PLAIN EDUCATIONAL TALKS.  
PLAIN EDUCATIONAL TALKS
TEACHERS AND PARENTS.
BY
ALBERT N. RAUB, A.M.,
SUPT. OF LOCK HAVEN PUBLIC SCHOOLS.
0+,.
PHILADELPHIA:
CLAXTON, REMSEN & HAFFELFINGER,
.819 AND 821 MARKET STREET.
1869.
.I'~. I.
WITH
I& 
4
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1869, by
CLAXTON, REMSEN & HAFFELFINGER,
in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States in and for
the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.
STEREOTYPED BY J. FAGAN & SON.
4
PRINTED BY MOORE BROS. 
TO
Pg  NeItoud  tifi,
WHIOSE READY SYMPATIIY, WARM ENCOURAGEMENT, AND
EARNEST PRAYERS, HIAVE BEEN MY
CONSTANT SUPPORT,
9't~diratt ttio exact
AS
A TOKEN OF AF'FECTION.
, t
i  
PREFACE.
N a number of instances during the past few years,
I have been requested to fuirnishmy educational
lectures for publication.  I have steadily refused complying with all such requests from time to time, but
have at length, at the solicitation of my friends, embraced much of the matter in the following chapters.
This must be my apology for bringing before the public another work on the subject of which this book
treats. Yet the subject is so important in all its bearings, and of such vital interest, that too much can
hardly be said on it, and it may be, therefore, that no
apology is needed.
One object in view in the preparation of this work
has been to produce Such a book as would recommend
itself by the variety of topics, and the manner in
which they are discussed, to the attention of both
teachers and parents. In order to accomplish this it
has been divested as much as possible of the didactic
character which all educational works in a certain
measure must assume.  It is not meant to be a scientific treatise at all, but simply, what its title indicates,
Platin Educational Taclks with Teachers and Parents.
The subject is a broad one, and of course in a volume
the size of this its treatment cannot be comprehensive.
My greatest ambition in the preparation of this
volume, which has been written almost wholly during
the spare evening hours of a hard winter's work, has
been to present a book which the thoughtful teacher
vii
t 
Pt E FACE.
or parent may read through with interest, and when
he comes to lay it down, be able and willing to say:
"There are some good ideas in it; it is worth reading."  If I have succeeded in my object, I shall feel
grateful, not only that I was led to undertake the
work, but that my success has exceeded my expectations.
I have adopted a simple style, aiming at neither
rhetorical display nor scientific technicality. I deemed
this necessary because I prepared the volume for both
parents and teachers; and having a plain subject to
talk about and some plain things to say, I have tried
to say them in such a plain way that every one can
understand. The book differs from most other educational works in this particular, and it may, therefore, provoke criticism. It is hoped, however, that
the end aimed at will protect it from any unprovoked
assaults.
I have tried to say in this book what I have said
frequently before large bodies of teachers and parents
throughout my own State, and should this waif be
welcomed and as cordially received as has been its
author on the occasions referred to, I feel that I have
nothing to fear. I therefore commend the volume to
the kindly consideration of the parents and teachers
of this country, hoping that it will be kindly received
and that the practical hints contained in it, though
given in a homely and familiar way, may serve to
awaken thought and arouse greater interest in the true
development of the children of the land, and at the
same time prove an acceptable addition to that educational literature of the country which has already done
so much towards elevating our condition and adding
to our improvement as a race.
A. N. R.
.LocK HAVEN, PA., June 1, 1869.
viii 
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
WHAT IS TRUE EDUCATION?......................................11
CHAPTER II.
MACHINE EDUCATION................................................ 16
CHAPTER III.
EDUCATIONAL CRAMMING.......................................... 25
CHAPTER IV.
FASHIONABLE EDUCATION.......................................... 33
CHAPTER V.
PRACTICAL EDUCATION............................................. 43
CHAPTER VI.
SELF - CULTURE......................................................... 51
CHAPTER VII.
THE OBSERVING FACULTIES................................. 61
CHAPTER VIII.
MAKING HOMES AND SCHOOLS PLEASANT.....................75
CHAPTER IX.
PLAY LIFE............................................................... 89
CHAPTER X.
PASTIMES AND AMUSEMENTS...................................... 103
CHAPTER XI.
THE INFLUENCE OF HOME EXAMPLE......................... 113
ixC
-,-, 
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER XII.
HOW SHOULD CHILDREN BE TREATED?....................... 123
CHAPTER XIII.
GOVERNMENT............................................................ 131
CHAPTER XIV.
PUNISHMENTS........................................................... 143
CHAPTER XV.
HOW TO GET WORK OUT OF CHILDREN....................... 150
CHAPTER XVI.
MORAL CULTURE...................................................... 159
CHAPTER XVII.
PHYSICAL NURTURE...............................................175
CHAPTER XVIII.
TOO EARLY AT SCHOOL............................... 192
CHAPTER XIX.
TRAINING FOR LIFE'S DUTIES............................... 198
CHAPTER XX.
UNIVERSAL EDUCATION NECESSARY............................. 204
CHAPTER XXI.
NORMAL DEVELOPMENT..................................... 214
X 
PLAIN EDUCATIONAL TALKS.
CHAPTER I.
WHAT IS TRUE EDUCATION?
ROBABLY  no more important question than this
has ever claimed attention.  Its importance, too,
makes it one to which it is difficult to give a satisfactory
answer. Education, in its true sense, seems to be a
full, perfect discipline, not only of the mental and moral
powers, but of the physical as well. Man, in his dual
nature, cannot be trained perfectly by developing alone
either the body or the soul. A training purely physical
makes him a mere brute, and lowers him to the brute's
level; and, on the other hand, a training which is wholly
devoted to mind makes him weak, imbecile, helpless as
a babe, and is, in the end, but little better than training
purely physical. We have no respect for those brutish
men who lack both culture and knowledge. Their manner, to say nothing of their conduct, is so utterly at
variance with our feelings, that we are forced to abhor
and despise them. But what is our treatment of those
11 
12  PLAIN EDUCATIONAL TALKS
equally one-sided men whose culture has been purely
that of mind? Are they not our demi-gods? Do we
not hold them up as examples for the emulation of the
young? We caution our youth against misdirected education: all education is misdirected and false that tends
to make man one-sided, whether it be such as is purely
physical, or such as is purely mental or moral. God
has not given us any powers to lie dormant. We
have talents; some one, some five, some ten, and some
a hundred.  We dare not bury them.  They were given
us for improvement, and it is for us to show ourselves
faithful stewards of our trust.   The  development of
these talents must be full and perfect.
There are so many one-sided, one-idead men in this
world, that one is almost led to the conclusion that our
education has been all wrong. There are so many who,
when placed in any other sphere than the one they now
occupy, would prove utterly helpless, that we are forced to
believe that much of our education has been at least sadly
misdirected. Our urgent need is men and women who are
something and somebody in'a physical as well as in a
mental or a moral sense. We need men and women who
are not one-sided, weak, ill-proportioned, and unfit to do
their work in the world. No nation can prosper under
the rule of those but half-fitted for their work, and yet it
is a lamentable fact that in our country, which aspires
to the first rank among the nations of the world, we very
often elevate to power men who are wholly unfit for the
positions they are made to fill. Intriguing, wire-work ing politicians, with an eye to the spoils, select our can
I 
WITH TEACHERS AND, PARENTS.  13
didates for us, and by shrewdness, and trickery, and
bravado, amid the clangor of horns, the beating of
drums, and the shouts of the populace, they rush them
into place and power. Not fitness, but money and political influence are the forces that play the controlling
part in the selection of too many of our public officers.
We all feel that it should not be so, and yet we feel that
unfortunately it is so.
One of the great educational problems that we are
called upon to solve is just this: Hlow shall we, in a
country like ours, keep our government pure  and our
rulers incorrupt and uncontaminated? It is a question
which is ever likely to arise in a republic, where all
claim the same political privileges, and all are alike
eligible to the same offices.   The love of power  and
influence, and the greed for the emoluments of office, are
so great that few possibly can resist the temptation to
enter public life, and fewer still are able, when once
entered, to resist the corruption of the various rings and
cliques. Our education for good citizenship has been
too long neglected. We are too much afraid of the politician and his influence.  There are too many axes to
grind. It is hard to predict the future of our nation, if
we do not make an effort to mend matters. Can this
government exist as a republic under  the influences
which now control many of its rulers? HIlere is a question to which it is difficult to give an answer that shall
be both satisfactory and correct.
In order to educate, we must not onlv know how to
educate, but also why we educate. First of all, we
2 
14  PLAIN EDUCATIONAL TALKS
must know why.  Yet there are those in this world by
the thousand who think they know how, and yet know
not the why! They study methods of instruction and
methods of government, and yet know not what they
intend to accomplish. They know what means to apply,
and how to apply them; but they know not the end
they seek. They have no ideal. The whole work is
routine, call it by whatever pretty name you please.
This, too, may be said of both parents and teachers.
Richter says, " If the secret variances of a large class
of ordinary fathers were brought to light, and laid down
as a plan of studies and reading catalogue for moral
education, they would run somewhat after this fashion:
In the first hour, pure morality must be read to the child,
either by myself or the tutor; in the second, mixed
morality, or that which may be applied to one's own
advantage; in the third,'Do you not see that your
father does so and so?' in the fourth,'You are little,
and this is only fit for grown-up people;' in the fifth,
'The chief matter is that you should succeed in the
world, and become something in the state;' in the sixth,
'Not the temporary, but the eternal, determines the
worth of a man;' in the seventh,'Therefore, rather —
suffer injustice, and be kind;' in the eighth,' but defend
yourself bravely, if any one attack you;' in the ninth,
'Do not make such a noise, dear child;' in the tenth,
'A boy must not sit so quiet;' in the eleventh,'You
must obey your parents better;' in the twelfth,'and
educate yourself.' So, by the hourly change of his prin ciples, the father conceals their untenableness and one 
WITH TEACHERS AND PARENTS.  15
sidedness. As for the wife, she is neither like him nor
like that harlequin who came on to the stage with a
bundle of papers under each arm, and answered to the
inquiry what he had under his right arm,'Orders,' and
to what he had under his left,'Counter-orders;' but
the mother might be much better compared to a giant
Briareus, who had a hundred arms, and a bundle of
papers under each." American fathers and mothers, is
this a picture of life? Is there not too much truth in it?
The sculptor sees in the block of marble, rough, unshapen, and cold, as it lies before him, it may be, an angel with wings of gold and clad in the vesture of heaven;
or, it may be, a warrior mounted on his fire-breathing
charger, wearing his coat of mail and armor of steel. To
you and me the block is a huge stone, and nothing more.
He has his ideal, and the incessant blows of his mallet
and chisel will reveal the figure in all its grace and
power.  Did he not have this ideal, and see it in the
marble which to us is cold and lifeless, he were no better
sculptor than we. So, too, in an educational sense we
must have our ideal. We must see in the future a mnodel
man or a model woman who shall be our guide. Do we
labor blindly, without knowing what end we wish to
accomplish or whither we are drifting, we labor to no purpose. To educate properly, then, we must first deters
mine why we educate. We must know the end; and,
knowing this, we can apply the means at hand to the
end in view. 
CHAPTER II.
MACHINE EDUCATION.
HIS is the age of machines.  Our labor is done by
machinery. An American genius puts his wits to
work, and the result is a reaper which walks through our 
grass and grain fields, laying everything low as it sweeps
along like a thing of life. We follow the grain to the
barn; and lo I the farmer is his own miller.  Heire in his
barn is a machine, a new invention, a horse-power gristmill.  In vain we sigh for the days when the reaper
swung his sickle in the golden grain, or the mower his
scythe  in the fragrant grass.   The poetry of it now
exists in language only.  In vain the miller dams the
water: his occupation is gone, and his damming is of no
avail. The old mill-wheel, with its great wooden buckets,
is at last at rest, and the minnows now play fearless
among the paddles. But not here alone do we find the
evidence of inventive genius cropping out. Everywhere
the click of the hammer and the sharp, shrill scream of
the whistle, or the buzz and whirr of the busy spindle
resound in our ears.  We are surrounded by machines
pumping machines, planing machines, calculating machines, and at last some inventive genius starts out a
huge monster man-shaped machine, with neck for steampipe, and chest and abdomen for boiler, and puts it in
16 
PLAIN EDUCATIONAL TALKS.
shafts and trots it down the street before our very eyes
-a steam man. We look at him astounded, and, hold ing our breath as we dubiously survey our bodies to
make sure that we too are not mere machines, we ask in
a whisper, What next? 
Now, I don't object to all this machine-work in its
proper place.  If clothes can be made in a shorter time
by the aid of a sewing-machine than by hand, then let
us have the sewing-machine, and feel grateful too that its
inventor was an American; and if the work on the farm
can be done better and more quickly by improved ma.
chinery than by the old methods, and there is no doubt
that it can, then, by all means, let us make use of all the
labor-saving machinery we can get; but let us confine
our machinery and machine-work to their proper place.
There is such a thing as machine education.  There
are those among parents and in the school-room who
never for a moment give any thought to the method in
which they propose to educate. Having full faith in the
ability of their ancestors, they follow out the example set
them, and, like the farmer who plows, and sows, and
reaps, in imitation of his fathers, they seem to have no
desire for any better plan. I have visited friends whose
first question with reference to my children, after satisfying them as to the number, was, "Does your little girl
know her letters?" or, " Does your little boy go to
school?"  It was taken for granted that the alphabet
of our language, consisting of arbitrary characters, is
necessarily the first round in the ladder of learning; and
that the first thing to be done when a child is able to
2*                   3B
17 
18    PLAIN ED UCATIONAL TALKS
walk is to send it to school, to sit there on uncomfortable
benches, and spend, it may be, half a winter in committing to memory a number of arbitrary signs, which, to
it, have little more meaning and interest than the characters on a Chinese tea-chest or a pack of fire-crackers.
We have become so much accustomed to mere routine,
traveling on in the old beaten track, and at the same
old pace, for so long a time, that we scarcely know how
to get out of it. But get out of it we must. The world
moves, and we must move with it, lest, like other fossils,
we be labeled and shelved in some antiquarian's cabinet
as a curiosity, a relic of the bygone. There is a live,
active, and acting present, which either hurries us along
with it, or, if we hold back too persistently, drops us by
the way and leaves us to ourselves. We may petrify if
we desire it, or we may throw in our lot with the rest
and be a living, moving, active organism.  The world
cares not much which. One individual is of too little
significance to put a check on the energy, activity, and
progress of the rest.   As well might one imitate the
dame in driving back the sea with her broom, as attempt
to stay the progressive spirit' of the age. The march is
Qonward, and there is no retreat.   The phalanx moves
forward in a solid column, and there is neither obstacle
nor opposition that can check its progress. Hence, I
say, the man of to-day must march with it, or, if he will
oppose, be thrown aside to fossilize.
But let us look at this matter from another standpoint.   Which   accomplishes  the more good for the
young, he who follows the same plan from day to day, 
WITH TEACHERS AND PARENTS.  19
or he who varies every day's work to suit the circum stances and the wants of the day?  There is nio doubt
that the live, energetic teacher, whether it be the mother
in her own family with her little ones gathered about
her knee, or the young man or young woman who rules
over a school, accomplishes infinitely more than one of
that other type who takes Johnny. to his knee and says,
"Johnny, what's that? " and when Johnny innocently
confesses his ignorance, tells him, "That's A, you block head I " and going on to the next, repeats the question,
"Johnny, what's that? "  when Johnny, being still
ignorant of the names of these wonderful characters, is
told, "That's B, you dunce!" and so on to Z, when
Johnny is sent to his seat with the kindly admonition
that he shall be a good boy and study his lesson.  Such
teaching is a mere farce, and were the teacher not a
greater ignoramus than the child, he would abandon it.
The idea of sending a child to his seat to study a lesson
consisting of characters which have no more significance
to him than so much Cherokee or Choctaw would have
to you and me, is simply absurd. It were ten times
better for the child to be out at play, building houses of
corncobs or ovens of sand moulded over its own bare,
brown foot as a support to the arch. There can be no
question in the mind of any intelligent person as to
whichi of these teachers does the greater good. It is n't
any wonder that very many children have a horror of
books and dread going to school.  Were you and I fed
on the same mental pabulum and with the same spoon
that some of our children are, we would sympathize with 
20  PLAIN EDUCATIONAL TALKS
the little folks, and do something to make school-life
pleasanter for them.  I rather think that we would rebel
against the constituted authorities. There are few of us
who would sing with any feeling,
II I would I were a boy again,"
if being a boy were to bring back our earliest school days and school experiences. For one, I feel grateful
that I have at l].east learned the alphabet; although under
the old regime, the  machine-system, which, unfortu nately, is still too prevalent, it did take a full winter,
if not more, to initiate the pupils into the mysteries of
the A, B, C.
There is, however, much of what may be called ma..
chine teaching outside of the alphabet.  We find it in
almost every branch taught. tIave you no recollections
of your teacher, who, when the reading-class was called,
sat at his desk, and while you and your classmates read
on in turn, "mended " some little urchin's pen or "did
some sums" for some of the boys, paying no attention to
his class until, suddenly looking up, he inquires, "W here
are you reading?" or, hearing you halt, asks, "Charley,
how many times have you read around?"  and when
,~Charley answers, "Three times, sir," replies, "That will
do; take the next lesson. Go to your seats." You did
go, too, in your own peculiar style. So utterly negligent
have many teachers and parents been, that it is now
almost an impossibility to select one good reader from
every hundred persons who suppose themselves able to
read. Why is this true? Because by this machine way 
WITHI TEACHERS AND PARENTS.  21
of doing things the child has never been taught to read;
all the early years of its life were spent in pronouncing
words, which is all very important in itself, but then it
is not reading.  Reading is something more than pro nunciation. Unless we give expression to the sentiment,
the mere calling of words amounts to nothing. Take
the trouble to listen to a class of children read, as they
call it, and you will find almost all have contracted
bad habits that will adhere to them to a certain extent
through life. It is n't at all strange that there are so few
good readers. As a general thing, the failure may
always be traced back to mere routine teaching. It is
not my province here to say how reading should be
taught; but were I asked how to proceed, I should say,
Never allow the child, from the moment it makes its first
attempt to read, to do it in any other than a natural
manner.  Permit no whining and drawling, or stammering and halting, but see that the child is able to pronounce every word before attempting to read a line, and
then let it read the selection just as you would have it
talk it. If no bad habits are formed at first, there will
be none in after-life to overcome.
In the same manner I might illustrate this machine
teaching in all the branches taught either at home or in
school; for there is just about as much of it in one place
as in the other.  There is not a branch, from the alphabet
to Latin and Hebrew, in which you may not find it.
"There is no royal road to learning " is an old proverb,
and the student realizes the truth of it when he enters
upon school-life. But though the road may not be royal, 
22  PLAIN EDUCATIONAL TALKS
there is no necessity for its being the contrary. It may
be necessary to administer some hard knocks, as has
been said, but it does seem to me as if too much of education has heretofore consisted of these hard knocks, and
too little in pleasure. The danger does not lie so much
in the direction of making study too easy as it does in
the opposite one, and hence arises, and is supported, this
routine system of teaching, which does so much toward
making mere parrots of our children.
One of the peculiar ideas of this fossilized system is, that
pupils must necessarily remain in school six hours each
day. Can you imagineyourself in greater agony than to
be required for six hours in a day, five days in the week,
throughout the whole of eight or ten years, to sit in an
erect position on a bench from which you are unable to
touch the floor with your feet? It seems to me that if
an attempt were made to devise some plan of torture,
we could hit upon nothing better than to place the victim on one of these high benches six hours a day with
nothing to do and nothing to read, unless it be a Ilindoo
grammar printed wholly in the original. Neither you
nor I would like such treatment. Yet we think it all
right when we subject our children to the same sort of
treatment and for the same length of time.   Public
opinion, which is based on the parent's convenience and
not on the child's welfare, I know, says that pupils should
be kept in six hours; but public opinion, at least so far
as primary schools are concerned, is wrong.  The only
thing accomplished by such protracted sessions is, that
the children are kept out of the way of the folks at home. 
WITH TEACHERS AND PARENTS.  23
It seems, however, a little like unchristian benevolence
to prejudice the bodily health of a child for the conven ience of the parent. That many diseases are engendered
in the school-room-to say nothing of deformed spines
and contracted chests- is a fact that is beyond denial.
Really too little attention has been paid to the physical
health and comfort of the child. Parents do their child
a great wrong in confining it in the school-room so long
a time, when, in reality, the position it often assumes
and the air it is compelled to breathe are both detrimental to health. The idea that the child is studying or
at work is erroneous. It does not know how to study;
and all the time beyond two or three hours that it is required to keep its seat, is worse than wasted. It isn't
any wonder at all that the children in our primary
schools are usually more noisy than those in other
schools, nor that they will amuse themselves by tormenting their neighbors or throwing spitballs at one another.
It is n't their natural or normal condition to remain as
motionless and stiff as statues. They had far better be at
home or in the fields half of the time they are usually
required to be in school. It would be more conducive to
health, and "going to school" would not be so unpleasant.
Great, however, as is the number of those who fall
into the errors, a few of which I have attempted to point
out, there are still many noble men and women, teachers
and parents, who are waking up to the importance of
breaking down all systems that tend to make mere machines or toys of the young. There are many who have
been finding out gradually the secret of success. Parents 
24  PLAIN EDUCATIONAL TALKS.
are waking up to the importance of doing more for their
children, and we may yet see the day when  children
shall not be sent to school to get them out of the way at
home. It seems to me that there is a brighter day ahead
for us all. I know we are now groping wildly in the
dark, but we shall soon be ushered into the light of
high noon.  But let us not suppose that we are already
victorious. We have much to accomplish ere we can
rest and let our boat glide with the current.
There are still too many who feel that their whole
duty is done when they put the machinery in motion.
These must either work according to nature's plain
teachings, or they must fail. When nature dictates play
to the child, or the cultivation of its perceptive faculties,
it is not for these machine-men to put it to the study
of the alphabet or abstract definitions. When nature
plainly indicates that it is neither beneficial nor healthy
to sit in a cramped or even an erect position in an illventilated room, it is not for one of these wiseacres to
quarrel with her by trying to make statues of children,
and, at the same time, implant the seeds of future mental
and physical disease along with the alphabet and all the
other mysteries of his erudition.
There is a sad need that public sentiment be modified;
and, instead of taking for granted that we have always
been right in our theories, we should investigate them,
and make an earnest effort to do away with everything
that is mere routine. 
CHIAPTER III.
EDUCATIONAL CRAMMING.
HEN  a lad at thirteen years of age, I was so unfor      tunate as to have studied, in a common country
school, in addition to the ordinary common branches of
education, Algebra, Mensuration, Physiology, Natural
Philosophy, Chemistry, Physics, Watts on the Mind,
Moral Science, History, Rhetoric, Botany, Etymology,
and some German. I was, of course, represented to my
parents by the teacher as being a smart lad, although I
knew nothing, comparatively, of any of these sciences a
year after having studied them.  I have the satisfaction
of knowing, however, that I had a number of classmates and a teacher who were my partners in ignorance.
I cannot express my regret in words for my loss of time
while pursuing these studies, nor for the utter stupidity
of my teachers. I cannot conceive how a man can be
so blind to the interests of the young as to permit himself to make so great a mistake. Goldsmith's schoolmaster was in some respects, I often think, a fair samnple
of the one to whose guiding care and control I was subjected in my boyhood days.
That old-style race of pedagogues has not, by  any
means, become extinct yet. If you take the trouble
to search, you will find many a one posted behind his
3                                         25 
26  PLAIN EDUCATIONAL TALKS
great desk in his easy-chair, dealing out alternately his
learning and his muscle, in the same style and with the
same force as twenty or more years ago, when you and
I were schoolboys together. His blows, however, are
not more lavishly given than his knowledge. His pupils
are taught soon to put away the study of the commnon
branches as unworthy of further notice, and turn their
attention to such higher subjects as the sciences, rhetoric, and possibly French and Latin. Oh! it has sometimes made my heart ache to see one of these little fellows trudging along with a huge lexicon under one arm,
and a half-dozen text-books on other subjects, in his
book-strap. I wasn't surprised at all when I saw his
pale, waxen face, and delicate, trembling, powerless fingers. Not only his language, but his body too, has
almost been given to the dead. I have thought sometimes that those of our children who attend these cramming-schools- I know no other name for them-are
much in the predicament of Gu]liver when carried to the
house-top and fed with nauseating food by the huge
Brobdignagian monkey. The only difference seems to
lie in the fact that the child, instead of being helped out
of its misery by its parents - who should take most
interest in its welfare   is by them dragged or forced
into the presence of this man-monkey, where the cramming operation is performed to its evident disgust, but
to their extreme satisfaction and pleasure. We commiserate the condition of Gulliver; but Gulliver's lot was
no more unhappy than is that of many a one of our
children, which is mentally crammed and gorged until 
WVITIl TEACHERS AND PARENTS.  27
nature rebels against the harsh and inhuman treatment,
and either removes it from our uncharitable world, or so
weakens its physical system as to prevent further torture.
Parents, too, as I have said before, help to make the
matter worse, by indorsing, either directly or indirectly,
this system of cramming. They send their children to
school, and complain bitterly if they do not progress
rapidly from book to book. They seem to think that a
child makes no progress unless it be advanced at such a
rate as requires it to take up a new study almost every
six months. Here is where much of the difficulty lies,
So long as parents sanction work of this kind, we will
have it. Now their duty, and the duty of every thoughtful, conscientious teacher with regard to it, seems to be
plain. The mind is not only not strengthened, but it is
positively weakened by an over-amount of knowledge,
and it cannot perform its proper functions any more than
can the stomach when too great an amount of food is
repeatedly taken. In either case dyspepsia is the result:
for there is such a thing as mental dyspepsia, as well as
that under which those who injudiciously pamper their
appetite labor.  I know "it sounds big "-to use  a
homely phrase- to have one's child say that he has
studied Latin, and possibly Geometry, Chemistry, and
others of the more difficult sciences; but then the injury
does more than overbalance our pride. I have now and
then met parents, in my career as a teacher, who, in
placing their child in my care, told me how much their
boy or girl had studied, naming so many branches some 
28   PLAIN EDUCATIONAL TALKS
times, that I felt like telling them I feared I could do the
child no good, as it seemed to me, if there were any
foundation laid, that probably the child knew more than
its teachers, Let me say, however, that there is no
cause for alarm. These same children never know onefifth as much as their fond parents think they know.
Their ability is usually much overrated, and their parents
have been deceived as to the real amount of their knowledge. Parents, however, can blame no one but themselves for the deception; for in nine cases out of ten
they have courted this very deception by urging the
teacher to rush the child from book to book and from
study to study at such a rate as to prevent anything
like thoroughness in any subject.
Is.the teacher free from censure in this matter?  It is
difficult at times to resist the pleadings of parents, and
yet I think that, if some time were taken to argue the
matter with them, setting the danger and the evil before
them in the proper light, much might be done toward
correcting any wrong impressions under which they
may labor.  It is, at least, worthy of a trial.  I know
many argue that parents are unreasonable.  Such is not
the case. Were the teacher to go to the parent, and represent the truth as it is, in the great majority of cases
he would find that he has done the parents a great wrong
in supposing them inclined to be unreasonable. They
are interested in the welfare of their children, and they
will be glad to consult with the teacher on anything that
may be either for the benefit or to the interest of these
little ones. I believe it to be duty of the teacher to 
WITH TEACHERS AND PARENTS.  29
make every effort in his power to show parents the evils
arising from this forcing system.
This cramming and forcing may be compared to the
work of our horticultural forcing-pits. So long as you
can co-operate with nature, and give your charge the
proper airing every day, the plant flourishes, but its
growth is not that which will fit it for future usefulness in
the outer world. Its growth is a sickly growth; although
it may be vigorous, it is nevertheless pale and tender,
and as a hot-house plant, in this paleness and tenderness consists most of its usefulness.   When  the
horticulturist wishes to prepare his plants for the outer
world, he does not give them this forced culture and
then immediately transplant them; but first takes every
precaution to harden them, so that they may be prepared
to endure the more rugged and changeable atmosphere
in which their future life is to be spent. He knows that
if he were to transplant one of these overgrown tenderlings, almost certain destruction would be its doom.
They are not prepared to endure any other atmosphere
than the one in which they have been reared. The same
is true as regards children. Let them be crammed with
knowledge, and their culture forced, and they will be
like the overgrown, weak, and brittle plant, fresh from
the hot-house or forcing-pit, totally unfit to be transplanted to the cold and chilling atmosphere of the world.
They have not been hardened; their mental growth has
been too rapid.
You have noticed before now one of those tall, overgrown boys, lean, lank, and slender, who seem to have
3* 
30  PLAIN EDUCATIONAL TALK7S
sprung up with almost railway speed. In vain anxious
and careful mothers have attempted to make their clothing keep pace with the lengthening-out process, by making sundry additions to both coat-sleeves and pantaloons.
They can't keep up.  Nature is bound to keep in advance,
and the young man's limbs travel ahead, and he stalks
around the very picture of awkwardness. One is almost
forced to smile as he notices his ungainly movements,
and yet he is no more awkward than are those whose
mental growth has been too rapid. Neither one has
been a healthy development, and we have no confidence
in the ability of either to accomplish anything. The one
is too weak with all his size, and too awkward.  lHis
strength has not only not kept pace with his increased
growth, but, on the contrary, it has actually diminished,
and he has accomplished far less than one of the same
age who is much smaller, but whose growth has been
gradual. What is true in the case of bodily developsent is also true in mental development.  No pupil that
grows up under this cramming can be developed sym metrically and healthfully. You might as well attempt
to controvert nature's plans in bodily development as in
mental. The task is no more difficult in one case than
in the other.
The organs of nutrition can assimilate only a certain
amount of food and convert it into those elements which
go to make up the physical part of our organism. All
that is taken into the stomach beyond this is worse than
superfluous, as in the end it weakens the digestive organs
and is sure to breed some bodily ill.  The mind, too, 
WVITH TEACHERS AND PARENTS.  31
can make use only of that knowledge which it can retain,
and nothing more. All beyond this is worthless. We
may put a child to poring over Latin, and Greek, and
Hiebrew; or we may put it to studying, as we call it, a
number of the physical sciences. and yet in the end it
may know comparatively nothing,'because there has been
no real thinking, and none of this mental food has been
assimilated.   But  admitting that thought  has  been
evolved and that the mind has been disciplined, there is
yet nothing gained by giving the mind an over-amount
of work, as it has its allotted portion, and it will make
use of no more.
It is not alone, however, in the number of studies that
this cramming is practised.  It is frequently in the
amount of useless facts and details that are taught.  I
have seen those who, it appeared to me, were walking
cyclopedias in some branches, and yet seemed to know
just nothing of the practical affairs of life, or of many
studies differing in character from those in which they
seemed to be particularly erudite. I have now and then
encountered walking chronological tables, who were able
to name the date of every event in the world's history,
and yet were unable to compute the interest on a promissory note for any number of days. I have seen pupils,
too, who were stuffed so full of geographical facts -the
length of every little river, the population and exact
location of every little town-that one was made to
think they scarcely could contain any more; and yet
these little fellows could n't begin to tell why we breathe, 
32  PLAIN EDUCATIONAL TALKS.
why we ventilate our rooms, and a thousand other facts
of daily importance.
It does seem to me that a lifetime is too short to waste
many hours in acquiring such knowledge as is unimportant and useless either as practical or disciplinary.
Teachers and parents must feel a greater interest in the
real welfare of the young, and work together to prevent
the injury done by this forced culture. The work needs
strong wills and sympathetic hearts; with these, success
is certain. 
CHAPTER IV.
FASHIONABLE EDUCATION.
LOSELY  allied to the cramming referred to in the
last chapter, and an equally great mistake, is what
may be known as fashionable education. I speak now specially of that sort of education which is designed mainly
to furnish what are falsely known  as the, accomplishments of life; those little politenesses which are destined to make one shine in society, which prepare young
men to play the part of a coxcomb or a fop, and young
women to flirt or catch a beau. Of course no one acknowledges this as the intended aim of this sort -of education, but, argue as we may to quiet our consciences, it
is the real end aimed at, though we give it a pleasanter
and more captivating name.
