ere
are also, we know full well, unnumbered hosts of others, whose kindly
light has been shed in many an humble or secluded home, whose beloved
names have been called blessed by thousands though unrecorded in
historic page--who have lived and loved and passed on to higher
realms--to the world, to eulogy and to fame unknown.

In ancient days, when Athens was the centre of culture and of learning,
the Greek mothers were more prone to regard the significance of
pre-natal influences than are the mothers of the present day of putative
advancement. The hereditary tendencies of child-life, with all its
complexities of racial and ancestral character and the qualities
resulting from the dual source of parentage, were then perhaps better
understood, or at least more seriously considered; also the obvious but
grossly disregarded fact that the cradled infant of today may be the
responsible citizen of the future, was kept more effectively in mind and
its significance to the State more fully recognized. The wisdom of
Solomon was never more clearly demonstrated than when he said: "Train up
a child in the way he should go; and when he is old, he will not depart
from it." It is a piece of world philosophy which has reigned
unquestioned throughout the ages--a policy upon which human discernment,
in Church and State, has relied with unfailing effect; "for the thoughts
of a child are long, long thoughts"--those well-remembered words, how
true; for those "long thoughts"--the mental environment of the formative
period of child-life--do inevitably determine the future character of
the individual, and the immediate result of neglect in these vitally
important stages is painfully and promptly apparent in the aggressive
and unchildlike deportment of the turbulent young neophytes of both
sexes, so disproportionately in evidence in all directions throughout
the community of the present, as to bring into ridicule and utter
contempt existing methods of control. This dire defect in individual
restraint may be largely ascribed to both physical and mental
degeneracy, of hereditary origin; and when to this is added the attempts
of parents to maintain the tranquility of the home by threats, bribery
and fatuous promises--undue severity on the one hand and undue licence
on the other--serious developments are not far to seek. It has been well
said that children who are governed through their appetites in their
infancy are usually governed by their appetites