production of such books, and endeavor to introduce them in the early years of the pupil's school-life. Nor should it be overlooked that the eager curiosity of the child, which will so greatly aid his teacher, is powerfully evoked by the elementary facts of natural science.

66

4. The importance of training the memory to do its work readily and accurately should not be overlooked. The reaction against cramming" has created a tendency to undervalue this faculty. No power of the mind is more constantly in use, or has a more intimate connection with our happiness and welfare. No faculty will better repay cultivation. It served to raise Niebuhr and Macaulay and Prescott to the highest eminence, and in a less conspicuous but no less certain way has rendered multitudes of other men successful. Porter says, "The methods of education should be conducted with a distinct recognition of the wise management of nature in developing and maturing the memory. In the earlier periods of life it should be stimulated and enriched by appropriate studies. The child should learn stories, poems, facts, as freely as it can be made to respond to such tasks. Large accumulations of familiar knowledge may thus be made with the greatest ease."

In training the memory two objects should be kept in view: first, the ability to acquire rapidly. In the affairs of life it is often necessary that one should familiarize himself with a given subject on short notice. Thus an editor, a lawyer, or a man in business may be obliged to depend upon such study and investigation of a subject as can be accomplished in a very brief time. School-training ought to lay the foundation from which shall rise, in maturer years, the ability to obtain quickly a clear and complete knowledge of a subject. Hence scholars should be advised and required to study their lessons with the greatest possible concentration, and thoroughly master them in a short time.

A second object to be aecomplished in the education of the memory is the accumulation of a large amount of knowledge. The changes which this faculty undergoes at different periods of life render such acquisitions easy. The child remembers each isolated object or event just as it comes to his notice. The man remembers principles and laws, and forgets disconnected details. During the early years the memory craves facts. So they be made inviting, the amount which it will devour is wonderful. By all means, then, feed it with its appropriate food. Let it acquire, as a permanent passession, the largest possible amount of useful knowledge.

5. Max Müller has shown, with great ability, the dependence of

clearness of thought upon clearness of expression. No one can proceed beyond the very alphabet of knowledge without the aid of language; and he who has not acquired clearness and facility in communicating his ideas has a perpetual impediment in his way. Thought takes form in language, and can only be clear and complete as it finds adequate and correct expression. It is not our purpose to enter upon any of the controverted points concerning the relative value of linguistic and scientific study, but simply to indicate the important psychological fact, that language is not only the vehicle of thought, but that it so reacts upon thought as to confuse and suppress ideas when adequate expression is not afforded to them. Hence the necessity of such drill and exercise and correction of errors in speech as will perfect this instrument of the mind, and render it serviceable in the highest degree.

6. In more advanced education the teacher should constantly aim to train the mind to habits of independent investigation and research. The amount of available information imparted in the school must necessarily be small in comparison with the requirements of everyday life. What men need is not so much knowledge as the habit of gaining knowledge; then, as occasion offers, the requisite information will be obtained. School-work should be so conducted as to necessitate research on the part of the scholar. He must learn to depend, not upon the text-book or his teacher, but upon books of reference and experiments and calculations of his own. To accomplish this, work should be assigned by topics, and scholars should be encouraged to gather information from every available source. Instead of answering questions, the teacher should tell where or how the answer may be found. Thus Faraday and Agassiz and Hopkins have instructed and invigorated their pupils by compelling them to instruct themselves.

Other points of interest and importance must be omitted from our discussion. We conclude with the following general observations: 1. The qualities of mind and character which are desired in the scholar must be in the teacher. "Men do not gather grapes of thorns, nor figs of thistles." If a teacher lacks integrity, refinement, earnestness, or courtesy, he cannot inspire his pupils with these virtues. An unconscious influence emanates from him which tends to fix the standards of excellence in their minds. Every teacher should distinctly understand that the prime condition of successfully inculcating any excellence, whether of morals or manners, of habits of thought or habits of speech, is to possess it himself, and uniformly practice it in his school. Especially contagious are such qualities as

cheerfulness, earnestness, and courtesy,-virtues of fundamental importance in themselves, as well as intimately related to intellectual growth.

2. In all grades of teaching distinct, and frequent alternations of subjects should be arranged. The mind requires for its best activity some variety of occupation. It relaxes its grasp if the tension is too long continued. Before the point of conscious fatigue is reached. the form of exertion should be changed. Otherwise a feverish anxiety and restlessness will be induced, and the health will be endangered. Moreover, since the aim of the teacher is to produce a symmetrical development of all the faculties, such work should be provided as will call them successively into exercise.

