when we seek to lead it to good conduct by
a bait, even if this bait beckons to a future world. The consciousness
of having lived worthily should be our highest reward. Froebel goes so
far as to say that instead of teaching "the good will be happy," and
leaving children to imagine that this means an outer or material
happiness, we ought rather to teach that in seeking the highest we may
lose the lower. "Renunciation, the abandonment of the outer for the sake
of securing the inner, is the condition for attaining highest
development. Dogmatic religious instruction should rather show that
whoever truly and earnestly seeks the good, must needs expose himself to
a life of outer oppression, pain and want, anxiety and care." Even a
child, though not a baby, can be led to see that to do good for outer
reward is but enlightened selfishness.

These suggestions are taken for the most part from the _Mother Songs_,
some from _The Education of Man_. Each parent or teacher must use what
seems to her or to him most valuable. Some may from the beginning desire
to teach the child a baby prayer, or at least to let him hear "God bless
you." Others may prefer to wait for a more intelligent stage, perhaps
when the child begins to ask the invariable questions--who made the
flowers, the animals; who made me? If so, we must remember that children
see, and hear, and think, that often in thoughtless ejaculations, or in
those of heartfelt thankfulness, children may hear the name of God; that
a simple story may have something that stirs thought; that churches are
much in evidence; and that the conversation of little playfellows may
take an unexpected turn.

To me it seems a great mistake to put before young children ideas which
are really beyond the conception of an adult. There are many stories
told of how children receive teaching about the Omniscience or
Omnipotence of God. The stories sound irreverent, and are often repeated
as highly amusing, but they are really more pathetic. Miss Shinn tells
of one poor mite who resented being constantly watched and said, "I will
not be so tagged," and another said, "Then I think He's a very rude
man," when, in reply to her puzzled questions, she was told that God
could see her even in her bath. And the boy who said, "If I had done a
thing, could God make it that I hadn't?" must have made his instructor
feel somewhat foolish.

It never does harm for us honestly to confess our own limitations and
our igno