ROUND THE INDIAN MUSEUM. 



essential qualities of a child. Any one who cares to 

 enter the portal of knowledge must do so with a loving 

 and listening heart, and with the ear of faith. 



"One moment now may give us more 



Than years of toiling reason ; 



Our minds shall drink at every pore 



The spirit of the season." 



41 1 thank you Mr. W.," interrupted Vidyabhushan, 

 " from the very bottom of my heart for your inter- 

 esting and instructive discourse upon the qualities of 

 the child. I wish we were all as simple-hearted and 

 loving creatures to-day as we were in those blissful days 

 of our childhood, when the shadows of worldliness 

 had not darkened our souls. But what I wanted to tell 

 you is that according to our old Hindu idea, 'Rever- 

 ence' is another essential quality for the training of 

 the mind." 



" You are perfectly right, my friend Vidyabhushan, and 

 I am much beholden to you for your suggestion, but I 

 thought it superfluous to preach 'Reverence' to a party 

 of educated Indians, as, whatever their other faults 

 may be, the charge of irreverence cannot be laid at 

 their door." 



" I sincerely wish you were absolutely right." 

 replied Vidyabhushan. " But," quoth he. " I have no- 

 ticed with grief and concern a spirit of irreverence 

 growing among our educated young men. Whatever 

 the causes may be, the evil is there, and, unless it is 

 nipped in the bud, it will grow like an Upas tree to 



H 8 



