position and of the heart, and arouse in the boy his intellect and will. To give firmness to the will, to quicken it, and to make it pure, strong, and enduring, in a life of pure humanity, is the chief concern, the main object in the guidance of the boy, in instruction and the school.

17. Will is the mental activity, ever consciously proceeding from a definite point in a definite direction toward a definite object, in harmony with the man's nature as a whole. This statement contains everything, and indicates all that parent and educator, teacher and school, should be or should give to the boy in example and precept during these years. The starting-point of all mental activity in the boy should be energetic and sound; the source whence it flows, pure, clear, and ever-flowing; the direction, simple, definite; the object, fixed, clear, living and life-giving, elevating, worthy of the effort, worthy of the destiny and mission of man, worthy of his essential nature, and tending to develop it and give it full expression.

Instruction in example and in words, which later on become precept and example, furnishes the means for this. Neither example alone nor words alone will do: not example alone, for it is particular and special, and the word is needed to give to particular individual examples universal applicability; not words alone, for example is needed to interpret and explain the word which is general, spiritual, and of many meanings. But instruction and example alone and in themselves are not sufficient: they must meet a good, pure heart, and this is an outcome of proper educational influences in childhood.

18. In the family the child sees the parents and other members at work, producing, doing something; the same he notices with adults generally in life and in those active interests with which his family is concerned. Consequently the child, at this stage, would like himself to represent what

he sees. all he sees his parents and other adults do and represent in work, all which he thus sees represented by human power and human skill.

He would like to represent - and tries to do so

What formerly the child did only for the sake of the activity, the boy now does for the sake of the result or product of his activity; the child's instinct of activity has in the boy become a formative instinct, and this occupies the whole outward life, the outward manifestation of boy-life at this period. How cheerfully and eagerly the boy and the girl at this age begin to share the work of father and mother not the easy work, indeed, but the difficult work, calling for strength and labor.!

19. By no means, however, do all the plays and occupations of boys at this age aim at the representation of things; on the contrary, many are predominantly mere practice and trials of strength, and many aim simply at display of strength. Nevertheless, the play of this period always bears a peculiar character, corresponding with its inner life. For, while during the previous period of childhood the aim of play consisted simply in activity as such, its aim lies now in a definite, conscious purpose; it seeks representation as such, or the thing to be represented in the activity. This character is developed more and more in the free boyish games as the boys advance in age.

It is the sense of rare and reliable power, the sense of its increase, both as an individual and as a member of the group, that fills the boy with all-pervading, jubilant joy during these games. It is by no means, however, only the physical power that is fed and strengthened in these games; intellectual and moral power, too, is definitely and steadily gained and brought under control. Indeed, a comparison of the relative gains of the mental and of the physical phases would scarcely yield the palm to the body. Justice, moderation, self-con

trol, truthfulness, loyalty, brotherly love, and, again, strict impartiality—who, when he approaches a group of boys engaged in such games, could fail to catch the fragrance of these delicious blossomings of the heart and mind, and of a firm will; not to mention the beautiful, though perhaps less fragrant blossoms of courage, perseverance, resolution, prudence, together with the severe elimination of indolent indulgence? Whoever would inhale a fresh, quickening breath of life should visit the play-grounds of such boys.

20.

The existence of the present teaches man the existence of the past. This, too, which was before he was, he would know. Then there is developed in the boy at this age the desire and craving for tales, for legends, for all kinds of stories, and later on for historical accounts. This craving, especially in its first appearance, is very intense; so much so, that, when others fail to gratify it, the boys seek to gratify it themselves, particularly on days of leisure, and in times when the regular employments of the day are ended.

21.

Man is by no means naturally bad, nor has he originally bad or evil qualities and tendencies; unless, indeed, we consider as naturally evil, bad, and faulty the finite, the material, the transitory, the physical as such, and the logical consequences of the existing of these phenomena, namely, that man must have the possibility of failure in order to be good and virtuous, that he must be able to make himself a slave in order to be truly free. Yet these things are the necessary concomitants of the manifestation of the eternal in the temporal, of unity in diversity, and follow necessarily from man's destiny to become a conscious, reasonable, and free being.

A suppressed or perverted good quality—a good tendency, only repressed, misunderstood, or misguided — lies originally at the bottom of every shortcoming in man. Hence the only and infallible remedy for counteracting any short

coming and even wickedness is to find the originally good source, the originally good side of the human being that has been repressed, disturbed, or misled into the shortcoming, and then to foster, build up, and properly guide this good side. Thus the shortcoming will at last disappear, although it may involve a hard struggle against habit, but not against original depravity in man; and this is accomplished so much the more rapidly and surely because man himself tends to abandon his shortcomings, for man prefers right to wrong.

XXV. HORACE MANN.

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH.

The state of Massachusetts has been the pioneer in American education. It was the first of the colonies to establish public schools and to found a college. From 1642, when the selectmen of every town were enjoined to see that the young were instructed in "the English tongue and a knowledge of the capital laws," Massachusetts has shown an interest in education by the passage of many laws designed to give greater efficiency to the public schools. But it was due principally to the efforts of one person that between 1837 and 1848 the public school system was unified and brought to a higher degree of efficiency than had prevailed before. This person was Horace Mann, one of the most distinguished of American educators. To natural endowments of a high order he added an invincible zeal in behalf of popular education, and a sublime faith in its possibilities as a means of uplifting and regenerating society.

Horace Mann was born in Franklin, Massachusetts, May 4, 1796. With admirable energy he overcame in early manhood the deficiencies in his childhood education which poverty and constant toil had rendered inevitable. Having learned the elements of Latin and Greek from an itinerant school-master, he entered the sophomore class of Brown University in 1816, from which he graduated three years later with the highest honors of his class. He studied law, was admitted to the bar in 1823, and four years later was elected to the legislature. In the legislature, to which he