eat paper, as it were; he hath not drunk ink; his intellect is not r

Natha

eproducing it in the upper grades, drill in the mechanical details of the language, such as spelling and pronunciation; or it may be that rare growth of personality that comes, say, through the skilful reading of poetry aloud. Without a fair degree of mastery of the elements of reading and speaking English by the time he completes the grammar grade work, the boy will enter a secondary school or turn to earning a living, ill-equipped either to organize and express his own

o the teacher to train, and in that child lurk two tendencies of American social life: the hope of getting something for nothing and the passion for constant variety. And these tendencies are unchecked by any exercise of that old-time positive authority in the home, that had much salutary influence on young barbarians. But through a foolish tolerance, the boy drifts into many habits that do not include the exemplary ones of sustained at

ent is to be led to gather the fullest measure from the field of literature, it is the special duty and privilege of the teacher to direct that gathering. To this attempt to develop a taste for good literature, some one may raise the objection that it will not fit all children-and the objection is well taken. The appeal of literature is not universal. There are a few persons who find its counterpart in a study and appreciation of the beauties and wonders of nature.

ng must be from what is standard down to the point of appeal, lest the point always hold the boy to the earth earthy. After a taste for onions has once been developed, little hope can be entertained of making the boy a judge of the delicate flavour of grapes-they will hang high. The teacher must assert a bit

g to him through his own voice. The next thing to look to is a right that is a fixed right of childhood and one that it is positively vicious to suppress, the right to the land of fairy life. A free range here will be meat and drink to any boy. Much sordidness and much selfishness in old age come to the man or woman who has not a cultivated imagination. Logic and cold facts are of precious little value in the fireside life

now standard editions without abridged and garbled texts. Even editors of hymn books do not hesitate to mutilate great hymns to suit their particular notions. This freedom may be a form of that exaggerated idea of personal privilege that was the gift of democracy in the past century. A good knowledge of fables and proverbial wisdom will certainly

aracter of the individual, will work for a more sane and less showy home life and through that for a community given to other than obtrusive and frivolous social life. What bundle of habits will serve its slave better than will this bundle? Or where is keener and more subdued pleasure to be found? Though books are a bloodless substitute f