3. Those men and women who have done most to make the name of teacher honorable, have reflected much upon the laws and conditions of mental growth. Whoever would attain the highest excellence in this profession must thoroughly understand the processes through which he would conduct his pupils. Here is an inex haustible field of study. The teacher who gives little thought to it will find his work becoming superficial and mechanical. Probably to no man since the days of Socrates have these problems been more familiar than to Dr. Arnold. When asked why he continued to give so much thought to them, he replied, "Because I wish my pupils to drink from a running stream and not from a stagnant pool." If the teacher is to be a fountain of knowledge and power to his scholars, verily he must know their wants, collectively and individually. He will adapt his instruction to each; and that he may do this, he will observe closely their traits of character and habits of thought and expression, and will ponder upon the problems which they present. And, while he aims to enkindle in his pupils an enthusiasm for study as they look out upon the ocean of knowledge yet to be acquired, he will remember the motto of ex-President Woolsey, that "before knowledge we should place culture, and before culture we should place character."

RIGHTS OF CHILDREN1

BY MISS EMMA C. BASCOM.

Children are the germ-life of the future. It is through our children that our most effective and permanent work must be accomplished for the continuous enlargement of the kingdom of knowledge and virtue in the world. It is, therefore, a matter of vital importance that the claims of children be well understood and fully met.

Children, in the first instance, have the sacred right to be well-born. We do not mean born into wealth or rank,-which is often to be illborn, but born of parents of good health, good habits, and just convictions; and so born into conditions favorable in some good degree to sound physical, mental, and moral development. Entailed evils, if overcome at all, are overcome with the utmost difficulty. The physical and moral deformities of vicious parentage sweep down the ages with ever-increasing power, filling our prisons, reform schools, and asylums, and corrupting the home, the church, and the State. Indeed, there would be no redemption for men under this law of increase were it not that families, nations, and races break down utterly under the entail of crime, and so fall off with the wreck of departing years. In view of the appalling vices entailed by bad parentage, and the tendency of these vices to perpetually renew and increase themselves, it is not too much to hope that the time may come when it will be considered the wisest policy for the interests of the state, the most beneficent for the welfare of humanity, certainly,— to enforce sentiments, possibly to adopt measures, that will secure in some larger proportion this first and most fundamental claim of every child, good birth. In our public schools one-half of the time now given to merely formal knowledge might, with great gain, be displaced by instruction concerning laws of heredity, and, later, by a faithful and impressive presentation of the responsibilities involved in parentage. When these things are more plainly and more generally understood, we may hope that the relations of marriage and parentage will be assumed more thoughtfully, and in more accordance with the laws of our highest being. Fathers will then less often blast the lives of their offspring by the entail of vicious habits and uncontrollable appetites. The time must surely come when deformed

1 Paper read before the Woman's Congress.

and diseased children will no longer curse humanity, and when our advancement in the truly fine art of right living will be measured by the health and purity of our youth.

By these same laws of inheritance virtues are transmitted, which equally tend to increase and perpetuate themselves. Parents may endow their children with sound physical qualities and high spiritual tendencies. Such inheritance is the richest legacy a child can receive, and, for the lack of it, no future gifts or opportunities can at all atone. The well-born child may safely suffer many wrongs and privations; may, all unharmed, meet many temptations; while against coarse, low habits and degrading vices he is inwardly fortified. Such inheritance is largely independent of wealth and position, and is chiefly derived from character. The lives of parents while rearing their offspring tell with great power, but the habits, aims, and opportunities of their whole lives tell with immeasurably more power. These sacred laws of heredity furnish the highest incentives that could be given to human beings, to seek ever the largest, noblest, and purest life possible. By these laws virtues may be enlarged, vices may be eliminated, and righteousness made to prevail in our children and children's children. It is along these very lines of law that God visits either the vices or the virtues of parents on the third and fourth generations. Well are we taught by our Divine Master to make much of the children, for through them the kingdom of Heaven finds entrance.

The questions of the hour wait solution, and our great reforms move slowly on, because the good and wise endowed by noble ancestry are so few. No grander legacy can parents leave the State than well-born children; and in no more effective manner can they obey the injunction, “Prepare ye the way of the Lord." It was partly, at least in this spirit, that the Israelites attached such importance to children born and trained within their national and spiritual life.

Good birth makes good training comparatively easy. The first requisite in parents for good training is a knowledge of the general laws of physical health and of moral and mental growth. Ignorance here is the source of the yearly slaughter of many innocents, of much life long invalidism, and of much mental and moral weakness, for which no after-repentance of parents can make amends. Laws preside over all normal development, and these laws must be known and obeyed, or serious losses must follow.

For the same reason that the child, utterly unable to endow itself or defend itself against the faults of parents, is entitled to be well