n and
how far they have understood, and the greater the anxiety shown to get
at their real mind the less are they either able or willing to make it
known; so it is the quieter and less active observers who see the
most, and those who observe most are best aware how little can be
known.

Yet there are some things which may serve as points of the compass,
especially in the transitional years when the features both of face
and character begin to accentuate themselves. One of these is the
level of friendships. There are some who look by instinct for the
friendship of those above them, and others habitually seek a lower
level, where there is no call to self-restraint. Boys who hang about
the stables, girls who like the conversation of servants; boys and
girls who make friends in sets at school, among the less desirable,
generally do so from a love of ease and dislike of that restraint and
effort which every higher friendship calls for; they can be _somebody_
at a very cheap cost where the standard of talk is not exacting,
whereas to be with those who are striving for the best in any station
makes demands which call for exertion, and the taste for this higher
level, the willingness to respond to its claims, give good promise
that those who have it will in their turn draw others to the things
that are best.

The attitude of a child towards books is also indicative of the whole
background of a mind; the very way in which a book is handled is often
a sign in itself of whether a child is a citizen born, or an alien, in
the world for which books stand. Taste in reading, both as to quality
and quantity, is so obviously a guiding line that it need scarcely be
mentioned.

Play is another line in which character shows itself, and reveals
another background against which the scenes of life in the future will
stand out, and in school life the keenest and best spirits will
generally divide into these two groups, the readers and the players,
with a few, rarely gifted, who seem to excel in both. From the readers
will come those who are to influence the minds of others here, if they
do not let themselves be carried out too far to keep in touch with
real life. From the players will come those whose gift is readiness
and decision in action, if they on their side do not remain mere
players when life calls for something more.

There are other groups, the born artists with their responsive minds,
the "home children" for whom everything cen