ands as the human
constitution will bear. For every reason then, a healthy mind in a
healthy body is the first thing to be sought. It is to be borne in mind
that the first thing Nature sets us to do, is committing to memory--and
experience will show that this is the natural first function of the
young scholar. Three languages can be better learned under eight years
of age, than the simplest lessons in grammar, arithmetic, or
history--unless these are confined to rules, tables, or dates, which
may be most profitably committed, exactly as "Mother Goose" is. I take
pains to allude to this, because I think great harm has been done of
late by the axiom that a child should not learn anything but what it
understands.

This is not true of any of us, young or old. We must learn many things
before we can understand one; and nothing is so unsuited to young
brains, as prolonged efforts to understand. Intellectual processes
differ after we become old enough to understand; not only in the two
sexes, but in every two individuals. Of this fact we must take heed, or
all comfort will be destroyed and much unnecessary work done.

How then are we to lay the foundations of a sincere education? We must
begin with the religious, the moral, and the emotional nature. We must
sustain the relations God imposes on parent and child.

We must bring the child face to face with the fact that this is a "hard"
world. By that I mean, a world in which difficulties are to be fairly
met--not shirked, set aside, or "got round."

To help her to endure this hardness to the end, she must be taught a
simple trust in God, and an obedient but by no means slavish deference
towards parents, teachers, and elders.

Without this trust and this obedience, every child leads an unhappy and
unnatural life; and their existence may be made sure without one word of
dogmatic teaching. Having given to the well-poised mind these inward
helps, which all true growth requires, we must secure simple food, easy
dress, regular meals, and the proper quantity of sleep.

The child is then prepared for the steady work of mind and body which
will develop both.

While we do everything to make knowledge attractive and to stimulate
thought when the time for thought arrives, we must be careful never to
yield to the superficial demands of our people. The Kindergarten, which
is refreshment and help to the plodding German child, may become a snare
to the light-minded American.

When the