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

are no outward manifestations the evil lies dormant; beneath apparent order are hidden dumb revolt, flaws made by m abnormal existence, apathy, death.
 The system is evil which produces such fruit, and, however simple 1t may appear, in reality it brings forth all possible complications.
 The other system is the extreme op- posite, that of bringing up children for themselves. The roles are reversed; the parents are there for the child. No sooner Is he born than be becomes the center White headed grandfather and stalwart father bow before these curls. His nsping is their law. A sign from him suffices. If he cries in the night no fatigue is of account; the whole household must be reused. The new conner is not long in discovering his omnipotence, and before he can walk he Is drunken with it. As he grows older all this deepens and broadens. Parents, grandparents, servants, teach CTS, everybody is at his command. He accepts the homage and even the im- notation of his neighbor; he treats like a rebellious subject any one who does not step out of his path. There Is only himself. He is the unique, the perfect, the infallible. Too late it Is perceived that all this has been evolving a mas ter, and what a master! Forgetful of sacrifices without respect, even pity. He no longer has any regard for those to whom he owes everything, and he goes through life without law or check.
 This education, too, has its social counterpart. It fiourishes wherever the past does not count, where history be- gins with the living, where there is no tradition, no discipline, no reverence; where those who knovFthe least make the most noise; where those who stand for public order are alarmed by every chance conner whose power lies in his making a great outcry and respecting nothing. It insures the reign of transit tory passion, the triumph of the infe- rior will. compare these two educa- tions-one the exaltation of the envi- ronment, the other the tyranny of the new-and I find them equally baneful. But the most disastrous of all is the combination of the two. which pro duces human beings half automatons, half despots, forever vacillating be- tween the spirit of a sheep and the spirit of revolt or domination.
 Children should be educated neither for themselves nor for their parents, for man is no more designed to be a fhon crn0frT1on Thnx1 should be educated for life. The aim of their education is to aid them to be- come active members of humanity, brotheriy forces, free servants of the civil organization. To follow a method of education inspired by any other principle is to complicate life, deform it, SOW the seeds of all disorders.
 When we would sum up in a phrase the destiny of the child the word ''fu- ture" springs to our lips. The child is the future. This word says all--the sufferings of the past, the stress of to- day, hope. But when the education of the child begins he is incapable of es- timating the reach of this word. for he is held by impressions of the pres- ent. Who, then, shall give him the first enlightenment and put him in the way he should go? The parents, the teachers: And with very little reiec- tion they perceive that their work does not interest simply themselves and the child, but that they represent and ad- minister impersonal powers and inter- ests. The child should continually ap- pear to them as a future citizen. With this ruling idea they will take thought for two things that complement each other = for the initial and personal force which is germinating in the child and for the social destination of this force. At no moment of their direction over him can they forget that this lit tie being confided to their care must become himself and brother. These two conditions, far from excluding each other, never exist apart. It is im- possible to be brotherly, to love, to give oneself. unless one is master of him. self; and, reciprocally, none can possess himself, comprehend his own individ- ual being, until he has first made his way through the outward accidents of his existence down to the profound springs of life where man feels himself one with other men in all that is most intimately his own.
 To aid a child to become himself and a brother it is necessary to protect him against the violent and destructive action of the forces of disorder. These forces are exterior and interior. Every child is menaced from without not only by material dangers, but by the meddlesomeness of alien wills, and from within by an exaggerated idea of his own personality and all the fan cies 1t breeds. There is a great out ward danger which may come from the abuse of power in educators. The right of might finds itself place in ed- ucation with extreme facility. To ed- ucate another one must have renounced this right--that is to say. made abne- gation of the inferior sentiment of per- sonal importance, which transforms us into the enemies of others, even of our own children. Our authority is benef- cent only when it is inspired by one higher than our own. In this case 1t is not only salutary, but also indis- pensable, and becomes in its turn the best guarantee against the greater per il which threatens the child from with in-that of exaggerating his own im- portance. At the beginning of life the vividness of personal impressions is so great that to establish an equilibrium AL t-~ ko1 r., fha nanfla