oughts have value and power as they get into action. To bend our
energies toward an ideal is to make it more real, to make it a part of
ourselves. Children learn by doing--learn not only that which they are
doing but life itself.

It may be doubted whether a child ever grew who did not plead to have a
share in the work he saw going on about him. That desire to help is part
of that fundamental virtue of loyalty of which we have spoken above; it
is his desire to be true to the tendency of the home, to give himself to
the realization of its purposes. Of course he does not think this out at
all. But this desire on the part of the child to have a hand in the
day's work is the parent's fine opportunity for a most valuable and
influential form of character direction.

One of the tests of a worthy character is whether the life is
contributory or parasitic, whether one carries his load, does his work,
makes his contribution, or simply waits on the world for what he can
get. A religious interpretation of and attitude toward life is
essentially that of self-giving in service. "My Father worketh hitherto
and I work." "I must be about my Father's business." How noticeable is
the child's interest in the vivid word-picture of One who "went about
doing good"!

Sec. 2. THE BLESSING OF LABOR

The home is the first place for life's habituation to service. The child
is greatly to be pitied who has no duties, no share in the work. Where
the hands are unsoiled the heart is the easier sullied. It is the height
of mistaken kindness, one of the common errors of an unthinking,
superficial affection, to protect our children from work. This is a
world of the moral order and of the glory of work.

When the child is very small it must learn this by having committed to
it very simple duties. As soon as it is able to handle things it may
learn to do that which is most helpful with those things, to care for
its toys, to put them away neatly. A child can learn while very young to
take care of its spoon, of certain clothes, of chair, and pencil and
paper. True, it is much easier to "pick up" after the child; but to do
so is to yield to our own sloth. The more tedious way is the one we must
follow if we would train the child.

Besides the care of his possessions the child will gladly take a share
in the general work of the home. Let some daily duty be assigned to each
one; such simple responsibilities as picking up all papers and magazines
and se