roper discipline
for future citizens of a free republic.
3. The development of certain practical virtues, the lack of which
is endangering the prosperity of the nation; namely, economy thrift,
temperance, self-reliance, frugality industry, courtesy, and all
the sober host,--none of them drawing-room accomplishments and
consequently in small demand.
4. The emphasis placed upon manual training, especially in its
development of the child's creative activity.
5. The training of the sense of beauty, harmony, and order; its
ethical as well as aesthetical significance.
6. The insistence upon the moral effect of happiness; joy the
favorable climate of childhood.
7. The training of the child's social nature; an attempt to teach the
brotherhood of man as well as the Fatherhood of God.
8. The realization that a healthy body has almost as great an
influence on morals as a pure mind.
I do not say that the consistent practice of these principles will
bring the millennium in the twinkling of an eye, but I do affirm
that they are the thought-germs of that better education which shall
prepare humanity for the new earth over which shall arch the new
heaven.
Ruskin says, "Crime can only be truly hindered by letting no man
grow up a criminal, by taking away the will to commit sin!" But, you
object, that is sheer impossibility. It does seem so, I confess,
and yet, unless you are willing to think that the whole plan of an
Omnipotent Being is to be utterly overthrown, set aside, thwarted,
then you must believe this ideal possible, somehow, sometime.
I know of no better way to grow towards it than by living up to the
kindergarten idea, that just as we gain intellectual power by doing
intellectual work, and the finest aesthetic feeling by creating
beauty, so shall we win for ourselves the power of feeling nobly and
willing nobly by doing "noble things."
HOW SHALL WE GOVERN OUR CHILDREN?
"Not the cry," says a Chinese author, "but the rising of a wild duck,
impels the flock to follow him in upward flight."
Long ago, in a far-off country, a child was born; and when his parents
looked on him they loved him, and they resolved in their simple hearts
to make of him a strong, brave, warlike man. But the God of that
country was a hungry and an insatiable God, and he cried out for human
sacrifice; so, when his arms had been thrice heated till they glowed
red with the flame of the fire, the mother cradled her child in t
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