education most prevalent in this coun- difference try for many years had chief reference to brain training. There is a strong feeling that now the great question is: "How can we best fit the child for the duties of social life and of citizenship?" If we could reach him in the family, the question could be more easily solved.

f education is outside and beyond the school. We ust study the life which is about us, and into which he child will enter at his maturity, if we look forward ▷ leading him up to a high ideal of noble living.

If you would be convinced of the magnitude of this uestion, just at dark, after the hour of labor, go into he lanes and alleys of any city and see the crowds of hildren swarming from out their dirty, squalid homes, allowing in the dirt, growing up in filth, ignorance,

nd sin.

The great hope of the patriot, the philanthropist, the hristian is that many of these children are in our free chools. The spirit of the new education would incite s to teach these children not only the laws of personal ealth, but so much of sanitary science as pertains to leanliness in all the surroundings of their homes; so nuch of political science as pertains to the mutual deendence existing between labor and capital; so much f patriotism as pertains to the blessings of a free, firm, nlightened government; so much of morals as pertains o questions of right and wrong; and so much of region as pertains to their immortality. (See page 128.) In dealing with children, conscience is the surest lly we can have. It is hers to unbar the window, take own the shutters, throw wide open the door, that the ght of God's truth may have free access to the soul ithin. (See page 134.)

The environments which surrounded the child eventy-five years ago were so different from those amid which he lives to-day, that it is diffihanged en- cult to institute a comparison. One of the first lessons which he learned was that of esponsibility. He had his chores to do, his task to

ronments.

thing for the comfort of others. Habits of order and industry, of self-denial and serviceableness, became second nature.

I once knew a family in which there were three daughters. The two younger remained at home, and braided palm-leaf hats that the oldest sister might go to the academy for a year. Then the youngest and the eldest earned the money to send the second daughter; and then the two older did the same for the youngest. I have often questioned with myself whether the year's study at the academy was not intensified and strengthened by the fixedness of purpose and the self-denial which characterized the life of these New Hampshire girls while braiding straw in their father's house.

There is an educational value in work, as well as in books and teachers. We need to remember that, when we load the child with so many studies that he has no time for any labor about the farm or in the house or the office, we deprive him of a very essential part of his education. The school will yet see the necessity of strengthening rather than severing the ties which bind the life of the child to the real life of the community about him.

I have not advocated the adoption of the new education in all its details. I believe the most we can do is to catch its spirit, study its principles, and build them, as elements of strength, into our American system. I commend them with the more earnestness to every teacher because there is not a social, moral, religious, or political question of the day, the solution. of which will not be affected by the instruction given