Among the studies usually occupying a prominent
place in the curriculum of most of our fashionable
schools, are Drawing, Painting, and French. No one
objects to the study of any of these, when pursued either
for the discipline they may afford or for their own inherent value.   An  important  question,  however, arises
here. What object is aimed at by the great majority of
those who take up at least a part of these studies?
Why does the young lady pay forty or fifty dollars a
year for instruction in painting? Does she expect to
C               33~~~~T
C
33
,.. 
34  PLAIN EDUCATIONAL TALKS
become her own artist, or does she practise merely while
her school-days last, and while she has the assistance of
a teacher to put on the finishing touches, while she may
be said to do the daubing? What does she propose to
do with her knowledge of drawing? Does she study for
the purpose of disciplining both hand and mind, or that
she may make a practical application of her knowledge
and skill in the future? What does she aim at in her
French?  Does she study it that she may be able to read
it or speak it with fluency, or does she pursue the study
only that she may be enabled to say that she has studied
this language? I make no direct answer to these questions. I can give no answer that would satisfy me. I
confess that I am compelled, from what I know of the
matter, to think that the motives which lead to the
study of these branches, in many cases, in some of the
most fashionable schools, are not always the highest.
I would not be understood as opposing their study in
any institution. I know there are those who will be
glad to catch up my words here, and represent that I am
narrow in my views and oppose the study of these
branches; but such misrepresent me. Each of these
branches is valuable in its place, and, when properly taught,
no one esteems their value more highly than I. But as
they are frequently studied, it is worse than time wasted.
I have often felt, when examining the sketch-book of a
young lady just fresh from boarding-school, where she
had taken an ordinary course in painting and drawing,
that I would like to put this plain question in a plain
way:  HIow  many of these have you executed without
w 
WITH TEACHERS AND PARENiTS.  35
the aid of a teacher? How many of them have not
received the touch of another's pencil?'Yet I have felt
too that I would rather not hear the answer. It is a sad
truth that teachers often do too much of the work themselves, and the pupil too little. I have known a teacher
to go so far as to run overall the drawings of a graduating class and touch them up before submitting them
to the examination of the public. You agree with me,
of course, in condemning such action as dishonest in the
teacher; but then that doesn't stop it. We need to
expose it. You ask some of these same young men or
young women to sketch for you a favorite landscape, or,
it may be, your own home.  They- confess their ignorance, by telling you that they were never taught to
draw from nature; nay, worse than this, they scarcely
can draw from a copy without the aid of a teacher to do
the shading. What I have said of drawing is also, in a
great measure, true of painting.
Let us turn our attention to some of the other studies;
for painting, drawing, and French are not the only ones
that enter into the fashionable course of our most fashionable schools. There are others that are made purely
ornamental from the defective manner in which they are
taught.  Botany is one of these.  The manner in which
this delightful science is sometimes taught, makes the
study of it almost a farce. It would probably be safe
to say that nine-tenths of all those who study it according to the fashionable method, never know anything of
the practical part of it. They come home after having
finished the course, and are unable to make any use of 
36   PLAIN EDUCATIONAL TALKS
their knowledge of this science, simply because they
know nothing of its useful part. One would be safe in
saying, that not a few of them would be unable to point
out and name a half-dozen different sorts of our native
forest-trees; many of them would fail to tell a field of
wheat from one of rye, and be unable to distinguish the
difference between the two. This knowledge in itself
may not be all-important- I lay no such claims for it;
and yet it must be acknowledged that this, with all
other practical knowledge of the kind, is of much greater
importance than knowing the Latin for the various
orders and sub-orders, genera and species of the different
members  of the vegetable  kingdom, and  much  else
which is of no value to any one except the florist, the
botanist, or the medical man. There are many facts in
botany which, to the farmer, the teacher, the gardenerin fact, to every one who possesses the smallest plot of
ground, or even a pot of plants in the window- are of
such vast importance that there can be no excuse for
omitting them, and spending time, which of right belongs to them, on something less useful. I refer especially to all that part of botany that may be applied in
horticulture, arboriculture, and agriculture. There is
much that may be applied by every one even in the culture of the commonest plants and flowers. There can
be no objections to the study of botany when properly
taught. There are few studies, in fact, which play a
more important part in the every-day affairs of life than
botany, and, when properly taught, it is also one of the
most interesting of sciences. I object only to the man 
WITH TEACHERS AND PARENTS.  37
ner in which it is too frequently neglected, and a mere
smattering of it given to the pupil; and I make the
same objection to a fashionable negligence in the case
of all other studies.
One great fault of fashionable education is, that it
neglects the useful for the ornamental. Were the main
end of education the preparation of the young. for the
social circle, the ball-room, or the parlor, the ornamental
might lay claims to precedence. Even then, however, a
system of education that would ignore the principles of
those sciences which form the groundwork of all knowledge, would be justly condemned. If this be true in the
case of an education which is ornamental, what sentence
shall be passed on that training which ignores the useful
and practical in these times, when the true end of'education is acknowledged to be something bevond mere ornament and show?  Humboldt says that an Orinoco Indian, though regardless of bodily comfort, will yet labor
for a fortnight to purchase paint enough to make himself admired.  The Indians of our own Western wilds
care more for a few gaudy trinkets than all the comforts
we prize most. Such is the case6 with all the uncultured
and savage tribes of the earth. The ornamental precedes the useful, and, strange to say, there is a tendency
in the same direction in matters of mental acquisition.
The object of sending our sons and daughters to boarding-school seems to be not so much to acquire useful
knowledge as to acquire that which will enable them to
shine in society. The young lady studies French, Spanish, or Italian, not because she hopes to make any use
4 
PLAIN EDUCATIONAL TALKS
of these in after-life, but either because the course requires it or because it is deemed lady-like to have studied
them. Other reasons, of course, are given; but are they
the true ones? In many of our most fashionable establishments a great part of the time is devoted to these
accomplishments, and, after all their drill in deportment,
etiquette, &c., the young men and women come home
with few of the real accomplishments of life! Instead
of having mastered a good style of English composition,
their time has been spent in learning an Italian operatic
song. Instead of learning to read gracefully and with
expression their own mother-tongue, they have been
learning to pronounce -not read, mark you - a few
French phrases. In the arts, too, the ornamental is made
to take the place of the useful. Many a young woman
comes away from these institutions skilled in all the
mysteries of ornamental  needle-work, who  isn't able,
when she marries, to sew on her husband's shirt-buttons
respectably or make a neat button-hole in the garment
of one of her little ones. So far as the practical affairs
of life are concerned, or such knowledge as may be
made useful in life, she is no'wiser than she was the day
she entered the institution. There may be exceptionsdoubtless there are;Ibut still too few. The useful has
been ignored or merely made subservient to ornament.
Many studies are taken up, not because any benefit is
expected from them, but because they are considered
essential in a fashionable education, and the young man
or the young woman would be ashamed in company to
confess ignorance in any of these fashionable branches,
38 
WITH TEACHERS AND PARENTS.  39
just as one of the savages would be ashamed to be
seen unpainted, though he would have no hesitation in
going out before the world unclothed!  How  much
more good sense do we display than the savage? With
him the ornamental precedes the useful; with us the
same is true, save that in our case it is true of both
body and mind, whereas in his case it is true of the
body alone.
The objection urged by some against all education,
that it tends to make their sons and daughters proud and
too lazy to work, though not true in general, may, with
a good show of justice, be urged against fashionable
education.  There is no doubt of it, that an ornamental
education has a tendency to make young mlen and
women hate work, not because they are Iazy, but because their pride does not permit them to work.  Somehow they get an idea that labor of any kind is degrading.
Young man, the Paddy on the turnpike who honestly
and soberly earns every penny that is paid him, may be
more of a man than you are, though you may despise
him because he is forced to toil for the support of his
familyl A friend who possesses a goodly share of the
world's riches said to me one day in the presence of
several of his daughters, that if he had a dozen of them,
he would insist on all being as good cooks as their mother
before they left the family hearth; and the mother was
'one of the most skillful. I felt glad to know that his
daughters cheerfully supported him in his decision.' To
say the' best of any system of education the tendency
of which is to make people despise work, it is mis 
40  PLAIN EDUCATIONAL TALKS
chievous. It is true that sometimes young men return
from some distant school, and have not only apparently
forgotten how to work, but affect to despise the laborer.
A  young man of this kind who is good to drive fast
horses is generally a fast youth himself, and too often
not good for anything else. The young. woman, too,
who, in her absence at some hall, establishment, or seminary, has forgotten all about her household duties, is
nothing but a mere plaything, a doll, and unfit to be the
wife of any young man that expects his household to be
governed by its proper mistress. An industrious, energetic young man does n't want such a woman for a wife.
He can't afford to marry one woman to preside over his
parlor and hire another to superintend his household.
It would be useless to deny that the tendency of fashionable education is to make our boys and girls proud, arrogant, and lazy. The cause of education in general, has
to shoulder the blame, whereas it should be laid to a
fashionable or ornamental education alone.
Aside from the tendency to create the sentiment that
labor is degrading, fashionable education tends to puff up
with vanity and pride. Many a young man, the pride
of his neighborhood, returns from the academy and seems
to have forgotten all his old associates, save, of course,
those who move in the highest circles. The same is true
of the young woman who has been fashionably educated.
She forgets her nearest neighbors, and is, of course, justly
censured as being proud and vain.  It may not be the
design of any educational institution to foster a sentiment of this kind, but certainly some are liable to censure 
WITH TEACHERS AND PARENTS. 41
in this matter. Mothers and fathers have a disposition
to show off the accomplishments of their darlings on
their return home after having "finished their education,"
and this "but adds fuel to the flame." True, sometimes
they have very little to make an exhibition of, but then
that little serves to gratify the vanity of parents. The
flattery of teachers having made them proud and vain, the
approbation of the parents but serves to establish the
fault.  I believe that the man who has not a good opinion of his abilities, accomplishes  little in the world.
Such a candid confession may startle the reader a little,
but let me add that I believe too that to have a good
opinion of himself, he must have something upon which
to base that opinion. It would be folly to argue that
any great number of those who do thus try to show off
their school training, have any substantial foundation on
which to ground their claims.
A peculiarity of society in the present day, it seems to
me, is that we have no boys and girls any longer above
the age of twelve or fourteen.   Our fashionable ideas
rush them on so rapidly to manhood and womanhood,
that when we seek for them beyond the age referred to,
we find nothing but young ladies and young gentlemen.
It is an unfortunate feature of our educational systems
which destroys the natural modesty and demeanor of a
child and substitutes in its stead vanity and conceit.
Nothing is more unnatural and more to be dreaded than
our fashionable boys and girls who have been taught to
believe themselves prematurely men and women. There
is something so unnatural in their conduct and in their
4* 
42  PLAIN EDUCATIONAL TALKS.
talk, so much vanity and affectation, that one dreads to
meet them.  They seem to know so much, and yet know
so little, that we have to pity them. Yet fond parents,
blind in their affection and pride, cannot see how rid'iculous their' children appear in the eyes of others, but
imagine them to be perfection personified.
After all, what greater ornament can society have than
a man or woman who is of use to every one; one who
shines no more brightly in society than at the side of the
invalid's couch, or in the heart of the family? Such a
man or woman is an incalculably greater ornament than
the mere plaything, pretty to look at and pleasant to
listen to, but of no other earthly use whatever. We need
true, noble-hearted men and women in all positions of
life.   Let teachers, then, resist this pressure brought
upon them by unthinking parents, and labor to make our
education true. Let us hope that parents will no longer
remain blind to the true interests of their children, in
substituting that which is purely ornamental for the
useful. I shall have occasion to refer again to the government to which pupils are sometimes subjected in acquiring a fashionable education, for the discipline which
is practised in many institutions is no less faulty than
the manner of imparting instruction. 
CHIAPTER V.
PRACTICAL EDUCATION.
I DO not propose here to decide what knowledge is of
most value, nor what studies should be adopted as
a part of the regular school course.  There are, however,
several questions which meet one in the outstart, that
cannot be overlooked. One of these has been made the
subject of the first chapter. A second is, What are the
objects of an education?
Evidently, as I have tried to show in the preceding
chapter, it is not preparation for society wholly, and yet
this is one of the objects. Man is endowed with social
instincts, and it is not his province to put them aside
and wander around as a' beast that tolerates no companions but its mate. The frontiersman who of choice
withdraws himself from the society of his fellow-man
and lives amid the wildest and mnost savage scenes of
uncultivated nature, may claim our admiration for his
bravery, but we wouldn't like to put him up as a model
specimen of social life. On this question he is altogether
one-sided and erratic. In truth, he knows this, and he
would feel as much out of place in the social circle as you
and I would among a war-party of savages. We censure,
and justly too, the man or the woman who, forgetful of
duty, tries to shun society. We know that God has
43 
44  PLAIN EDUCATIONAL TALKS
implanted these social instincts in our nature for a noble
purpose, and when we refuse to obey them, we at the
same time question His wisdom.  The ways of society
may to us seem odd and arbitrary, or even ridiculous; if
so, the greater the necessity for those who hold aloof to
enter, and so change or modify its ways as to improve
them. We have, however, no right to stand aloof. It
is the part of education to prepare us for society; not to
fit us for party-going, dancing, and much else that now
takes up the time of society, but for all our duties as
social beings. Whatever may tend to this end is valuable thus far as being practical.
Let it be understood here that practical education is
not confined to that narrow basis which would limit it to
the acquisition of such knowledge as is useful merely in
acquiring riches or fame. There is a higher destiny in
store for us. Some of the modern advocates of useful
knowledge are possibly open to criticism for having, in
their eagerness, gone too far in their censure of the culture of the past, and in their ardent advocacy of what
they style modern culture. They claim too much for
themselves, and grant too little to their opponents. Education does not consist wholly in gaining and treasuring
up useful and important knowledge; nor is it, on the
other hand, all discipline. There is a middle ground,
which seems to be the true one.
Spenser says, "How to live? that is the essential
question for us;" and most of us agree with him, provided that embraces not only our present life, but the
preparation also for a future.   Any education which 
WITH TEACHERS AND PARENTS.  45
tends to ignore preparation for the future, is not only
radically defective, but absolutely wrong. Of all educations or systems of education, a godless one is the worst.
Among the most important activities, as Spenser calls
them, are those which prepare us for society, for citizenship, for parental duties, and for heaven.  We owe also
special duties to ourselves, particularly in preserving the
health of both body and mind, and in giving them their
proper culture. A practical education must give attention to all these. To be practical, it must also be symmetrical and liberal, not one-sided and narrow.   The
second and fourth of these activities will be discussed
hereafter.
As to the proper training of youth for the responsible
position of parents so little has been said, that one
scarcely snows what to say and what to leave unsaid.
It seems like going by one's self into a vast wilderness.
You stand so far from any associates that you feel a
sense of loneliness creep over you. It would be difficult to explain why our young men and women never
even hear this subject talked of in their schools. Many
teachers seem to have an idea that to touch on such
a subject in the school-room would be terribly disastrous.  "The idea," say they indignantly, "of talking
to a young lady of getting married and rearing a family
of children! Why, such a step would be utterly destructive of all discipline in any institution." What
authority is there for such an assertion? Why should
young ladies be made deceitful by such a course of treatment as is adopted in many institutions, where the cry 
46  PLAIN EDUCATIONAL TALKS
of "A man in the house!" would so terrify a hundred
of them as to make them utterly powerless? And yet
" a man in the house" a few years afterward is n't a terror to a single one of them I I can see no reason for
negligence in this matter. There is n't one in a thousand
of these young ladies and young gentlemen who does n't
expect to be married, or who doesn't look forward to
marriage as the great event of life. Shall they, then,
men and women grown, be intrusted with the care of
children without any training as to their proper treatment, either bodily or mental? It is certain that onehalf of the deaths of infants chronicled annually might
be prevented if young parents understood their duty.
But an important question arises.  How are they to
understand their duty if they are studiously prevented
from knowing anything about these matters? Are we
not guilty of a great wrong in thus neglecting the
welfare of each succeeding generation by placing its
destiny in the hands of those wholly ignorant of its
wants?   It is true that good old grandmothers  and
kindly neighbors now and then come to the relief of the
young folks; but these kindly people are not always at
hand, and even were they, their advice is not at all times
reliable. It seems little less than criminal that we
should thus through false modesty neglect this training, and indirectly be the agents of hurrying countless
numbers annually into the grave, while at the same time
thousands upon thousands are through the ignorance of
parents so enfeebled in constitution as to make life in a
measure a burden to them.  The amount of ignorance 
WITH TEACHERS AND PARENTS.  47
with regard to diet and clothing is really alarming. Let
us then see to it that our sons and daughters are not
permitted to grow up in ignorance of these matters.
The few writers who have attempted to draw public
attention to this mistake in our system of education,
deserve not a little praise. Yet there are those who are
inclined to call them utilitarian.   Would that we had
more of this utilitarianism. It is a good thing.
No one in the present day would deny that much
A  might be done in the way of ministering more faithfully
to our bodily wants. We owe it to ourselves and to
those dependent upon us, to make due efforts for the
preservation of both health and life. We cannot deny
the necessity of acquiring the means of living; and yet,
practically, in our school-life, we ignore the fact that the
youth of the present will be required to take the places of
their fathers, a few years hence, in business, as well as in
governmental affairs. A practical education should give
at least some attention to the preparation of the young
for their future career as successful business-men. It is
too often the case that the young man starts out in busi  ness without the remotest idea of what he expects to
accomplish, and without having had any training for the
actual duties and necessities of life. Happily, that part
of the training which has special reference to the preser  vation of the body, is gained early in life through the
instincts of nature.  "The burnt child dreads the fire"
is an old proverb, which is no less true in its figurative
than in its literal sense. The mother, too, is ever watch  ful of her little charge, and protects it from harm and 
48  PLAIN EDUCATIONAL TALKS
danger, when in her power to do so.  But many of the
laws relative to the preservation of health, of which I
shall speak hereafter, must be taught either by the parent or by the teacher. The formation of habits injurious
to health, which have ruined probably three-fourths of
the whole civilized race, must be prevented. Nature is
prompt in her warnings, but, unfortunately, men are not
prompt to obey them.  Sometimes the misery is so great
in the case of cold, hunger, etc., that we cannot resist;
but in the case of weariness of brain or body we are apt
to give little heed to the warnings of nature.   So also
in the case of eating, drinking, and ill-ventilation.  Nature
here, as in the case of cold and hunger, does her part in
warning us of the danger; but deeming ourselves wiser
than nature, or failing from want of training to understand our duty, we take our own course, and necessarily
are compelled to suffer.
Aside from the knowledge which directly tends to the
preservation of health, such knowledge and training as
will prove useful in earning a livelihood should form a
part of every one's education. That this is necessary
almost every one is ready to admit, and yet, strange to
say, until within the past few years nothing has been
done toward the preparation of the young in this re spect. Business colleges have laid claims to imparting
the instruction necessary, but they do the-work only
partially; for it consists of more than a knowledge of
arithmetic and its applcations. Most of this knowledge
and training is acquired after school-life is over. The
school of life imparts it, and a valuable school it is; but
t 
WITH TEACHERS AND PARENTS.  49
we would be able to enter a much higher class were we
better fitted in the preparatory institution of either home
or school. We have too little training in these matters.
I have met with but one educator who ever confessed to
having given his pupils instruction on their duty as to
earning a livelihood in after-years, an'd this an old gentleman who spent his half-century in the school-room,
leaving the cobbler's bench for the school-house, and quitting it only after fifty years of active and successful
service.
A practical education must aim at strengthening the
whole man, both body and mind. While the body is
trained and strengthened for the active duties of life, the
mind also must be strengthened to cope with the actual
difficulties arising. Much of our education has thus far
not been practical because it has not helped to strengthen
the mind. Much of the instruction, too, that has been
imparted to us has been of no use whatever either as a
discipline or as valuable in itself; and much again that
may have been valuable as a discipline, but which has
no value as being useful, has simply supplanted that
which both possesses an inherent value and is at the
same time disciplinary. It is the general complaint of
business men, and even of many professional men, that
much of what they learned at school is of no future use
to them, and that much which they might have studied
at school had to be learned afterward. Why is this?
Of all answers that I have heard, I know of none that
is satisfactory. Certainly, if we can gather useful knowl~edge which possesses the same value as a discipline as
5
D 
50  PLAIN EDUCATIONAL TALKS.
that which is of value as a discipline only, it is folly
to waste time on that which is not useful. I make no
charges here against any of the studies pursued in any
of our schools, but simply lay down my proposition as
to the relative value of useful knowledge and that which
is useless, all things being equal. Knowledge is practical only so far as it is useful or aids in strengthening and
developing the mind, and the same may be said of educational training.
We look around us and see everywhere a lot of donothings, persons who are unable to accomplish anything
in the world. Every profession and every calling is
encumbered with them. Why is it? The only answer
we can make is, that their education has been defective; it has not been practical. Their minds have not
been properly disciplined and. strengthened.  It may be
that they have been crammed with useless knowledge,
which is stored in their mind like so much useless lumber. It may be, too, that their education has not been
an education at all, but that, like so many buckets or
sponges, they have passively received all that has been
poured into them. This mere reception of knowledge is
not education, much less is it practical education. The
powers of mind and body have neither been trained nor
strengthened in the process. Instruction and training
must go hand in. hand to give perfect development
p 
CHAPTER VI.
* c
SELF-CULTURE.
AN  has within him a power of development, the
immensity of which he often fails to estimate.
Unlike the beasts of the field and the fowls of the air, he
possesses a power which, when rightly used, makes him
the noblest of God's creatures. The tiny little floweret,
as it unfolds its delicate petals one by one, seems almost
possessed of this same inner power of development,
but it is not.  The warm sunbeams gladden its little
heart, and with joy it opens up its every leaf and petal
that it may drink in the cheering sunshine; but it' has
no power beyond this. It has no higher state to prepare
for. Its life of beauty is soon spent, and it is transformed into another state.  It has no power of self-development.   So also with the animal creation.   Its
members cannot rise to a higher.state of being.  Man
differs from these.  There is that within him which enables him to wield almost unlimited power. He has that
within him which makes him not only superior to all
other creatures, but, with culture and under favorable
conditions, places him above those of his own race and
nation. This power was given to man, like all his other
powers, for his use, and therefore it must be developed.
A great mistake is often made by parents and teachers
51 
52  PLAIN EDUCATIONAL TALKS
in giving too much assistance to children in overcoming
difficulties. The mother never thinks of carrying the
young child in her arms after it is able to walk for itself.
She knows too well that such a course would neither
strengthen its limbs nor teach it to walk. A certain portion of this knowledge and culture must be the acquisition of the child itself. Were its mother to assist it continually in taking its food, she knows that it never would
become self-dependent. As soon as possible, therefore,
she allows the child to feed itself, although the little
fingers and the clean table-cloth may become soiled in the
process. She knows that the true method of teaching
is bv throwing it, in a measure, on its own resources. It
makes more progress thus in a week than it would under
the mother's care and instruction in a month. I have
heard it related of a very celebrated naturalist, that
when one of our present most learned professors became
a pupil of his, the subject of the first lesson he received
was a turtle, which he was ordered to take home with
him and study closely. At the end of a week's time he
returned to the naturalist, supposing that he was able,
from a week's study, to tell all about it. Imagine his
surprise when, after a few pointed questions, he was
ordered to shoulder his turtle and study it another week.
It did seem a little strange that the naturalist, who was
receiving a large salary as the teacher of this gentleman,
should give him no instruction whatever. But the turtle
was studied more thoroughly than before, and the lesson
proved a most valuable one in making the professor a
student of nature instead of a mere recipient of tihe 
WITH TEACHERS AND PARENTS.  53
knowledge and teachings of other men.   The teacher
understood the true secret of acquiring knowledge.
There are, probably, few men in the world that accomplish anything, who are not what might be termed selfmade. They are men who have acquired their knowledge
and tact, whether in school or out of it, by their own
individual effort. These are really the men who are the
most successful ill the world. We turn to every profess
sion and calling in life, and we find the leaders men who
have made themselves strong. They all can trace their
influence and power to the fact that they were self-dependent. They were not the mere tools of their profes.
sors and teachers, nor the mere passive recipients of all
knowledge that may have been poured into them. They
have become strong, and become men of influence and
power, only by the application of the strength already
gained to overcoming greater difficulties than those heretofore surmounted.  Were we to consult the world's his.
tory in all ages, we should find that in every case the
leaders of the age were men whose culture was mainly
self-culture. Don't understand here that a man must
ignore schools to be self-cultured. Many of our ablest
men have been subjected to the discipline of school, but
they do not owe their strength to it, except so far as judicious teachers may have controlled their efforts, or
directed them into a proper channel. The great men of
the world have all been men of original thought.
The tendency of self-culture is to make one strong and
accurate. The man of muscle knows that he may spend
the greater part of a lifetime in receiving instructions
$* 
54   PLAIN EDUCATIONAL TALKS
how to use his power; and yet, without individual effort
he knows he can accomplish nothing. So he takes up
his dumb-bells, or punches his sand-bags, or takes his
walk, or his row on the river, for the purpose of both
disciplining and strengthening his body. The same law
holds good in the acquisition of mental strength and
activity. We must subject the mind also to discipline in
order to strengthen it. The culture of the mind and the
culture of the body are analogous, both depending upon
the same principles in the strengthening process.
Self-culture makes one accurate. The earnest student
who attempts to discipline his own mind feels much more
confidence in his judgments, when once formed, than does
he who depends wholly upon the instruction of another.
The self-cultured man feels that he isbecoming strengthened as he wrestles with one difficulty after another, and
that he can rely on his conclusions because he arrives at
each only after a close course of reasoning; while-the
man who depends entirely upon the help of teachers or
books, never feels that he is competent to make a decision
or reach a conclusion, because he cannot until he has first
consulted another or his library.  HIe does not think for
himself, and never feels sure that he is correct, and is
not, therefore, likely to be accurate. The self-cultured
man, on the other hand, elucidates point after point,
never leaving One and taking up another until he is certain that he has firmly established its predecessor. Thus
he clears up all difficulties as he goes, building a sure
foundation on which his superstructure may  rest; and, 
WITHI TEACHERS AND PARENTS.  55
when his work is finished, he knows too that it is com plete, and accurate in detail.
Knowledge gained by one's individual effort is firmly
impressed on the mind. We may read description after
description of the scenery of the Hudson, and yet without a personal visit to that river to see for ourselves the
splendor and magnificence of its scenery, we can form
no proper conception of it; but having once seen it, or,
better still, having once made a sketch of it, we never
forget it.  It is so impressed on the mind that it cannot
be erased. We never gain so intricate and exact a
knowledge of the appearance of any object or any scene
as when we come to draw it or make a copy of it. The
concentration of the mind on each particular feature is
so close that the impression made is well-nigh indelible.
It will not suffice for another to picture it either in words
or in colors.  These may please, but they do not give us
that accurate knowledge which we desire.  So in the
case of all knowledge.  The mind in acquiring it must
fasten on to it and so concentrate its powers that a permanenvcy of impression is guaranteed, and by virtue of the
very conquest which the pupil has made the knowledge
has been made more thoroughly his own, and he never
forgets it; whereas that which has cost him no study,
but has simply in a manner been poured into his mind,
is held but for the day, and is then lost to him. Every
teacher has noticed this fact, and every teacher knows
the difference in the value of that knowledge gained by
the pupil's own efforts and that which he acquired without any labor.  I do not say that no knowledge may be 
56  PLAIN EDUCATIONAL TALKS
imparted to the child in the shape of interesting talks
or lectures.  I have much faith in these; but then not
all knowledge can be invested with this interest. There
is much which in its nature is practically without interest, and here is just where the labor of the child
must be performed. Here is where he is required to
fasten his attention and concentrate his mental powers
in overcoming the difficulty.
We find in consulting our own experience, that we
usually value that most which has cost us -the greatest
amount of labor.  This is so in all our worldly wealth,
and it is so in our mental acquisitions. Gold and silver
are valuable because they are scarce and difficult to get.
Silks and broadcloths are more highly esteemed than
other fabrics just as comfortable but lower in price, becausb they cost more, and what we pay for them, in turn
requires more -labor to secure.  The  same is true in
knowledge. That which requires hard study and unflagging attention on our part, we prize more highly
than that which is so easily acquired that it may become
the property of every one. Were the matter reversed so
that gold, silver, broadloths, and silks were plentiful
and cheap, and iron, tin, cotton, and wool as scarce as
the others now are, our feelings would also change,
and we would, no doubt, prefer what we now most
affect to despise. The value is not always in the sub stance itself. The coin is the-representative of a cer tain value, and it is made the representative because of
its scarcity and the labor it costs to produce it. So in
ilI 
WITH TEACHERS AND PARENTS.  57
knowledge, also, that is most valued and most firmly
impressed on the mind which costs us most study.
Self-gained knowledge has the advantage of possessing
more interest than that which is imparted to us by
others. I am not of those who would make all our
books and sciences easier than they are. Some might
doubtless be simplified -and, in being simplified, made
more scientific- but there are few that should be made
easier. Some text-books are, I know, unnecessarily hard,
not from the matter they contain, but from their unfortunate arrangement of materials, or the clumsiness of expression from which the learner is unable to tell exactly
what is meant.  To a re-arrangement of these for the
better no one could object, because it would simply be
the correction of an error: nor could any one object to
the simplification of science; but to make it easier, to
assist the learner, is unnecessary. A mind which is not
disciplined by hard work at least part of the time receives little, if any, real discipline, and is but little benefited by any false training it may have. To do all the
mental work of the child, and expect it to be interested
in the accumulation of kn'owledge in this way, were as
great folly as to expect one to eat his food with the same
relish when forced on him.  There is a pleasure, too, in
overcoming difficulties, of which the child is robbed when
we do the work for him. I like the little boy who looks
into your face and refuses to accept your proffered assistance when he is fast in a difficulty. HIIave you never
noticed with what pride his eyes sparkle and how his
whole frame is aglow with excitement when he gains 
58 -PLAIN EDUCATIONAL TALKS
the victory?  That victory is worth more to him than
all the help you could have given him.  It has cost him
some hard work, but he prizes the victory all the higher
for that, and he has strengthened himself in gaining it.
But that bright face is indicative of more than we read
in it. There is more than the mere pride of conquest or
joy of victory. That work has stamped itself so indelibly on the mind of the child that he never forgets how
to master any other difficulty of the kind that may arise.
The discipline his mind has received is invaluable. He
has, too, gained not a little courage for the mastery of
future and greater difficulties, which in itself is of the
greatest importance in future life. De Fellenberg says,
"The individual, independent activity of the pupil is of
much greater importance than the ordinary busy officiousness of many who assume the office of educator."
Every one knows how much pleasanter it is to study
that which is in itself interesting. There is no doubt
that such knowledge is retained much longer, and is
practically of more value frequently to us than that
which is not interesting. Don't, my dear critic, be too
hasty now to assume that I am going to take ground
against any studies which may have the reputation of
being dry. Such is not my intention at all. The difficulty is not that some of the branches we teach are dry
and uninteresting, but we fail to make them interesting
from our own lack of interest in them or through our
lifeless manner of teaching. We give too much assistance to the pupil, and he sees none of the interesting
part of many studies. He merely skims over the sur 
WITH TEACHERS AND PARENTS. - 59
face, gathering the scum, and when he meets with difficulties, by the mistaken kindness of his teacher he is
helped over them without any effort of his own being
required. Is it to be wondered at that so many of our
young folks, when they finish their education, as it is
said, are yet not able to accomplish anything? It is n't
at all surprising. It is but the natural result of a mistaken training.  "Do men gather grapes of thorns, or
figs of thistles?"
There are those in the world, and their number is not
small, who, when their school-life is finished, suppose
that all study is done, or, as it is expressed, "their education is finished." No greater mistake could be made.
School-life has closed, and the assistance of teachers is
lost; but the real and true education has but commenced.
The difficulty of the hardest problems met with in our
algebras and arithmetics is as nothing compared with
the problems which meet us at every turn in real life.
Here we have not the assistance of a teacher any longer.
