This type of change is realized through the ascent of thought to the contemplation of causal energies, and in the self-determination of the will through altruistic ideals. To attain the stadium of selfchange is to become free and immortal-free because emancipated from external coercion and seduction, immortal because possessing the power of realizing all potentialities and transcending all defects.

We are becoming familiar with the idea that the condition of the young child presents many analogies to that of the hypnotic patient, and that as the latter responds to the suggestions of the operator, so the former responds to the suggestions of his environment. Professor Baldwin tested the regularity of the operation of suggestion by arranging attractive objects about a room in such a way that only after reaching one could his little daughter see the next. He found her, of course, the victim of this device, and she rushed with avidity from one object to another.* It is, however, important to remember that all children do not respond in the same manner to the same suggestion. Approach your face to one baby and you get a scratch, ap

* Mental Development, James Mark Baldwin, p. 385.

*

proach it to another and you receive a caress. Hold up before one child a number of attractive objects, and his mind is. paralyzed by colliding desires. Hold the same objects before a different child and he immediately seizes one and neglects all the rest. The individuality of each child influences the form of his reaction to external stimuli, or, differently stated, the native bias of temperament acts as an unconscious motive in determining the choice. Moral life begins when conscious motives take the place of blind impulsion. Where these are lacking there is self-determination in the forms of impulse and desire. Where they are present there is self-determination in its highest potency as free will.

Even while the child is still borne along by the current of mere natural impulse the mother may do much to help or hinder his moral development. By appealing to activity, sympathy, kindness, generosity she may increase the energy of these elemental forces; by appealing to selfishness and vanity she may augment the power of these despotic passions.

* " Caligula recognized the legitimacy of his daughter because of the early brutality with which she attacked the eyes and cheeks of other infants who were presented to her as playfellows."-De Quincy's Cæsars, p. 86.

But the highest privilege of motherhood is to aid the child to generate conscious ideals and win him to obey them. The means of realizing this double purpose are worthy examples, well-considered approval, reproof, and punishment; the direction of the child's observation to the recoil of his deeds; stories, songs, poems, and pictures, portraying right and wrong actions belonging to the level of consciousness he has attained.

Several cautions are necessary. The first is that in judging the actions of children we must be careful to study their motives, and avoid the too common error of reading into them our own stronger and more conscious feelings. Little children are neither so bad nor so good as we think them when we explain them by ourselves. Much of the injustice done them arises from imputing to them deliberately evil intentions impossible in a stage of development whose characteristic mark is simple incontinence, while conversely our undue praise of their virtue arises from transferring to them by analogy our own spiritual struggles and victories. The second caution is that since the child can appreciate only the consequences which follow close upon the heels of action he must be incited to effort and self

control, not by the remote but by the immediate fruits of his deeds. Our moral appeals are often fruitless just because we are blind to this truth, and instead of calling attention to near results threaten the child with that distant and to him indifferent future when he shall be a man, or appeal to him by motives borrowed from the more remote and hence less potent hereafter of death. Finally, since good is conquered evil, and we learn what is right by finding out what is wrong, it is of prime importance to hold up to imagination examples of deeds to be shunned, and this is the reason why Froebel in the All-Gone picture shows the outcome of those impulsive errors into which little children are most prone to fall. In the commentary on Falling Falling, in the pictures and commentaries relating to the Fishes and the Light Bird, in the Broken Window, the Shadow Songs, the Knights and the Bad Child, he likewise portrays negative deeds, and shows their results. That in many songs and pictures he presents actions to be emulated goes without saying. Like our traditional tales where the virtues of the hero or heroine are thrown into relief by contrast with a bad brother or sister, like the Bible stories of Cain and Abel, Noah and the wicked world,

Esau and Jacob, Joseph and his brethren, David and Saul; like the revelation of good in Dante's Purgatory through positive and negative examples, the Mother-Play allures the heart by the beauty of the ideal, and defines this ideal by picturing the outcome of deeds which contradict it.

One of the commonest mistakes in education is the presentation of ideals for which the mind is not prepared. Whenever this is done it either confuses the child's intellect, leaves him indifferent, arouses his antagonism, or betrays him into hypocrisy. Rousseau tells a good story of a little boy whom he heard glibly relating the celebrated anecdote of Alexander the Great and his trusted physician. The latter had prescribed for the king a medicinal draught. Alexander was told that it was poisoned. But he had reason to trust the character of his physician, so he quietly told the latter what he had heard, and then drank the medicine. understand the point of this story it is necessary to know how many dangers beset one who wears a crown; how discerning must be the mind of him who, surrounded by false and faithless men, clearly recognizes those who may be trusted; and how heroic is the heart which dares to stake life rather

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