MARCH 247 



as little children what we are to-day. What I do think 

 is that, from about twelve to twenty-two or three, or even 

 twenty-eight, a certain deflection takes place ; but as one 

 fully develops, one returns to what one was as a little 

 child. I know that I am to-day far more like what I was 

 at seven years old than what I was at sixteen. The child 

 is father to the man, not to the youth. Of course you 

 must be keen enough to read the child's character. 

 Children are such mysterious things that few grown- 

 up people, even those who are keen readers of adult 

 character, can understand them.' 



So far as I understand what is called ' the New Educa- 

 tion,' 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 propensities 

 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 following, 

 so true to child life that I think it will rejoice everyone 

 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 



