The Birmingham age-herald., 1904-12-04

tnority as this cultivates that ffultlui obedience out of which free souls are born. The purely personal authority of parents. masters and institutions is 10 the child like the 4brushwood be- heath which the young plant wlthers md dies. Impersonal authority, the authority of man who has first sub mitted himself to the time bonored realities before which he wishes the individual fancy of the child to bend, resemblesipure and luminous air. True, 1t has an activity and influences us in it's manner, but it nourishes our indi- viduality and gives it firmness and sta- bflity. Without this authority there is no education. To watch, to guide, to keep as firm hand-sueh is the function of the educator. He should appear to the child not like barrier of whims which, if need be, one may clear, pro- yided 4the leap be proportioned to the heightaof the obstacle, but like a trans parent wall through which may be seen uhehanging realities, laws, limits and truths against which no action is possible. Thus arises respect, which is the faculty of conceiving something greater than ourselves-respeet, which broadensvus and frees us by making us more modest. This is the law of edu- cation for Simplicity. It may be sum- med up in sthese words To make free and revererAial men, who shall be in- dividual ann fraternal.
 Let us draw from this principle some practical applications.
 From the very fact that the child is the future hesAmvst be linked to the past by piety. We owe 1t to him to clothe traditionlinpthe forms most prac- tical and most fltl to create deep i'm pression; whencerthe exceptional place that should be given in education to the aneients. to the cult of remembrance of the past ahdt by extension to the history of the dom estic rooftree Above all do we fulfill duty toward our chil- dren when we give the place of honor to the grandparents Nothing speaks to q child with SO much force or so well develops! his nsodesty as to see his father and mother lon all occasions pre- serve toward an old grandfather, often infirm, an attitude aof respect. It is a perpetual object lesson that is irresist- ibe That it may have its full force it is necessary for a misunderstanding to obtain among all the ggrownup mem bers of the family. To the child's eyes u ey must all betin league, held to mu- tnal respect and understanding, under penalty of compromising their educa- tional authority, and in their number must be counted the servants. Serv- ants are big people, and the same sen timent of respect is injured in the child's disregard of them as in his dis regard of his father or grandfather. The moment he addresses an impolite or arrogants word to person older than himself he strays from the path that a child oughtlnever to quit, and if only , occasionally. the parents neglect to point this out they will sooI perceive by his conduct toward themselves that the enemy has, found entrance to his heart.
 We mistakesif we think that child is naturally aEen to respect, passing this opinion on the.very numerous examples of irreverence which he offers us. Re spect is for the child a fundamental need. His moraK being feeds on it. The child aspires corffusedly to revere and admire something, but when advan tage is not taken of this aspiration it gets corrupted or Host. By our lack of cohesion and mutual deference we, the grownups, discredht daily in the child's eyes our own cause and that of every thing worthy of respect We inoculate in him bad spirit whose effects then turn against us.
 This pittful truth nowhere appears with more force than tn the relations between masters and servants as we have made them. Our soeAal errors, our want of simplicity and kindness, all fall back upon the-haad& of our chil- dren. There are certainty few people of the middle classes who understand that it is better to pars with many thousands of dollars thanebo lead their children to lose respect foF servants, who represent in our Households the humble, yet nothing b frueH Main tain as strictly as you Nfiluconventions and distances, that denmrrzrtton of so- cial frontiers which permits each one to remain in his place and to observe the law of differences-tha is a good thing, I am persuaded-but on condi- ton of never forgetting that those who serve us are men and women like our selves. You require of your domestics certain formulas of speech and certain attitudes, outward evidence of the re- spect they owe you. Do you also teach your children and use yourselves man. ners toward your servants which show them that you respect their dignity as individuals as you desire them to re- spect you7 Here we have continually in our homes an excellent ground for experiment. in the practice of that mu- tual respect which is one of the essen- tial coHfittons of social sanity. I fear we profit by 1t too little. We do not fail to exact respect, but we fall to give it. So 1t is most frequently the case that we get only hypocrisy and this supplementary result, all unexpected the cultivation of pride in our children. These two factors combined heap up great difficulties for that future which we ought to be safeguarding. I am right, then, in saying that the day when by your own practices you have brought about the lessening of respect in your children you have suffered a sensible loss.
 Why should not SAY it7 It seems to