ght hand, manifestly well satisfied with this
declaration of his noble sentiments, he said,--

"Would you be willing to give me an exposition in a few words of the
principles and method you must employ in the training of my son?"

"The method to be marked out in any particular case, the course I
should adopt in actual instruction, I myself do not as yet know."

"What! you yourself not even know that?"

"I must take my method from Roland himself, for it must be adapted to
the pupil's natural characteristics. Let me take an illustration from
your own surroundings. You see here the river. The boatmen have sounded
the bottom, and knowing where the shoal-banks are, keep well clear of
them. So must I, first of all, fathom, in the peculiar sense of that
word, the depths of Roland's nature."

Eric looking up continued:--

"Or let me take a yet more pertinent illustration. If you see that your
servants, in going from the house to the servants' quarters, take by
preference a short cut over a grass-plot artistically measured and laid
out, you will, if it is possible, give in to this beaten track, and not
obstinately adhere to your artificial plan, however correct it
may be, and however much in conformity with the principles of
landscape-gardening. You will adopt this natural foot-path as a part of
your plan. This is the method adapted to circumstances. Such
thoroughfares are found also in human beings."

Sonnenkamp smiled; he had, in fact, tried very hard, by means of
stringent prohibitions, to keep a bed of shrubbery in the middle of the
court-yard free from foot-passengers, and finally had laid out a
pathway through it.

"Agreed as to the method, but how about the principles?" He smiled with
self-satisfaction, for he perceived how nice a distinction he had
drawn. The man had made him conscious that, in an intellectual
struggle, he had here no mean antagonist.

"Here I must take a wider range," resumed Eric. "The great contest,
which runs through the history of humanity and the whole of human life,
shows itself in the most direct way in the training of one human being
by another; for here the two elementary forces confront each other as
living personalities. I may briefly designate them as individuality and
authority, or historic civilization and nature."

"I understand--I understand, go on!" was thrown in encouragingly by
Sonnenkamp, when Eric paused for a moment, anxious not to get lost in
generalities.

"The educ