ns of adequate preparation. As a nation it
seems to be with us at present as it was with the people of Israel in
the days of Eli: "the word of the Lord was precious (or scarce) in
those days; there was no open vision." We seem to have come to a time
of civilisation in which there is much surface refinement and a
widespread veneer of superficial knowledge, but in which there is
little enthusiasm and in which the great aim and object of teaching
and of training is but too little realised. In the endeavour to know a
little of all things we seem to have lost the capacity for true and
exhaustive knowledge of anything. It would appear as if the remedy for
this most unsatisfactory state of things has to commence long before
the years of adolescence, even while the child is yet in its cradle.
The old-fashioned ideas of duty, obedience, and discipline must be
once more household words and living entities before the race can
enter on a period of regeneration. We want a poet with the logic of
Browning, the sweetness of Tennyson, and the force of Rudyard Kipling,
to sing a song that would penetrate through indifference, sloth, and
love of pleasure, and make of us the nation that we might be, and of
which the England of bygone years had the promise.

Speaking specially with regard to girls, let us first remember that
the highest earthly ideal for a woman is that she should be a good
wife and a good mother. It is not necessary to say this in direct
words to every small girl, but she ought to be so educated, so guided,
as to instinctively realise that wifehood and motherhood is the flower
and perfection of her being. This is the hope and ideal that should
sanctify her lessons and sweeten the right and proper discipline of
life. All learning, all handicraft, and all artistic training should
take their place as a preparation to this end. Each generation that
comes on to the stage of life is the product of that which preceded
it. It is the flower of the present national life and the seed of that
which is to come. We ought to recognise that all educational aims and
methods are really subordinate to this great end; if this were
properly realised by adolescents it would be of the greatest service
and help in their training. The deep primal instinct of fatherhood and
motherhood would help them more than anything else to seek earnestly
and successfully for the highest attainable degree of perfection of
their own bodies, their own minds, and t