what you do when he is
sick or in danger; and if he dies the sorest ache of your heart is the
ache of the love that can no longer be of service to the beloved.

[Sidenote: Monotony]

(4) Remember that monotony is the curse of labor for both child and
adult, but that _monotony cannot exist where new intellectual insights
are constantly being given_. Therefore, while the daily round of
labor, shaped by the daily recurring demands for food, warmth,
cleanliness, and sleep, goes on without much change, seize every
opportunity to deepen the child's perception of the relation of this
routine to the order of the larger world. For instance, if a new house
is being built near by, visit it with the children, comparing it with
your own house, figure out whether it is going to be easier to keep
clean and to warm than your house is and why. If you need to call in
the carpenter, the plumber, the paper-hanger, or the stoveman, try
to have him come when the children are at home, and let them satisfy
their intense curiosity as to his work. This knowledge will sooner or
later be of practical value, and it is immediately of spiritual value.

[Sidenote: Beautiful Work]

(5) Beautify the work as much as possible by letting the artistic
sense have full play. This rule is so important that the attempt to
establish it in the larger world outside of the home has given rise to
the movement known as the arts and crafts movement, which has its rise
in the perception that no great art can come into existence among us
until the common things of daily living--the furniture, the books, the
carpets, the chinaware--are made to express that creative joy in the
maker which distinguishes an artistic product from an inartistic one.
This creative joy, in howsoever small degree, may be present in most
of the things that the child does. If he sets the table, he may set it
beautifully, taking real pleasure in the coloring of the china and the
shine of the silver and glass. He ought not to be permitted to set it
untidily upon a soiled tablecloth.

[Sidenote: The Right Spirit]

(6) This is a negative rule, but perhaps the most important of all: DO
NOT NAG. The child who is driven to his work and kept at it by means
of a constant pressure of a stronger will upon his own, is deriving
little, if any, benefit from it; and as you are not teaching him to
work for the sake of his present usefulness, which is small at
the best, but for the sake of his future develo