44 Tlic F( inn stead 



enjoyed by the (Country youth for l)ecoining 

 acquainted with natiu'al objects of use and 

 Ijeauty are a full offset, so far as training is con- 

 cerned, for the more systematic instruction given 

 in the city schools ? 



I can but look with some degree of solicitude 

 on the effect on civilization and on the home, of 

 palatial hotels, and great school buildings, filled 

 with heterogeneous masses of children, in which 

 love, solicitude and sacrifices, each for all, have 

 little opportunity for growth and development. 

 The family seems to be the sacred unit of civili- 

 zation and morality. A full and sufficient rea- 

 son must be given for massing men, much more 

 children, in a single great structure, thereby 

 destroying the quiet and breaking the sacred 

 ties of the home. What good reasons can be 

 offered for massing children between the ages of 

 six and twelve in an uncomfortable school- 

 room ? Children do not study ; they learn little 

 except when they read the lesson in the imme- 

 diate presence of the teacher who is able to 

 amplify and explain the lesson in hand. Send- 

 ing these little ones to school is a relic of the 

 primeval days, when, by reason of large families, 

 lack of training and excessive toil of the 

 parents, there was no other way but to make 

 nursery maids of the school-teachers. 



I have a vivid recollection of those early 



