ter ? there is a much heavier question weighing upon him, and that is, What manner of child shall this be ?

The

It is very plain that one of the first things is to teach the child self-discipline, and to yield up his will and his wisdom to that of another. This is called obedience. It should be prompt, unreserved, and cheerful. happiness of the child depends on this. And the child that has not been taught to obey at once, with alacrity and with cheerfulness, little knows what it is to be happy. That contest between the will of the child and the will of the parent, which is often so mortifying to the parent, is utterly incompatible with happiness. The same remark is true of your instructor who is in the place of the parent. Whenever your will comes in contact with his, and you yield only outward obedience and outward submission, you are very unhappy. The will, like a wild animal, must submit or conquer very quickly. A state of contest is a state of wretchedness.

One of the first things then, in education, is to learn cheerfully to submit your will to that

THE WORLD OF FANCY.

21

of another. And God has appointed your parents to this high trust. They may delegate their authority to others for a time, as they do in relation to the teacher of their child. But a great trust is theirs. An educated mind, then, has learned to submit to law, to order, and to such regulations at home, in the school, or in the state, as are for the best good of the community.

But now we come to the mind,-how is that to be trained? The little child lives in an ideal world. The boy has horses and cattle, menageries and armies, ships and rail-cars, all made of his little pile of blocks. And the little girl has her dolls, her visitors, her parties, and her housekeeping all in her little playhouse. They make visits and long journeys, receive and entertain an abundance of company, and all without going out of the room. Fancy is uncurbed and unchecked. But now we begin to take that curious thing called the mind, to train it. The first thing is to teach it to give attention. At first this is a very

difficult task. The little creature looks at the letters or on the page of the book, draws the

22

WHERE IS THE ATTENTION?

breath, sighs, and by the answer to the question shews that the mind and the thoughts are not there. So it is even when she becomes a school-girl. She finds that it is hard to keep the mind on the book or the lesson. It will wander, it will go home, it will visit the play-house, or it will dream of something else. Again and again she begins to read over the lesson. "Oh!" says she, "what hard lessons! Did any body ever have such hard lessons ?" The difficulty is not in the lesson, but in her not commanding her attention. Let a story, quite as long as the lesson, be told her, and she will give it the closest attention. And she can repeat it at once. But her lesson, she says, she has read over fifty times, and cannot get it. The reason is, that she has not learned to command her attention, and to make the mind obey her. This is what the teacher wants to accomplish; and there is no way to do this but by continual effort, lesson after lesson, trial after trial. The mind is like a wild colt at first; and this study is like the halter put on the colt. He pulls and chafes and worries at first ; but

every time he is haltered, he chafes less and less, till finally you may lead him where you will, and do with him as you please. You must never wait to be in a mood for study, any more than you would wait for a horse to be in a mood to go. To be educated, implies that you can take the mind and put it down to hard thinking, and hold the mind there as long as you please. This is what we mean by being able to command your attention.

The next step is to cultivate the memory,so that you can remember faces, voices, conversations, events, facts that have taken place, and be able to recal them at any moment you wish. Some have what we call a strong memory. They seem to take hold of any thing and hold it as if the memory had steel hooks. Others can hardly retain any thing. The sieve lets every thing run through it. Perhaps no faculty can be more improved by training than the memory. A Roman once had his memory so cultivated, that he could attend an auction all day, and at night tell every article that was sold, the order in which it was sold, the person who purchased it,

24

NAPOLEON'S MEMORY.

and the price which he paid. Few have a memory like that. But if Alexander could call every one of his soldiers by name, if Napoleon could remember where every part of his vast armies was, and the prices of every thing through his empire, so that he knew at a glance when he was charged too much, we cannot doubt but the memory can be vastly improved by cultivation. My own impression is, that much more attention ought to be paid to the improvement of the memory than is paid, both at home and in our schools. This is not the place to tell how to do this. I will here only remark, that to cultivate the memory it is absolutely necessary to be perfectly accurate. You are not to remember that such a place is about so far off, or such an event took place about such a time, or that such a thing was once done somewhere and by somebody; but you are to be perfectly accurate, as to the event, the time, the place, the actor. All other training is very bad for the memory. And this faculty comes under the work of education.

Then, after you have learned how to attend,