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that might have followed. Only while the instincts and perceptions of the child are developing and while the will and intelligence are weak should the will and intelligence of the parent be substituted for those of the child. As he grows stronger under the wise, kindly guidance of parent and teacher in the home, the kindergarten and the school, assistance from these should be gradually withdrawn until, when he graduates from school, he is capable of governing himself. How unwise of parents and teachers to begrudge children any exercise of their own will!

Habits are not moral acts though they are valuable aids to the formation of character. A child may be taught to take its sleep at the same hour each day and to perform many other acts quite automatically. But a moral act is an act done in conformity with the moral law and requires the active exercise of all the child's powers. For the carry

ing out of any moral act there must be an alternative course of action, the will to perform the acts and knowledge of the moral law. Therefore we see the necessity of gradually opening up opportunities to the child and giving him beforehand knowledge enough to act rightly. When the child has not been trained to think and act for himself, where the will and the intellect of the parent have decided all moral questions, the sudden withdrawal of the parent has been disastrous. The child is like a rudderless vessel tossed hither and thither on the sea of life. A child in play is left pretty much to himself in making moral distinctions. This is his free spontaneous practice ground of the moral virtues. Froebel very wisely would use play as an educative factor in the child's life, but take away from the child the power of expressing himself and so-called play becomes work.

"Childhood is the slumber of reason," says Rousseau. His poor Emile's reason certainly had a long sleep. Childhood is the wake time of the imagination; and it is through the imagination that the child's most important lessons in character forming are to come. If you want a child to be unselfish let him practise little acts of kindness, to be gentle acts of gentleness, to be a hero little acts of heroism from examples to be found in the stories, fables and parables read or told to him from the children's classics. Tell the child an abundance of good stories illustrative of humility, self confidence, bravery, cowardice, truthfulness, lying, honesty

dishonesty. You may trust children to apply the moral whether expressed or implied.

The dawn of reason, the questioning age of the child, may be made very useful in character forming.

Into the kindergarten some fine morning comes a little being throbbing with life, full of hereditary impulses bad and good, teeming with habits acquired in the home from judicious or injudicious parents, full of hopes and fears and little aims for itself. What is the kindergarten going to do to help this child to build up a noble character? Froebel answers, "I would educate human beings, who with their feet stand rooted in God's earth, in nature, whose heads. reach even unto heaven and there behold truth, in whose hearts are united both earth and heaven, the varied life of earth and nature and the glory and peace of heaven-God's earth and God's heaven." And so through the whole school life of the child. But this end is obtained by different methods at different periods of life. The big boy takes no interest in the fairy tale or fable of the child but revels in tales of adventures by land and by sea. As the child grows his duties increase in number, for his field of operation widens; but he is making for the goal of manhood, the time, when he too, a citizen of this fair country, shall take its interests to be his interests, shall sink his own petty schemes and live for the common good.

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Lastly, let us for a few moments consider what the school proper is doing toward the upbuilding of character. The simultaneous exercises of the school-room are useful. very simple act of marching has a decided mental and moral effect. The quick alert soft rhythmical tread of the young soldier inspires order in mind and morals. Some boys in walking lurch forward their shoulders dragging the rest of their anatomy after them as a dead weight. Teachers must sound a note of warning with respect to the way boys ride their wheels or we shall have the descent of man proved much more easily and conclusively than his "ascent" has been.

We are using neither the penitentiary form of government nor leaving the child entirely without control; but are striking a happy means.

We are teaching the child to compare his work with his own earlier work rather than with that of another at the same period.

We are not making fear but right the most potent factor in government.

The attention of the child is drawn to nature and its order especially to the fact that as the breaking of a natural law is followed by punishment of the offender, so the breaking of the moral law injures the one who breaks it.

The teacher never speaks of the Bible--our ideal moral guide-except in the most thoughtful and reverential way, never paraphrasing or simplifying it in a silly manner. The strong Scotch character is largely due to the Scotch getting Bible teaching without adulteration.

When studying the Bible historically the teacher impresses the child with the thought that he accepts the teachings of the Bible as his rule of life. Each day's work is begun with reading a portion of scripture and with prayer, all conducted in the most reverential manner possible.

History and other subjects are used as a means of moral instruction. Great wars, especially long continued struggles. have been the birth throes of great moral ideas. Narrow views of citizenship are avoided by studying the history, national contests and many heroes of many nations.

