79 o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



to be a good citizen. These objects imply health and industry, 

 that the man or woman may be a producer and not a consumer 

 only; sufficient intelligence to recognize and perform duties to 

 one's self, to one's neighbors, and to the State ; speech which is 

 honorable and pure ; and deeds which inculcate respect for the 

 laws. Besides these, a mother may wish her child to acquire those 

 graces of mind and heart that are difficult to define in words, but 

 whose presence or absence is easy to feel in a man or woman ; those 

 graces which lift their possessor above the power of petty pas- 

 sions, of foolish conventionalities, above even the necessity to for- 

 give injuries. 



Emerson, in speaking of Lincoln, said : " His heart was as 

 great as the world, but in it there was no room for the memory 

 of a wrong." From the days of early manhood to the crowning 

 act of his life, what a succession of kindly deeds are found in Lin- 

 coln's history ! As the mind dwells on them, the great Proclama- 

 tion is seen to be but the consummate flower on a plant which 

 could bear no other. Such men do not fail when the time for great 

 action comes. They do without fear what lesser men shrink from, 

 or dally with, until the time for action has passed. No small 

 soul, no life full of petty motives, ever rises to a great emergency. 

 To one who meets the details of every-day life with a vain, selfish 

 spirit the great occasion may come ; but his will not be the honor 

 of seeing it and of using it worthily. So, if a mother would have 

 her children become men and women of the larger type, she must 

 look well to " the reiterated choice of good or evil which gradu- 

 ally determines character." 



What can natural sciences do toward this character-building ? 

 Have not studies other uses ? Yes ; but, while serving other uses, 

 a study which does not mold character is of small value. This 

 character-building receives little or no consideration in much that 

 passes for education — a mistake from which the whole after-life 

 of the child suffers. There is at present a " craze for informa- 

 tion," as though to be a store-house of facts were a thing desir- 

 able in itself. Information so assimilated as to be a source of 

 ready power in thought and conduct is a great good, but unless 

 so available it is of little value. The mere desire for getting in- 

 formation might well be called intellectual avarice, for he who 

 seeks this alone is almost as useless and miserable as the more 

 sordid hoarder of money. Also, there is an idea, somewhat cur- 

 rent in these days, that for children study should be transformed 

 into play. I must protest against any such notion. Hard, pa- 

 tient, honest work is needed. The child who plays at his studies 

 will play at life, play at everything, and will probably carry 

 from cradle to grave the deception that whatever does not fur- 

 nish him amusement is of no value, that work belongs of right 



