tificial
world. In a real world, the best we can do is to meet the plagues
of life as Dick Turpin met the hangman's noose, "with manly
resignation, though with considerable disgust." Moreover,
disagreeable things are often very stimulating. A visit to some
beautiful little rural almshouses in England convinced me that what
kept the old inmates alert and in love with life was, not the charm
of their bright-coloured gardens, nor the comfort of their cottage
hearths, but the vital jealousies and animosities which pricked
their sluggish blood to tingling.

There are prophets who predict the downfall of the human race through
undue mental development, who foresee us (flatteringly, I must say)
winding up the world's history in a kind of intellectual apotheosis.
They write distressing pages about the strain of study in schools,
the strain of examinations, the strain of competition, the strain
of night-work, when children ought to be in bed, the strain of
day-work, when they ought to be at play. An article on "Nerves and
Over-Pressure" in the "Dublin Review" conveys the impression that
little boys and girls are dangerously absorbed in their lessons, and
draws a fearful picture of these poor innocents literally "grinding
from babyhood." It is over-study (an evil from which our remote
ancestors were wholly and happily exempt) which lays, so we are told,
the foundation of all our nervous disorders. It is this wasting
ambition which exhausts the spring of childhood and the vitality of
youth.

There must be some foundation for fears so often expressed; though
when we look at the blooming boys and girls of our acquaintance, with
their placid ignorance and their love of fun, their glory in
athletics and their transparent contempt for learning, it is hard
to believe that they are breaking down their constitutions by study.
Nor is it possible to acquire even the most modest substitute for
education without some effort. The carefully fostered theory that
school-work can be made easy and enjoyable breaks down as soon as
anything, however trivial, has to be learned.

Life is a real thing in the school-room and in the nursery; and
children--left to their own devices--accept it with wonderful
courage and sagacity. If we allow to their souls some noble and free
expansion, they may be trusted to divert themselves from that fretful
self-consciousness which the nurse calls naughtiness, and the doctor,
nerves. A little wholesome neglect, a l