s to fulfil, this is the most difficult. Is it that
each may be trusted by self-instruction to fit himself, or herself, for
the office of parent? No: not only is the need for such self-instruction
unrecognised, but the complexity of the subject renders it the one of
all others in which self-instruction is least likely to succeed. No
rational plea can be put forward for leaving the art of education out of
our curriculum. Whether as bearing on the happiness of parents
themselves, or whether as affecting the characters and lives of their
children and remote descendants, we must admit that a knowledge of the
right method of juvenile culture, physical, intellectual and moral, is a
knowledge of extreme importance. This topic should be the final one in
the course of instruction passed through by each man and woman. As
physical maturity is marked by the ability to produce offspring, so
mental maturity is marked by the ability to train those offspring. _The
subject which involves all other subjects, and therefore the subject in
which education should culminate, is the THEORY AND PRACTICE OF
EDUCATION._

Our system of moral control must again be based upon nature, who
illustrates to us in the simplest way the true theory and practice of
moral discipline. The natural reactions which follow the child's
wrong-doings are constant, direct, unhesitating, and not to be escaped.
No threats; but a silent rigorous performance. If a child runs a pin
into its finger, pain follows; if it does it again, there is again the
same result; and so on perpetually. In all its dealings with inorganic
nature it finds this unswerving persistence, which listens to no excuse,
and from which there is no appeal; and very soon recognising this stern
though beneficent discipline, it soon becomes extremely careful not to
transgress. These general truths hold throughout adult life as well as
throughout infantile life. If further proof be needed that the natural
reaction is not only the most efficient penalty, but that no humanly
devised penalty can replace it, we have such further proof in the
notorious ill-success of our various penal systems. Out of the many
methods of criminal discipline that have been proposed and legally
enforced, none have answered the expectations of their advocates.
Artificial punishments have failed to produce reformation; and have in
many cases increased the criminality. The only successful reformatories
are those privately established