n 4 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



tions, yet will develop self-consciousness and selfishness by flattery 

 and over-indulgence. This is not a promising state of things ; 

 hut a determined child, especially if he he fortunate enough to 

 have brothers and sisters, will modify it somewhat by engaging 

 in active and healthy play whenever he can elude the vigilance 

 of his nurse, who is full of anxiety about the state of his clothes, 

 and disapproves of most kinds of games. In a house where a 

 reasonable amount of freedom is allowed, and where the children 

 are intelligent and active in mind and body, they will, unaided 

 by their elders, carry on their development by means of games 

 in a fairly satisfactory manner. This part of education is, how- 

 ever, better managed in a Kindergarten than anywhere else. Op- 

 posing tendencies are woven into harmony by the experienced 

 teacher, suggestions are made when required, and the needs of 

 all the children are duly considered. Every child takes part ac- 

 cording to his ability, and no one is forgotten or neglected. The 

 children are perfectly happy, because they are not indulged too 

 much or overexcited, and the performance is as different from 

 the proceedings at an ordinary children's party as Milton's " heart- 

 easing mirth " from his " vain deluding joys." 



We owe to Froebel the first recognition of the high purpose in 

 children's play, and the idea of ordering and arranging it so as to 

 form a harmonious development according to Nature's methods. 

 Full of sympathy with child-nature, and having himself a child- 

 like simplicity of mind, he saw that true education is not the sup- 

 pression of natural tendencies, but their wholesome encourage- 

 ment. The outside life of the world has many inharmonious 

 elements. In these children's games we have a little image of the 

 world with the inharmonious elements eliminated. Joining in 

 them is a training for living the right kind of life. The children 

 do not talk about living rightly, but they do it. This is the best 

 preparation for the right use of a wider experience. 



A teacher of ethics better known than Froebel taught that 

 the first condition of right life was to " become as a little child." 



Note. In quoting from Froebel's letter to Krausc, the English translation by Emilie 

 Michaelis and IL Keatley Moore has been used. 



Macmillan's Magazine. 



A curious series of coincidences is noticed in Dr. S. T. Ilickson's Naturalist in 

 North Celebes. The island is a frontier point between Malaysia and Melanesia, 

 and is situated linguistically almost where the Papuan, Melanesian, and Malayan 

 families of speech meet. It is further, at the same time, the home of a marsupial 

 sloth, the Cuscus celebensis, which has the characteristics of the Australian fauna, 

 and of a tailless baboon, the Cynopithecus nigresce?is, African in its character. 

 Thus the two most conspicuous mammals represent widely distinct zoological 

 provinces. The marsupials there reach their northern and the Cynopithecus its 

 southern limit. 



