plenty of tillable ground, I know of nothing that will at once be so pleasing and so beneficial to them as a share in the estate. That is, give to each one a little flowerbed, or garden patch to take care of, and allow them all to make whatever use of the products they may see fit. If they choose to give them to the poor or to sell them, let them do so. They will take a much greater pride in this patch of ground and in attending to it carefully than one would suppose, and at the same time they gain much valuable knowledge, and contract habits that will adhere to them through life. There is nothing a boy covets so much as this starting out in business for himself while under the guiding eye of his parents. I sometimes think that much improvement would soon be manifested by the adoption of a plan of this kind, especially in the taste displayed in laying out grounds and ornamenting and beautifying homes. If it accomplished nothing more than this it would be invaluable: but it would also serve to throw a charm around home-life of which too many homes are now devoid, and obedience to all commands and requests would be both more cheerful and more prompt.

CHAPTER XVI.

MORAL CULTURE.

TRANGE as it may seem, that education which is

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to fit man for the most important duties of this life as well as for the enjoyments of the rewards and pleasures of the eternal life to follow, receives the least attention. While daily lessons are recited in the various branches of intellectual study, while pupils day after day are instructed how to exercise their physical powers most beneficially, while every effort is made to impart such practical instruction as will enable them to count up the interest on their bank-notes and calculate their loss and gain in business, or teach them the shortest route to Greenland or New Zealand, nothing in the way of formal training of the moral powers is attempted. Indeed, among parents, those upon whom rests the greatest responsibility in this matter, often little attention is paid to the subject.

I do not believe that man can be trained truly intellectually without being trained morally, nor can there be such a physical culture as God designs us to have, without heart-training as well. True, much of our system of education seems to ignore this culture, and we speak of carrying a young man through college or through the university without paying any attention to

his moral training. But so may we also take a bundle of nerves, and fibres, and bones, and sinews, and toughen them to the tenacity of steel, but we have not produced a symmetrical specimen of manhood. It is hard to tell what name we ought to apply in the case of purely intellectual education. I know of no word in our language that would serve as a name for it. In the case of pure physical culture, we have produced little more than a brute, a shoulder-hitter, a prize-fighter. The purely intellectual produces men without consciences; men who live that they may grow rich, who accumulate their wealth through the privations, trials, and sufferings of their employees; who coin the very sweat of their workmen into gold. It gives us too our political sharks and tricksters. We have been too long afflicted with the fruits of this culture. Men without honesty, integrity, and the other cardinal virtues, are working all around us. Everywhere their lank, bony fingers are drawing in the gold or clutching the clasps of the public purse.

Does any one question the necessity of more method in our moral culture? Let him consult the statistics of our almshouse and prison reports. Let him visit the dens in our larger towns and cities. Let him enter some of our legislative halls, and see the corruption that everywhere stalks abroad. Day after day we are compelled to look upon pictures of degradation in politics, which are sufficient to bring the indignant blush to the cheek of every honest man. The morality of office-hunting

has indeed sunk so low that our best men are loth to be found in the company of wire-working politicians. There

are, of course, honorable exceptions, and these are worthy of our highest regard and most implicit confidence; but unfortunately for the public, the weak ones who fall an easy prey to the tempter are neither few nor inactive. The political axes to be ground are effective weapons in destroying public morals. Not competency, but the ability to return a political favor, too often decides the selec tion of candidates. What is the cause of all this? Evidently it is the strongest argument that can be urged in favor of more methodical moral culture.

There is no doubt that much of the crime that we find chronicled in the public press arises from a defective system of moral culture. Children too often are permitted to train themselves. The mind of the child is pliant and impressible, and too great care cannot be exercised by parents in the associations it makes. It meets sights which are ill calculated to make a good impression on it. Children permitted to roam the streets at will at all hours of the night, and be the witnesses of every street fight that may occur, are certainly not receiving the best training of either their observing faculties or their moral powers. These vicious habits formed early in life are extremely difficult to eradicate. They are like weeds: the more flourishing the less the soil is tilled on which they grow.

An important question arises here as to when moral culture should begin. No doubt it is usually postponed too long. Little attention is paid to it during the earlier years of life. Nothing could be more fatal than this negligence. The child longs to be free from the treat

ment he receives, and he gladly hails the day which looses him from the bonds that bind him to his home. Moral nurture should begin when the physical nurture begins. There is no more important period than the first few years of the child's life. Of course the nurture must be suited to the nature of the child. We must not expect to subject it during the first year of its existence to the same moral treatment that we would in the future, any more than we would subject it to a diet suited only to the wants of an adult. The method of culture must be suited to infancy, and this must be followed by such culture as is appropriate to the successive stages of bodily development. We cannot tell the precise time at which the age of responsibility begins in any child. But we must not suppose that previous to its period of responsi bility there may be no moral training. As well might we suppose that the body does not grow during this time. There is much to be done from the first day of the child's existence throughout its whole period of infancy. It is altogether a mistake to conclude that because a child cannot talk, there can therefore be no impression made on its moral nature. This is in reality the age at which the moral principles and moral character of the parent can be most effectively impressed on the child's mind. The whole life of the child is at this stage one of impressions. There is not a motion made. in its presence that does not make an impression for weal or woe on its future. Every note of praise, or joy, or love, or pity every discordant outbreak of temper or other mischievous indiscretion, is but so much proper or