school.

The girl is growing into a tall and shapely woman, and the poor brain is
put to it to find enough phosphate of lime, carbon, and other what not,
to build her fair edifice. The bills flow in upon her thick and fast;
she pays out hand over hand: if she had only her woman to build, she
might get along, but now come in demands for algebra, geometry, music,
language, and the poor brain-bank stops payment; some part of the work
is shabbily done, and a crooked spine or weakened lungs are the result.

Boarding-schools, both for boys and girls, are for the most part
composed of young people in this most delicate, critical portion of
their physical, mental, and moral development, whose teachers are
expected to put them through one straight, severe course of drill,
without the slightest allowance for the great physical facts of their
being. No wonder they are difficult to manage, and that so many of them
drop, physically, mentally, and morally halt and maimed. It is not the
teacher's fault; he but fulfils the parent's requisition, which dooms
his child without appeal to a certain course, simply because others have
gone through it.

Finally, as my sermon is too long already, let me end with a single
reflection. Every human being has some handle by which he may be lifted,
some groove in which he was meant to run; and the great work of life, as
far as our relations with each other are concerned, is to lift each one
by his own proper handle, and run each one in his own proper groove.

THE JAGUAR HUNT.

The dark jaguar was abroad in the land;
His strength and his fierceness what foe could withstand?
The breath of his anger was hot on the air,
And the white lamb of Peace he had dragged to his lair.

Then up rose the Farmer; he summoned his sons:
"Now saddle your horses, now look to your guns!"
And he called to his hound, as he sprang from the ground
To the back of his black pawing steed with a bound.

Oh, their hearts, at the word, how they tingled and stirred!
They followed, all belted and booted and spurred.
"Buckle tight, boys!" said he, "for who gallops with me,
Such a hunt as was never before he shall see!

"This traitor, we know him! for when he was younger,
We flattered him, patted him, fed his fierce hunger:
But now far too long we have borne with the wrong,
For each morsel we tossed makes him savage and strong."

Then said one, "He