SUMMER MEETING. 43 



goes. The ciphers are naineroas, bat the problem is easier if we start 

 with a good valaation. 



Froeble, the founder of the kinder-garden, has demonstrated the 

 fact that games, amusements and diversions are powerful educators; 

 they open up the imagination to the pure, healthy, earnest purposes of 

 life, or create a taste and desire for the worst, and as the human tend- 

 encies are not well balanced, hence the neccessity of weighing, in every 

 possible way, the lightest side. 



You would feel forever disgraced were you caught tying up a peach 

 tree or trying to practice the Kniflfen system on an apple tree; but 

 these boys, usually whatever system of training is adopted in a family 

 they are all strung up to the same trellis, regardless of their own nat- 

 ural tendencies. While he might make a fine growth if allowed to 

 stand alone and given proper cultivation, instead, he becomes a miser- 

 able failure laced to your stick of a hobby. Of course you are not to 

 blame ; you tied him up good and strong ; probably you spent consider- 

 able money on him, too. 



It is not the province of this paper to tell what amusement to 

 give to a boy. If he has dragged behind the plow all day, or wrestled 

 with stones on your place, and you can't think of a refreshing change, 

 probably he can ; surely, if he is permitted to consult another boy. 

 Allow him an outing beyond the sight or sound of home. Warner 

 says in being a boy he would gladly do all the work if somebody else 

 would do the chores, and yet t doubt if any boy amounted to much 

 who did not enjoy the advantages of a liberal education in the way of 

 chores. Poor Jack usually fails to appreciate these blessings. That 

 boy who yearns for the opportunity to fish in the country has my 

 sympathy; small comfort to him to know of fine streams many feet 

 underground ; would that he might have one good time at the speckled 

 trout of the i«rorthern brooks. Were ever woods so fresh or skies so 

 lovely as when a child I skipped over these fields with a nice little 

 hook and and line secreted in my pocket ready for use? Truly is hap- 

 piness the sunshine of our child trees and the birthrighi of every child. 

 The persons jealous of time given to amusements are usually those 

 who, when children, were denied them. They regard it as an evil 

 tendency to be guarded against and punished — this always wanting to 

 play. Granting the necessity of recreation, then, it should be made as 

 good and enjoyable as possible and not furtive and of a questionable 

 nature. 



I visited the home of a friend who possessed the most delightful 

 understanding with his boy — an awkward youth of fourteen. They had 

 little chats and laughs together, and in the evening it was with remark- 



