648 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



Good Hope. In reality the cloud is changing rapidly, forming 

 and dissolving at one and the same time. 



In forecasting weather, clouds have, as we all know, special 

 significance. They are the true robes and garments of earth. 

 The poet sings of hills clad in verdure, the mantle of tender 

 green that the Earth puts on in the spring, and the splendid hues 

 of her autumnal dress ; but the garment which protects old Earth 

 the year round from extreme temperatures is the cloud layer. 

 Where there is little cloudiness the range of temperature is large, 

 and where there is much cloudiness the temperature is very even. 



So, while the clouds delight us, they are also active for our 

 welfare. In never-ending procession they move ragged ranks 

 of fracto-nimbi jostled by frowning cumuli, tatterdemalion scud 

 leading an army of mighty nimbi, the baleful funnel cloud, hover- 

 ing and ill-omened, rolling strato-cumuli that lie far out on the 

 flank ; thus they pass, while in the calm above appear the cirri 

 dainty and lacelike, or curling wisps of laughing cirro-stratus. 



STUDIES OF CHILDHOOD. 



X. MATERIAL OF MORALITY. 



By JAMES SULLY, M. A., LL. D., 



GROTE PROFESSOR OF THE PHILOSOPHY OF MIND AND LOGIC AT THE UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, 



LONDON. 



(a) PRIMITIVE EGOISM AND ALTRUISM. 



PERHAPS there has been more hasty theorizing about the 

 child's moral characteristics than about any other of his 

 attributes. The very fact that diametrically opposed views have 

 been put forward is suggestive of this haste. By certain theo- 

 logians and others, infancy has been painted in the blackest of 

 moral colors. According to M. Compayre*, it is a bachelor, La 

 Bruyere, and a bishop, Dupanloup, who have said the worst things 

 of children ; and the parent or teacher who wants to see how bad 

 this worst is may consult M. Compayr^'s account.* On the other 

 hand, Rousseau and those who think with him have invested the 

 child with moral purity. According to Rousseau, the child comes 

 from the Creator's hand a perfect bit of workmanship, which 

 blundering man at once begins to mar. Children's freedom from 

 human vices has been a common theme of the poet : their inno- 

 cence was likened by M. About to the spotless snow of the Jung- 

 frau. Others, as Wordsworth, have gone further and attributed 

 to the child positive moral excellences, glimpses of a higher mo- 



* L'Evolution intell. et mor. de l'enfant, chap xiv, ii 