We are thrown on our own responsibility. Alas I our
training for self-support has been neglected, and we are
unprepared to meet the social problems of the day, and
we often fail. Whose fault is it? Where shall we lay
the blame?  Did our parents and teachers prevent our
growing strong by carefully doing our work for us, lifting us over every difficulty as they were wont to do in
our days of helpless infancy? They meant well, but
they made a serious mistake. They did not permit us
to become strong. We relied on them day after day for
their assistance, and we became so accustomed to receiv 
60.  PLAIN EDUCATIONAL TALKS.
ing their help that now, when we are sent adrift in the
world, we are unable to guide ourselves aright. Too
late we lament their misdirected kindnesses. We are
compelled to endure the buffetings of fortune and make
the best of our lot.
Parents and teachers, let me beg of you to think over
this matter seriously before you allow yourselves to fall
into the error of giving your children or pupils too much
assistance. Let them do some hard work for themselves,
and a good deal of it, before you attempt to help them
any. Let them grow strong by overcoming difficulties
for themselves.  One of the greatest faults in our teaching is, that we do too much helping and too little training.  We  are too impatient to wait for the child to overcome difficulties for itself, and we insist too much on
helping it out of its trouble. We forget that a habit of
gaining knowledge for ourselves engendered in youth,
will adhere to us through life. Let the child, therefore,
make its start at self-culture as early as it can.  It is
safe to say, that when there is any possibility for it to
overcome a difficulty, we do wrong in giving assistance.
With proper care and by commencing at the proper time
to urge this self-culture, we can make the coming generations stronger and more active and self-dependent. 
CHAPTER VII.
THE OBSERVING FACULTIES.
T is altogether a mistaken idea that culture commences
with school-life. As soon as the little child opens its
eyes and puts forth its hands, its mind also begins to
unfold. The most important school is the family fireside.
Here is where true culture begins, and here, too, is where
the impressions are stamped most firmly. At the mother's knee, in the sitting-room, on the play-ground, in the
nursery  everywhere the child is drinking in knowledge.
HIave you ever noticed a little babe when the process
of mental development has just begun?  Watch it.  Do
you see that it never is quiet or idle for a moment when
it is awake?  God has: made its constitution such that
it must be busy.   As:it grows older and stronger, an
uncontrollable, desire to apply its strength seems to
take hold_:;'t.  Does it sit quiet and contented on its
mother'- knee,?..No; that would be impossible; it must
be down, prying into every nook and corner.  Every
iimaginable object possesses a peculiar interest. As the
ehild creeps around on the floor, it gathers knowledge
constantly. While it gleans this, it is also strengthening
its physical system, and its physical endurance is wonderful. As I watch one of my own little children creepiig over the floor hour after hour, examining every tain      6                                         61
.IN  -;i    I's S 
62  PLAIN EDUCATIONAL TALKS
gible object, some for the hundredth time, I often wonder
how it is possible for it to endure so much physical exertion. Yet the knowledge which it is gleaning, seems
to possess so much interest and inherent entertainment
that the child apparently never tires. On it goes day
after day, on its hands and knees, or, it may be, bolt upright as it draws itself along by pressing its little heels
into the carpet. It is the pursuit of knowledge under
difficulties, it is true, but then it well repays the labor
expended. Does a mother hastily remove everything
from her child's reach, lest it should break something?
and does she consider it troublesome or getting into all
sorts of mischief?   She certainly does not understand
the case of her child.  It is n't mischief that leads it to
make these efforts to take hold of everything it can put
its little hands on.  The curiosity in its nature must be
satisfied, and if the child cannot gratify this curiosity in
one way, some other will be devised.
Culture begins, really, in advance of the child's creeping or walking period. Long before it feels the impulse
in its little body to be down on the floor amusing itself
and moving around, it finds something to entertain it,
and from which to gather knowledge, in its mother's collar or ribbon, or in a rattle, a pencil, a stick, a knife-in
fact, in anything which its little hands can hold or carry
to its mouth. From this point its knowledge increases,
and the process of development goes on. Day after day
it adds to its store. We really fail to estimate the
amount and the value of the knowledge gained by us
when children under the age of eight. It possesses ten
I
i 
WITH TEACHERS AND-PARENTS.  63
fold more importance and value than we are accustomed
to place on it. What we learn previous to this period
is the real groundwork of all our knowledge. It is the
foundation on which we  base all that follows.   The
acquisition of this knowledge is under the direct supervision of the parents.   Has it ever occurred to you,
parents, that, as your little ones are creeping around on
the floor, they are gaining this knowledge? HIas it ever
occurred to you that there are special duties devolving
upon you, as fathers and mothers, in assisting the child
to glean a rich harvest?  But whether you give the child
the benefit of a proper supervision or not, the work goes
on.  It does not stop because no one directs it; it only
mnakes mistakes now and then, and sometimes travels in
a wrong direction.  But the fact that the work does go
on does not relieve us as parents of the responsibility of
guiding and directing the infantile efforts into the proper
channel.
It is, undoubtedly, the duty of parents to aid their
children in acquiring knowledge, and at no time is this
duty more imperative than previous to the child's entrance into school. I expect you to look surprised. Let
me say to you that I am not alone in the opinion. It is
the belief of those who have thought most on the subject, that much the most important period of culture is
that which precedes  school-life.  Of course here the
teacher can do nothing, and it remains for the parents,
and, I mnay say, especially the mother, as her advantages
are usually the greater, to accomplish all that is to be
accomplished.  Are parents prepared for the performance
N 
64  PLAIN EDUCATIONAL TALKS
of this important work? I speak directly to you, parents. Do you appreciate the immensity of the task imposed upon you? Do you feel that you have the necessary preparation to perform it faithfully? I know that
some parents do not have this preparation. Of course
I do not expect you, however, to be among this number, because most intelligent parents have the necessary preparation, though they may not at all times feel
sufficient interest in the welfare of their children to do
their duty. Reader, don't think that I mean you, unless
you feel guilty. If you feel guilty, however, I have no
objection to your taking so much of it to yourself as you
think applies in your special case. Has it never occurred
to you, that the instructions of parents are of immeasurable'value? Your office as instructor is really of more
importance than that of the professor. Your assistance
is called in when the child is acquiring such knowledge
as is not found in books, really the most valuable of all
knowledge. How important it is that the knowledge
the child gathers be of the right kind, and that his conclusions be correct I An error imbibed at this period of
life may be ever after a source of trouble. It may require years to eradicate the false knowledge gained in a
single day.
It is the duty of parents to gratify the child's curiosity. You tell me that some children are so inquisitive
that they are troublesome. They are forever asking
questions. I am glad to hear that you have met children of this kind.  I hope that you  are blessed with
inquisitive children. You never heard of an inquisitive 
WITH TEACHERS AND PARENTS.  65
child that did not 6r will not become somebody in the
world. Give these children that are always restless,
ever inquiring, "What's that for?" or "What's this made
of?" a fair chance.  It shows that there is an active
mind there, and one that is bound to acquire knowledge
if you give it a chance. You are fortunate if you have
such pupils. They may cause you some trouble in the
way of noise; but it is far better to have their noise
than that death-like silence which is a sure indication of
absolute monarchy and despotism. The teacher or the
parent who repels the curiosity of children or becomes
impatient under their questioning, is guilty of a great
wrong. A teacher of this kind is out of place in the
school-room, and a child with such parents is unfortunate, to say nothing worse. There is nothing that so
much pleases the true teacher or the parent anxiously
and ardently interested in his child's welfare, as to have
the little one ask him questions when there is behind it
all a real desire for knowledge, and the child asks simply. because it does want to know. There is no affectation about its questions, as there is about those of older
persons too often when they inquire of your health or
the health of your family, or put some other question
simply as a matter of form.  The man who  meets you
on' the street and says, " How'are you? " or " How do
you do?" does n't expect you to give him a statement
of your physical condition, or explain to him your business prosperity.  But the child that asks you, "What's
that?" "What's it for?"  and "What's it.made of?"
does mean something, and it wants an answer to every
6~*             E 
66  PLAIN EDUCATIONAL TALKS
question. It wants to know. Could there be a more
favorable opportunity of imparting knowledge? HlW
any one can resist such inquiries is a mystery. There
is a pleasure in answering children's questions.  There is
also danger in repressing their curiosity. Every time
that the father or mother commands silence when the
child asks a question, or puts it off with "Little folks
must not know everything," that father or mother does
the child an injury by quelling the spirit of inquiry by
which it gains most of its knowledge; and if this process be continued for any lerngth of time, the child at
last makes no further efforts to acquire knowledge. Instead of quieting the child when it is inclined to ask
questions, by putting it off with evasive answers, we
should do everything in our power to arouse such a
spirit. The plan which too many of us adopt, I am
afraid, tends to quell the spirit of inquiry. I have seen
men in the professor's chair and on the school platform
who, when asked by the pupils any question that did
not come directly under the lesson of the day, gruffly
silenced them by saying that such questions had nothing
to do with the lesson, or evaded answering by remarking
that their sphere was not to answer but to put questions. Don't smile, incredulous reader; there are such,
and I draw no fancy sketch.
The husbandman, when he finds a piece of ground on
which there is nothing growing except here and there a
little plant, the seed for which may have been carried
there by accident and found a resting-place, and the soil
of which is a rich, mellow loam, just in the fittest condi
i 
WITH TEACHIERS AND PARENTS.  67
tion for the reception of the seed of future harvests, does
not think of first passing over that land with a roller to
pack the soil as tight as possible before he scatters the
seed; nor does he, on the other hand, when he finds
the soil of his fields baked by the rays of the sun,
plant his seed before he first ploughs and harrows that
ground and puts it in proper condition. The operations
of the judicious teacher or parent are similar. When he
finds the child inquisitive, he does n't first stifle the spirit
of inquiry, and thus unfit the mind for the reception of
knowledge; nor does he, when he finds the pupil dull and
inactive, attempt to instil knowledge until he has first
aroused the spirit of inquiry, until he has first prepared
the soil for the reception of the seed.  The processes are
mainly similar, except that almost every child is born
with this spirit of inquiry in its mind, and is free from
any taint until spoiled by either the parent or the teacher,
whereas, much of the soil, as it comes into the hands of
the husbandman, has, by accident of some kind, already
had scattered over it the seeds of weeds now growing in
luxuriance.
Every one has noticed with what eagerness and pleasure a child seems to gather knowledge day after day at
its honme, on the streets, or in the fields and woods. He
cares nothing whatever for dry, arbitrary forms. He is
a close student of nature, and follows out nature's plan
of learning. But this doesn't exactly suit us; so we
catch the little fellow and lead him to the school-house,
and there, with a number of others of the same age, or
size, or advancement, we say he goes to school. lHe 
68   PLAIN EDUCATIONAL TALKS
seems to think that is more like going to prison, the plan
of getting knowledge there is so different from the plan
he pursued at home.  He  no longer studies  nature's
objects, but sits at a little desk and has a book or a card
put before his eyes, on which are twenty-six characters
of almost every imaginable shape, and, after being told
that these constitute the alphabet, he is asked to study
them. How his bright dreams have vanished! This is
school-life.  Do you wonder that he doesn't like it, and
that he shouts with delight the moment he gets outside?
It isn't because he has had such a pleasant day of
it. Quite the contrary. He is glad that he is once
more free and permitted to enjoy himself in the open
air or at his home. He is free once more to glean
knowledge as his inclinations direct him. He finds but
little similarity existing between the plan he has been
accustomed to pursue and the school plan of acquiring
knowledge. Certainly there is a mistake in one plan or
the other. In which shall we look for it? We dare not
question the wisdom of God, who is the author of this
natural method. There is but one ground left for us to
take, and it is, that the mistake lies in our plan of
teaching.
Many of our primary and ungraded schools are not
well conducted. We make them too much the means of
acquiring mere book knowledge, and neglect that which
the mind of the child- directly craves, a knowledge of
things.  Don't understand me to depreciate the knowledge of words and all that pertains to them. These are
of vital importance so far as they convey ideas to the 
WITH TEACHERS AND PARENTS.  69
child's mind; but as mere dry forms,- distinct from all
ideas and thoughts, they are to him worthless. Hence
the teacher in our primary school and the parent in
the home should follow more closely nature's method
and less the method of man, by giving more culture to
the perceptive faculties. If you ask me how this can be
done, I answer, let your child have more to do with
objects when it enters school and less with books. Place
in your school-room or in the nursery a number of little
shelves or boxes, and in these put all kinds of objects
both of nature and of art - pieces of cloth and calico,
bits of leather, strings, and patches; samples of wood,
minerals, and metals; botanical, geological, and other
specimens - anything in which the child would be interested. Let it be an ominium gatherum, a general assortment of everything you can collect. If you know anything about object-tealhing -and you should — take up
one or more of these specimens at a time, and have a
general talk about it, either with the school or with the
younger members of it. Let them ask all the questions
they can, and answer only those which they cannot
answer for themselves.  Thus you will be following out
the natural plan, and the pupils will not only be interested in every lesson, but they will also find it pleasanter to attend school. I don't insist, by any means,
that you shall spend the whole time in exercises of this
kind, but a short exercise occasionally will soon serve to
wake up the minds of your children.  The teacher can
do more than the parent, because he can have a greater
collection of objects, and he has really more time and 
70  PLAIN EDUCATIONAL TALKS
greater facilities for the preparation necessary to success.
It is not any more difficult for the child to learn in this
way than it is for it to learn the name of an apple and
the names of its different parts and qualities.  While it
is gleaning knowledge and gathering facts by its own
observation, it, at the same time, is gaining a stock of
language; for, of course, the judicious teacher will not
forget to associate the name with the thing or the quality
itself.
Much valuable knowledge, which, probably, you and I
lack even yet, might be imparted by means of comparison. As an instance, take a piece of cloth or a piece of
calico, and compare its texture and strength with that
of other pieces. I have no doubt there are many of my
readers who would be as sorely at fault as myself in
distinguishing minute differences. All knowledge of the
kind, while it would furnish a valuable discipline, would,
at the same time, be practical as being useful in afterlife. By such training much useful knowledge might be
imparted, and children would not fail to be interested.
Gaining knowledge in this way would prove a delight to
children, and few more effectual means of preventing
truancy could be devised.
Spenser says, "Exhaustive observation is an element
in all great success." If so - and it does not adnlit of
doubt - it concerns you and me as well as our children
or pupils. It is true of the artist; it is true of the physician; it is true of the mechanic; it is true of every
calling in life.  Yet how many there are of us who wander through the world in a manner blind, or but half 
WITH TEACHERS AND PARENTS. 71
awake! One man strolls out among the beauties of
nature, and returns, having seen nothing; whereas
another will travel over the same route, and return with
his blood aglow and his whole frame quivering with
excitement. Hie doesn't wait for you to ask him what
he has seen, but the moment he has a chance he pours
such a volume of description on you that you are puzzled
to know where he could have found so much to talk
about. What is the difference between. Hawthorne and
most of our other American writers? lie stands above
them all in description, not because he was a finer
scholar, but. because he was a closer observer. The true
poet is always a close observer, and it is a part of his
education to give the observing faculties special culture.
He finds beauty and poetry in waterfalls, forests, and
precipices, where the ordinary man sees nothing but
mill-sites, lumber-piles, and stone-quarries. The grand
or picturesque scene which the young lady dismisses
with "Is n't that pretty! " furnishes to him study for an
hour or a day, and his poem shows that he has, with the
grandeur of the scene, also drawn in the inspiration to
picture it in words. The same scene has been presented
to both.  One has seen nothing in it beyond a pleasant
mingling of water, rocks, and trees, while the other has
made it a study and has found its real beauty. The
success of Bryant and all the other poets of nature is
due to the fact that they have trained themselves to be
close observers of nature's workings.  They see  that
which escapes your eye and mine;  not because their
eyes are better or their sight more keen, but because we 
72  PLAIN EDUCATIONAL TALKS
have not accustomed ourselves to observe as closely as
they.  Many of us walk daily amid the most beautiful
scenery and we know it not.  We are surrounded by
beauty that would charm the true poet, and yet we are
blind. Poor, heedless beings! we enjoy but the half of
life. Shall our children be equally unfortunate? Shall
they, too, with eyes bent to the earth in search of stray
pieces of silver or gold, pass unnoticed the beauties of
the heaven above them?  Shall we train them like the
greyhound, to see nothing but the game ahead?  Rather
let us train them to look upon nature as a book from
which knowledge is to be gleaned in every paragraph,
to read the history stored up in the rocky pages in the
hearts of her mountains, to examine and study the
beauty found in the tiniest leaf or blade of grass, and
thus be enabled to lead them from the study of nature
to its grand Creator.
A most important part of our education, the culture
of the senses, is usually neglected. We do but little
toward the training of sight, hearing, and the other
senses. We know in our own case that these senses are
not so acute as they might be, had they received the
proper culture. Do you doubt this? Can you distinguish between the different shades of color, of red, for
instance, without having each before you? I know of
one man at least with whom all the darker shades of
red are maroon. I know of others, too, who are unable
to distinguish between the different shades of blue.
There are many who know but seven colors instead of
the great number of shades. There may be such a 
WITH TEACHERS AND PARENTS.' 73
thing as color-blindness to account for a part of this
defect, but not for the whole of it. The same defect
exists in the case of the other senses, in some, probably,
to a less, but in others to a greater extent. The blind
learn to read by means of raised letters. Their sense of
touch becomes so acute that they distinguish objects
very readily between which we would be unable to notice
any difference except with the eye. It is said, also,
that the boys in our blind asylums learn to distinguish
their different playmates by hearing them walk.  Thus
they illustrate in both cases the extent to which the
senses may be cultivated. What is done by the blind
in the improvement of hearing and touch may be done
equally well by those who possess sight. It is altogether
a mistaken notion that a man's strength all goes into his
left arm when he loses his right, or that his hearing
becomes any more acute when he loses the sense of
sight. Did he not exercise his left arm more than heretofore, it would be no stronger, and did he not cultivate
the sense of hearing more actively, it would be no more
acute. So, also, in the case of the deaf and dumb, their
sense of sight seems to become much more keen because,
being deprived of hearing, they depend much necessarily
on the sense of sight. This sense in reality takes the
place of both, and it is, therefore, more highly cultivated,
and becomes much more active. There is not a single
one of the senses that may not be made more acute by
judicious use and culture, and the necessity of their culture is too obvious to need argument.
To recapitulate briefly, let me say that I believe it to
7 
74  PLAIN EDUCATIONAL TALKS.
be the duty of parents and teachers to arouse in the
child a spirit of inquiry.   When  curiosity manifests
itself, gratify it if you can; if you cannot, don't repress
it, and thus stifle it. Give your child every opportunity
to study nature. Cultivate its observing faculties even
if some of the usual school branches must be omitted.
Let the first steps in knowledge be such as are pleasant.
Don't prevent a child's becoming acquainted with things.
I have thought sometimes that Dr. Wentworth, of
Beecher's "Norwood," understood these matters better
than most parents, when he preferred that culture for
his daughter Rose, which made her acquainted with
the secrets of nature. I wish there were many parents
of this kind. Our culture would be more effective.
i 
CLHAPTER -VIII.
MAKING HOMES AND SCHOOLS PLEASANT.
j   HERE  seem to be two distinct classes of persons in
all society, those who are striving to make a living
and those who are striving to live. Of the former there
are too many, of the latter, I am afraid, too few. The
care and anxiety incident to many kinds of business often
lead men away from all considerations of comfort, and
they never learn what pleasure and happiness they might
have enjoyed, until it is too late. Poor, deluded mortals!
they struggle a whole lifetime making a living, with the
hope that they shall some time be able to retire from
active business and enjoy the pleasures of life; but to
the greater number that time never comes. Now and
then one shakes off the dust of the counting-room and
creeps out from the heat, and dirt, and noise of the city;
and, when the most valuable part of his life is spent,
builds himself a rural mansion that a prince might covet,
and when he is ready to enjoy it, dies. Others there are
in easy circumstances who never know, from the day of
their birth to the day of their death, what it is to take a
breath of pure air. Do you wonder that their faces are
pale? Most of them are striving to make a living,
struggling day after day with the world in the doubly
75 
76    PLAIN EDUCATIONAL TALKS
vain effort to accumulate wealth, which proves to them,
in the end, anything but a blessing.
There are men, too, in the world, who seem scarcely to
know that they have homes, making them simply a sort of
feeding and sleeping place. There are business men who
find it impossible to throw off for a moment the cares of
their calling, and enjoy themselves with their families.
There are others, too, to whom the billiard saloon or the
club-room and corner grocery seem to present greater
attractions than the family fireside. I pity the families
of such. They are deprived of many of the pleasures
of life; but there is usually something wrong sonmewhere. Is it in the home and its surroundings? or is it
in the manner in which the home affairs are managed?
There are homes that scarcely deserve the name, there
is so little of the home feeling in them; and there are
others again, the surroundings of which render them
cheerless and unpleasant.
What sort of home have you? I don't want to know
how many acres of land you possess, nor whether your
house is built of wood, or brick, or stone. I care nothing
about all this. Let me look.into your house. Are your
walls bare and white? Are your carpets kept so studiously from the sunlight and air that they smell musty?
Do you keep your parlor closed -as Irving tells us the
Dutch do -except when opened for the weekly scrubbing or for a funeral? Do you keep your shutters bolted
and your blinds closed lest a stray ray of sunshine should
discolor your carpet? Good housewife, if you say yes
to all these questions, don't ask why it is that your hus
i
i 
WITH TEACHERS AND PARENTS.  77
band is always away on business or down street, and
your children discontented and unhappy. Probably the
fault is yours, not theirs. It is n't pleasant to have bare,
blank walls to look at. Put some pictures on them. If
you can't afford high-priced Pictures, get the best you can
afford. I believe that every dwelling and every schoolroom in the land should have engravings and pictures
on its walls. It will cost something, no doubt; but it
is a thousand times better to spend a few dollars in decorating the walls of your dwelling than have your husband spend the same amount at the groggery or even
the club-room.
Parents sometinmes wonder why it-is that their children are discontented and anxiously looking forward to
their time for leaving the old homestead. Many youths
are anxious to go to the city to seek their fortunes.
why is it? Not because young men and young women
from the country succeed better in the city than those
"to the manor born," for the temptations which  surround every young person in the city are frequently too
strong for them to resist, and certain ruin is then the
inevitable result. No, this is not the reason. There is
often something wrong at home. In many cases, if you
were to go with them to their homes, you would find
these not only cheerless, but well-nigh forbidding or
repulsive. I do not say that it is so in every case; for
now and then a young man's ambition leads him to seek
a wider field of operation than is presented to him in his
own neighborhood, and he goes to some other section or
to the city, in which he may expand to his fullest ca,pa      7* 
78   PLAIN EDUCATIONAL TALKS
city. But it is n't by any means this that sends most away
from home. Were their homes made what home should
be, they would never think of wandering off.  Recall to
your mind for a moment the appearance of the homesteads in your own neighborhood, or as many of them,
at least, as you have had opportunity to examine, or even
notice accurately. How many of them come up to your
idea of a pleasant dwelling-place?   How many of them
would you like to adopt as your place of residence without alteration or addition? The number isn't hard to
count, is it? But your neighborhood is no exception to
neighborhoods and communities in general. You will
find it so everywhere, that too little attention is paid to
the decoration and beautifying of homesteads. Every
one that has travelled to any extent knows how rare a
thing it is to see from the car-window a snug-looking,
cosey place; and when such a one does appear, it never
fails to attract the attention of the traveller and win his
admiration.
What reason can there be for this lack of beauty?
Business men tell us they have no time to think of such
things; their minds are wholly absorbed in business
matters.  Reader, will you accept their excuse?  I cannot. I care not how pressing business may be, nor how
much of a man's time it may occupy, he has no right to
neglect those comforts and pleasures that would tend to
make his family love and enjoy their home. Man, it
seems to me, was not created to be a mere machine, and
some of our business men seem to be but little more.
If getting money were the chief end to be attained, some 
WITH TEACHERS AND PARENTS.  79
of us, I fear, would be found quite far off the track.
But we have a higher destiny than this. No man has a
right to permit his business so far to engross his time as
to rob his family of the social pleasure which is their
due.   Independent of this, however, there is also a
moral question which arises here. The influence of a
beautiful home, though the beauty may be simple and
unostentatious, in forming the moral character of the
young is very great. It is not surprising that many of
the lower classes are rough and rude. Much of it may
be traced to the appearance of their homes. The skeptical may doubt this, but it is nevertheless true. There is
a connection between the beautiful and the good.  We
seldom find one who has been reared among beautiful
scenes, whose childhood has been made happy by a beautiful home, that is rude and uncivil. The little fellow
that would n't hesitate a moment to break in the windows
of a dingy old house on his way home from school, could
not be coaxed to kick to pieces the daisies, and forgetme-nots, and verbenas on his little sister's flower-bed.
lie has respect for the beautiful. We look for ruffians
to come out of such homes as hare none of this element
of beauty in them. When we see a homestead with
broken-down fences, begrimed walls, and filthy, we naturally look for slovenly children to come from that house.
Children of this kind flourish in such hovels.  We  don't
expect much good of them, and generally we are not disappointed. We are not much surprised to hear the little
fellows swear and use vulgar language, because profanity
and vulgarity luxuriate in such soil. It is a fact beyond
0 
80  PLAIN EDUCATIONAL TALKS
denial, that the beauty of a home has much to do with
the morals of the children reared there. There are exceptions to the rule in such cases where children have been
spoiled by indulgence or bad family government; but in
general the rule is true.
I know of no surer way to tempt a boy's jack-knife
than to place before him rude and ungainly furniture.
The furniture of many school-houses is, I am afraid,
sometimes a sore temptation to the little urchins in attendance. There are those in which the furniture seems,
by its very looks, to say to the boy, " Here's a chance
to test the temper and ke iness of your blade; try me."
And there are those again in which neat, attractive furniture forbids the very idea of its being scratched or cut,
and the boys are afraid to attack it, except now and then
one of the rudest of the rude. It is unwise economy to
put any other than attractive furniture in any schoolroom. A case occurs to me now in which a public hall
was to be furnished with benches. The authorities were
advised to put in good, neat, substantial furniture, as it
was to last. In their wisdom, they saw fit to disregard
the advice, and in eight months were compelled to refurnish the same room.  They were a second time advised
to put in substantial, or, at least, neat, if not substantial
benches. Though the same kind of furniture was selected as before, it was given several coats of paint and
was grained to imitate maple. This furniture has now
been in use several years, and looks almost as well as
the day it was put there. No notch, no writing, or anything else of the kind disfigures it, whereas that in use 
WITH TEACHERS AND PARENTS.  81
but eight months was covered with pencil-mnarks and
scratches. It pays, and that seems to be a consideration,
to provide neat and durable furniture for school-rooms.
I might prove this by a great number of incidents that
have fallen under my own observation, but it is unnecessary. What is true in the case of school furniture is
also true elsewhere.  Neat furniture is not necessarily
expensive. There are those, I know, who would object
to purchasing expensive furniture; hence I meet this
objection.  Every one knows that in the home, too, children are much more careful of that furniture which is
pretty than of that which contains none of the elements
of beauty.
How shall we make our homes pleasant? The question has been partly answered in what has been said
before. I give no advice here as to the color of your
walls. They may be white or some neutral tint, but
don't let them be bare as if hewn out of solid rock.
Have some pictures or engravings with which to decorate them, however small these may he. Be careful, however, what pictures you place there; for each one of them
will, day after day, stamp itself deeper and deeper on
the minds of your children who see it.  Remember you
are not placing them there for the purpose of winning
the passing applause or admiration of your visitors, but
for the purpose of making your home an enchanting place
for your own family as well as for strangers.  Let, therefore, nothing but the purest sentiments of the heart be
taught by your pictures. The same remark will apply
to the school-room, that dreary and forbidding place that
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82  PLAIN EDUCATIONAL TALKS
it so often is. Adorn its walls with engravings, cards,
and pictures.  They will cheer it up, and be a sort of
verification of the poet's idea of making
" The desert blossom as the rose."
Drive out that cold and cheerless feeling which causes
children often to feel that the school-room is the unpleasantest place on earth. You can do this partly by decorating your walls with pictures and engravings. Don't
let the blank walls stare your pupils in the face any
longer. There is something almost ghostly in them
they are, at least, cheerless.
School-houses and homes may-be made pleasant by beautifying them with flowers and shrubbery. Most persons
know that it will improve the appearance of their homes
to plant shrubbery on their grounds, and thus they make
them attractive to strangers; but there are few who
plant because of the moral effect it may have on their
children. Flowers have a humanizing influence. One
feels greater safety when he falls into the hands of those
fond of flowers and the cultivation of them. We are all
fond of them, but we sadly neglect cultivating them,
sometimes on account of the expense or the trouble it
may cost us. The natural love for flowers is so great
that little need be said on this point to parents, and yet
it is true, too, that many might make their homes much
more pleasant, especially in the winter, if more care were
taken to cultivate flowers.  The care of a single pot of
plants in the window, it has been said, may serve to
change the current of a man's whole lifetime. Add to 
WITH TEACHERS AND PARENTS.  83
this the influence it has in softening the manners and
humanizing the feelings of a family, and the care of
flowers becomes an invaluable pastime. There are few
who cannot find space for at least a few pots of plants or
flowers.
How is it in our school-rooms? In how many of
them, even in summer, the most propitious season, do
we find flowers growing in the yards surrounding the
house? True, there are many which do not even have
an enclosure, and the school grounds extend indefinitely.
I am partial to extensive school grounds, but I don't like
to have them as extensive and as boundless as the highways along which they stretch. In a house surrounded
by such grounds one feels much as he would on a ship
in mid-ocean or in a hut in the desert. No limits are in
sight. But, seriously, it is an evil that so many of our
school-houses are located in such inaccessible, unhealthy,
and unpleasant places. - Miasmatic swamps and bleak
or rocky hillsides are not the best places, though they
may be the cheapest. Of all places, the school-house
should occupy the pleasantest and most healthy. It is
time that public sentiment break down the mistaken and
unwise economy of directors and school commissioners
in purchasing for building sites such land as can be
bought for the smallest amount of money, but which is
wholly unfit for the erection of any building. The welfare and health of our children demand something better
than the waste land in the angle of some cross-roads or
the brier-patch of some hillside. But to say nothing further of the unfortunate location of many buildings in
4 
84   PL,AIN EDUCATIONAL TALKS
respect to hcalthfulness, many are not favorably located
with regard to'beautifying them  and  making  their
grounds attractive and pleasant for the teacher and the
pupils. I have in my mind now school-houses literally
"founded upon a rock " and built amidst rocks, the interior furnished with one long desk running around three
sides of the room, with slabs for benches. It would be
well-nigh impossible to render theseattractive and homelike. But this is the dark side of the picture, and such
school buildings are happily fast giving way to better
ones.  The number reported " unfit for use " is rapidly
growing less, and we may yet succeed in having none
but suitable buildings used for school purposes.
How  shall we beautify our school grounds?  If they
are not already enclosed, it will be necessary to enclose
them; for however rigid our laws regarding estrays, we
cannot expect to make improvements on open land that
will not be interfered with and marred by wandering
cattle of some kind. If there is not pride enough in the
directors to do their duty, the teacher will in many instances be able, with the help of his pupils and patrons,
to enclose a sufficient portion of ground  at but little
expense. Much of the manual labor necessary will be
performed cheerfully by some of the larger boys, and by
some scheme of collecting, such as a mite fund or an
occasional exhibition, all the necessary money for the
purchase of materials can be readily secured. A little
labor and some perseverance are necessary.
I recall to mind now the "Old Sandstone," as we endearingly named our school-house. It was built of a forma 
WITH TEACHERS AND PARENTS.  85
tion more modern than Hiugh Miller's old red sandstone.
Its tint was a soft yellowish gray, and its texture coarse.
Hlow we boys loved to sit on the old rocks, and, with
rounded boulders, wear grooves into them while we imitated, as we thought, a flouring-mill, the clean, gritty,
golden sand running down from under our little hands!
One spring day the teacher proposed to us that we
should enclose a small portion of our grounds for the
purpose of planting shrubbery and flowers. Each one
contributed something, and all offered their assistance in
completing the work In a short time the necessary
funds were collected, and in the course of two weeks our
house was surrounded by a neat and durable lattice fence.
Though one of the oldest and least attractive in architecture, our school-house became the pride of the township, and it was not without the bitter complaints of its
patrons, that years afterward it was thrown down to
make place for a new one, and our shrubbery and flowerborders that had cost us so much toil, and which were a
source of so much pride, were destroyed by some heartless wretches who seemed to have no sympathy with the
beautiful in either art or nature.