We are teaching the children not to despise manual labour-the workshop for all boys, cooking and sewing for the girls.

We are teaching the right use of books. We decorate the walls of our school-rooms with imperishable thought in noble language. "Punctuality begets confidence." "Trifles make perfection, but perfection is no trifle." There is not

a moment without some duty," and so on and so on.

But above all and beyond all we are assuming a high moral standard from the whole school, pupils and teachers alike, without regard to doctrine or creed. The principals of our schools and the teachers are men and women of sound moral character. A teacher has no right to hold a lower ideal of morality than the highest which the national life affords. We are raising the educational ideal notch by notch. Some one, very frequently a teacher, with a new moral idea or an old moral idea reclothed, arises. Men of average ability seize upon the idea, enter it upon their own moral tablets and raise the moral standard of the race by passing it on by heredity to the next generation. Thus a nation is uplifted. Names crowd upon us as we think of this. We must not be content with not letting the school

child of to-day go back morally, but we must strive to place him a notch higher than we found him, so that this generation may be a step in advance of the one that preceded it. I am proud of the noble army of teachers of this city and of this Province. Let me close with the words of Titcomb, “Dr. Arnold was a great school-master, simply because he was a great man. His fitness for hearing recitations was the smallest part of his fitness for teaching. Indeed, it was nothing but what he shared in common with the most indifferent of his assistants at Rugby. His fitness for teaching consisted in his knowledge of human nature and the world, his pure and lofty aims, his self-denying devotion to the work which employed his time and powers, his lofty example, his strong, generous, magnetic manhood. That which fitted him peculiarly for teaching would have fitted him peculiarly for other high offices in the service of men. He was rare historian with a minute knowledge and a philosophical appreciation of modern times, and that mastery of antiquity, which enabled him to write a history of Rome, characterized by competent critics as the best history in the language. His excellence as a teacher did not reside in his eminence as a scholar and a man of science, but in that power to lead and inspire--to reinforce and fructifythe young minds that were placed in his care. He filled those minds with noble thoughts. He trained them to labour with right motives, for grand ends. He baptized them with his own sweet and strong spirit. He glorified the dull routine of toil by keeping before the toilers the end of their toil-a grand character--that power of manhood of which so noble an example was found in himself."

Editorial Notes and Comments.

READERS of the EDUCATIONAL RECORD will doubtless read with a good deal of interest what one of the educational papers of England has to say of things educational in Canada. In a recent number of the Educational Journal appeared this paragraph:-

Canada from East to West was greatly roused, educationally, a year ago by the visit of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, which held its sessions in Toronto. It was another bond between the mother country and our colony, and was auspicious in every respect. After this great educational revival it was but natural that the

summer which has just closed might seem dull. However, as an offset to this indication of quietness, the Dominion Educational Association held a rousing meeting in Halifax. Nova Scotia, and thus gave the extreme East the benefit of the inspiration which the West had received during the visit of the noted scientists. The Eastern portion of Canada, like the corresponding portion of the United States, is much more conservative, less ready to adopt new ideas and enter on new lines of action than the West, but, when once these things have been determined upon, they are carried through with an accuracy and a thoroughness which are enviable. Their universities are small and have but few professors; yet they are the recruiting ground for many of the higher institutions abroad, especially Edinburgh and Harvard, where the solidity, determination, and conscientiousness of the Eastern Canadian students are recognized by the bestowal of honours in the graduate departments This opens up a subject which is creating a great deal of interest in university circles in Canada, viz., the large number of university graduates who are seeking graduate instruction in the universities of the United States, and who, finding remunerative positions in that country, forswear their allegiance and help to build up a better citizenship across the border. While the United States gains most desirable citizens, Canada loses the fresh young vigorous blood that she so much needs to develop her great resources. There is a steady flow towards the South, and there are but few universities of any note in the United States on the faculties of which there are not Canadians. We feel that it is about time that the old universities of Great Britain made better arrangements for graduate work, for there are many men in the colonies who would prefer to study at Oxford and Cambridge if the facilities were anything like adequate in their needs. It seems that here is a chance for the universities to help in the great Imperial movement which has taken such strong hold since the Jubilee. There is a distinct demand, and we await the kind of supply that will be proffered. The University of Toronto prefers to keep its position in the front rank of universities doing undergraduate work to jeopardizing its status by embarking upon graduate work This is a most sensible course, for, while it is thoroughly equipped for the needs of the twelve hundred Arts students, the endow

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