s!

"Society," as Dr. Hale says, "is the great charm and only value of
school life;" but this charm and this value are reduced to a minimum
in many schools. "Emulation, that devil-shadow of aspiration," so
often used as a stimulus in education, must forever separate the child
from his fellows.

How can I have any Christian fellowship with a man when I am envying
him his successes and grudging him his honors? Am I not tempted
to withhold my help from my weak brother across the way, lest my
assistance place him on an equality with me?

Again, the "monitor" system, as sometimes carried out, tends to
separation and engenders dislike and distrust. I am not likely to
desire close communion, except in the way of fisticuffs, with a boy
who has been spying upon me all day, or who has very likely "reported"
me as having committed divers venial offenses.

It is the idea of some teachers that discipline is furthered if
children are trained to have as little as possible to do with each
other, and there is no question that this method does facilitate
a toe-the-line kind of government. It would probably be more
satisfactory to such a teacher if each child could be brought to
school in a sedan-chair, with only one window and that in front, and
could be kept in it during the whole session.

As such a plan, however, is scarcely feasible; as children, with or
against our wills, have a natural and God-given instinct for each
other's company; as they keenly enjoy banding themselves together for
whatever purpose, should not education follow the suggestions which an
earnest study of child-nature can but give?

Froebel, with those divinely curious eyes of his, saw deeper into the
child's mind and heart than any of his predecessors, and for every
faint stirring of life which he perceived provided adequate conditions
of development. True prophet of the coming day, his philosophy is
rich with suggestions for the cultivation of the social powers of
the child. No one ever felt more keenly than he the inseparable, the
organic connection of all life; and with deep spiritual insight he
provides nursery plays and songs by which the babe, even in his
mother's arms, may be led faintly to recognize in his being one of the
links of the great chain which girdles the universe.

Later, when as a child of three or four years he makes his first step
into the world, and loosing his mother's hand, enters a larger family
of children of his own age, he is