Supposing the school grounds enclosed, or, at least
that part of them immediately surrounding the house,
we are prepared to do something more. If the proper
spirit has been engendered in the pupils, there will be no
difficulty in securing their assistance in beautifying the
grounds. My own experience will bear me out in making
this assertion. I have never applied to my pupils for
such assistance in vain; and I have asked for it fre,
8 
PLAIN EDUCATIONAL TALKS
quently. The teacher has little idea of how much may
be accomplished with their assistance, until the work is
completed. I, confess I have often been surprised at the
alacrity with which they enter into any project of the
kind. Place confidence in them, and show them that
you are in earnest about the matter, and success is certain. It is not my purpose here to give definite rules for
laying out the grounds, as that is the province of the
landscape gardener.  It is taken for granted that every
one possesses a sufficient degree of taste to improve the
school ground sufficiently, at least, to make it home-like
and pleasant; and that is, after all, the purpose of decoration in this case.  You can do much by requesting
your pupils to bring shrubbery and plants from home.
Let them gather spare lilac and rose bushes, cuttings of
geraniums and verbenas, mock-orange, spirea, and other
low shrubbery, together with such bulbs and seeds as
may be gathered in every flower-garden; and you will
be surprised at both the variety and the quantity brought
to the school-house door. A half-holiday excursion to
the woods for cedars, hemlock, spruce, and maples, together with other evergreen and deciduous trees for
planting in the grounds, will add materially to the stock,
and, with a little care in the setting and culture, you will
soon have school grounds which will gladden the hearts
not only of you and your pupils, but of all those who
look upon your work.
I have never succeeded so well in cheering up my
recitation-room in winter as when I placed a few pots of
blooming plants on my recitation table or at the window,
86 
WITH TEACHERS AND PARENTS.  87
when not too cold. It costs care and attention, but the
good effect it has in brightening up the faces of your
pupils and attracting them to your instructions is an
ample reward. When cheered up in this way, or even
with bouquets of cut flowers, all the gloom that sometimes hangs around a school-room is dispelled and driven
off, and a sort of cheeriness, which brightens up the
mind, takes its place.  Try it, teachers, especially in
summer, when there is no danger of the frost-king cutting down the beauty of your pets, and notice the effect
produced.  Don't stop to argue the trouble of it.  If you
are heartily engaged in the work you have undertaken,
you will think little of the trouble; for certainly if you
have entered the profession with the idea of gaining a
fortune, or thinking that you will be relieved of anxiety
and trouble, you have made a serious mistake in the
selection of your calling.
All that has been said in this chapter with regard to
making the school-room pleasant and attractive, will
apply to the home also. Don't fail to make your home
a charming place, one that your children will leave with
sadness and regret  When you come to add to its pleasures, don't put everything that is beautiful in your parlor and nothing in your living-room. Remember that it
is infinitely more important that you originate these
pleasures for the moral influence they may exert over
your children than for the gratification they may give
your visitors. Among suitable pictures with which to
adorn the walls of your living-room none are more
appropriate than family portraits   To  these  may be 
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added such others as convey a feeling of cheerfulness
and content, such as fruit, flower, and bird pieces, all of
which have connected with them agreeable and pleasant
associations. Your children will be either contented and
happy at home or they will be discontented and restless;
and, if your family government is all that it should be,
very much will depend upon whether your home and
home-life are cheerful, pleasant, and attractive, or otherwise. 
CHAPTER IX.
PLAY LIFE.
ICHTER says, "Play is, in the first place, the
working off at once of the overflow of both mental
and physical powers." There is in every one a fund
of play-life. There are, probably, few of us who have
wholly forgotten the joyousness of youth and the plays
with which we were wont to while away the time. Few
there are, too, who do not remember the pleasure they
experienced when the animal life and activity which suffused and animated their whole being were no longer
smothered and repressed- when they were permitted to
expend this activity, this play-life of their being, in that
manner which -was in most perfect harmony with their
feelings. We look back upon those days as among the
pleasantest of life.
Reader, have you ever noticed the young of the animal
creation? Watch, some bright day in spring,, the lambkins as they race with each other around the barn-yard.
Notice the feathered tribe, too, as soon, as the fledglings
are strong enough to leave the nest. An uncontrollable
desire seems to urge them to try the strength of their
limbs, and, one by one, they hop from branch to branch,
until at length their courage strengthens them for longer
flights. Have you ever stopped to inquire why these
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little lambs frisk and gambol around in this lively way?
or why the little birds hop from branch to branch when
they seem to have no definite purpose? Neither bird
nor lamb knows why it does this. God has implanted
this activity in them, and they could not keep quiet if
they would. They must play; they can't help it. It is
a merciful decree of Providence that this activity must
be expended in order that the muscles of both may be
strengthened and the sinews toughened. What is true
in this particular case, is true in the whole animal creation, man included.
Dr. Bushnell remarks on this point, " Having set the
young of all the animal races a playing, and made their
beginning an age of frisking life and joyous gambol, it
would be singular if God had made the young of humanity an exception; or if, having put the same sportive
instinct in their nature, he should restrict them always
to a carefully practical and sober mood." It would,
indeed, be strange if he should deny the young of our
own race that happiness, if it can so be called, which
he confers upon the young of the inferior portion of the
animal kingdom. But he has beneficently implanted
the same instinct in our nature, though we may not
understand his design in doing so. The little child has
this same instinctive love of play that we find in the
lamb or the kid. True, we forget God's object in placing
it there; but we have no right to question the motive.
Every day it manifests itself in some shape.  Now it is
expended in clambering upon board-piles or climbing up
trees, and now again in sundry evolutions and contor 
WITH TEACHERS AND PARENTS.  91
tions, and all for the fun of it. The movements are wellnigh as capricious as those of the kid or the lamb. We
can't explain them, nor do we know what to expect next.
The life and activity are there, and no one can predict
how they will be manifested.  God has placed this life
in the child, and it plays because it can't help it, just as
one of the lower animals plays when moved by the instinct within. In both it serves the purpose of exercise,
and strengthens and develops the body. Notice the boy
turning his somersaults in the straw-mow or dancing on
the seedy floor, or the girl as she jumps the rope or skips
along the pavement, and see if you cannot trace the
working of an inner influence which urges on each to
play.
This play-life is not found in the child alone, and it
were a great mistake to limit it to the young of our race.
You-and I play in accordance with the designs of Providence, or we fail to fulfil a part of our duty. We look
forward to the time that we shall be able to enjoy ourselves more than we do now, to the time, it may be,
when we shall be able to retire from active business, and
enter upon our real play-life. The lawyer works at his
briefs and studies up his cases not because he likes the
work, but because he is anxious to accumulate such an
amount of money as will place him beyond the reach of
want, that he may enter, at some future day, upon his
period of play-life. The same is true with every other
professional man. The mechanic, too, toils at his bench
or in his shop, the merchant in the counting-roomn, the
clerk behind the counter, the farmer in his fields -and
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all because in the future they see a time when they shall
have so far escaped from toil as to be able to rest from
their labor and enter upon their time of play. Yet how
very few there are who really ever do reap the harvests
to which they look forward so eagerly. They repress
the desire for play and amusement which they find ever
urging them on to activity, vainly hoping that in the
future they shall be able to enter upon a period of continual enjoyment. It may be said with truth that those
who enjoy life are comparatively few. The period of
enjoyment, instead of extending through one's whole life,
is postponed until such a time as the cares and anxiety
of business n5 longer interfere, and thus much of life,
instead of being a pleasure, is made a burden.
If I interpret the design of Providence correctly in
implanting this spirit of play in us, it must be evident to every one that it is wrong to repress it in
any way. We have the right to direct it into the proper
channels, but no attempt to repress it will be successful.
We may build obstructions across the merry brook that
ripples over the pebbles at the foot of our garden, but
however high we may build' to intercept its progress, it
is but for a time. When we least expect it, the latent
power, whose force we had forgotten to calculate, or a
sudden freshet, bursts away the barriers, and deluges and
destroys the beauty of our garden; and the greater the
opposition to its progress, the greater the strength accumulated to prosecute the work of destruction. Had we
placed only such obstructions as were necessary to utilize
the power of the brook, no danger would have arisen and
I 
WITH TEACHERS AND PARENTS.  93
no mischief ensued. The same may be said in the life
of the child. - We may place such obstacles in its way as
will silence its merriment and prevent its play and enjoy ment, but we do not know what latent power we may be
developing. We know not what injury we may be doing
the child, or into what evil channel we may be turning
the current of life. We are directing the course of a
stream whose power we fail to estimate; and there are
those of us who attempt not only to check its progress,
but, in addition, reverse its course.  Forgetful of the
natural laws which control the child's actions, we commit
the great blunder of trying to resist nature. As well
might we, in the case of the stream; attempt to resist
the law of gravitation, and try to send its waters up
hill. One effort would be no greater failure than the
other.
God loves little children too much to place such instincts in their nature as would make them unhappy; and
it is, therefore, a great mistake to suppose that play or
amusement is in any way opposed to piety. There are
those, I know, who would insist on children's being soberfaced and unnatural. I believe play to be the forerunner
of religion, in fact, as has been said by.another, "the symbol of true Christian liberty;" and, therefore, I can see
no reason for attempting to curb or silence the joyousness
of child-life, on moral grounds. Morality and mirth are
not at enmity.  I confess that no man, be he minister or
layman, impresses me more favorably with the cause of
religion by his being morose or ascetic. I do not believe
it necessary for a man to be anything else than natural 
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in order to be religious. I have no faith in that church
dogma which requires one to wear the proverbial "parson face." If you feel more solemn on becoming pious, I
have no right, of course, to criticize your manifestation
of that feeling; and if, on the other hand, the hope of
unbounded bliss and happiness in the future life leads me
to be more joyous and cheerful, you have no right to
question the propriety of my outward life.  Your temperament and mine may differ, and our outward conduct
will also differ. What is true in your case and mine is
true also in the case of the child. He may be pious and
inclined at all times to do right, and yet be very cheerful.
Instead, therefore, of supposing that behind this play the
devil is urging it in order to break down the kingdom of
Christ, let us look at the matter soberly, and we shall
find that it is but one of the fundamental principles of
piety that is being developed.
There are few questions which to honest Christian
parents and teachers are of so much concern, and which
have given them more anxiety, than that of knowing
how to preserve order in school or the family.without
losing the respect of the children, or, at least, making
home or school unpleasant.  From the one extreme, of
allowing the child to do as it pleases, to the other, of
requiring a death-like silence, there are advocates of
every grade of discipline. I would, by no means, sanction the government of those who permit their children
to do as they please; nor could I, by any means, indorse
the course of those who are so rigidly disciplinary that
they allow their children no privileges. The middle 
WITH TEACHERS AND PARENTS. 95
ground here, as everywhere, is the safest. I have known
parents who looked-upon a game of ball among young
men or bqys as almost criminal waste of time, saying,
that had they the control of things those same boys
should be put into a clover-field to pick stones, thereby
getting the same or an equivalent amount of exercise
while doing something useful. Such ideas are not only
basely utilitarian, but in direct opposition to the design
of God. I sometimes fear that we are apt to forget that
we were once boys with all the foolish pranks of boys,
as we now regard them. We forget that it is just as
natural for a boy to be boyish or a child childish as it is
for us to be otherwise, and that our enjoyments are to us
just what the child's enjoyments are to it. We censure
children for being childish, or, in other words, for being
themselves, and the result is that in many cases we
spoil them, and make them believe themselves men and
women.
It is n't pleasant to have noisy children about you, I
know; but it is better to have noisy children than to
have premature men and women, stiff and starchy as if
just prepared to receive a fashionable call.  There are
those who silence every outburst of glee, as if it were
detrimental to the best interests of the family to allow
children to be noisy. I believe this to be wrong. I believe that if children find fun or amusement in anything,
they should be permitted to enjoy it when such fun or
amusement is legitimate. If it grate harshly on our
nerves, it is our duty to let them have it in some other
part of the house where it will not disturb us; but we 
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have no right, if desirous of their welfare, to stop them
unless they are doing some one an injury.
I can imagine no sadder spectacle than a child dragging itself through the world without any enjoyment.
Richter draws the apt comparison between it and a butterfly with its four wings torn off and creeping like a
worm; and how true this comparison is! A child shorn
of all that which would permit it to enjoy life, and made
to creep through the world day after day instead of gambolling and frisking through it as instinct and impulse
dictate, is in a but little more unfortunate condition than
the butterfly deprived of the wings which were to carry
it from flower to flower and from one beauty to another,
making its life one gay round of pleasure; and the parent
or the teacher who robs the child of its pleasure is no
less guilty than the rude and wicked school-boy who
would tear from the insect its wings. The lives of both
victims are made burdensome, but the parent we praise
for rearing quiet and sedate children, while the boy we
characterize as wicked. Which does God look on with
most favor?
We make a great mistake when we are distant or
reserved in the presence of our children. We should
enjoy life with them. Ruling them at a distance is not
without its effect; but, unfortunately, the effect is most
disastrous to that blossoming love in the child's bosom
which is ready to spring forth into life and beauty, but
which is blighted by this chilling frost and never permitted to bloom in perfection. It is rare that he who
rules his family with a rod of despotism lives to have his
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WITH TEACHERS AND PARENTS. 97
children thank and bless him for his family government.
The parent or the teacher who feels it beneath his dignity to unbend at times in the presence of his children
or pupils, loses much of his power, and is certainly an
object of pity. We must have sympathy with children,
that we may exercise a healthful influence over them,
and no man should have the government of children
unless he can lend this sympathy.
I have known persons who thought themselves disgraced when found playing with children, and I have
heard men stigmatized as "old fools" when, for their own
and others' amusement, they entered into a game of ball
with those ten or twenty years younger than themselves.
I liked them all the better for thus relaxing their dignity
and making others happy while enjoying themselves, and
bringing once more the rose to its old place in the cheek.
I like old men with young hearts.  They grow old beautifully and are a source of pleasure to every one around
them, and when they come to leave us we feel that we
are losing something, and their death leaves a wound ia
our hearts and a void in our circle that keep their memory as green as the sod that covers their graves.
I like men that can make youth and children happy
by throwing away dignity and enjoying play with the
young.   It isn't dignified, possibly, according to the
fashionable idea of dignity, to find yourself on the carpet
with your little folks tumbling back and forth on top of
you, or trying to pull you along the floor, but it certainly
does not make a worse man of you for thus indulging in
the childish mirth.   Dr Chalmers, it is said, found his
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greatest fun in playing with boys at rolling stones downhill. Dr. Beecher, too, it is said, loved dearly to romp
with his children, and they all thought the more of him
for it. Washington Irving, bachelor as he was, says he
never felt more respect for Jeffrey, the Scotch jurist and
critic, than when he found him in the family of one of
his Edinburgh friends playing a romping game with the
children. No man is any the worse for thus making
childhood happy and renewing memories of his own
youth in the sport and play which he shares with the
child. We like such men, for they dispense joy as blessings all around them. Children obey such parents more
cheerfully, and when the parent relaxes his dignity, and
forgets his years for the time, the child reaps the highest
enjoyment and loves this play with a love unequalled.
There is no danger whatever that the authority of the
parent will be lost. The closer he brings himself into
sympathy with the child in his plays, the stronger is the
authority made and the more cheerful the obedience of
the child. This has been verified in the experience of
those who enter into most hearty sympathy with childlife. It is a mistake that.a teacher or a parent loses
command of children by engaging in play with them.
Those parents whose family government is most successful are those who enter into most hearty sympathy with
their children, who joy with their joys and sorrow with
their sorrows.  I know that the old saw, "Familiarity
breeds contempt," is quoted again and again to prove
that teachers should not engage in the sports of their
children. It is n't true. Familiarity with your pupils 
WITH TEACHERS AiND PARENTS. 99
will not breed contempt unless there is that in you which
is contemptible. If you are afraid that in play with
them you may display some weakness which you would
not have them know, it were better for you to refrain,
and if it be any habit that you have reason to be ashamed
of, do one of two things, break it up or leave the pro fession.
How often have we almost envied the pleasures of our
boys in winter as they dart past us down the hills with
the swiftness of an arrow on their steel-bound sleds and
jumpers! HIow we long to be with them, and yet we
dare not!  This unnatural dignity which stiffens so
many of us prevents us indulging our desire to coast
with them.  We fear that people would talk about us
and call us boyish. When we travel through the northern
part of continental Europe we find it royal fun to mount
behind a Russian and dart down a hill with such speed
as almost drives the breath from our bodies. Yet this
is the same sport in which our boys alone engage. There
is n't any difference, and there is no reason whatever why
you and I should not join them. There is no doubt that
we would enjoy it; the very sparkle in our eyes, as we
stand watching the young folks, tells as plainly as it can
be told that our hearts are with them.
Of late, skating, a charming sport and healthful recreation, has admitted to its enjoyments both sexes. Few
place a full estimate on the good that has been done by
the establishment of skating parks and rinks in our cie
ties and larger towns within the past few years. It has
brought back to the cheek of many a young lady the rose
...:....
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whose place had been usurped by the lily.  It has furnished, while contributing greatly to health, both pleasure and excitement, and thus has insured for itself a popularity not easily shaken. It has admitted to its pleasures all ranks and conditions of whatever age and sex,
and while the rinks and parks in the cities have popularized the amusement there, they have also served to
awaken a new interest in,the exercise in the country,
and now it has become a rare thing to find a youth living
along a stream of any considerable size who is unable to
skate. Thus while it has, by its popularity, become
fashionable and interesting, it has at the same time.
been conducive to health, and been the means of doing
much good.
In general it may be said that we have too little amusement in common with our children. Had we more fun
and amusement with them, and did we join more in their
plays, it is likely that we should need fewer billiardrooms, fewer balls, fewer horse-races, and other questionable amusements.   Did we  indulge more in the
harmless sports of youth, while we would inculcate in
our children a love for the pleasures of home-life, we
would feel less like giving questionable and illegitimate
amusements our encouragement and sanction by keeping
silent with regard to their vicious results. The rising
generation and our own would both be the better for it.
We would have less vice, less immorality, and enjoy life
the more.
Don't think that I would make the whole of child-life
play-life. There are restrictions now and then to be
.1  -........ 
WITH TEACHERS AND PARENTS. 101
placed on its plays.  When work is to be performed, the
play must for the time be put aside. Duty must always
moderate the amount of play.   The  child will soon
understand that restrictions will be encountered in the
home, in the school, and in the church, as often as one
or another of these demands such restrictions. But if
the child be trained properly, duty will never be looked
upon as hostile to play. He will soon feel that obedience
to both play-life and duty will serve to give him that
symmetrical development which he needs.
Care must be taken that the child be permitted to
engage in those plays only which are entirely free from
vicious tendencies. Those plays which would do injury
to another or to any of God's creatures are essentially
wrong, and the child must not be allowed to engage in
them. A play that would tend to mar the beauty with
which God has surrounded us, such as throwing at any
beautiful object in nature, should not be permitted.
Stoning birds, playing tricks on one another, with many
other sports of a similar nature, not only are not beneficial, but are in themselves calculated to do harm, and
hence the child should be prevented from engaging in
them. The same might be said of those which have a
tendency to lead to the formation of bad habits, such as
playing marbles for gain, which is but a form of gamnbling, say the best of it.  There are so many plays in
which the child may indulge which are not objectionable,
that we should give no countenance to any that may
have an immoral tendency.
If possible,.this restless activity, which many parents
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suppose to be latent mischief, should be expended in the
open air. Nature's machinery is so admirably adapted
to the wants to be supplied, that the store of fresh and
pure air is inexhaustible; hence out-door sports will be
found much the most invigorating to both body and
mind.   There  are times, however, when  preparation
must also be made to entertain children in the house,
unless we permit them to take care of themselves on the
streets during the evening, a most reprehensible practice
which we find in vogue often in cities and in larger villages. Here is where the mother will find room to exercise unlimited skill and judgment in making her homelife so pleasant as to present greater attractions to her
children than any other spot on earth, and  the true
Christian mother will find it her greatest pleasure to
minister to the comfort and cheerfulness of her little
children. 
CHAPTER X.
PASTIMES AND AMUSEMENTS.
ENTER  here upon the discussion of a topic which
presents in some of its parts unusual difficulties, from
the fact that upon some points there is an unparalleled
diversity of opinion. It is a matter of some importance
to both teacher and parent to know in what pastimes or
amusements children should engage. In general, it may
be said, a close inspection is necessary, that children may
indulge in those plays only which tend to elevate and
create a proper sentiment, and that those should be discarded which may in any way have an evil tendency.
It is as natural for the child to play with its toys, as it
is for the adult to be interested in such tools as he may
have daily occasion to handle. Every child should have
a supply of playthings. It is not necessary that this
supply should- be either extensive or costly. The doll
which the little girl carries so carefully, possesses almost
as much real interest for the child, as the babe in its
mother's arms does for her; and no jockey or turfman is
prouder of his steed, than is the little boy with his broomstick or hoe-handle as he capers and prances through the
yard. Who shall say that the little girl's "pieces of
chaney," as she calls them, are not a source of as much
pleasure as is her mother's gilt China set to her?  Who
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can tell the wealth of the odds and ends of things, the
buttons, marbles, scraps of leather, pieces of painted
glass, bits- of tin, horse-chestnuts,  top, slate-pencils,
sticks, and blocks which one finds on emptying a little
urchin's pocket? Do we call them trash? They are a
source of endless pleasure to him, and were his pocket
thrice as large, he would have thrice the variety to fill it.
Hle is not bothered with bank-notes and railway or govTernment bonds. A few nickel cents in the corner of his
pocket to spend now and then for candy is all the riches
he cares for if he is permitted to enjoy himself in his
own way.
It is not necessary to furnish children with a great
quantity of expensive toys with which to amuse thenmselves. I have known a child to put aside the prettiest
of dolls to carry around in its arms an old slipper or
a boot, andht seemed to derive as much pleasure from
this as from the other. Who shall say that the little
daughter of poverty is not as much pleased with her ragdoll, with ink-spots for eyes, as is the dainty little pet of
luxury with her ten-dollar wax-doll, with curls, and eyes
thatseem to close when it is put to sleep?  The principle is true also in the case of other toys and playthings.
Give children an opportunity to gather some playthings
for themselves, and supply them with a few others such
as their tastes seem to prefer, and you will have done
much toward enabling them to enjoy themselves.
Picture-books form a source of great amusement to
the child. When in the power of the parent, it should
be furnished with these.  Every one has noticed how 
WITH TEACHERS AND PARENTS. 105
eagerly the child opens every new book it lays hold of,
to see the pictures, and should nothing but bare words
meet the eye, the book is soon put aside; but should it
contain engravings or pictures, it amuses itself for hours
in examining them, if they are such as please it. I doubt
the policy, however, of placing in the hands of the child
such pictures as it cannot understand, or those familiarly known as fairy-pictures. We can accomplish much
greater good by giving the child a book containing pictures of such objects as surround it. It will be remembered here that I speak especially of small children.
They take but little interest in those pictures which they
do not comprehend, and if left to their own choice, they
will select such as they are acquainted with
There is in every child an imitative faculty. When
you read, as if to satirize you, it picks up a book, and
when a stranger drops in, or while you sit in your easy
chair, it makes its little self comfortable, and, with eyes
bent closely on the book open before it, imitates you, innocently supposing that it is doing the same work that you
are doing.  The little girl, seeing her mother sew; is
anxious to engage in the same employment, and feels
herself particularly happy when she is allowed the use
of a needle a-thread and is given a few patches to sew
together. The boy, too, anxious to be engaged in the
same work as the man, and being endowed with a constructive instinct-if we can call it such   lays hold of
the first tools he can and becomes a mock carpenter.
Reader, did you never, when a boy, on a cold winter's
night, when the snow and the storm without made you 
106  PLAIN EDUCATIONAL TALKS
feel glad to remain in the house, sit beside the kitchen
fire and build yourself an imaginary house or church of
corncobs? I think I can yet see myself with my playfellows sitting, when a boy, by the blazing wood-fire, and
planning my imaginary houses and erecting them of
these same rude materials. I was not the fortunate possessor of a set of building-blocks, so my resort was corncobs, and how I enjoyed them! You may smile, but I
doubt if ever a son of luxury is more content than the
farmer-boy with his little house constructed with his own
hands. I would have a set of blocks, building-blocks, if
attainable, in the hands of every child. If buildingblocks could not be readily secured, or if thought too
expensive, any blocks that would enable the child to
build houses, walls, or fences, would answer. Permit
little girls to do all the sewing they wish.  They may
lose a needle now and then, but that is a matter of small
moment  compared with the amount  of good accomplished.
Children are fond of studying nature and holding converse with her. They delight to ramble in the woods
and through the meadows in search of berries and wild
flowers.  They delight in wandering along the gravelly
beds of the meandering brooks in search of shells and
pebbles. They take an interest in those things which,
from their apparent insignificance, escape the attention
of the adult. They find pleasure and amusement in that
which we are accustomed to pass by unnoticed. To
them, as to the painter or the naturalist, every blade of
grass or clump of moss, every shining shell or pearly 
WITH TEACHERS AND PARENTS. 107
pebble possesses a peculiar beauty'and interest unknown
to the careless observer. All this argues the necessity
of granting them enjoyment of this kind. Often the disposition of teachers and parents is to curb this spirit in
the child. They look upon it as the beginning of a vagabond sort of life, and sagely predict an indolent future,
forgetting that this very life which the child is inclined
to lead requires tenfold more labor and exertion than any
task which they would assign it. So the little fellow is
debarred the privilege and pleasure of rambling among
the objects of nature, and is required to remain within
the circumscribed limits of the enclosure which surrounds
his home.  I would, by no means, have the child unrestricted in its rambles. I think there is danger, in such
a case, that it may become restive under restraint in
time, if permitted too free a range. As a source of
amusement and enjoyment, however, the child should
now and then be permitted to roam at will. In addition
to the enjoyment which it may derive, it also gleans
much useful information, and cultivates its faculties for
observation, and thus strengthens powers which, in the
future, may put to blush the knowledge of many a young
man who with egotistic pride flaunts his diploma in the
face of the public.
Occasional excursions of the whole school may add
much to the enjoyment of the children, and they will at
the same time do much toward strengthening and developing the physical system, and thus be promotive of
health. These excursions are also beneficial as recreation
from too close, and sometimes too tedious, attention to 
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books and study. We pay too little attention in our
system of education to learning the secrets of nature.
Ofttimes more can be learned in the study of botany
from an hour's excursion over the meadows or through
the woods than could be gleaned from a dozen recitations
in the school-room; and the same is true in other branches
of natural science.  I like the old-fashioned nuttings that
we used to take when I was a school-boy. Now and
then we used to be chased by sundry dogs and frightened
by sundry men, and it was terribly hard on boots and
breeches; but we enjoyed it, and the exercise we had wa,
both healthful and pleasant. Children should be encouraged to go on these excursions oftener than they do. Of
course, it is to be expected that some one in the neighborhood of the school will grumble against it; but then if
the excursion is made outside of school hours, it is a matter that does not concern any one specially but yourself
and the children. Parents, too, should join in these parties, and enjoy themselves with their children.
The growing tendency in our busy age is to pay too
little attention to birthdays and holidays. These return
so seldom that there is no reason whatever why we
should not enjoy them with our children when they do
come. I am not of those who believe that a child's life
should be one continuous season of festivity and gayety;
but I do believe in occasional enjoyment of this kind.
No one could appreciate these festivities if they occurred
daily.  As Richter says, "Not even a grown-up head
could stand being crowned every day by a new country."
But this objection cannot be urged against birthdays and
N 
WITH TEACHERS AND PARENTS. 109
the usual holidays. Memory carries us back to the time
when the day before Christmas the teacher used to send
two boys to his home, who returned laden with baskets
of candies and cakes, which were distributed among us
as a sort of bribe against barring him out; and it always
had its due effect. We felt as grateful for our sweetmeats and as proud of them, as we now do over the finest
volume of Shakspeare as a Christmas present; and yet
this was only an earnest of the day to come, when jellies,
and cakes, and pies, and puddings, and the usual turkey,
were placed before us. So, too, on the annual return
of the birthday of some one of the family, we feasted
and made merry. The nicest of cake, confectionery, and
fruit temnpted the palate, and the family reunion was
among the pleasantest occurrences of the year.  What
utilitarianism shall say that it was all a waste of time
and a subjection to the animal appetites? Little does
the utilitarian dream of the amount of enjoyment clustering in one of these family festive occasions, when
business and all harassing cares are, for the moment,
shut out, and the social powers given full play.
Children, as well as adults, need the society of one
another. Don't think that it is a lack of love for you
that sends them scampering to their fellows when an
opportunity occurs. Could you adapt yourself to the
companionship of these little folks, they would seek your
company just as eagerly as they now seem to seek that
of other children. They are endowed with the same
social insincts that we possess, and, unless we silence
these, they will seek companions. An important duty
10 
110  PLAIN EDUCATIONAL TALKS
devolves here upon the parent and upon his representative, the teacher, in the selection of fit companions for
the child. Shall a child which has contracted no bad
habits and which knows no evil, be allowed to associate
with all kinds of playmates? or shall it be limited to
those which are known to be as pure as itself? There
seems to be no middle ground here. A false argument
may be urged that its influence on the spoiled child may
be good, and that it, therefore, should be allowed to
associate with all sorts of companions. The result in
this case would be much the same as that produced by
putting a balky horse and a young colt in the same
team-a short time will suffice to make the beginner as
vicious as the one already hardened. A question urges
itself upon our attention here. Should children's parties be encouraged?  My  reply to this would be: on
certain conditions, certainly. If children at children's
parties will be children, and enjoy themselves as such,
these parties will be promotive of much good, and they
should be encouraged; but if the tendency is to make
them feel that they are already little men and women,
and that they should conduct themselves as such, then
they are harmful, and the parent who tolerates them is
not wise. I know of nothing more pleasant to a child
than to allow it; on its birthday or some similar occasion, to invite a number of its associates and friends
to join it for the afternoon. I have, however, known
little parties of this kind which, it seemed to me, were
held at unseasonable hours -from seven to ten or eleven
at night. I think such a course unwise in parents. The 
WITH TEACHERS AND PAR ENTS. 111
child's health will be endangered soon enough without
depriving it of some of its most precious hours of sleep.
Nor should these parties be held too often. Much of
their virtue consists in their novelty. This same remark
may be applied to all amusements of the child. There
should not be too frequent a repetition of them. The
appetite becomes sated, as the children of the affluent,
who have everything they desire, can testify.
School celebrations, concerts, or exhibitions, are often
valuable as amusements. They serve also, ill addition to
amusement, to arouse interest.  Many a boy looks forward with eagerness, like many an older boy, to the day
when he shall mount the rostrum to make his celebration
or exhibition speech. He knows very well that father
and mother and his sisters will be there to hear him, and
he looks for their approbation, just as the orator looks
for the smiles and applause of his audience, or the young
bachelor for the approving smile and bouquet of some
one that he knows is in the audience, as he rises to
deliver his graduating oration. It does them each good
to receive this praise, and who could have the courage
to deny them?
Lastly, as a pastime and source of enjoyment, I refer
to music, and especially music on that most perfect of
musical instruments, the human voice.  If there is one
thing above others that would prove acceptable to God,
it seems to me it must be praise in psalms and hymns
of thanksgiving. How it thrills one's heart to hear the
happy voices of children in beautiful concord "singing
for Jesus glad hymns of devotion"!  It seems to me no 
112  PLAIN EDUCATIONAL TALKS.
one can remain unmoved as a band of little children,
pure and such as Christ would have us to be, stand
with upturned faces and uplifted voices singing to the
Saviour. Reader, did it ever strike you, when listening
to these happy songs, that Jesus may be standing by
your side listening with you? How solemn and yet how
beautiful the thought! 
CHAPTER XI.
THE INFLUENCE OF HOME EXAMPLE.
S  I have watched a child, when engaged in play,
imitating all the processes and occupations of those
by whom it is surrounded, I have thought how easily
we can tell the way in which a household is managed
by watching the habits which the child has contracted,
and how necessary it is that the parent should be careffil
to engage in nothing which he does not wish the shrewd
observer of human nature to detect. I would not set
this up as an unerring test, but in the great majority of
cases, one is able, by a close observance of the manner
in which children conduct themselves, to tell much of
what home-life is like. It is a rare thing that a child
possesses so much individuality that the home life and
home manners do not, to a great extent, modify its conduct.  Now and then, it is true, we meet with one on
whom home associations seem to have no influence; but
rarely.  As I have watched one of my own little ones,
and seen myself burlesqued so perfectly that for the
moment I was almost driven to the conclusion that I
was being ridiculed, I have felt that one cannot be too
careful in making his life exemplary.
