252 MORE POT-POURRI 



So far as I understand what is called 'the new 

 education,' it does not mean knowledge teaching at all, 

 but the developing and fostering the good qualities that 

 are born in a child, and so keeping under the evil pro- 

 pensities which are equally born in it. In fact, to make 

 grow and develop what is actually there in the best way 

 you can ; not try to cram in, as into an empty sack, 

 what you think ought to be there. 



Some years ago the 'Pall Mall Gazette ' used, from 

 time to time, to contain charming original articles on 

 various subjects. Among my cuttings I find the follow- 

 ing, so true to child life that I think it will rejoice every- 

 one who cares to understand children. This study is 

 really only just beginning to be approached, as it should 

 be, with the humility that belongs to great ignorance 

 and non- understanding : 



'It has often been remarked that one half of the 

 world does not know how the other half lives, but it is 

 curious enough that this should be the fact about a half 

 of the world who share our homes, who occupy our 

 thoughts, and who possess our hearts, perhaps, more 

 entirely than do any other earthly objects. 



' The world in which our children really move and 

 live is as remote and unvisited by us as the animal 

 kingdom itself, and it is only now and then that a 

 chance glimpse into the working of their minds makes 

 us realise the gulf that separates us. They can come to 

 us, but we cannot go to them ; nor are they, indeed, 

 without that touch of contempt for us and our affairs 

 which might naturally be considered the exclusive privi- 

 lege of the elder and stronger beings. "Don't disturb 

 poor father; he is reading his papers," is a sort of 

 counterpart to "Oh, let them play; they are doing no 

 harm." When we cast a reminiscent glance over our 

 own childhood we realise how solitary were its hopes and 



