pen or chance--will form a prominent feature of
training in every well-ordered school. All the muscles of the body will be
in turn exercised, developed. The ancient Greeks afforded us here also a
wise example, which we have signally failed to imitate.

Let us secure for our children all the advantages we can from an
enlightened and natural system of education, and do all we can to perfect
both mind and body. How often is the cry repeated, "Mamma, tell me a
story," and mamma, tired and weary, says she is too busy, or, for the want
of a better, tells over again for the hundredth time, "Little Red Riding
Hood," or some other equally foolish or more injurious tale, such as
Bluebeard or Cinderella. Anecdotes of great men, suitably arranged, events
in history and biography, carrying with them valuable and important
morals, will afford all the amusement the child desires, without
developing a love for the marvellous and false, which leads it away in
infancy from the simple, truthful, and natural. If children are to be
taught to think naturally and truthfully, we can not begin too young, and
it is the duty of parents to remember that Valentine and Orson,
Cinderella, Bluebeard, and such stories, are a web of false and
exaggerated statements that will, and do produce injurious effects upon
the child's mind. The story of Aladdin's Lamp has made many a child desire
to enjoy wealth without labor, and has exerted a most pernicious, though
unsuspected, influence upon his future. Children, not less than men, seek
an easy road to the objects of their desires; and while works of
imagination are to be by no means discarded in mental training, such
should not be selected as give false notions of the busy and industrial
life into which the child is to be introduced. Even in the choice and use
of the finest works of fiction, the greatest caution is necessary. The
little one can hardly distinguish between a fable that amuses it, and a
lie told to shield it from punishment. If it hear nothing but truth, it
will know nothing but truth; and a truthful mind is a glorious thing to
behold in children as in men. "An idle brain is the devil's workshop;"
therefore let there be no idle brains, but let all work usefully and
pleasantly. Usefully we say, for even amusement is useful. We live in a
world of use, in a world of beauty, a world that can be greatly improved,
and human happiness largely increased, according as we avail ourselves of
the knowledge