If we take the trouble to bring up before us our home
life and manner that we may examine it thoroughly,
10*                  H                  113 
114  PLAIN EDUCATIONAL TALKS
I am afraid there are few of us who would be willing to
overlook in others' what we expect to have overlooked
in our own. Daily indiscretions come up so rapidly
before us in review that we are glad to bury the past,
and make retribution, at least so far as promises go, in
the good deeds of the future. There is no doubt that
there is room for improvement in my case and yours as
well as in our neighbor's. Don't let us turn to the consideration of his case until we have first satisfactorily
disposed of our own.
Few parents appear to know how readily their own
habits can be traced by the care they take of the children.  When we look over a school-room full of children,
we wonder sometimes why it is that, while here and
there are some whose dress is clean and hair smoothed,
there are so many others whose appearance is widely
different from the former.  We  can judge nothing of
the  pecuniary condition of the families  from which
these different classes of children come. They are but
the exponent of the home4-life, and we are not disappointed, when we follow the little fellow with greasy
hands and clothes and unkempt hair to his home, to find
that his mother and her house are not by any means
patterns of cleanliness. There are nameless little inconveniences arising from the want of cleanliness which
one would think are sufficient to drive mothers to a better
care of their children: but not so. They will allow them
to appear in public, and they send them abroad sometimes in a condition anything but pleasant to a cleanly
person. 
WITH TEACHERS AND PARENTS. 115
The teacher frequently can do much to improve the
child's condition in this particular. A kindly request
that all will appear in the school-room with hair neatly
combed, clothes and shoes brushed, and face and hands
washed clean, with now and then the proper amount of
praise for any visible improvement in these matters,
rarely fails to produce the desired result. 1 take it for
granted that at this late day no teacher can be found
whose own appearance in these respects is not presentable, if not exemplary. I know there are many, both
parents and teachers, who pay but little attention to these
things, deeming them of but little importance. This
negligence is little less than criminal. It is the duty of
every teacher and every parent to require as nearly perfect cleanliness in the child as possible. It is necessary
that the parent and the teacher set the example.   The
mnother who rises late, and, in her haste to perform her
day's duties, puts off the necessary attention to her hair
until other work has been disposed of, need not expect to
be the happy possessor of model, cleanly children, any
more than she need expect herself to be considered a
model wife, which God forbid. So, too, the teacher, the
corners of whose mouth play the telltale of the filthiness within, or whose boots, upon which the mud of
months has been accumulating, have known no polish,
can expect nothing better of his pupils. I travelled, a
few days ago, in the same car with several members of
one of our State Legislatures. Among them was a burly
fellow, clad in a plaid shirt of an uncertain color and
squirting his tobacco-juice in every direction. As I looked 
116  PLAIN EDUCATIONAL TALKS
at him, I could not refrain from thinking, if this is one
of our representative men, what under the sun must the
rest of us look like?  And yet this man is the father of
a family, and no doubt, like others, shows his best side
when away from home.
It is related by a European tourist, in his criticisms on
the people of the United States, that on paying a visit
to one of our State Legislatures, he found its members
"a most untidy set of men."  Whether his knowledge
of European legislative bodies, or his sense of propriety
in matters of dress, led him to make the criticism, or
whether the criticism be just or not, I cannot tell; but
it is certainly true that too little attention is paid to tidiness in dress. Volumes might be written on this subject, but it concerns us specially only so far as home and
school are concerned. Of the dress of society and fashion, its superfiuities and its shortcomings, nothing at present need be said.
We are too negligent of dress in the presence of our
children. It is the duty of every one to dress neatly,
and especially is it the duty of parents and teachers.
Did this neatness require unnecessary expense, or tend
to beget false pride, it should be heartily condemned.
But these are objections which cannot be urged. Neatness and extravagance do not necessarily go together.
They are by no means inseparable. Many a mother
with her shilling calico shines more brilliantly in her
home than another with her expensive silk. It is n't the
cost of a dress that makes it either beautiful or comfortable. As I sit at my window, there pass up and down 
WITH TEACHERS AND PARENTS. 117
the street before me all classes of persons. I see here
the careless and slovenly laborer, with stooping form,
body bent forward, hands hanging loosely, gait shambling, and countenance stolid and devoid of all expression. Following immediately and close behind is a no
less diligent son of toil; but mark the difference! This
man walks upright as God created him, his step is quick
and elastic, his clothes show that they, as well as his person, receive proper attention; his countenance beams
with good-humor and cheerfulness, which make glad too
the heart of the little fellow who trots nimbly at his
side. You can read in the very appearance of these two
men much of their home-life. You are not surprised to
find in the house of the one children and goats disputing
possession of the sitting-room, which is often sittingroom, parlor, bed-room, and kitchen in one. There is no
such thing as comfort in that home. The children are
ragged and unkempt, the mother is a slattern, and the
filth and general want of neatness make you glad to get
into the open air. You have no desire to visit it again.
In the home of the second you find everything bright
and cheerful. Neatness and order'are apparent in every
part. The mother, clad in her working suit, is yet neat;
and, as she invites you in, she does n't find it necessary
to excuse herself, that she may retire and keep you waiting half an hour, while she prepares to make herself
presentable. The children too have caught the spirit
of the father and mother, and there is a general neatness
about the whole home which makes it an enticing place, 
118  PLAIN EDUCATIONAL TALKS
and one which the children will leave in the future with
sadness and regret.
It is a mistake to suppose that this neatness is to be
found in the homes of the wealthy alone, and it is no
less a mistake to suppose that either the poor or the rich
are the only ones on whom rests the responsibility in this
matter. There is a moral question involved in it which
affects all classes. We feel that the man who puts up an
unsightly building offends us because he offends the public
taste, and thus far he has done wrong. So too in the
matter of dress. The man or the woman who not only is
slovenly in dress, but also by example sends out slovenly
children, is guilty of an offence against morality which,
though not indictable and punishable by legislative enactment, is nevertheless an offence and indictable by all
laws of morality and good taste. The teacher too who
permits the pupils of his school to be guilty of this
offence, or who, worse still, sets the example by being
himself untidy and slovenly in dress, is no less guilty.
Let him see to it, when he enters his school-room, that
his dress, though it may not be in the prevailing mode,
is yet kept neat and clean: His example, like that of
the parent, is all-powerful in creating in his pupils habits
of neatness.
The personal habits of parents and teachers should be
unobjectionable. There is undoubted truth in the maxim:
"Example is often more  forcible than precept;" and
those who expect to instil by precept what their own life
contradicts, expect what cannot be accomplished. It is
folly for a teacher to think he can establish rules for the 
WITH TEACHERS AND PARENTS. 119
guidance of his pupils without showing'his own respect
for those rules.  Thus the teacher who prohibits the use
of tobacco and liquor, and yet so far forgets himself as
to indulge in using these, proves himself either a very
weak man or a hypocrite, and it matters not whether he
do this publicly, or, driven by shame, he play both hypocrite and liar in private.  If any habit be positively immoral or injurious, the law prohibiting it is binding upon
both pupil and teacher. Nothing argues the want of fitness in a man as a moral guide so much as this failure
to show by examnple that the precepts he attempts to
instil are righteous. I have no faith in any man whose
moral strength is so weak that he cannot support his
own rules and regulations, so far as moral grounds are
concerned, by his daily example. The father who tells
his little boy to abstain from smoking and chewing, and
yet smokes and chews unblushingly himself, offers first
an ind-qcement to his child to contract the habit by leadint g"him to think that there is something fascinating in
<::which the father wishes to enjoy by himself; and,
secondly, shows the child his own unreasonableness in
asking it to abstain from practices which he himself is
unwilling to forego.  What father is there who would be
willing to have his wife and children found, as he often
is, at the gaming-table or in a state of intoxication?
There are few men who are not anxious to see their children better than themselves.
The teacher's case is analogous. Any practice which
he forbids as unbecoming or immoral, he must show to
be so by his own life. If he require pupils to assume 
120  PLAIN EDUCATIONAL TALKS
graceful positions, it does not become him to sit with his
feet in the air or on a desk. If he wishes to enforce the
criminality of drunkenness and prevent it in his pupils,
it is wrong for him to belie his precepts by taking his
glass of beer or something stronger in the saloon, though
it be for " old acquaintance' sake," and when "no one is
there to see." If he require his pupils to abstain fromnt
profanity, it ill becomes him, when things go wrong at
home, to launch forth a volley of curses at his own wife
and children or their awkwardness, even though it be
done mentally.
Few dare assert that they are entirely exemplary in
their habits. We all plead guilty to being more or less
imperfect, but this is not sufficient; we must make
amends. In addition to the more serious faults which
may be laid to our charge, there are numberless smaller
ones in which we might by example do much toward
making our children better models than ourselves for
future generations to copy after. We require our children to knock before entering a stranger's or a neighbor's
door, while we rush thoughtlessly in, sometimes too
when we are least expected and least welcome. We
advise them to eat slowly and masticate thoroughly,
while under the plea of business engagements we bolt
our food down with the rapacity of a starved beast, (the
reader will pardon the figure if he watches some of our
business men dine;) nor does the trouble end here. The
difficulty that teachers and parents experience in training
their children properly often arises from the fact that
they are the unfortunate victims of bad habits contracted 
WITH TEACHERS AND PARIENTS. 121
in childhood.  These habits have become so much the
masters of many and have so enslaved them, that it is
not without exceedingly great difficulty that they are
broken up. Yet, like the troublesome weeds that often
infest our most fertile portions of land, they can with
the assistance of an energetic spirit be eradicated. "Be
ye perfect even as your Father which is in heaven is
perfect," is the injunction of the apostle, and we shall
have little to fear if we adopt the doctrine.
I cannot close this chapter without referring to the
manners and various little courtesies of life which may
be best taught at the home fireside or in the school. As
I take a stroll down street with my wife, I find an excellent opportunity of ascertaining the culture which many
persons have had. As I pass an acquaintance I watch
his salute, that I may return it, and at the same time I
find out much of his life. Here comes one who, in the
bigness of his heart, lifts his hat, and, as he sees me
stop, gives me a good hearty greeting; and I read at
once the character of the man. Passing a short distance
farther, we meet another. This man is in a hurry. He
knows nothing but business; so he-merely bobs his head
mechanically as a fishing-cork bobs under water when
jerked vigorously by the fish below, and on he goes.
He gives no greeting, says nothing, and you come to the
conclusion that he takes no pleasure in society. The
next we meet does n't even do us the honor of giving us
a salute, but keeps his eyes steadily on my partner, wondering, I suppose, who she can be, and showing at the
same time his lack of culture and brains. So in all
11 
122  PLAIN EDUCATIONAL TALKS.
crowds that we meet when accompanied by ladies, or
when ladies are on the streets alone, we find probably
one in ten who has gallantry and good breeding enough
to lift his hat. The great majority, you will notice, simply give a nod and are gone.
It would be interesting to know just what proportion
of these were taught when children, either by example
or by precept, to be polite. I recall to mind the time
when, as we passed out of the door, each one of the
pupils was required to say, "Good evening, sir," to the
teacher, and in addition the boys were required to make
their bow, while the girls were taught to make a courtesy,
as we then called it. Well do I remember, too, how these
same girls, when they made their courtesy, added sufficient force, when recovering their perpendicular, to spring
from the doorway. Omitting the burlesque part of it, I
think it did much good. Some of our most successful
teachers, before dismissing school, require their pupils to
rise, and, at a second tap of the bell, the teacher and the
pupils bow to each other preparatory to passing out.
There are many things of this kind which can be taught
most effectively both at home and at school by example.
The amount of good accomplished, and the confusion and
awkwardness avoided by the child in the future, will
prove an ample reward for the trouble it may cost. 
CHAPTER XII.
HOW SHOULD CHILDREN BE TREATED?
,,Well had the boding tremblers learned to trace
The day's disasters in his morning face."
WHENEVER I meet with these lines of Goldsmith's
I admit at once their beauty and their truthfulness
when applied not only to the schoolmaster at "Auburn,
loveliest village of the plain," but to teachers of the present day as well. However much we may attempt to conceal any ill-humor on entering the school for the day, the
pupils will find us out, and they will conduct themselves
accordingly. Whether they think of it or not, they soon
learn, by the general manner of the teacher, to tell when
they dare be mischievous without danger, and when it
would be unsafe to indulge any such propensity. Much
of the teacher's success in school, and much of the parent's at home, in making the life of the child happy,
and thus properly prepared to receive instruction and
training, depends upon their manner.
Pascal says: "Kind words do not cost much; they
never blister the tongue nor lips, and we never heard of
any mental trouble arising from this quarter. Though
they do not cost much, they help one's good-nature.
Soft words soften our own souls. Angry words are fuel
Iz~~ I'-? ~~~~~123 
124  PLAIN EDUCATIONAL TALKS
to the flame of wrath, and make it burn fiercely. Kind
words make other people good-natured. Cold words
freeze people, and hot words scorch them, and bitter
words make them bitter, and wrathful words make them
wrathful. There is such a rush of all other words in
our days that it seems desirable to give kind words a
chance among themn. There are vain words, and idle
words, and hasty words, and spiteful words, and empty
words, and profane words, and warlike words.  Kind
words also produce their own image in men's souls, and
a beautiful image it is. They quiet and comfort the
hearer. They shame him out of his sour, morose, and
unkind feelings. We have not yet begun to use kind
words in such abundance as they ought to be used."
How true this is! How true it is too that these words
are the expression of the soul when in its better moods I
What reason have we, and what occasion is there for
ever speaking to children in any other than a kindly
way? Is there not reward for our kindness in the feelings that find expression in words from the little children
under our care, when they tell us and tell others that
they like to go to school because the teacher is kind and
"not cross," as they are wont to express it?  Have you
never felt glad as one of these little ones handed in her
composition on "school," in which, somewhere near the
close, she had written, "Our teacher makes us prepare
our lessons well, but she is very kind to us." At such
a time I have felt that that little sentiment dropped from
the lips of an innocent child which knew nothing of flattery, was of more real value than the month's salary. 
WITH TEACHERS AND PARENTS. 125
To take a utilitarian view of the matter, it pays to
govern by kindness. The teacher who uses kind words
spoken in a kindly manner rarely has occasion to resort
to punishment. The teacher who in a surly, snappish
manner orders a little boy to close the door will have it
closed, and that too in an emphatic manner not to be
mistaken; whereas, had his voice and request been
kindly, the door would have been closed cheerfully and
quietly. Thus with all other requests. We don't expect
to find good order in a school-room where the teacher
marches around armed with a cherry switch or a ferule,
taking more time in issuing such commands as, "Boys,
stop that noise!" "John, sit up!" " Don't you hear me
there?" "Susan, come up here and stand in the corner!"
all of which are poured forth so rapidly that before he
has time to see that they are obeyed, both he and his
pupils have forgotten them. So too in the family, the
parent who governs by kindness receives much more
cheerful obedience to his commands than the one who
rules by mere force. The mother who is constantly
scolding her children finds new difficulties arising every
day; whereas, she who rules by kindness, wonders at
times why she has such few difficulties to contend with
while her neighbors are constantly complaining of unruly
children. She makes her home a pleasant place for her
children, a hallowed spot around which shall cling sacred
memories in the future, when the places that know her
now shall know her no more; and the effect is none the
less marked because she does this unconsciously and
without an effort.
11* 
126  PLAIN EDUCATIONAL TALKS
One of the traits which should characterize every
parent and teacher is cheerfulness of disposition. It is
desirable on their own account as well as on account of
their pupils. There are few positions more trying and
exhaustive than that of governing children, and anything
that will tend to lighten the labor is beneficial. Nothing
so much tends to rob teaching of its fatigue as a cheerful
spirit.  I have gone into school-rooms over which one of
these solemn, sour, morose individuals presided, and found
things moving along much as we see one smitten with
paralysis attempt to walk. Every step seemed to be
painful.  Every cheerful face had lost its childlike expression, and an ominous soberness of countenance was visible throughout the whole room. There seemed to be no
life there. True, this teacher preserved order, but preserved it at the expense of the child's happiness. There
was n't a child in the room on which the effects of this
system were not noticeable. Mark the contrast presented
when you enter a room presided over by a teacher brimful of life and cheerfulness. You hear a hum and continuous buzz throughout the room, but it is the buzz that
one hears as he enters a monufactory. It means work.
Now and then the teacher enjoys a hearty laugh with
his pupils.  He sees less harm in having a laugh now
and then than inpenning up the flow of life in the child
and having it steal its opportunities. How many of us
are there who must plead guilty if a hearty laugh in
school were criminal? The teacher who desires to make
his school a pleasant and inviting place, must be cheerful, ready not only to laugh himself, but ready also to 
WITH TEACHERS AND PARENTS. 127
enjoy a laugh with his boys and girls. I can imagine
no more disagreeable place to a child than a school-room
presided over by one of these non-laughing people I The
parents also in the family circle must be cheerful. It
should be their aim to make home as pleasant a place as
possible, that it may be attractive to their children. I
like the home and the school in which music is heard.
When music bursts out spontaneously, the heart is full
and overflowing. It then becomes a fit exponent of the
cheerfulness that is reigning within. Let the song be
heard in the home often.
Parents and teachers should possess the Christian virtue of patience. We all in our daily occupations find
occasion for the exercise of this virtue, but no one probably feels the necessity of being supported by it more
than the mother in her family or the teacher in the
school.   Children are more  or less thoughtless, and
though not guilty of doing wrong intentionally, they
often cause trouble which taxes the patience of those in
charge of them. ILet me instance a case or two. A
little child, with the kindest intentions in the world,
drops a plate and breaks it.  The impatient mother at
once loses her temper, and must indulge herself in a good
hearty scold.  She is out of humor for a whole day.
The mother who is patient, well knowing that the child
is already in a measure punished by his own feelings
of sorrow, instead of indulging in a violent outbreak of
temper, soothes the child, and in a few moments makes
it forget its sadness. Which of the two causes the child
to be more careful in the future? Certainly not the for 
128  PLAIN EDUCATIONAL TALKS
muer. In the school-room, some luckless little urchin in
a moment of forgetfulness infringes one of the rules of
the school. Our patient man pays but little attention to
the matter; for he sees that however much it may interfere with the good order, it was not an offence, because
not intentional, and he dismisses the child with a single
word of caution. The impatient teacher would have
called up the little fellow immediately and given him a
severe whipping or its equivalent, without stopping to
inquire as to his guilt. Thus, day after day, both the
parent and the teacher meet with numberless little things
calculated to tax their patience almost to the last degree
of endurance. We may feel that we are accomplishing
little good; but when we least expect it, we shall find the
bread we have cast upon the waters return to us. Be
patient with the children you have in your charge.
They are frail creatures, and like ourselves fallible.
Were you, fond mother, deprived of a single one of them
to-morrow, you would reproach yourself for your harsh
and unkind treatment of that one when under the influence of excitement. Think not so much of your own
comfort as of the importance and welfare of that human
soul which God has placed in your care for guidance.
There is on the part of parents and teachers very frequently what might be termned a lack of gentleness, and,.
singular as it may seem, it is not confined to those in the
lower walks of life. I have seen petulant outbreaks of
temper in those claiming to be the most refined, which
were anything but creditable. Of course the basis of
this is mainly a lack of patience and self-control. Few 
WITH TrEACIHERS AND PARE'NTS. 129
parents stop to think how unpleasant they are making
their homes by this sort of treatment of their children.
The little ones skulk away into the corners or slyly slip
out of the house to escape from the danger. Such harsh
and inhuman treatment of the child does much toward
hardening it and making it rebellious. K It lives under a
continual fear that some little mishap or indiscretion
may bring down the storm upon its head. A little
boy once remarked to me: "Our teacher last winter was
scolding continually; he never knew when to quit talking."  On inquiring whether he secured good order in
this way, the boy replied: " Oh, no! we all did as we
pleased. When we wanted to lie down on the benches
or put our feet on the desks, we did so. We had everything our own way." Is this not in general the result
of scolding, both in the school-room and in the home?
Is it not a fact beyond denial that those who make the
greatest bluster and noise generally accomplish the least?
Independent of this result, gentleness in the teacher or
the parent begets a corresponding gentleness in the child.
Have you never noticed the little girl as she plays with
her doll, or the little boy as he. drives his imaginary
horse, that each imitates your manner? If your manner is rude, theirs is rude; if gentle, they are also gentle.
It is but the influence of the home example.
Were I to sum up the treatment of the child, I could
give no better comprehensive rule than the one so often
quoted: "Do unto others as you would have others do
unto you." Suppose yourself, for the moment, assuming
the place of the child, what treatment would you desire?
I 
130  PLAIN EDUCATIONAL TALKS.
Having settled this in your mind, you are prepared to
decide what treatment is due the child, and therefore
best calculated to make its life pleasant and profitable.
Were you to select an instructor or a companion. by whom
you would wish to be influenced, it would not be one
who is dogged, sullen, sour, morose, and impatient, but
one who, on the contrary, is lively, cheerful, kind, patient, gentle, pleasant, and obliging. Your child needs
this same kind of instructor. 
CHAPTER XIII.
GOVERNMENT.
DO not propose to discuss here the subject of govern   ment at length, nor do I propose to present a system
of ethics.  My space for that would prove too limited,
and it would not comport with the object I have in view,
that of presenting to the reader a few practical hints in
a familiar way. I shall deal with government only so
far as it relates to the fanmily and the school, as that is
all that specially concerns us at present.
Every well-digested and well-balanced system of government has affixed  a system of rewards and punishments - rewards  for well-doing, and punishments for
offences. It is so with all laws, whether physical, civil,
or moral. Every infringement'of a physical law is punished with pain or ill health, and either through neglect
or through ignorance of these laws thousands almost
daily are hurried off to eternity. Each civil law has its
penalty attached, and when  obedience is denied, the
offender suffers the penalty. So too in the infringement
of a moral law, we know that if we refuse obedience
we must suffer the punishment ordained of God. Thus
when the revealed law of God tells us that the drunkard
shall not inherit the kingdom of heaven, there is at once
a command prohibiting drunkenness, and at the same
131 
132  PLAIN EDUCATIONAL TALKS
time the penalty of disobedience is made known.  God
speaks to us through the Scriptures in no uncertain
terms.   The  law and the penalty are there both set
forth.
Family government and school government, which are
much the same - the teacher during a part of the day
simply taking the place of the parent - embrace to a
great extent both the civil and the moral law; hence,
from the nature of these two kinds of government, what
will apply to the one must, so far as fundamental principles are concerned, apply to the other; and as the parental relation takes precedence, let us first consider
family government, and we shall have at once that which
embraces both. It is not a mere agency, but in truth a
government in which there are rules and laws to be
obeyed and authority to be maintained. Some of the
principles which must regulate this government have
been spoken of in the preceding chapters. We have
proved that this government does not consist in the
brutish harshness which is apt to prevail at times, nor
yet in that looseness which permits the child such absolute freedom that it soon establishes itself as monarch
of the household. The latter too plainly argues the
absence of government, just as the former ignores its
fundamental principles.
One of the first principles of family, as of all other
kinds of government, is that there must be a welladapted system of rewards  and punishments.   Each
offence should have its proper penalty attached, and,
when properly administered, such punishment should be 
WITH TEACHERS AN!D PARENTS. 133.
inflicted as is naturally suited to the offence. We would
have little faith in the doctor who for consumption, dyspepsia, toothache, neuralgia, fever, and all other ills,
should prescribe cod-liver oil. Though it might be beneficial in some cases, we would not be willing to acknowledge it as a panacea for all ills, otherwise we should need
no physician. But this physician's course were no more
unwise than our own when we apply the same corrective
in every case of moral disease, the only change we make
being in the size of the doses. You, Mr. A., believe in
corporal punishment, and you quote Solomon in support
of your theory and belief. When your child tells a lie,
you whip it; when it breaks a pitcher, you whip it;
when it loses a piece of money or its knife, you whip it;
when it disobeys, you whip it; and for every other
offence your punishment is whipping. Madam B., you
do not believe in whipping. When your child is careless, you shut it in the closet; when it plays truant, you
shut it in the closet; when in its play it leaves the floor
strewn with bits of paper or sticks, you pick them up,
and shut it in the closet. Shutting in the closet is your
panacea for all moral ills. Your panacea, Mrs. C., is
reproof. When your child is too slow in its work, you
scold it; when it calls its playfellow a thief or fights with
him, you scold it; when it is idle, or when by carelessness it injures the furniture, you scold it. And so for
every other offence you scold your child. You call it
reproof; but you know that scolding is generally a fitter
name for your way of administering this reproof. Each
one of you has a special mode of punishing, and each
12 
a 134 PLAIN EDUCATIONAL TALKS
one fails; but your neighbor, who boasts that he never
punishes, fails with you. It is true he never punishes;
but it is true too that there is no government in his
family; for his children are not angels, as you probably have occasion to know.  The great mistake in each
of the three cases is, that the same punishment, though
in different degrees, is meted out to offences differing not
only in magnitude but differing still more widely in their
nature. There is no visible relation between the offence
and the penalty; and thus the first fundamental principle of government is ignored.
There is a natural relationship existing between the
offence and the proper penalty; but the parent often
makes no effort to trace out this relation. Let me instance a few cases to show what I mean. Suppose your
child has been amusing itself on the floor, and while
engaged in play has scattered bits of paper or pieces of
rag over the carpet. In its haste to get at something
else when it has become tired of this play, it runs away,
leaving the floor in a sad condition. What is the proper
punishment for its carelessness? Shall it be whipped,
scolded, shut in the closet, or sent to bed without its
supper? Which of these bears any relation to the offence?  Not one of them.  The proper thing to do in
the case is to require the child, before proceeding to any
other play, to clear up the matter it has left on the floor,
and set things in order as they were before it commenced
its play. Thus while it sees at once the connection between the offence and the punishment, it at the same
time forms habits of neatness and order. The mother 
WITH TEACHERS AND PARENTS. 135
who would do this work for the child, though she might
mean it as a great kindness, would be doing it a great
wrong..   Suppose  another case.   A  child  habitually
abuses privileges granted to it. When permitted to
walk on the pavement, with the injunction to go no further, it runs into the street, or when granted other privileges, it goes further than these extend. Shall we punish it by any bodily infliction, or resort to scolding?
However much reproof may benefit it, evidently the first
punishment is to deprive it of all such privileges until it
shows signs of penitence; and the natural penalty attached should be understood. In this manner parents
will be able to strengthen their authority, while at the
same time the child knows the penalty before violating
a law.
As  a general rule, when  any damage is done, the
offender should be required to make reparation. Thus
when any one breaks a window-pane at the school-house,
he should be required to replace it or pay for the glass
and the setting of it. If he throw paper or other material on the floor, it is proper that he should be made
to pick it up again.  If he make a spittoon of the floor,
it is right that he should be made to clean it up. If he
carry in mud on his boots, he should sweep it out again.
If he abuse his playmates, he should be debarred from
their company.  In each case he sees the relation between the punishment and the offence.
It will be admitted on all sides that our family government is often defective, and that well-regulated families are the exceptions, not the rule. In too many house 
136  PLAIN EDUCATIONAL TALKS
holds of the land the order has been reversed, and the
children are in too many cases the rulers. I am aware
that this seems a strong assertion, yet is it not the case
that children are allowed to do as they please? A mistaken kindness on the part of the parent Jeads him into
this error, and before he is aware of it his authority is
lost and set at defiance. This argues the lack of qualifications necessary to govern. Carrying this matter to
the school-room, how rarely do we hear it said of a
teacher that he is an excellent disciplinarian!
I am here brought to a point of which I have before
spoken, that of educating our young men and women
for the position they will be required to hold as parents.
When we look at this matter as we should, we begin to
understand just why it is that our family government is
so defective.  How  absurd it seems when we think of
the time when a man to be a tailor was required to
apprentice himself for a term of seven years; and yet
when he came to be married or take charge of a school
he was supposed to be fit to govern and instruct children
without any previous training! That is, it took seven
years to learn to make a coat or a pair of pantaloons,
but to train a human being for this life and immortality
any one was supposed to be competent on arriving at
the age of manhood. How much better than this is the
matter now? True, we have Normal Schools for the
professional training of teachers; but how many avail
themselves of the opportunities offered there? and where
are our schools for the training of parents? or where are
our schools of any kind in which young ment and young 
WITH TEACHERS AND PARENTS. 137
women are ever spoken to specially on this subject? The
mad theorist may call all this base utilitarianisnm;, but
the fact still stares him in the face that unless we mend
the matter our family government will grow no better,
and it may grow muchtworse.
Were I attempting here to write a scientific work, I
might go on to enumerate a great number of disqualifications which unfit one for securing good family government, but such is not my design at all; and for those I
shall have to refer the reader to works on ethics, where
the matter is treated more at length. I may say here,
however, that a natural affection for children, unless
warily regulated, is by no means the only nor the most
important qualification.   I acknowledge its great power;
but when not guided and guarded by prudence, it is apt
at times to run into error. To prove this, it is only
necessary to notice the real cruelties perpetrated in the
way of mistaken kindness in helpless infancy.
One of the prominent characteristics of true family
government is, that we should not govern or refuse to
govern because it may just at that time be in accordance
with our humor or suit our convenience. The law of
right must direct us in all cases. We are not permitted
to drop into a listless, irresponsible way, and decide a
point just as it may happen to suit our convenience or
pleasure. A desire to have our children noticed, to have
them appear manly and womanly, often leads us into
indiscretions that may serve to ruin them. Often, too,
we defer such government as is necessary, because our
humor may for the time not be suited by such a course
12 * 
138   PLAIN EDUCATIONAL TALKS
as duty requires.  It may too at times, especially in the
presence of others, not be pleasant to do our whole duty,
particularly in administering punishment. How soon the
little folks learn this!  Seeing that the mother or the
teacher finds it so unpleasant a duty to reprove or punish
them in the presence of strangers that it is rarely attempted, they generally manage  to have things their
own way at such times. The principle is wrong,. If
punishment at such times becomes necessary it should
be administered. No improper influences or bad motives
should be permitted to interfere.
There should be perfect unity of sentiment in those
having authority. On this point hear what Dr. Tiersch
in his treatise on the Christian Family Life says: "A
wife cannot weaken the authority of the father without
undermining her own; for her authority rests upon his,
and if that of the mother is subordinated to that of the
father, yet it is but one authority, which cannot be weakened in either of the two who bear it without injury to
both. The mother, therefore, must consider it a matter
of family decorum which is not to be broken, never, even
in little matters, to contradict the father in the presence
of the children, except with the reservation of a modest
admission of his right of decision, and that in cases
which admit of no delay. But just as much is it the
duty of the husband to leave the authority of his wife
unassailed in the presence of other members of the
household; and when he is obliged to overrule her objections, to do it in a tender and kindly form. If he
turns to her with roughness and harshness from jealousy 
WITH TEACHERS AND PARENTS.  139
0
of his place of rule, it is not only the heart of his wife
which is estranged from him; with the children too
intervenes a weakening of the moral power, under which
they should feel themselves placed. If in their presence
their mother is blamed as foolish or obstinate, and so
lowered to the place of a child or a maid-servant, that
sanctity immediately vanishes which, in the eyes of the
children, surrounds the heads of both father and mother
in common." Thus by constant disagreements between
father and mother, all authority will in the end be lost,
and the children will either lose much respect for both,
or they will be divided into factions, one adhering to the
father and the other to the mother, as the affection for
the one or the other may predominate. But if this harmony of purpose is necessary between the parents, it
argues at once that it is also important and necessary
between parents and teachers; and here rests the most
important argument in favor of parental cooperation with
the teacher, that the child may be properly governed and
educated. The father and the mother should just as
soon listen to the silly twaddle it may indulge in against
each other, as the tales it may carry home and tell against
its teacher. Nothing so much cripples the authority and
power of the teacher as a lack of this cooperation and
sympathy of parents.
