a little our pity
for his failings with admiration for his excellence. Our boys and girls
have done nobly, and the nation which they have now become may well
prove its greatness by new wisdom and care for the boys and girls who
are yet to grow up men and women and become the nation that is to be.

There are vital questions that meet us at the very outset of the
discussion:--What are children? and what is the difference between them
and grown people? and what should be the difference in the reading
provided for the two? Some persons seem to think and speak of children
as a distinct order of beings, and not as a part of mankind. The simple
truth is, that they are men and women in _nature_, but not in
_development_. All that is _actual_ in the mature mind is _potential_ in
them, and there is no theory more absurd than that which affirms that
the adult powers and dispositions are wholly factitious, and education
makes us what we are, instead of simply bringing out what is born in us.
The great human mind is in the little child as well as in the
gray-headed sage; but it has not come forth into activity and
consciousness. The most complete culture, instead of obliterating
diversities of natural talent and tendency, does but develop them more
effectually; and our great masters and schools are more memorable for
the strongly pronounced minds and wills that go forth from them than for
any monotony of mediocre scholars or uniformity of paragons of genius.
True culture brings out the common human mind in all, and the rare gifts
that are in the few, and vindicates the force of Nature by the
perfection of its art. Our juvenile literature should proceed upon this
idea, and treat its little readers as representatives of the great human
mind on its way to its full rights and powers and quite true to its high
birthright, as far as it puts forth its prerogative.

What error, then, can be greater than to take it for granted that
children have no mind, because they have not had time and means to bring
out their whole mind? As far as it goes, is not their mind the great
human intelligence? and even in its lispings and stumblings, does it not
give hints and promises of the majestic powers that are on the way to
development? Children are, indeed, treated and written about, sometimes,
as if they were _little fools_, and any baby-talk or twaddle were good
enough for them; but we are inclined to believe that they are in the
main _great fools_