686 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



should expect all those individuals whose calling leads them to 

 study history more or less, as the lawyer, the politician, historical 

 teachers, and others to be distinguished for their morality above 

 the scientist, the mathematician, or any one else in the commu- 

 nity ; but if this be so, it has not yet impressed itself upon the 

 public mind. The more just view to take of this question is (to 

 be dogmatic for the sake of brevity) that those activities which 

 tend to become habii ual are the ones that determine character ; 

 and an individual may study profoundly about charity, for 

 instance, without ever exercising that quality himself ; while, on 

 the other hand, one may be little familiar with the literature of 

 benevolence, but an exemplary person in its practice. Although 

 it seems eminently true that our thoughts tend to get worked out 

 into appropriate activities, yet we make a serious mistake when 

 we conclude that those ideas which we get from books are upper- 

 most in our minds when we are inspired to action ; rather those 

 impressions that have already become deepened and fixed through 

 previous expressions are the ones that get mastery when we are 

 about to act. This does not imply that literature and history 

 have not great moral culture value when rightly used to furnish 

 incentives and models for moral activities that become actually 

 realized in the pupil's life in the child immediately under the 

 guidance of the teacher, in the older person at a more remote 

 period perhaps. But at the same time it should be understood 

 that character in a true sense includes the whole of personality, 

 and a defect in any part is essentially a moral defect ; so that 

 what one can and does do, in a material sense, is as important to 

 be looked after in elementary education as how he may think or 

 feel in a bookish sense. These considerations alone (and there 

 are other important arguments that might be advanced) indicate 

 that, so far as values are concerned, the study of science, and of 

 the various industries that maybe understood and improved upon 

 only by a comprehension of its laws, should hold a place in the 

 elementary school co-ordinate with that of literature and history. 

 One may not dogmatize here, though, considering the present 

 state of our knowledge upon the most effective means for training 

 moral character ; and it is to be sincerely hoped that we may ere 

 long be in possession of further contribations along this line from 

 psychologists and educators. 



Cutting telegraph wires is, according to Mr. P. V. Luke, of the British- 

 Indian Cliitral Expedition, a favorite amusement with frontier tribes. 

 They find the wire useful. Sometimes, too, they convert the hollow iron 

 posts of which the telegraph poles are made into guns, by lapping them 

 round with wire ; and they cut the wire up for bullets. 