In general it is best to make no threat which you do
not mean to carry out. The parent or teacher who tries
to govern by threatening to break the necks of his children or cut off their ears, doesn't gain any better control
of them.  Children soon learn to measure such threats 
140  PLAIN EDUCATIONAL TALKS
and estimate them at their proper value, as being simply
so many empty words.  In fact the policy of making any
threats at all is one of doubtful expediency, as it generally argues a cowardly heart. The habit of making these
threats is so easily contracted that in a short time one
becomes so much addicted to it that they bear with them
no force whatever and simply make falsifiers of us. If,
however, a threat is indiscreetly made to punish a child
in a certain manner for disobedience, the man who has
any regard for his word is bound to carry it out. Let
him try this, and see how soon he will be in a dilemma.
Let me here urge a word against the policy of frightening children.  How vividly I recall to mind some of
the remarkable stories I used to hear when sitting in the
village store, of spooks, and ghosts, and blue-lights, of
headless men and men with terrible eyes! And when I
went to my home after hearing these, although it was
but a few rods distant, I used to run with a speed that I
was unable to summon at any other time, expecting every
moment to be gobbled up by one of these supernatural
monsters.  Alas! how many of us have suffered by the
indiscretion of those who told us these hobgoblin stories!
How many of us now go through lonely places at night
as calmly as we would in daylight, and as calmly as we
would had we never been frightened? How many are
there of my readers who even now venture into the cellar
at night as fearlessly as they do to their couches? It is
not caution that makes us hesitate so much as it is fear.
On this special ground, I think the punishment of confining children in dark rooms a dangerous one.  They 
WITH TEACHERS AND PARENTS. 141
should never be frightened.   These ridiculous ghoststories, if necessary to be told at all, which is doubtful,
they should never hear until they are old enough to know
them to be pure fabrications and silly. Our plan should
be wiser than that which made us for a time supersti.
tious.
Children should be made to feel that in all government the one who exercises authority over them is their
friend. It is a mistake to suppose that through the fear we
inspire we gain greater authority. A single cheerful act
of obedience is worth more than a dozen of the same acts
through fear. There is a time too when this fear ceases
to have any force, to say nothing of the tendency such
discipline has to make children deceitful; whereas such
government as is secured through friendship is firm not
only during school-days but in all after-life.
The child should understand that the parent means
just what he says, and that theie is no vacillating. In
other words,the parent and the teacher should be firm.
There should be no yielding when in the right. With this
firmness of course can be united mildness and kindness;
but the child should learn from the beginning that when
the parent says no, he means no, and when he says yes,
he means yes. Parents and teachers, do you never, when
you have denied your child a certain privilege, in a halfhour afterward, when feeling in a better humnor and less
annoyed, grant him the same privilege? How many
of you can conscientiously answer no?  How  many of
you, after having ordered a child not to do a certain
thing, still allow him to do it without correction?  It is 
142  PLAIN EDUCATIONAL TALKS.
a delicate question, I know, and I will not press it; but
let me ask you to think of the influence this vacillating
conduct will have on your child.
There is no more dangerous policy pursued than that
of constantly issuing commands and prohibitions, and
yet failing to pay any further attention to them. Children can be governed much more readily by speaking
less and making fewer rules. Sometimes from morning
to night they are cautioned and commanded not to do
this and prohibited from doing that, until they believe
themselves thoroughly sinful and inclined to do everything on which - the seal of prohibition is stamped. All
this talk is unnecessary, and it accomplishes nothing.
The parent who hopes to make his family government
at once pleasant, simple, and effective, must trust his children.  They are not by any means so vicious in their
nature as some would  kave you believe, unless that
viciousness is engendered by your own mistaken way of
governing. If your example has been a proper one,
which is all-important in government, and you are willing
to trust your children, you will rarely find them other
than trustworthy. 
CHAPTER XIV.
PUNISHMENTS.
N nothing does the government in different families
differ so much as in the method of punishment. In
some families we find ardent supporters of the punishment system, while in others punishment is tabooed,
and children are governed by the law of love. I do not
propose to argue here which hold the-proper ground. I
have no doubt objections could be found to the arguments
of both, nor have I any doubt that a commingling of the
two systems would probably prove much the most effective means of securing good discipline.
I believe in the efficacy of kindness in governing; but
when, under the plea of love, I find a whole family of
children running to ruin, and shoving their impertinence
into every one's face, I begin to think that possibly there
is not so much love there as the fond parents would have
us think. I begin to suspect that that family of children
have had their own way so much that neither father nor
mother has as much control over them as is necessary for
their welfare, or they have not trained them to respect
any other authority than their own. I have met children
of this kind who were governed so much by the law of
love, and were so seldom corrected, that I have found
them setting all authority at defiance. On the other
143 
144  PLAIN EDUCATIONAL TALKS
hand, I have met those too who  have been governed
entirely by force, and I would do the former injustice
were I to say that these impressed me any more favorably. There are those who never from one week's end
to another expect to hear a kind word in the homestead
or in the school-room, and they are not disappointed.
They do not look for anything but cuffs, and kicks, and
harsh words, and hence are always prepared to receive
them, and forget them as soon as received. I have known
such to grow up to manhood, hardened men and ready
for almost any wickedness, and I do not wonder at this
at all; for it is the legitimate fruit of such a method of
government.  It isn't because there was anything evil
in the heart of the boy that he received these oft-repeated
punishments, but a purely petulant spirit on the part of
the parent or teacher. You will understand then that
my theory, whether correct or not, is, that punishment
and the law of love must both be resorted to in order to
govern children properly. So long as love is supported
by the authority to punish, but little difficulty will be
experienced; but if the child once learn that the parent
does not sanction punishment under any circumstances,
then will it soon assume under peculiar temptations to
govern itself. I believe too that in a well-governed family, as in a well-governed school, it is rarely necessary to
resort to punishment, and especially corporal punishment;
for it is seldom you find children so vicious that they
commit acts of wilful disobedience -if their training from
earliest infancy has been properly attended to; and yet
back of this government must stand the power of enfor. 
WITH TEACHERS AND PARENTS. 145
cing, obedience. There are those, I know, who hold that
this authority need not exist, but that by mere kindness
the child can and should always be governed; and yet
I have no knowledge of one of these who does so govern,
that does not at least indulge now and then in a hearty
scold.  How much more they claim for this than for punishment of some kind wherein they do not disgrace themselves and set the child an evil example, I am unable to
say.
In the infliction of punishments we must be both just
and merciful. Jean Paul says: " Not great but unavoidable punishments are mighty, truly almighty."' When
it is necessary to inflict punishment, it should be inflicted
only to such an extent as fulfils the ends of justice, no
more. The parent who for the mere pleasure of the
thing, or the gratification it may afford him, chastises or
punishes a child to an unnecessary extent, is cruel, and
very properly makes himself liable to indictment by pro'cess of civil law.  How many there are who thus inhumanly thrash and cudgel their children until at last these
latter are glad when the day comes for their departure
from the homestead I Is it any wonder?  They are not
so treated by strangers; and it is no wonder that they
are glad to leave home, nor that they long for the day
when all this petty tyranny shall cease to be exercised
over them.  Far better it is for the child to feel that you
have punished it less than it deserves, than to feel that
it has been unjustly and cruelly punished.
A second principle which should govern us in punishing is, that we must inquire narrowly into the nature )of
K
13 
146   PLAIN EDUCATIONAL TALKS
the offence committed and the causes that may have led
to it.  Until we understand all these things, we are not
prepared to administer punishment either justly or mer
cifully. How often do we see one of these blustering,
nervous, fidgety sort of people enter a school-room, and
from morn to night move around among the little chil.
dren armed with a strap or a switch, always prepared to
deal out blows without stint and without questionI If
it ever was your ill-fortune to be under the charge of such
a teacher, you, doubtless, bear him no special love to-day.
Few pupils respect the authority of such a teacher. True,
most of them obey; but not from respect, and when
school-life is over, they look back on their school-days
with anything but pleasure. Aside, however, from the
disrespect which is engendered after a time, children who
are thus constantly punished become accustomed to it,
and from that moment it is of none effect.  Some of the
worst boys, though not naturally so, that I have ever
known, are those who were accustomed to receive punishment almost as regularly as their meals; and in every
such case I have found the best mode of treatment to be
directly the opposite of that to which they had been subjected at home. If parents understood this matter better
and were less inclined to consult the fickle whims of their
own temper, we  might hope for much more good. Here
is where the trouble lies. Of course teachers are to
blame in a measure too, and I would not consciously lift
the responsibility from the shoulders of any one on whom
God may have placed it.
No one is prepared to inflict punishment justly when 
WITH TEACHERS AND PARENTS. 147
angry. I know what a difficult matter it is, when thrown
off our guard by something either positively wrong or detrimental to the general good order, to keep proper control
over our temper, and resist the consequent temptation to
inflict punishment immediately. But this is one of the
trials to which parents and teachers are subjected. There
is danger of doing great injustice when punishment is
administered in anger We have no time to inquire into
the circumstances that may have led to the commission
of the offence, and these may in some cases be such as
wholly to obviate the necessity of any punishment. In
punishing when we are angry, we feel too much disposed
to gratify the demands of our own unreasonableness, and
thus administer a greater punishment than the nature of
the offence demands. Almost every case of punishment
that results in bodily injury to the child is a case in which
the punishment has been administered in anger. There
is, on the other hand, if we defer the punishment until
our anger has subsided, no danger of dealing unjustly
with the child. It is, as I have before stated, much better
to punish too little than too much; for generally it is not
the pain that is so much dreaded by the child as it is the
disgrace of being pinished.  When the punishment is
inflicted in anger,the proper effect is lost. Instead of a
feeling of sorrow for its fault and a real desire to do better, the child fosters the anger which it finds responding
to that of the teacher or parent, and promises itself full
reparation and vengeance for the degradation it has been
made to suffer. Thus, viewed on all sides and fromn everyimaginable stand-point, it is objectionable. As a safe 
148  PLAIN EDUCATIONAL TALKS
guide, let me say, the teacher or parent should always
defer punishment until he is perfectly cool and prepared
to punish only so far as is positively necessary.
When punishment is inflicted, the child should- understand that it is an unpleasant task to perform, and that
those who administer it do so with regret. It should
feel that we punish it from a desire to make it better and
at the same time to fulfil our duty to it and to its Maker.
No after anger should be permitted to enter into our
hearts.  Shutting the child away from us only goes to
prove that our anger is not yet sated, and exposes at
once the falsity of our discipline. Hlow beautifully does
Richter express it when he says: "Fear and hatred of
the punishment, which at first hardened and struggled
against what was said, are now past, and gentle instruction falls in and heals, as honey relieves a sting and oil
cures wounds. During this hour one may speak much
if the gentlest possible tone of voice be used, and soften
the grief of others by showing our own. But every long
winter of after-wrath is poisonous; at most an after-grief,
not an after-punishment, is allowable."
The object of punishment.is never degradation, and
any punishment which has for its object either degradation or torture is both wrong and sinful. It only serves
to harden the heart of the child, and accomplishes no
good.  Therefore all such punishments as those barbarous ones of making a child hold a book at arm's length,
kneel on peas, "hold a nail in the floor," stand on one
foot, together with the wearing of dunce-caps and  old
bonnets, standing on a stool (which degrades while it 
WITH TEACHERS AND PARENTS. 149
elevates), with numberless others of a similar nature,
are all wrong and out of place. Many of the old kinds
of punishment in vogue thirty years ago or more were
of this character; and it seems to me sometimes now yet,
when I read over the regulations of a Board of Directors
requiring teachers to whip on the hand of the child only,
that the barbarity of the past methods has not yet been
wholly lost. How horrible the punishment inflicted by
those old teachers who used to make us place our finger.
ends together, and with the first stroke of the ferule
almost burst the nails from their places I It makes one's
flesh creep yet to think of their cruelty; but the culture
of the times, they thought, demanded it. Possibly it
did, but there is no such excuse for us of the present,
What knowledge we have added to theirs should enable
us to do better, and though no less just, be more merciful
and humane.
13* 
CHAPTER XV.
HOW TO GET WORK OUT OF CHILDREN.
THERE is that in the heading of this chapter which
may at first thought startle the reader.  I have been
at a loss to put any other heading, however, under which
the principles I desire to explain might be embraced.
Don't therefore be startled at the subject. I am by no
means an advocate of that utilitarianism which makes
of either man or child a "beast of burden."  You look
about, possibly at the hour of six or after in the evening,
and all around you see men bowed together with toil
rapidly hurrying to their homes.  A few of these seem
happy and cheerful; for the day's work is done, and they
know the pleasures that await them at the home fireside;
and as they near the doorway, glad little beings run out
to meet them and tell them all the news of the day.
But a great portion of these workmen are gloomy; their
eyes are bent to the ground, and they know but little
pleasure in this life save that falsely named which they
glean in the beer saloon or at the wine-cup. I believe in
work, and in the dignity of labor and the laborer, but I
can see no dignity in drudgery nor in the drudge.   I
believe that we all have our special work to perform, but
this work is noble; it is not drudgery. There are few
callings in the world.that are not honorable, but'to make
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them dignified we must adapt ourselves to them. The
aristocrat may pass you by because you are simply a
clerk, a teacher, a milliner, or a mechanic; but he only
shows the littleness and meanness of his own soul. The
dainty miss whose father is a lawyer or a millionaire
merchant may refuse to associate with your young folks
and sneer at their common dress; but the soul of one
pure, simple-hearted Christian boy or girl would make
the balance  "kick the beam," though weighed down
by a thousand of the other.
The fond parent who trains up his children to abhor
labor or regard it as degrading has already done much to
ruin them. It is a mistaken notion that because we pos sess a goodly share of money or property, we can there fore sit dQwn and idly fold the hands to enjoy the firuits
of our patrimony. I have no respect for an idler. Work
is our destiny, and only by it are we disciplined for the
enjoyment of what is in store for us in the future. Our
world is a working world. Men and women all around
us everywhere are at work. Each has his special sphere.
One gleans the fruits of the tropics while another gathers
those of the farm; while one stands on the engine and
rushes with scream and clatter through the forests and
over the plains, with the lives of a hundred human beings
in his hands, another stands between the shafts of his
wheelbarrow loaded with stones or dirt, and trundles it
up and down a plank; while one sits in the executive
chair, and moulds and directs the destiny of a state or a
nation, another rules and directs the movements of a
family or a school. But with all this work there must 
152  PLAIN EDUCATIONAL TALKS
of course be some play. This then is the kind of work
in which we must engage: a work which, while it enables us to accomplish much good, yet permits us to share
the enjoyments of life.
There is a difference in the manner in which children
perform work. While one goes to his task with a light,
merry, and cheerful heart, another never does anything
that is required of him without grifmbling and muttering
out his protests.  While one sings, the other grumbles.
One esteems his work as nothing; the other looks upon
his condition as slavish and intolerable. The former
finishes his work in a magical sort of way, without any
visible exertion and in the best of humor, while the latter
wearies and worries over it, and accomplishes the task
only with the greatest difficulty and fatigue. Where
does the cause of this difference lie? Partly in the heart,
in the natural disposition of the child, you say. True,
it lies partly in this, but much more in the training and
treatment these children have received. One has always
been accustomed to perform his work cheerfully and the
other reluctantly. The peculiar disposition of the child
in either case has been strengthened until there seems
no longer any possibility of correcting the fault.
There is a feeling among many parents that they have
a right to require work from their children to any extent
and in whatever manner they please. Probably they
have, but they must not feel surprised and chagrined
when they fail to command the respect of the public and
fail also in their government. When we come to exam  ine narrowly into the manner of asking children or, it 
WITH TEACHERS AND PARENTS. 153
may be, compelling them to perform any task, we no
longer wonder why obedience is yielded sometimes so
reluctantly. The slave who has dangling over his naked
back the cruel lash of his yet more cruel overseer's whip,
bears his taskmaster but little love, nor would we under
similar circumstances do any better. Few of us believe
in the doctrine of coercion when milder means are at
hand, if we are the subjects for treatment. Nothing so
quickly aggravates us as to have the clenched fist shaken
in our face.!  Why should we expect the child to be more
reasonable than ourselves? It' is certain then that we
accomplish nothing in the way of securing work, and I
mean mental work as well as physical, by being hard
taskmasters.
There is a rule which may be applied as an effectual
guide in every case. Let praise, not censure, be your
governing power. Notice how this continual fault-finding hardens the child. Day after day he hears nothing
drop from the lips of either parents or teacher but expressions like these: "You are a very bad boy!" "You are
the most careless child I ever saw!" "You are a real
good-for-nothing little fellow!" and dozens more of the
same sort. What must be the effect of all suc censure?
Certainly we can expect no child to love and respect us
for such treatment. We have no right thus to be continually looking on the dark side of things. The child
is compelled to live in a sort of poisonous atmosphere'
which sours his disposition. All blossoming sentiments
of confidence and esteem are blighted. It becomes mo 
154  PLAIN EDUCATIONAL TALKS
rose and sullen, and never goes to work cheerfully, but
more
"like the quarry slave at night,
Scourged to his dungeon."
What is the effect of praise, on the other hand? Notice with what alacrity a little fellow who is accustomed
to being praised goes about his work! You put a task
before him which you think is almost beyond his strength,
but he goes at it and begins as if he meant to overcome
it; and as he works, thrilling little melodies burst from
his lips that bespeak the gladness and glee that are reigning within. Do you say that this whistling betokens a
vacant mind, an empty head? Give me that mind rather
than that of the aged and venerable scholar who has
none of this sunshine in his heart. That boy has a
reward in the praise he receives which is far greater and
more valuable to him than the pittance of money you
pay; and he goes at his work as God meant he should.
I envy his feelings almost; and who shall say that his
work in life, spreading joy around him wherever he goes,
is not as acceptable to God as is that of the sedate, dignified, and solemn sage who'says: "The boy hath a devil
in his heart; that whistling betokens an empty mind."
Who of us would not rather in this case be the innocent,
happy child than the bilious professor, however many
honors may rest on his head? Let us then praise the
child whenever we can, never resorting to censure unless
it becomes an absolute necessity. I believe that it is
sometimes necessary to censure, but such occasions are
rare if we adopt the policy of praising the child when 
WITH TEACHERS AND PARENTS. 155
we find praise due. Our own experience in this matter
might be an excellent guide. We know how little we
respect that authority which attempts to force us into
compliance with any measure, and how much that which
gives us our due measure of credit, not to say praise, for
every act we perform. We know too how rebellious we
are apt to become when forced, and how gladly we per form an act for which we receive praise. It is more val uable to us than money. Our children do not differ from
us materially.  They are, like ourselves, human, with
all the feelings and sentiments of human beings.
A story is somewhere related which illustrates in a
measure the treatment here referred to:* "Two stages,"
it is said, "belonging to opposite lines, left the same place
at the same hour every day for London. Both drivers
had orders to make the distance in the shortest time pos sible. One driver mounted the box, with whip in hand,
was excited, spoke angrily to his horses, and alternately
relaxed and jerked the reins, at the same time using his
whip freely. In a few miles his horses gave signs of
distress, and before he had reached London some of his
team were usually broken down. The other driver coolly
took his seat, spoke gently to his horses, held a steady
rein all the time, and seldom even cracked his whip. He
was often hindmost for a few miles, but while the horses
of the other team were in a foam, hardly a hair of his
horses was moist. The last few miles, his team not
being jaded, he took the lead, and seldom even distressed
a horse." Who has not seen the same difference nearer
* Dr. Plumer.
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156  PLAIN EDUCATIONAL TALKS
home, not only in the management of horses, but in the
government of children as well? To apply the theory
in another case, the same may be said of the treatment
of servants.  We hear continual complaints that we no
longer can get any good servants, and in many households the first of each succeeding month does not come
more regularly than the usual dismission of the servant.
Why all this? Is it always the servant that is in fault?
True, many of them may be careless; but is our treatment of themealways what it should be?  Are we under
no obligations to them? We may not esteem their position as high as our own, but then that does not by any
means lift from our shoulders the responsibilities we have
assumed in becoming their masters and employers. They
are obliged to be faithful, careful, and obedient, and for
this we pay them; but, on the other hand, we are under
obligations to be kind, to make their positions comforta ble, and above all to avoid censuring where it is not pos itively demanded. Three-fourths of all the trouble in
those cases in which servants become independent and
presumptuous might thus be avoided. A servant treated
properly, receiving praise Where it is her due, kindly and
patiently shown how to correct what she may have done
amiss, and indulged in that pleasure which is necessary
to her mental and moral well-being, will grow to love
her mistress, and all cause for quarrel will be avoided.
No, the trouble is not all with the servants until they
have been hardened by unjust and unkind treatment. If
we make an application of this same principle in the
school-room, it will be the most certain means of securing 
WITH TEACHERS AND PARENTS. 157
not only good order but also cheerful obedience to all
the requirements of the school. The teacher, as also the
parents, should not, however, let this praise merge into
untruthfulness or flattery.   There is no necessity for
bringing in falsehood to our assistance. There are so
many little acts occurring daily which merit our praise,
that it is difficult to see how any one can well withhold it
when it is so easily given. Well do I remember how one
of my latest teachers won the hearts of his pupils by
thanking them for every little act of kindness they performe.d.  When we handed him a book or a pencil during
recitation, he never failed to thank us; and I know that
more apples were piled on that teacher's desk through
his thanks than by his instruction. It was a pleasure to
do him a favor.
Before closing this chapter, I must add a word on the
policy of giving children at times something to do for
themselves. Nothing seems to be the source of more
pleasure to them than those things which they can call
their own. I believe therefore that as soon as boys are
prepared to use and take proper care of them, they should
be furnished with a work-bench and a set of tools. How
many there are to-day who have n't the requisite mechanical skill even to drive a nail, from the lack of opportunity to practise in youth I So also girls should be furnished with a complete sewing outfit-basket, needles,
scissors, and all included.  Don't jump at the conclusion
that I want them to work continually with these. I
mean them as a reward for services rendered cheerfully.
Should you be so fortunate as to live where you have
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plenty of tillable ground, I know of nothing that will at
once be so pleasing and so beneficial to them as a share
in the estate. That is, give to each one a little flowerbed, or garden patch to take care of, and allow them all
to make whatever use of the products they may see fit.
If they choose to give them to the poor or to sell them,
let them do so. They will take a much greater pride in
this patch of ground and in attending to it carefully than
one would suppose, and at the same time they gain much
valuable knowledge, and contract habits that will adhere
to them through life. There is nothing a b6y covets so
much as this starting out in business for himself while
under the guiding eye of his parents.  I sometimes think
that much improvement would soon be manifested by
the adoption of a plan of this kind, especially in the
taste displayed in laying out grounds and ornamenting and beautifying homes. If it accomplished nothing
more than this it would be invaluable: but it would also
serve to throw a charm around home-life of which too
many homes are now devoid, and obedience to all commands and requests would be both more cheerful and
more prompt.
I 
CHAPTER XVI.
MORAL CULTURE.
TRANGE  as it may seem, that education which is
to fit man for the most important duties of this life
as well as for the enjoyments of the rewards and pleasures of the eternal life to follow, receives the least attention. W7hile daily lessons are recited in the various
branches of intellectual study, while pupils day after
day are instructed how to exercise their physical powers
most beneficially, while every effort is made to impart
such practical instruction as will enable them to count
up the interest on their bank-notes and calculate their
loss and gain in business, or teach them the shortest
route to Greenland or New Zealand, nothing in the way
of formal training of the moral powers is attempted.
Indeed, among parents, those upon whom rests the
greatest responsibility in this matter, often little attention is paid to the subject.
I do not believe that man can be trained truly intellectually without being trained morally, nor can there
be such a physical culture as God designs us to have,
without heart-training as well. True, much of our system of education seems to ignore this culture, and we
speak of carrying a young  man  through  college or
through the university without paying any attention to
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160  PLAIN EDUCATIONAL TALKS
his moral training. But so may we also take a bundle
of nerves, and fibres, and bones, and sinews, and toughen
them to the tenacity of steel, but we have not produced
a symmetrical specimen of manhood. It is hard to tell
what name we ought to apply in the case of purely intellectual education. I know of no word in our language
that would serve as a name for it. In the case of pure
physical culture, we have produced little more than a
brute, a shoulder-hitter, a prize-fighter. The purely intellectual produces men without consciences; men who live
that they may grow rich, who accumulate their wealth
through the privations, trials, and sufferings of their
employees; who coin the very sweat of their workmen
into gold. It gives us too our political sharks and tricksters. We have been too long afflicted with the fruits
of this culture. Men without honesty, integrity, and
the other cardinal virtues, are working all around us.
Everywhere their lank, bony fingers are drawing in the
gold or clutching the clasps of the public purse.
Does any one question the necessity of more method
in our moral culture?  Let him consult the statistics of
our almshouse and prison reports. Let him visit the
dens in our larger towns and cities. Let him enter some
of our legislative halls, and see the corruption that everywhere stalks abroad. Day after day we are compelled
to look upon pictures of degradation in politics, which
are sufficient to bring the indignant blush to the cheek
of every honest man. The morality of office-hunting
has indeed sunk so low that our best men are loth to be
found in the company of wire-working politicians.  There 
WITH TEACHERS AND PARENTS. 161
are, of course, honorable exceptions, and these are worthy
of our highest regard and most implicit confidence; but
unfortunately for the public, the weak ones who fall an
easy prey to the tempter are neither few nor inactive.
The political axes to be ground are effective weapons in
destroying public morals. Not competency, but'the ability to return a political favor, too often decides the selection of candidates. What is the cause of all this? Evidently it is the strongest argument that can be urged in
favor of more methodical moral culture.
There is no doubt that much of the crime that we
find chronicled in the public press arises from a defective
system of moral culture. Children too often are permitted to train themselves. The mind of the child is
pliant and impressible, and too great care cannot be exercised by parents in the associations it makes.  It meets
sights which are ill calculated to make a good impression
on it. Children permitted to roam the streets at will at
all hours of the night, and be the witnesses of every
street fight that may occur, are certainly not receiving
the best training of either their observing faculties or
their moral powers. These vicious habits formed early
in life are extremely difficult to eradicate. They are like
weeds: the more flourishing the less the soil is.tilled on
which they grow.
An important question arises here as to when moral
culture should begin.  No doubt it is usually postponed
too long. Little attention is paid to it during the earlier
years of life. Nothing could be more fatal than this
negligence. The-child longs to be free from the treat      14*                   L 
162  PLAIN EDUCATIONAL TALKS
ment he receives, and he gladly hails the day which
looses him from the bonds that bind him to his home.
Mloral nurture should begin when the physical nurture
begins. There is no more important period than the
first few years of the child's life.  Of course the nurture
must be suited to the nature of the child.  We must not
expect to subject it during the first year of its existence
to the same moral treatment that we would in the future,
any more than we would subject it to a diet suited only
to the wants of an adult. The method of culture must
be suited to infancy, and this must be followed by such
culture as is appropriate to the successive stages of bodi.ly
development. We cannot tell the precise time at which
the age of responsibility begins in any child. But we
must not suppose that previous to its period of responsibility there may be no moral training. As well might
we suppose that the body does not grow during this
time.  There is much to be done from the first day of
the child's existence throughout its whole period of infancy. It is altogether a mistake to conclude that because a child cannot talk, there can therefore be no
impression made on its moral'nature. This is in reality
the age at which the moral principles and moral character of the parent can be most effectively impressed on
the child's mind. The whole life of the child is at this
stage one of impressions.  There is not a motion made
in its presence that does not make an impression for weal
or woe on its future. Every note of praise, or joy, or
love, or pity -every discordant outbreak of temper or
other mischievous indiscretion, is but so much propler or 
WITH TEACHERS AND PARENTS. 163
improper training of the heart of the child. As the
parents mould this life then by their own outward acts
and expressions of countenance, so will it be developed
in the future, either to the glory of God or to the service
of Mammon.
Admitting then that the proper moral culture begins
at the first moment of the child's existence, what shall
we say of the parental mode of conducting this culture?
Is it always right? Is it usually right? Is the parental
example what it should be?  What good can come of
the gossiping we so often hear at home firesides, and in
what harm may it not result in the culture of the children who surround that hearth? What good can come
from angrily punishing a child that is already punished
by having its finger crushed or its face cut? What shall
be said of those women who permit the whole culture
of their children to be placed in the hands of ignorant
and vicious servants?  They revolt at the idea of permitting their children to attend the same school and recite in the same classes as the poor hod-carrier's ragged
children, and yet they will allow this same hod-carrier's
daughter to act not only as the daily nurse but also as
the moral guide of their little ones at the age at which
impressions for good or evil are most easily made for
life, Thus day after day the moral character of the child
is being formed under the most adverse circumstances.
Whether the vicious example, however, be set by the
parent or by the servant is a matter of little moment;
it is equally pernicious whether by servant or mistress.
Have you, reader, never seen a child whipped or scolded 
164  PLAIN EDUCATIONAL TALKS
for fretfulness, when at the time the person who inflicted
the punishment did not stop to inquire into the cause of
this fretfulness? How often children are punished for
being unwell! Don't start; it is true. Unless a child
has been spoiled, in almost every instance of uneasiness
or crying, there is a natural cause for it, and that cause
is often sickness. Beware what sort of example you set
for your children, and let me urge you never to intrust
the moral training of them in the hands of any one in
whose moral character and good example you have not
the most unbounded confidence. It is unwomanly and
unmotherly for any one to congratulate herself that her
children do not give her trouble because the servants
have them in sole charge. If it be necessary even for a
time to place children in the care of a servant, the most
scrutinizing inquiry should be made into that servant's
manners, language, and character; for none of us, it is
hoped, would willingly see our children grow up in the
sentiments of a vicious nurse.
If there is one thing above others, it seems to me,
which is well calculated to make a child hate Christianity, it is what might be called a sanctimonious or oversaintly air. It seems to the child to be contrary to all
that is bright and cheerful in life, and it regards it rightly
so.  God has not created man that be shall not, when in
a joyous mood, wear a joyous and cheerful countenance.
Many, it must be admitted, believe themselves performing their highest duty to God when they wear a solemn,
sober face, and tread with a sanctimonious air that distinguishes them from common men. Could anything be 
WITH TEACHERS AND PARENTS. 165
more ill-fitted to attract the child to embrace religion?
If such were the result of all true religious experience,
it were no wonder that our church-pews are often empty.
May this not, after all, have something to do with the
fact that so many still remain out of the church? It
sometimes happens that ministers' and deacons' sons
grow up to be the fastest of youth when out of reach of
home influences; and this fact has been cited bythose
who have not embraced religion, as an argument against
it. I believe that in every such case the moral and religious training at home, though well meant and conscientious, has been most sadly mistaken. What wonder that
a young man dislikes religion, when everything he knows
in connection with it is in direct opposition to the inner
promptings of his heart? Must he believe that the devil
is instigating him to be glad, cheerful, and joyous, when
he should be morose, solemn, and melancholy? If this
is the infiuenfce of piety, to shut out all that is bright,
cheerful, and glad in this life, no wonder he abandons it,
and when he escapes parental control gives full sway to
his feelings. Don't let your home or your school-room
be a gloomy and solemn place.  Cheer it up.  Show by
your own life and manner and by your conversation that
your hope in Christ's atoning power is unbounded, and
that you are in truth happy, and you may then hope to
train up your children to enjoy the same blessed happiness which shines out from your countenance and makes
itself manifest in your daily life.
Another very prevalent way of discouraging piety is 
186  PLAIN EDUCATIONAL TALKS
in being over-exacting in manner. The love of praise is
inherent in our nature, and childhood is no exception.
Little children are disappointed when they do not receive
that approval which is their due. How is it with the
duty of parents in this matter? One mother, supposing
that children are always apt to do too little, is never
pleased with what her child does, at least she never
manifests that pleasure. She seems to think it a duty
that she should exact more from the child than it performs, lest it become loose and careless in its performance
of duty. Another, looking on the more cheerful side of
the picture, smiles on the child that performs its duty, and
thus encourages it to continue in its course.  Though
the child may by no means be perfect nor fulfil its whole
duty, it still receives the encouraging smile of approval
or the expressed pleasure of the parent for its good acts
so far as its efforts are in the right direction. No better
test in this matter can be applied than for the parent to
suppose himself in the place of the child for the moment.
Does he look up to God, hoping for His approval of the
good work he is doing? or does he suppose that inasmuch as he cannot become perfect in good, even that
which he has done shall receive no credit? God smiles
upon our efforts to do good, however imperfect these
may be. Let the parent and teacher learn from this to
imitate the glorious example set him. Give children
encouragement always for well-doing, and specially in
their efforts to do good; and when they obey the spirit
of a law and make efforts thereby to obey the letter also,
give them the approbation which is their due. 
