are most intelligent, and who can therefore more fully appreciate and understand his wants. But aside from the pecuniary consideration, universal education has an unlimited influence for good on the moral and mental development of all classes. Volumes of statistics could be cited, were it necessary, to prove that vice and crime are on the side of ignorance.

Let us hope that the day is not distant when all classes shall be educated, when the privileges of education which are now nominally free to all shall be in reality so; when not only our sons but also our daughters, not only merchants and professional men but also mechanics and laborers, shall enjoy equally the advantages of a liberal and substantial education. Then may.we hope to establish a government which shall no longer be the plaything of politicians whose gold may buy the ballots of ignorant voters; for all who exercise the right of suffrage shall then vote not according to the dictates of party creed and party leaders but according to the dictates of an untrammelled conscience. We shall then have a government which in grandeur and power shall transcend the grandest conception of the most powerful monarchies on earth.

CHAPTER XXI.

NORMAL DEVELOPMENT.

OR the want of some better subject as a heading to

FOR

this chapter, I have adopted that of Normal Development, under which I find it necessary to throw together a number of partially connected thoughts on some of the requisite methods of development, and name some of the qualifications essential in those to whom is intrusted the education and government of the youth of the land. The reader therefore who on opening this volume expects to find a discourse on either Normal Schools or the methods of teaching pursued in those institutions, will be disappointed, as the word normal is here used in its broadest sense as applied to all right education.

The normal development of the child, whether mental, moral, or physical, is the natural method. When we attempt to reverse the natural method and substitute one of our own, we fail; this is inevitable, and it is right too that we should be defeated in our plans when they conflict with those of God. There is a natural method of developing a child's powers of mind, just as there is a natural method of strengthening and developing its physical powers. We wait for its limbs to grow strong before it attempts to stand; it stands for some time before it makes any effort to walk; and we would regard

any attempt to teach it to jump or run before it knows how to walk as utter folly. Thus the child's physical powers are strengthened and developed in a natural order which cannot be subverted without injury to its growth and strength. We understand this, and train. the child's powers accordingly. Such is, however, not the case in the development of the child's mind. There is here too the same natural order of development, and yet it may be said with truth that there are indeed few who understand this order, and fewer still who in their educating processes take special pains to comply with its demands. Thus in the very outstart we combat the plan which nature dictates, and substitute one of our own. We coop up our children by fifties, sometimes more, in uncomfortable rooms, and set them to learning arbitrary characters which convey to the child's mind no meaning, and thus in the beginning ignore nature's method of development. It is a rare case that the child during the earliest portion of its school-life finds itself going to school eagerly, as it does to the fields or the woods. I would by no means have it understood that it is this wild, frolicking life that the child should lead. Far from it. Unless it is made to feel the controlling influence of a power and will superior to its own, there is but little hope of keeping it within bounds in the future. There is, however, work into which the child enters earnestly, and therefore profitably, long before it is really prepared for school-life. I have in a preceding chapter referred to the proper development of the observing faculties. Here is the starting-point. The change from this pleasant way of ac

quiring knowledge to that more tedious must be gradual. It is not to be wondered at that pupils frequently do not like their earliest school-days. More of the pleasant should be mingled with the unpleasant. We should pay more attention to the cultivation of the observing faculties by introducing into our primary schools a course of object lessons, and the time of confinement to the schoolroom should be shortened.

In a measure our training is sometimes abnormal, from the fact that we ignore some of the first principles on which all true development rests. One of these has been spoken of in the last paragraph. Another, and the only one to which I shall refer, is, Opposition as a means of development. In physical development this principle is acknowledged on all hands, because it comes home to every one's personal experience. We know that to strengthen our bodies we must exercise them. The greater strength of the farmer does not arise from his breathing pure air, though partly owing to this. He grows strong by the labor he performs. His muscles become round, full, and rigid, according to the amount of healthful exercise to which he subjects them. Thus, too, the vocalist and the elocutionist strengthen and develop their vocal organs by daily practice, preparing themselves to overcome one difficulty by surmounting another. The same principle holds good in mental and moral development. From the moment our minds begin -to develop, they are strengthened by the opposition which they must necessarily overcome. It is an unwise policy then that leads us to help children over difficulties which

they can surmount without assistance. Difficulties will necessarily arise, and it is not the part of either teacher or parent to manifest an improper eagerness and haste to remove them so long as they are not of such a character as to baffle the child's efforts. Each victory gained but helps to strengthen the child, and the more bitter the struggle the sweeter the fruits of victory. In moral training too the same principles should govern us. Each temptation resisted and each act of self-denial practised makes the child all the stronger and better able to resist such temptations as may rise in the future.

It is a fact worthy of notice that while there has been much discussion on school-government and methods of teaching, there has been as yet but little discussion with regard to the relative value of the different kinds of knowledge. It is a question on which educators seem extremely sensitive. The graduate of the literary school lays great stress on the languages; calling those who do not believe with him utilitarians and men who cannot comprehend the profundity of thought which characterized the days of heathen deities and gods. The alumni of the scientific school, on the other hand, hold that too much time is given to languages and too little to the "culture demanded by the times," calling their opponents old fogies. Both are jealous of the position their opponents hold, and both in the heat of argument say too much in favor of their special culture. It is not my province here to advocate the dogmas of either party, but is it not a matter of some importance to know the bearing which useful knowledge has on normal culture?