WITH TEACHERS A-ND PARENTS. 167
We sometimes fail to place the proper models before
children. Our own example will do much always to
inspire them to do right. Of course this example must
be correct. And not alone is this necessary so far as
right and wrong come into the question, but it must be
such also as will tend to win children to the cause of
Christ. Do we go around solemn, sober, and long-faced,
which is itself a discouragement to the child, as being
opposed to all its feelings and pleasures, we have already
done much to prevent it from embracing the doctrines we
hold. But the fault does not lie here alone. We place
before our child imaginary models for imitation which
seem little less than perfection. Our writers of storybooks put before them for imitation such children as
never lived, and find them before long so good that they
translate' them to a higher sphere. It is a noteworthy
fact, if we are to credit these writers of story-books,
that almost all the good boys and girls die at a very
early age. Certainly this is not presenting very great
inducements to the little folks to be good. But then
every virtue with which we hope to find men endowed
is pictured with such a halo of glory around it in the
models, that the child at once loses all hopes of ever
becoming what its parents would like to. have it. Thus
the story of Washington and his hatchet has found its
way to every fireside. This is all well enough so far as
it goes, but then it does n't tell the whole truth; and the
little child is made to believe the hero as perfect as
Christ himself, not in this story alone, but in almost
every one where the biography is written by a friend of 
168  PLAIN EDUCATIONAL TALKS
the hero. Thus almost every man that has risen to any
degree of eminence is made a hero, and his boyhood has
been represented as being almost angelic.  Let me say
here, that however gratifying this may be to the family
relatives and personal friends of the man or woman
whose deeds are thus recorded, it is a very unfortunate
thing for the children who are called upon to read these
biographies. It discourages them. They know nothing
in their own life which indicates from analogy that they
are to become great or even good men, and they make
no fuirther efforts. Aiming at the sun is well enough to
learn to shoot high, but then we rarely hit anything by
shooting in that direction. Far better were it to take
some object within range and make an effort to reach it.
Don't discourage the child by placing before it such
models as it cannot imitate. Don't let it think that
what it may have done in the past will prevent its accomplishing anything in the future.
There are those among parents who are one thing before their children and quite another when not in their
presence. They are prudential but not prudent. All
their manners and movements take on an air of policy.
Like the apples of the Dead Sea, outwardly they are
fair enough, but they are filled with ashes. They adopt
principles, and act in accordance with them because prudence and policy dictate such a course. Their piety is
too much a pretence. Do they nurse the idea that their
children do not see all this? They are sadly mistaken
However much they may attempt to cover up their
tracks, they will be discovered.  What must be the influ 
WITII TEACHERS AND PARENT,S. 169
ence of such action and such pretence on the mind of a
yet innocent child?  What must be the influence of this
petty deception on the parents themselves?  Do they
hope to preach one thing and practice another? Do they
hope to instil precepts to which their own false life in private gives the lie? It can't be done; and it is no wonder that children brought up under such influences, fair
on the outside, turn out badly.
Religious life and play are not at enmity, and that
piety which sets its face against play will fail to produce
good results. A child begins to show evidence of its
love to God, but at the same time eagerly engages in
play, and sometimes even rushes from devotional services
to engage in some trial of skill or wild whoop and halloo.
Are we to take it for granted that the child has really no
love for God, and silence this play-life and glee which
bursts forth in spite of our restraint? By no means.
Put the question to yourself, fond parent. Do you never,
while the sermon is being preached or the hymn sung,
permit your thoughts to wander from the proper channel
and back to your business?  Do you never hurry off to
your counting-room or your business as soon  as the
prayer-meeting or morning worship is over?  Is this to
be taken as evidence that you feel no interest in your
own religious welfare? Are you willing to be measured
by the same rule that you apply to the child? There
may be a reason for all this, but it is n't because there is
no love there. Such treatment as would have the child
believe that because he loves play he therefore does not
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170   PLAIN EDUCATIONAL TALKS
love God truly, only tends to discourage him, and this
discouragement in the end settles into aversion.
Let it not be understood that no restrictions are to be
placed on the child. To permit children, as is frequently
the case, to roam at will on the streets in the evening is,
I have said, one of the surest ways of ruining them.
As a part of their moral culture therefore it is necessary
that the parents, and particularly the mother, make an
effort to render the home so attractive and so pleasant
that the children will have no desire to be on the street.
Here is a fine field for the mother to exercise her taste
and enforce her moral character. She can devise plays,
enliven the family-circle with music, furnish pictures and
books, or relate little moral stories, all of which, with
much more, will render home attractive and keep the
child from the temptations which beset it while on the
street. WThat a beautiful sight it is to see a mother thus
engaged in making the home glad and the hearts of her
children light with her cheerful voice, which, to the little
ones who almost idolize her, is the sweetest and most
beautiful of earthly music! Such a mother makes a
happy -ome, and wins the' smiles of Heaven upon her
work. Is rn't the prize worth the getting?
While speaking of restrictions, let me refer to the
Christian Sabbath. On few questions do men of religion
differ so much as on the manner in which we should
spend the Sabbath. It is not my purpose here to dis cuss this question at length. I do not propose to argue
against either that school which holds this day to be one
of pure religious devotion, nor against that other which 
WITH TEAC-HERS AND PARENTS. 171
regards the day as one of pure bodily rest and physical
and social pleasures and recreation. It is my province
here to discuss this question only so far as it concerns
the moral culture of children.
How far children should be free and how far restricted
on Sunday are questions of serious import and not easily
answered. Many, I know, shirk the question by allowing children to spend the day as they please. With
these the idea seems to be that on the Sabbath, as at
other times, the sooner the children are sent to the fields
or the school- and to some the difference is inappreciable -the more comfort there will be for those at home.
This, if it can be called benevolence at all, is unchristian
benevolence. Parents could take no surer plan of causing the child to form loose habits, while at the same time
they themselves become careless and disinterested in
religious matters. On the other hand, many Christian
parents are apt to restrict their children too much on
the Sabbath. All mirth or exuberance of feeling is
checked, as if God did not love a merry heart on the
Sabbath as well as at other times. Notice one of this
over-strict class of parents in the treatment of his child.
On Sunday it is taken to church and made to sit there
with folded hands listening to the sermon but comprehending not a word. Not a movement is it permitted to
make which would indicate that it is not giving the profoundest attention, nor are its eyes permitted to wander
from the pulpit for a moment. When church is out, the
child is taken home, where it is either put to the cateehism or made to sit quietly in the house, and thus the 
172  PLAIN EDUCATIONAL TALKS
same rigid course of treatment is continued through the
day. What can we expect from this sort of treatment?
Do we hope to have it long for a return of the day? It
would be unreasonable to expect this. How gladly it
welcomes Monday! It begins to think this the pleasantest day of the week, because it is relieved of the un'natural treatment to which it has been subjected during
Sunday. It is led to look upon Sunday not specially as
a day of rest, but as a day of solemnity, as a day opposed
to mirth and cheerfulness.  The parent who subjects his
children to treatment of this kind, (and there are many
of them,) though it be done under the best of intentions,
is not doing for his child what he might. His treatment
drives it to rebellion against religion, and is the surest
way to make it hate the devotional exercises of the Sabbath.
If the austere treatment of the child is well calculated
to make it hate religious services, there can, on the other
hand, nothing better be said of that plan which permits
children to do as they please. This is the opposite extreme, and it is no less injurious and harmful to the
child's- moral character than is the other. Parents who
permit bird-nesting and ball-playing, or fishing, together
with other sports of the same kind, to be carried on by their
children on Sunday, need expect but little love for religion from those children. Of course they will love the
Sabbath and hail its return joyously, because it relieves
them of all work, and there will be no interruption in
their plays. But the gradation from one sinffil act to
another is so easy and so slight that they almost invol 
WITH TEACHERS AND PARENTS. 173
untarily slide from one to another until they become confirmed Sabbath-breakers, however innocent their beginning, and too often turn out to be wicked men.
Both methods spoken of being objectionable, there remains yet a middle ground which is the safe one. Neither
of the two preceding is the Scripture method. First, the
child must feel the force of the command, "Remember
the Sabbath day, to keep it holy."  He must feel that
here as elsewhere he is governed by a divine law which
he dares neither ignore nor question, and that though an
action may not in itself be positively wrong, it is nevertheless wrong as being done on the Sabbath. The child
must therefore feel that there are restrictions placed on
his actions and conduct for the day which do not rest on
him during the other days of the week, but at the same
time he can and should be made to feel that the day,
even with the restrictions, is a cause for thanksgiving
and joy. So much may be done to interest the child
that even the restrictions are forgotten, and he learns to
be grateful that this day too can be numbered among his
pleasures and enjoyments.
Much will suggest itself to the'mind of the thoughtful
man in regard to the manner of spending this day. The
Bible is filled with little stories, such as those of Joseph,
Moses, Elisha, and others, which, when translated into
child-language, that is such as the child can fully comprehend, never fail to interest little children. So too there
are numerous pictures to be had which illustrate some
part of scriptural history. How much there is in the
past and the present condition of the Holy Land, in the
15* 
174  PLAIN EDUCATIONAL TALKS.
manners and customs of its inhabitants, in everything
connected with it, that is well calculated to interest not
only the child but even the adult! For those who possess that invaluable gift, ability to sing, how many little
Sunday-school hymns are well calculated not only to
make the child bright and cheerful, but at the same time
create in him an abiding love for the Saviour! It does
one's heart good to hear a group of little folks join in one
of these soul-stirring hymns; and how much more they
enjoy them when father and mother unite with them in
singing praises to God! Much  can be done to entertain
the child by talking to him of Christ, and presenting to
the young mind the Saviour as he is, and not as a frightful and disagreeable being. Thus very much can be done
to make the child's Sabbath a pleasant one. Children
reared under such influences  cannot fail to grow up respecting and loving the Lord's day.
Parents and teachers are engaged in no more important work, nor have they a more difficult task than the
moral culture of their children. Let us hope that more
thought will be paid to it in the future, and pray that
our efforts at proper training may not be fruitless.  We
must enter on this work with a prayerful spirit. It were
folly to suppose that we can accomplish so good and
noble a work without the powerful assistance of God. 
CHAPTER XVII.
PHYSICAL NURTURE.
r[~HE assertion that our age is a utilitarian one has
l become almost trite, and we would fain deny it; but
a glance at our method of doing things shows the truth fulness of it. How true it is that we are utilitarian, and
y        e         t          how true it is too that we  fail to accomplish much
of what we aim at! While the great aim of life in a
measure seems to be the accumulation of wealth, we forget that-there is a certain preparation necessary in order
that we may gain the end-we seek. Thus while we diligently discuss the best methods of rearing stock, of
training horses, and of building barns, we show our interest in these in a monetary point of view. We are anxious to discover the best breed and the most effective
m     e     a     n     s      of rearing sound, healthy animals.   We feel the
importance of surrounding our stock with such conditions as will be most conducive to their healthy development, because on this development depends their market
value. All agree as to the necessity of this care for the
comfort of the dumb brutes. But do we perform the
same kind offices for our children? True, these receive
many little attentions at our hands which the brute does
not, but then are they always studied as to what results
they may lead to, and are they at all times well calcu                                                175 
176  PLAIN EDUCATIONAL TALKS
lated to benefit those'who receive them? Certainly if it
is important that our sheep, our pigs, and our cattle
should have special attention that they may be developed properly, it is none the less important that the physical well-being of our children should receive still greater
attention.
No one will deny the necessity of physical training
that we may enjoy good health, if no other end were
subserved. But this is not the only benefit wrought.
We need strong bodies upon which to build our mental
edifice, upon which our intellectual acquirements may be
based. A sound body is no less essential than a sound
mind. It needs but a glance at the professional and business men of our day to show the sad neglect of physical
culture.  A  sound, healthy man who can stand up and
declare himself free from all ills to which flesh is heir, is
something of a wonder in this age. Go where we will,
we hear men and women complain of some illness which
unfits them in a measure for their work in the world.
What a miserable, sallow-faced, long-visaged set of dyspeptics there are in this world! Almost every one we
meet presents prirna-facie'evidence of some bodily
ailment within. What is the cause of all this? Evi dently we pay too little attention to physical culture,
and, as a consequence, we are made to suffer the natural
penalties resulting from our own negligence.
How to remedy this matter, and produce a race of
healthy, active men and women, is a question of no little
importance. Thus far the work, if any has been inau gurated, has not been productive of as much good as we 
WITH TEACHERS AND'D PARENTS. 177
might wish.  Reformers have accomplished but little.
Our gymnasiums have benefited a few men who have
adhered to a systematic and regular course of training,
but the mass of those who have gone there have taken
to it kindly for a month or two and then become careless,
and have therefore derived but little benefit. The mistake in our system of physical culture is, that we have
commenced at the wrong end of the work. WTe have
attempted to break up habits which have been the formation of a lifetime, and consequently have in the main
failed. To make a reformation in this matter, we must
begin our work in the school-room and at the home fireside; not with the adults of the family, but with the
children. I believe that in this, as in other reforms, the
proper starting-point is home. Parents have it just as
much in their power to train, in the course of a generation or two, a healthy, well-developed set of children as
they have to produce fine specimens of horses and cattle.
This may seem commonplace talk, but the subject is a
commonplace one and demands it.  If we find that by a
little attention and care we can so train our children that
they shall be better able to attend to the multitudinous
duties of life, and be less liable to fall into the hands of
the physician or prove the victim of the apothecary, why
shall we not devote some attention to doing for them at
least as much as we do for our live-stock?
One of the specialties to which parents must give
attention is the food of children. I have known mothers
who, it seemed to me, possessed no more discretion in
this matter than the infants they held in their arms.
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178  PLAIN EDUCATIONAL TALKS
They allowed their children, even the smallest, to eat
everything that came within reach, from a crab-app]e to
a delicate morsel of sugar, and then wondered what could
possibly make their little ones so restless at night, and
why it was so often necessary to call in the doctor.
Others, following the other extreme, have withheld everything but a special diet, on which they have trained their
children almost to shadows. They are made to look very
fragile and delicate, but they by no means enjoy good
health. Others still there are who, firom the moment of
the child's waking in the morning until its going to rest
at night, are continually giving it food at every demand,
thus keeping the stomach in a continued state of activity,
until at length its tone and power become so much impaired that the child's chances of filling a dyspeptic's
grave are usually promising. Much of all this may be
the result of ignorance, but doubtless much of it also
arises from either negligence or a desire to silence the
child. All thesesmethods of treatment are wrong. Hiad
I the space here I would like to say much more on this
subject, but as it is I must confine myself to a few of the
leading points, hoping to draw the attention of parents
to the matter, if I can accomplish nothing more.
The child should not be permitted to make a gormand
of itself, nor, on the other hand, should it be deprived
of having all that is necessary to answer the demands
of its system. Allowing it to eat too much or giving it
too little would both be detrimental to health; but the
latter is probably the more dangerous, as its injurious
effects are the more lasting. There is little danger of a 
WITH TEACHERS AND PARENTS. 179
child's eating too much unless it has been deprived to
some extent before of such food as it needed. It is not
the animal that roams all day in the meadow that is
foundered by drinking too much, but the one that has for
too long a time been deprived of its supply of water.
So too a child which has before it a mixed and variable
diet, both vegetable and animal -for children as well as
adults need some animal food to strengthen them- is
not apt to become a glutton. It is the child that from
day to day is compelled to subsist on the same unchangeable and therefore, in a measure, unhealthy dish. All
physiologists agree on this point, that our system demands food in sufficient quantity and in variety. There
is no point in which parents make a greater mistake than
in withholding fruit from their children and supplying
them with pastry in its stead. The true policy would be
less pastry and more fruit. There is little danger in eatirg ripe fruit in its proper season, but there is danger in
eating hot cakes and rich pies and puddings.  It is not
the eating of ripe fruit that gives rise to so much sickness among children during the summer months, but the
eating of that which is unripe. Briefly, then, it is necessary that the food of our children should be abundant
and varied, and contain such nutritive qualities as will
fit it for the wants of the growing child.
A second specialty requiring the attention of parents
is the dress of their children.  I do not allude here to the
material nor to the color or cost, but to the comfort.
The tendency in all classes of society, and especially in
that class particularly anxious to be fashionable, is towards 
180  PLAIN EDUCATIONAL TALKS
a disposition to dress too scantily. Two reasons exist
for this: the first, and the one generally urged, is, that
it is necessary to harden children; the second, and often
the real reason is that the child is supposed to look pret tier in this scanty dress than when fully clad. Of the
first theory it may be said, that children can, to a certain
extent, be hardened, but they are those only who are
hardened by constant exposure. The rustic farmer-boy
who is accustomed during the whole year to spend much
of his time in the open air, pays but little attention to
the driving snows of winter; but the city-bred youth,
whose hours are spent in the school-room or by the warm
family fireside, may not venture out without proper pro tection on a cold winter day. The change from one tenm perature to the other is so sudden that he exposes him self to great danger of receiving such a shock as will
forever unfit him for duty.  This principle does not seem
to be fully understood by parents, and, as a consequence,
it may be said with truth, that the foundation for disease
is laid at an early age, and the child is made to suffer
during a lifetime for the ignorance or indiscretion of a
foolish parent. Instead of being better able to endure
extreme cold, children are really less able than adults.
It is a mistaken notion that because they do not complain
they are therefore not suffering. True, children who are
in a healthy condition may suffer less inconvenience from
the driving storms than those older whose physical nur-ture has been neglected; but the grown person, other
things being equal, is better able than the child to endure
cold. This being true, what shall be said of the style 
WITH TEACHERS AND PARENTS. 181
in which mothers too often dress their children during
even the cold days of winter? Who of us would will ingly, so far as comfort is concerned, dress in the manner
we dress our children? There is no reason why we
should ask them to submit to hardships and treatment
which in our own experience we find detrimental to both
comfort and health. It is folly for parents to clothe
their little children during the colder portions of the year
in such a manner as to expose a part of their body or
their limbs. What with the injudicious treatment of
children with regard to diet in summer and scantiness of
clothing in winter, it is no wonder that the mortality
among them is so great. I am averse to saying unpleasant things, but duty to my subject compels me to say
that I believe parents in many cases guilty of the death
of their own children through negligence.  The responsibility of rearing children physically is much greater
than most persons are willing to acknowledge.
There is also sometimes a difficulty arising from overdress. Parents are in their, anxiety often over-cautious,
and clothe their children too warm, thus making them
liable to take cold when exposed to the slightest draft of
air.  Great caution is needed here.  As  a general rule,
the amount of clothing should be varied according to the
temperature of the atmosphere. More is necessary when
we are standing or sitting still than when moving about,
and.more when we are in the open air than when in a
room.  Clothing too should be kept scrupulously neat
and clean, and not only is this necessary as a part of
proper physical nurture, but as a part of moral nurture
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182  PLAIN EDUCATIONAL TALKS
as well. Don't however allow this neatness to assume
that false shape which prevents the child from enjoying
its share of play. If the child wear such fanciful fabrics,
or so fancifully constructed, that it cannot enjoy every
play suited to happy and innocent childhood, then is its
dress in so far opposed to its true physical culture.
Those dresses which will not permit it to run, and jump,
and frolic around, with of course the usual amount of
tripping and tumbling, are unsuitable.  The child feels
such a dress an encumbrance, and when the little fellow
is called back from chasing a butterfly or scrambling up
a bank, because he may soil his clothes, he heartily
wishes himself divested of such clothing and allowed to
enjoy himself according to his taste. This exercise is
just what the child most needs when the clothing is
deficient. The less clothing worn, particularly during
the colder parts of the year, the greater the amount
of food necessary to supply the requisite amount of animal  heat.   This is a truism which every intelligent
farmer understands, and in the care of his stock he
makes them as comfortable as possible that they may
consume less food.
The desire for play is usually so great in children that
little effort is necessary to secure for them the proper
amount of exercise. Now and then, however, parents
and teachers, under a mistaken notion of making their
boys and girls appear like grown-up men and women,
prohibit them from engaging in that exercise which is of
all kinds most beneficial. In this case there is nothing
left but to resort to something more formal in its charac 
WITH TEACHERS AND PARENTS. 183
ter than unrestrained play. Exercise of some kind the
child must have, otherwise its development cannot be
healthy. In the rural districts, by the daily work in the
fields and amid all the simplicity and beauty of nature,
the rustic lad usually grows up strong and robust; but
in the cities the young are in a measure denied the privilege of communing with nature, and a different development is usually the result.  Nothing argues more strongly
the necessity of pleasant surroundings when we exercise.
Although work therefore may answer for exercise, it is
only when that work is pleasant and agreeable that it
does its full measure of good. Exercise of all kinds
must be undertaken with a light heart and with the mind
entirely abstracted from our cares and business. No one
is benefited by that exercise to which he goes as a task;
nor, on the other hand, can one expect good results from
his exercise when his mind is entirely engaged with
something else.  The young  student who takes a few
turns up and down the gravel walk with the mind busily
intent on the tasks or lessons claiming his attention, is
trying to do two things at once, and does neither well.
So too the young man who hastily snatches a few momnients of his time and rushes to the gymnasium to have
a few turns on the "Flying Dutchman" or leap once or
twice over the bar, and then suddenly return to his business, might as well have spared himself the whole of his
time; for the good he has gained from his exercise is
little.
It is amusing to watch persons at times walking for
exercise, as it is called. They mope and slouch along as 
184  PLAIN EDUCATIONAL TALKS
if they went to their work with anything but a glad
heart. Exercise of this kind is almost worthless. God
has- implanted in the child a desire for play which forms
its substitute for any formal exercise, and we learn a valuable lesson from this play which we may apply not only
in benefiting ourselves, but also in our manner of aiding
the child to secure the most perfect and healthy development. It was evidently meant that we, too, should enter
upon our work cheerfully and with a light heart, forgetting for a time the cares of the World. Let us interpose
no obstacles to the working out of God's plan. Formal
exercise is of course not without its benefits also, but in
comparison with those derived from play as a strengthening and developing process, it is of little moment.
This activity of body is absolutely necessary to preserve
the healthy tone of the physical part of man, and upon
man's physical health depends, in a great measure, the
health and vigor of his mind. That system of government, then, in a family or a school, which tabooes romping and play as undignified, is not only mistaken but also
mischievous. No formal system, whatever its merits,
can take the place of play.
Nothing is probably more essential to health than pure
air. In order that the blood may be pure, the air which
purifies it must first be pure.  The instances of disease
arising from breathing foul air are so numerous and so
common that it is unnecessary here to refer to them.
But there is comparatively so little attention after all
given to the ventilation of rooms that the matter cannot
be brought too often or too prominently into notice. It 
WITH TEACHERS AND PARENTS. 185
is said that as a class the miners of England break down
prematurely from bronchitis and pneumonia caused by
the atmosphere in which they live. In our own mining
districts it is a rare thing to find an aged man who has
spent much of his life in the unhealthy air of the mines.
So, too, we find that different tradesmen, being subject to
the impurities of different atmospheres, usually die prematurely, according to the vicious qualities of the air
they breathe. These are facts patent to every one. But
there are other deaths caused and other diseases engendered in our own households that are no less alarming in
their character, which do not generally receive attention.
It is often a source of wonder why so many children are
scrofulous.  We are apt to think that it is all heredita'y.
This is a mistake. In the Norwood school, England,
where scrofula broke out among its six hundred pupils
so extensively as to carry off great numbers, Dr. Arnott
was employed to investigate the cause, and immediately
traced it not to insufficient food, as was at first supposed,
but to "defective ventilation and consequent atmospheric
impurity." A case in point occurred in one of the most
prominent of our educational institutions in this country
a few years ago. The air from the cess-pools, through
defective drainage, circulated more or less through the
building occupied by the students as dormitories, and as
the natural result typhoid fever set in, and but few
escaped the attack. While referring to this matter, let
me say that too great caution cannot be exercised in
the arrangement of buildings so as to prevent the foul
air of the cess-pools from mingling with  the  air we
16'*
WI I 
186  PLAIN EDUCATIONAL TALKS
breathe, as in the great majority of cases it is the firuitful source of that disastrous fever known as typhoid.
Many diseases are propagated through the impurities
of the atmosphere. Thus it is said that from the body
of one afflicted with scarlet fever, a cloud of fine dust
may be seen rising when it is uncovered in the sunlight.
Of course this and other diseases are propagated in other
ways, but the atmosphere is an effective medium, and by
means of it the poisonous seeds of disease are rapidly disseminated. Cases innumerable could be cited where disease has been contracted not only in the sick —oom but by
breathing the impurities of the atmosphere of the livingroom. Nothing will so soon develop scrofula, consumption, and other diseases of the kind, as impure air. Let
us see to it then that the air of our rooms is not filled
with impurities and seeds of disease. Better by far suffer the cool air which by means of ventilators finds its
way into the room, and use up a little more fuel, than by
keeping our doors and windows closed and chinked, pen
in disease and death while we shut out the fierce but
refreshing wind.
Of the morbid effects of breathing impure air, Dr. Ray
says: "In a school, or hospital, or other considerable
assemblage of people, the purity of the air may be pretty
accurately measured by the amount of cheerfulness, activity, and lively interest which pervades it; and yet, so
little do people think or care about this subject, that,
under existing arrangements, there are very few who do
not every day of their lives inspire more or less highly
vitiated air. The listlessness and stupidity of students,
0 
WITHI TEACHERS AND PARENTS. 187
and especially of children confined in the school-room,
are often due to the bad state of the air they breathe.
Using the brain in a vitiated atmosphere is like working
with a blunted instrument, and the effect of course must
be aggravated when the inexperienced are first learning
the use of the instrument." Who that has ever taught
has not experienced this? It isn't any wonder that
pupils become dull and listless in our schools, nor that
we see so many nodding heads in our church-pews on the
Sabbath. Let us attend to the ventilation of our public
buildings, and we shall be able to make at least a partial
reformation.  The supply of pure air is so great, and the
harmony between the wants of animal and vegetable life
so perfect, that there is no danger of exhausting the supply. On this giround therefore there is no excuse, nor
can there be any on the ground of expense, as it is free
to every one. Let us apply then to our school-rooms
and home firesides the principles which govern its distribution.  We are all right in theory and have been for
some time, but we are yet sadly lacking in practice.
A point to which special attention should be directed
is the amount of mental labor children are permitted to
perform.  In general, when left to their own choice, they
are not apt to injure themselves by over-study, but there
are exceptions to this rule. Children may be so influenced by both parents and teachers as to perform under
certain circumstances too much brain-work. Numerous
instances might be cited of a fever contracted here, a
debilitated system there, the evident results of too much
study and too little exercise.  One pupil's attendance is 
188  PLAIN EDUCATIONAL TALKS
irregular, another complains of almost constant headache,
while still another is compelled for some months to aban   don school-life. Some of this results from over-study,
but there is also another cause. Parents who are con   stantly permitting themselves to be overtaxed with brain   work become more or less weakened in their physical
functions, and transmit these same defects to their chil   dren. That the child therefore may have a healthy
brain, that of the parent must also be healthfully exer   cised.
It is a matter of some importance what habits we per   mit children to contract, and this not less in their physi  ical than in their moral nature.  One of these, and one
more generally neglected than most persons would be
willing to acknowledge, is personal cleanliness. We
have too many belonging to the  "great unwashed."
Evidences are so plentiful all around us that a reference
to them is all that is necessary. It requires some degree
of courage to enter some of our primary schools where
the ventilation is defective. It is n't all foul air breathed
from the lungs that makes the difference between that
atmosphere and the one you so much long for out-of   doors. The exhalations rising from the bodies of those
children add much to the sum of the impurities that
almost drive one back as he attempts to enter. In order
to health it is necessary that the perspiration which is
thrown out by the sweat-glands of the skin be reinoved.
This must be done frequently, and it is necessary to
secure the proper working of these glands.  Not only is
it necessary that we bathe regularly, but our clothing, 
WITH TEACHERS AND PARENTS. 189
which takes up all the impurities thrown off by the skin,
must be changed frequently and aired. Our bed-clothing
also should receive an airing daily that the atmosphere
may carry off the impurities with which it becomes saturated during the night. Much may be done in having
children improve themselves, if a little assistance is
given by older heads.
It is a rare thing to find an erect man or woman. The
contracting of bad habits in sitting and standing and
long continuance in them have in a great measure tended
to destroy our beauty and symmetry, and now we find
erect, well-formed men and women the exception. There
is no doubt that this is all the result of habit.  It is a rare
case to find a small child stooping or round-shouldered.
School-life often does much toward making children
crooked, and especially is this true when the benches on
which the children sit are uncomfortable on account of
being too high or without comfortable resting places for
the back. In both sitting and standing, children are pernmitted to assume positions which are neither graceful
nor healthful.  How seldom we find a man who does not
feel extremely awkward when made to stand where he
has not some means of support! To say nothing of the
ungracefulness of these stooping postures, the injury of
which they are the fruitful source should be sufficient to
condemn them.  It is utterly impossible for any one in a
stooping posture to inflate his lungs to their full capacity;
hence a certain amount of vitality is lost and a portion
of the poison which should be eliminated from the system
is retained, and the seeds of disease disseminated. 
190  PLAIN EDUCATIONAL TALKS
Caution should be exercised that proper habits be early
formed, and that these become regular. The irregularities to which many subject not only themselves but also
their children, are enough to sap the vitality of any one's
system.   Breakfast this morning at six, to-morrow at
eight, and next day at seven, is enough to make any one's
stomach rebel and become dyspeptic.  Yet how many
families there are in which the meals are subject to as
much irregularity as this, with an occasional lunch just
before retiring thrown in! In the matter of sleep, too, the
same may be said. One evening the child is required to
retire with the fading out of twilight, and the next it remains awake until probably ten or later. Thus the habit
becomes irregular, and sleep is robbed of half of its beneficial influence. As to the amount of sleep necessary,
no definite rule can be given.  It is modified by the physical and mental condition of the person, and differs as
much in its requirements as does the quantity of food.
As a general rule, however, no one should be waked as
long as he is sleeping soundly. It is little less than cruel
to rouse a child in the morning from sound sleep.  Na-,
ture in this is a safer guide than vacillating man.
The physical nurture of children is a matter of some
importance, and it is necessary that parents in assuming
the responsibility, and they alone must assume it, should
be prepared for the work. If they understand the secrets of preventing disease, it is worth to them more
than all the cures from yarrow-tea down to the most
insignificant that sage old grandames may urge.  The
results of parental negligence and parental ignorance in
this matter are almost beyond conception. There are 
WITIH TEACHERS AND PARENTS. 191
both an over-care and an under-care of which parents are
guilty, and either is in many cases fatal to long life and
happiness. It is not right that we should train up a
child as we would cultivate a green-house plant, shutting
it away from the joys and feelings to be experienced only
in the open air; nor is it, on the other hand, right to train
it up as we would a colt from which we expect nothing
that is good, turning it out into storms and sunshine
alike, or shutting it in a close apartment, where, with
every breath it draws, it inhales also deadly poison.
Ignorance and negligence, when so much opportunity
exists for enlightenmnent, is criminal.
I have often felt that our course of school studies
might be improved by the introduction of physiology.
I would not have it usurp the place of any other study
now in the course, although there are those which are of
far less importance, but it should either be added or be
granted a portion of the time devoted now to other
branches. It is important that every parent should understand physiology and hygiene, and it is of the utmost
importance that every teacher be acquainted with the
subject, so that if the study cannot be adopted as one of
the regular course, the teacher may still convey the most
valuable part of it by means of informal lectures or
talks. The teacher who talks to his pupils on these
points will always have an attentive audience. It is to
be hoped that our efforts at physical nurture will not all
rest in words, but that some active work will be performed, and that parents and teachers will enlighten
themselves, and earnestly add their efforts in assisting
to develop a more healthy and more perfect race. 
CHIIAPTER XVIII.
TOO EARLY AT SCHOOL.
NE  of the wisest changes the Legislature of Penn    sylvania ever made in her school law is that which
prohibits children from entering the public schools before
the age of six instead of five, as the law stood previously,
and there is probably no law oni their statute-book which
has been the source of more grumbling on the part of
unthinking, ignorant parents. I have referred before to
the mistake of sending children to school too young, and
I shall give additional reasons why the mistake should
not be tolerated. Some may differ from me on this point,
yet from all the arguments ever urged, I am still more
fully convinced that sending children to school, as
schools are usually conducted, before the age of six, is
a serious mistake.
There is much knowledge that children gain independent of what they acquire in school. From the moment
that light first seems to break through into the mind of
the child, its life is a continuous course of acquiring
knowledge. Not an object escapes its attention. The
flowers of the garden, the grass of the fields, the pebbles
at the brookside, the variegated foliage of the trees, the
machinery on the farm -everything claims its notice.
Is not all the knowledge that it gains in this way valua!92 
PLAIN EDUCATIONAL TALKS.  193
ble?  How  much  better would it be doing in school
learning the letters of the alphabet at the rate of one a
week, or even one a day! It seems to me that this communing with nature is of infinitely more importance in
the earlier years of life than the knowledge the child
usually acquires.
Let me call your attention to a familiar scene. On a
hillside stands a country school-house. Ranged around
the interior are little benches, some with backs and
some without. Some of these are so high that the children are compelled to sit on them without being able to
touch the floor. As a consequence the position they are
made to assume is unhealthful, and their spines- become
more or less curved.  You find your own child of five or
six years among these, and he is enjoying himself much
as the rest. When requested to study, their eyes are directed to books, but what can they study? What could
you and I study with the same previous mental training,
if a set of arbitrary characters were placed before us
without our knowing what future use we should be able
to make of them? We would count it but folly if asked
to study them. Much less do the children find in them
anything to study. When the teacher no longer keeps
his eye on them, they engage themselves as they think
best, and now and then throw a paper wad at a neighbor, spit at some one's toes as a target, or amuse themselves in one of the other ways known only to schoolboys.  This in general makes up the sum of their enjoyments.  Of course in many well-regulated schools they
are furnished with little slates and amuse themselves
17
N 
194  PLAIN EDUCATIONAL TALKS
with these, but in this school we find, on inquiry, that
the parents don't see the use of slates, and hence refuse
to purchase any for their children. We might enter more
into detail and sketch the more minute parts of the picture, but want of space forbids. What good is your
child doing in this place? Is it learning rapidly? Is
its physical system being strengthened by the impure air
and lack of vigorous exercise? Are its moral faculties
being strengthened by the deception it is taught to practise when required to do that which is impossible? If
none of these, you must agree with me that it were better
at home, revelling in sunlight and pure air, gleaning such
knowledge as nature designs it should at this age.
Another difficulty presents itself just here. The child
that begins school-life too early becomes in the course of
a year or two tired of the confinement which imprisons
it.  There is nothing in the school that seems to be
pleasant and in harmony with the inquisitiveness and
play instincts of the child. Day after day it is made to
go through the same drill and tread the same plank, and
by the time it is prepared to understand the school-work
and the objects of school-going, it has become so thoroughly tired and disgusted that insuperable obstacles
are already placed in the way of its advancement. I
am convinced that there is but little accomplished by
sending children to school so long before they know the
object in being sent. But little difference can be noticed
at the age of nine in the advancement of those who began
at five and those who began at seven.  The progress of
the one has been slow and tedious, while that of the other 
WITH TEACHERS AND PARENTS. 195
has been pleasant and rapid. The latter is in reality in
most cases the better fitted of the two for continuing the
work, because the general knowledge he has acquired
previous to his school-days is such that it renders him
great assistance, and his faculties are besides bright and
active. 
An objection to which I have before referred is the
length of time small pupils are required to remain in the
school-room. They find but little pleasure in remaining
thus imprisoned six hours of the day. My own little
boy, when asking him a few days ago whether he would
like to go to school, put in this plea without, so far as I
know, ever having heard any one say anything about it:
"Papa, they stay in too long. I would rather be at
home and say my lessons here." I felt that though it
waq but the argument of a child, he understood the
question better and was nearer the philosophy of it than
many an older head. They do stay in too long, and that
very fact is a strong argument against sending children
to school very young.
Were our schools conducted according to the Pestalozzian system or after the kindergarten method of Germany, some of the objections would be of no force. Our
homes, however, come much nearer the kindergarten idea
than primary schools do. Children at home usually are
allowed to exercise their observing faculties to a great
extent, and are at the same time permitted to play much
in the open air, being confined to the house but little, so
that their mental and their physical development, together. with the moral, are more healthy. 
196  PLAIN EDUCATIONAL TALKS
Why, it may be asked, are parents so anxious to have
their children enter school early? Do they expect them
to learn rapidly? Do they expect by this forced culture
to strengthen mind and body? Not so, I fear. It is a
question which I do not like to answer for any one, but
were I to give my own opinion, I should have to say
that I believe in many cases parents are anxious to have
their children out of the way at home. I don't like
benevolence of this kind. It smacks too much of selfinterest at the expense of the well-being of the child
which is yet too young and too weak to enter its protest.
If it be the result of parental ignorance, let us by all
means strive to enlighten parents as to their duty. If
it be from the selfish motives to which I have alluded,
that parents may enjoy more comfort at home,-it is the
duty of every one of us to set his face against it and try
to break it down.   We cannot justify the practice in
either case.
Really the little amount of good accomplished by our
smallest pupils, those under the age of six or seven, is
of so small moment that it can certainly present no inducement to send the child for that purpose. Of course
there may be exceptions to this, and I suppose, my dear
reader, that your child possibly forms one of these exceptions; possibly not, but I am sure that fifteen minutes a
day devoted to instruction at home by the mother or the
father will accomplish vastly more good, and the child
will love the acquisition of learning under such tuition.
If parents will go to the expense of furnishing the child 
WITH TEACHERS AND PARENTS. 197
with a slate and a few simple playthings, it will cause
them but little trouble and be but little in their way.
Its school-days under such circumstances will be remembered with pleasure.  Is it not worth the effort?  Can
teachers do nothing towards showing parents their way
clear in this matter? I know it is not a pleasant duty,
as our motives may be misjudged, but it is certainly
worth a trial.
17* 
CHAPTER XIX.
TRAINING FOR LIFE'S DUTIES.
WOULD not have it understood, as might be inferred
from the topic here discussed, that the preparation of
the child for the active duties of life is the only or even
the main preparation necessary. I have in a preceding
chapter had occasion to refer to this subject, in which I
at the time attempted to make clear my idea of the end of
all education. It were folly, however, to argue that an
active preparation for the duties of this life is not also
necessary. Men and women who give no attention to the
world in which they are placed, it seems to me, put a
slight estimate on the omniscience of the God who created them and placed them in this preparatory school, to
say nothing of their lack of capacity and fitness as guides
to the rest of mankind.
All young men in a country like ours, where there is
no national social distinction, where the ploughboy and
the son of the millionaire sit on the same bench at school,
recite in the same class, and compete in the same contest
for either prize or power, expect to enter some business
in life. They expect to be either tradesmen, farmers,
mechanics, or professional men.  In short they expect to
be business men in the most comprehensive sense of the
term. The great question for us to solve is, shall they
198 
PLAIN EDUCATIONAL TALKS.  199
be prepared for the active duties they will be called upon
to perform, or shall they, like most of our own generation, be allowed to strike out for themselves in life without a guiding hand to steer and direct them on even their
first perilous voyage? If the latter, it will not be surprising to find them, like wrecked ships, thrown upon the
rocks and dashed to pieces for the want of a skilful pilot,
and proper instructions to guide them; nay, it is surprising that so many under the circumstances do succeed.
An important qualification which many men in all
vocations lack, is the ability to read human nature; and
yet there is scarcely a calling in life which does not require a keen insight into human nature. Possibly nothing so much determines the success of professional
men - preachers, teachers, doctors, and  lawyers-  as
shrewdness in judging human nature; and yet how few
there are comparatively who are well skilled in this subtle art! How few preachers there are who talk directly
to their congregations, attacking the devil and his minions in just the spot most vulnerable I How few make
it a business to study men in their daily occupations,
the merchant behind his counter, the mechanic in his
shop, or the farmer at his plow! We have a few, it is
true, who seem to understand this secret of success, and
their works have been bountifully blessed in the conversion of souls, but there are still too few. Too many are
still satisfied, not only in this but also in other professions, to follow in the footsteps of their predecessors.
It is necessary also that the teacher be a keen judge of
human nature, as no one has to deal with its subtleties 
'200  PLAIN EDUCATIONAL TALKS
more than he.  Not only is it necessary for his own welfare,but also that he may train those under his care for
the general duties incumbent upon them.
How little training do children receive for the positions
they will be called upon to assume in society! I Little
civilities and politenesses which make up much of the
sum of social life seem to attract little special attention;
and yet how important they are! Every modest young
man knows how unpleasant a thing it is to go into society
when he understands nothing of what will be expected
of him. In towns where there are frequent social evening gatherings this is not so much the case, but there is
a sad neglect of social training in the country.  The
teacher in his school-room and the parent in the family
can do much towards improving the condition of things,
and we certainly need it.
There are home duties which will be required of our
boys and girls as they grow up to be men and women,
which should not be neglected.   The  mother whose
daughter sits idle while she toils and hurries herself to
her grave, is, to say the least, an unfortunate if not a
very foolish woman. If it be the daughter's fault, then
is the mother unfortunate; if her own, then foolish.  It
is high time that this silly twaddle of young ladies, that
they were not brought up to work, were done away with.
The mischief that has been wrought by it is incalculable.
The silly young girl who can ring out a merry laugh and
declare that she knows nothing of baking and cooking,
that her mother or the girl does all such work, is a very
unfortunate young woman, and there are few sensible 
WITH TEACHERS AND PARENTS. 201
young men who would care to have such for a wife. I
am aware that this is plain talk, but I think I understand how worthy young men think on this matter. If
there is one point above others on which a mother should
pride herself on the accomplishments of her daughter, it
seemns to me it is not her music, not her painting, not her
dancing, not her ability to write poetry, but her qualifications in the matter of household management and
making a happy and cheerful homle. Mothers can do
nothing which will prove more beneficial to the future welfare and happiness of their daughters and their daughters'
homes than giving them such training and instruction as
will best fit them for the duties they will be called upon
to assume in gracing homes of their own and rendering
them cheerful, pleasant, and happy.  This is of infinitely
more value than all the lessons they may take in painting and drawing or in fancy and ornamental work during
their school course. I am aware that this smacks of
utilitarianism, but even the narrowest and most contracted utilitarianism is less objectionable than wild and
visionary theory which melts at the most delicate touch
of practical common sense.
The young need special training for the duties they
will have to perform as citizens. Too little attention has
been paid to this in the past. Evidences of it are painfully prevalent everywhere. It is a rare case indeed that
a man is selected to fill an office because of his special
fitness for it. But there are duties independent of those
falling to the lot of public officials, which should be
understood by all those who will be called upon in the 
202 PLAIN EDUCATIONAL TALKS
future to participate in conducting the public affairs of
the country. We need intelligent voters that the life of
the government may not be endangered by the ballots
of men who know not what they are voting for. We
need honest and good men who will enter the political
arena that base, grovelling politicians may not, under the
plea of patriotism, let out the life-blood of the nation.
We need everywhere men who understand the principles
upon which our government is founded, and who are
willing and honest enough to support those principles
though it may be detrimental to the interests of their
own political party. We need among our public men
such as understand at least so much of the principles
underlying our government that' they need not necessarily be dependent entirely upon their clerks for the requisite knowledge to perform properly the duties of offices
to which they have been  called.   Mark here that the
introduction of partisan politics into the school is by no
means advocated, but instead that broad, general training which teaches men their duty to their government,
which fits them for exercising the right of suffrage, which
makes them broad-minded, generous politicians and good
citizens. There is nothing partisan in this kind of training, and the man who makes it such deserves the lash
of public criticism and public censure.
Our youth, to fit them for their duties as. citizens,
should be trained in sentiments of patriotism. There
should be developed in their hearts a love for our own
country and her institutions.  They should be taught to
feel that an insult offered to her is an insult to every one 
WITH TEACHERS AN D PARENTS. 203
of her children. They should be made to feel that they are
specially interested in preserving her honor and protecting her rights.  Much should be made of those holidays
which celebrate some event in her history. We have
become too cool in our celebration of such memorable
events as the Signing of the Declaration of Independence.
Business, money-making, Mammon, has almost crowded
out the day. This is all wrong. Let us revive the
memory of these days and all others that tend to beget
in our children that pride in our government which ever
acts as the bulwark of the nation's liberty. Let the days
of'176 not be forgotten by our boys and girls.  Let us
make our hearts young again by entering with them into
the celebration of these days with our old enthusiasm,
and we shall be able to inspire in them a love for our
country which shall ever be her surest safeguard in time
of danger. 
CHlAPTER XX.
UNIVERSAL EDUCATION NECESSARY.
T  is well known that in most of the States of our
Union a public or free-school system exists. We pride
ourselves on the advantages offered by these schools to
children of all classes. They have been the boast of
our eloquent orators ever since they were called into
existence. Our historians have never failed to call at tention to this feature of our government; and yet, with
al, it may be questioned whether we have not overrated
our educational standing as a nation.
In countries in which free schools do not exist, educa tion is to a great extent the privilege of the wealthy few.
Money alone purchases it, and of course those not pos sessing the necessary means must remain uneducated.
Examples are plentiful all around us among those of the
subjects of royalty who have sought an asylum in our
republic. True, there are a few monarchies which lay
special stress on the education of their citizens; but they
are very few. Yet I think sometimes that we are in clined to praise our own country too highly and give
others too little credit. In China, for instance, a country
,which we have been accustomed to regard as one of the
lowest educationally, liberal culture, especially in litera ture, is made a part of the necessary preparation for
204 
PLAIN EDUCATIONAL TALKS.  205
holding office. It is said that the cultivation of literature is professedly the only channel of introduction to
advancement in the State and to the acquisition of office,
rank, and honors. Necessarily the number of students
becomes great, and a taste for letters is almost universally
diffused. Schools are found in every village, and the best
education may be procured on the most moderate terms.
Public examinations are held twice a year and presents are
distributed to the most deserving. A grand national college
named Han-lin-ye.t is located at Pekin.  It is supported
by the government, and its members consist of the chief
literati of the empire. Works on literary history, criticism, and biography are numerous. M. Abel-Remusat
says: "There is not a nation, even in Europe, that has
so many books, books so well made, so commodious for
consultation, and at so low a price." Their imperial
geography alone forms 260 volumes in quarto, with maps
and plans. Among the topics embraced in it are topography, hydrography, monuments, antiquities, natural
curiosities, industry, commerce, agriculture, productions,
government, general history, biography, and bibliography. Real science and literature are, however, at a low
ebb, because nothing but the old-established principles
are taught. But, after all, is not their example a good
one in requiring culture before intrusting in the hands
of the applicant the office he seeks? It is an interesting
question and worthy at least some consideration. It
needs no argument with those who understand the way
in which our public offices are filled, nor with those who
18 
206  PLAIN EDUCATIONAL TALKS
have measured the capacity of our office-holders, to show
that our condition is susceptible of improvement.
I have not the space nor do I wish to enter into a prolonged discussion of this question here, but there are
many arguments which might be cited to show the
desirableness, if not the necessity, of universal education
on the grounds of good citizenship alone.  Our government is of course better than the Chinese, in that it is republican, offering the same facilities nominaJly to rich
and poor; and for this very reason we should insist the
more strenuously on the education of all our citizens.
We know not who among us may be called to fill positions of honor or trust. It may fall to your lot or mine;
it may fall to the lot of the most humble individual
among us. The distribution of public offices is peculiarly uncertain.  It were better that merit and fitness
should always govern in the selection of officers; but
since they do not, let us have all prepared to assume the
duties of such offices as they may be called upon to fill.
Let us at least feel that all who are entitled to the ballot
according to the requirements of our government, are
prepared to vote understandingly. If there are voters
now who are led to the polls as oxen to the slaughter, it
is so much the more necessary that those whom we are
training to control the affairs of government hereafter,
be educated, not one-tenth nor one-half of them, but all.
It will not mend matters for political parties to cry
"Fraud!" to each other; the mistake lies to agreat
extent in the misdirected and imperfect education of the
past, and it is for the sober, thoughtful parents and 
WITH TEACHERS AND PARENTS. 207
teachers of the present generation to avoid this mistake
in the future.
Hlowever much we may boast of our free schools and
the good they have done, it is certain that education is
by no means universal.  Now, how can we remedy the
defects?  Can it be done by compulsory attendance?
Whatever the arguments in favor of compulsory attendance, it is doubtful whether it could lay claims to making
education universal, although it might do much towards
bringing about such a result. Can it be done by making
education the basis of suffrage? There is no doubt that
this would have great force. Of course there are grave
objections arising which would make it inexpedient to
put a measure of this kind in force suddenly. It were
better to adopt it with the proviso, that after a specified
time the law shall go into operation. In this way none
of those who now enjoy the right of suffrage would be'
deprived of any of their privileges. Thus, establishing
an educational basis for suffrage, it is believed that all
American citizens and those desirous of becoming such
would educate not only themselves but also their children. It would operate in this country much as the Chinese requirement of literary culture in public officers, by
securing the education of the masses. I throw out the
thought for the consideration of my readers, and I ask
them to give it some attention. It is a question which
affects the welfare of the whole republic, and on it in a
great measure depends the stability of our government.
It is not long since it was thought unnecessary to edu —
cate girls. Indeed there are sections of our own State 
208  PLAIX EDUCATIONAL TALKS
to-day, and I suppose the same is true of other States,
where this idea still prevails to some extent. A knowledge of household duties and such work as falls to the
lot of women on our farms is frequently held to be alI
that is necessary. The dweller in the city or other region
where this notion does not prevail may doubt this; but
it is true, as the statistics of the schools in the sections
referred to prove. The average attendance compared
with that of boys is often not greater than one-fourth.
It is a lamlentable fact that such notions prevail aiong
parents in many sections even at this late day.
Miss Davies, in speaking of the education of girls,
aptly says: "Some education is held to be indispensable,
but how much is an open question; and the general
indifference operates in the way of continually postponing
it to' other claims, atd, above all, in shortening the time
allotted to systematic instruction and discipline. Parents
are ready to make sacrifices to secure a tolerably good
and complete education for their sons; they do not consider it necessary to do the same for their daughters.
Or perhaps it would be putting it more fairly to say that
a very brief and attenuated course of instruction, beginning late and ending early, is believed to constitute a
good and complete education for a woman.
"A very usual course seems to be for girls to spend
their early years in a hap-hazard kind of way, either at
home or in not very regular attendance at an inferior
school, after which they are sent for a year or two to a
school or college to finish. The heads of schools complain with one voice that they are called upon to'finish' 
WITH TEACHIIERS AND PARENTS. 209
what has never been begun, and that to attempt to give
anything like a sound education in the short time at their
disposal, is perfectly hopeless." Although these remarks
were made by an English lady with special reference to
English girls, they will apply equally well to the case
of American girls.
As regards the special education of girls, I refer the
reader to Richter's "Levana."  Let me  present here
another extract from that excellent work:  "The education of daughters," says the author, "is the first and
most important business of mothers, because it may be
uninterrupted, and continue till the daughter's'hand
glides straight from the mother's into that which holds
the wedding-ring. The boy is educated by a many-toned
world, school-classes, universities, travels, business, and
libraries; the mother's mind educates the daughter."
No one is a fitter teacher of the child than the mother.
Primary schools, as generally conducted, are a sort of
necessary evil.  Home is the best school and the mother
the best teacher. It is only because so many mothers
are incompetent or have not the time to attend to their
own children that schools for smaller pupils have been
established. Were education universal, so that all m6thers would prove competent to train their own children,
we could dispense to a great extent with primary grades
of schools, unless indeed the mother were engaged in
such employment as would prevent her being the guide
and instructor of her own children.
This brings up an important question: Is a lady morally justifiable in following such a business or profession
18*                  0 
210  PLAIN EDUCATIONAL TALKS
as prevents her assuming the place which God in His
wisdom has assigned her as the moral and intellectual
guide and protector of her own offspring? I am aware
that I am touching on a question which seems to oppose
the doctrines so plausibly argued by some female lecturers of the day, but it is a question of common sense
and a question of duty to our offspring and to God. I
am willing that the reader shall answer this question for
himself or herself, as the case may be, but I don't want
it considered on exceptional cases. Let it be considered
on the basis on which an omniscient God has founded
all human society, and not on that false one which a
grumbling and discontented few would establish for us.
Let it be considered on the only ground sanctioned by
nature and religion, in which the husband is the head of
the family, as God meant he should be, and then apply
the argument of common sense, and not ridicule, and we
are prepared to answer the question intelligently.
Our education of women has thus far been too much
restricted. It is doubtful if a more important work exists
than that falling to the lot of the mother in training up
her children aright. The mother, as the regulator of
home affairs, the minister to the sick, the moral and religious guide to her husband, and children, and servants,
fills an office more important and more sacred than all
the trades, and occupations, and professions combined.
Let her not therefore covet positions which nature may
never have designed her to fill. She can have no more
honorable and holy office than the one she now graces
and ever has graced since the creation.  Although  I 
WITH TEACHERS AND PARENTS. 211
speak as a man, I know there are few sensible women
who do not fully agree with me on this question.
If my position is correct, then are all our systems of
education more or less defective, because the fundamental
principles necessary to be taught are either omitted,
or are the privilege of the few. Much of the knowledge
which should be possessed by every mother and every
teacher can be acquired only in private institutions from
which the poor are to a great extent debarred. Should
we not therefore make these privileges universal by offering as great facilities in every respect to acquire a substantial practical education in our public schools as can
be given in private institutions? It can be done. More
money will be required to pay better qualified teachers,
that those who enter the profession may have sufficient
inducement to make the necessary preparation to discharge their duties faithfully and properly; and here is
where the greatest difficulty lies.  Money is, after all, a
greater object with many men than the welfare of their
families. Let the moral guidance and the intellectual
training of the young once become the most important
items in the estimation of parents, and we shall have
little to fear.
If education is necessary for a man in order to be successful in business, why should it be less necessary for a
woman, when her work is fully as important? And if it
is necessary that the education of boys be substantial
and practical in order to prepare them to meet the wants
of their future career as business men, good citizens, or
rulers, it is no less necessary that the education of girls, 
212  PLAIN EDUCATIONAL TALKS
whose future work, if a comparison be admissible, is
higher than man's, be alsQ that which is substantial and
which will most fully prepare them for the duties of their
sacred office.
Let, therefore, the unjust distinction between boys and
girls as regards education be tolerated no longer. Our
sons need education no more than do our daughters.
The mission of the latter is no less important than that
of the former. Any discrimination then in favor of the
education of boys in preference to that of girls is not
only unwise but also unjust. Both have their work in
the world, and both need preparation and training to
perform that work properly,
Our systems of education must not discriminate between the rich and the poor. All classes must be admitted to the same privileges. The soul of the rich is
no more precious in the sight of the Lord than is that
of the poor. The brightest of intellects has often been
hid in the body of the most humble. The history of the
world's geniuses attests the truth of this. Let us therefore have a full development for every mind, whether
embodied in such as are clad. in purple and fine linen, or
in those surrounded by the extremest and most wretched
poverty.
We need education not only for the professional man
and the merchant but also for the laboring classes.
Educated labor pays.  It pays the laborer and it pays
the employer. The educated laborer always commands
higher wages than the ignorant, and it is most profitable
for the employer to have those men work for him who 
WITH TEACHERS AND PA RENTS. 213
are most intelligent, and who can therefore more fully
appreciate and understand his wants. But aside from
the pecuniary consideration, universal education has an
unlimited influence for good on the moral and mental
development of all classes. Volumes of statistics could
be cited, were it necessary, to prove that vice and crime
are on the side of ignorance.
Let us hope that the day is not distant when all
classes shall be educated, when the privileges of education which are now nominally free to all shall be in reality so; when not only our sons but also our daughters,
not only merchants and professional men but also mechanics and laborers, shall enjoy equally the advantages
of a liberal and substantial education.  Then may  we
hope to establish a government which shall no longer be
the plaything of politicians whose gold may buy the ballots of ignorant voters; for all who exercise the right of
suffrage shall then vote iot according to the dictates of
party creed and party leaders but according to the dictates of an untrammelled conscience. We shall then have
a government which in grandeur and power shall transcend the grandest conception of. the most powerful monarchies on earth. 
CHAPTER XXI.
NORMAL DEVELOPMENT.
FOR the want of some better subject as a heading to
this chapter, I have adopted that of Normal Development, under which I find it necessary to throw together
a number of partially connected thoughts on some of the
requisite methods of development, and name some of the
qualifications essential in those to-whom is intrusted the
education and government of the youth of the land.
The reader therefore who on opening this volume expects
to find a discourse on either Normal Schools or the methods
of teaching pursued in those institutions, will be disappointed, as the word normal is here used in its broadest
sense as applied to all right education.
The normal development of the child, whether mental,
moral, or physical, is the natural method. When we
attempt to'reverse the natural method and substitute one
of our own, we fail; this is inevitable, and it is right too
that we should be defeated in our plans when they conflict with those of God. There is a natural method of
developing a child's powers of mind, just as there is a
natural method of strengthening and developing its
physical powers. We wait for its limbs to grow strong
before it attempts to stand; it stands for some time before it makes any effort to walk; and we would regard
214 
PLAIN EDUCATIONAL TALKS.  215
any attempt to teach it to jump or run before it knows
how to walk as utter folly. Thus the child's physical
powers are strengthened and developed in a natural
order which cannot be subverted without injury to its
growth and strength. We understand this, and train
the child's powers accordingly. Such is, however, not
the case in the development of the child's mind. There
is here too the same natural order of development, and
yet it may be said with truth that there are indeed few
who understand this order, and fewer still who in their
educating processes take special pains to comply with its
demands. Thus in the very outstart we combat the plan
which nature dictates, and substitute one of our own.
We coop up our children by fifties, sometimes more, in
uncomfortable rooms, and set them to learning arbitrary
characters which convey to the child's mind no meaning,
and thus in the beginnihg ignore nature's method of devel    opment. It is a rare case that the child during the earliest
portion of its school-life finds itself going to school eager    ly, as it does to the fields or the woods. I would by no
means have it understood that it is this wild, frolicking
life that the child should lead.  Far from it.  Unless it
is made to feel the controlling influence of a power and
will superior to its own, there is but little hope of keep   ing it within bounds in the future. There is, however,
work into which the child enters earnestly, and therefore
profitably, long before it is really prepared for schoo4l-life.
I have in a preceding chapter referred to the proper de    velopment of the observing faculties. l Here is the start   ing-point. The change from this pleasant way of ac 
216  PLAIN EDUCATIONAL TALKS
quiring knowledge to that more tedious must be gradual.
It is not to be wondered at that pupils frequently do -not
like their earliest school-days. More of the pleasant
should be mingled with the unpleasant. We should pay
more attention to the cultivation of the observing faculties by introducing into our primary schools a course of
object lessons, and the time of confinement to the schoolroom should be shortened.
In a measure our training is sometimes abnormal, from
the fact that we ignore some of the first principles on
which all true development rests. One of these has
been spoken of in the last paragraph. Another, and the
only one to which I shall refer, is, Opposition as a means
of development. In physical development this principle
is acknowledged on all hands, because it comes home to
every one's  personal experience.   We  know that to
strengthen our bodies we  must exercise them.   The
greater strength of the farmer does not arise from his
breathing pure air, though partly owing to this.  He
grows strong by the labor he performs.  His muscles
become round, full, and rigid, according to the amount
of healthful exercise to which he subjects them. Thus,
too, the vocalist and the elocutionist strengthen and develop their vocal organs by daily practice, preparing
themselves to overcomne one difficulty by surmounting
another.  The same principle holds good in mental and
moral development.  From the moment our minds begin
to develop, they are strengthened by the opposition which
they must necessarily overcome.  It is an unwise policy
then that leads us to help children over diffciulties which 
WITH TEACHERS AND PARENTS. 217
they can surmount without assistance. Difficulties will
necessarily arise, and it is not the part of either teacher
or parent to manifest an improper eagerness and haste
to remove them so long as they are not of such a character as to baffle the child's efforts. Each victory gained
but helps to strengthen the child, and the more bitter the
struggle the sweeter the fruits of victory. In moral
training too the same principles should govern us. Each
temptation resisted and each act of self-denial practised
makes the child all the stronger and better able to resist
such temptations as may rise in the future.
It is a fact worthy of notice that while there has been
much discussion on school-government and methods of
teaching, there has been as yet but little discussion with
regard to the relative value of the different kinds of
knowledge. It is a question on which educators seem
extremely sensitive. The graduate of the literary school
lays great stress on the languages; calling those who do
not believe with him utilitarians and men who cannot
comprehend the profundity of thought which characterized the days of heathen deities and gods. The alumni
of the scientific school, on the other hand, hold that too
much time is given to languages and too little to the
"culture demanded by the times," calling their opponents
old fogies. Both are jealous of the position their opponents hold, and both in the heat of argument say too
much in favor of their special culture. It is not my
province here to advocate the dogmas of either party,
but is it not a matter of some importance to know the
bearing which useful knowledge has on normal culture?
19 
218  PLAIN EDUCATIONAL TALKS
The great arguments of both schools rest on this. Each
claims that his course of study is most useful either as
a discipline or from its own inherent value. It is, then,
important to every one that the relative value of different
kinds of knowledge be settled, that we may at once pursue the study of that which is most useful, and thus best
calculated to meet all the ends of a true normal development.
I know no better way of closing this chapter, and with
it the book, than by saying briefly a few words to parents and teachers with regard to their qualifications for
governing and educating children, and of the reward in
store for those who do their work well. First, then, they
must feel a personal interest in the work. It is scarcely
credible that- there are those among parents who do not
feel a deep, abiding interest in the proper culture of their
children, and yet, strange as it may seem, there are such.
And how many are there too who take little if any thought
for the welfare of their children; who never for a moment stop to think what vicious influence their example
may have I And of teachers, of how many may it be
said that salary and rest from physical toil are not the
strongest motives that lead them to adopt the profession?
Would that parents would take a deeper interest in the
development of their children, and that teachers too
would feel at all times the unlimited power they have for
good in assisting this development.
Those who are engaged in this good work will meet
with many trials. Children at best are but poor, frail
mortals, our own miniatures, and we need to be charita 
WITH TEACHERS AND PARENTS. 219
ble to their faults and shortcomings. Day after day they
may be guilty of little acts of indiscretion which are
annoying to those having them in charge; but with the
exercise of patience, we can overcome all these.  No one
needs greater patience than the teacher and the parent.
Lastly, we must be prayerful. Any system of education, as I have before said, which attempts without God's
help to produce fruit, is and must be vicious, it matters
not what its name. God, the head and source of crea-tion, must here also be the source from which we seek
help arid guidance. The man who is not a believer in
God is dangerous everywhere, but nowhere more so than
in the family or the school-room as the guide and governor of children.  See to it, parents, that you set an
example here too for your children which shall not only
be worthy of imitation, but which shall direct and lead
your little ones to the Saviour, who has so beautifully
said, "Suffer little children to come unto me, and forbid
them not, for of such is the kingdom of Heaven."
Is not the reward ample? Who does not experience
a feeling of satisfaction when he finds himself the doer
of a good deed or the performer of a good act?  How
much greater pride may we feel in ourselves and in our
work if we train up our children aright! But this is not
the only reward. The gratitude of our children in after
life, the influence we exercise for good on society, and
-the praise we receive for our good work, are each a sufficient reward for the toil we may undergo. Add to these
the crown with which Christ shall bedeck the brow of
the faithful, and the hope of meeting in a world of bliss
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220 PLAIN EDUCATIONAL TALKS.
to come all those who under our guidance and instruction,
with the assistance of God, have attained an eternal inheritance with the angels, and whose lutes join with ours
in praising the great Jehovah, and is not our measure
full to overflowing? Think of it, parents and teachers,
are not the pure love of a crucified Saviour and the approving smile of a just and all-wise God more than we
could ask? And yet we shall have these. Enter into
the work then prayerfully, and let us by wise and proper
culture aim to produce a generation of well-developed
men and women, who shall be an honor to their Maker
and living monuments of His love, and grace, and beauty;
and when we come to have sentence passed upon us,
may it be said, "Well done, good and faithful servant;
thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make
thee ruler over many things; enter thou into the joy of
thy Lord."
THE END.