make habitual the virtues they want him to possess. We open the doors of the schools to the children at the age of seven, but it can be said, in a very true sense, that the child has been educated for weal or woe before that time. The nervous system retains a certain degree of elasticity until the age of thirty-three, but by the age of seven the child has formed the habits that will mean most to him in life. He has by that time built up the basis for a successful and happy life, or he has laid the foundations for failure and unhappiness. When parents realize this more than many of them do to-day, they will not be as eager as they are to shift the responsibility of their children's education to incompetent, or even to the most competent, nurses, or to the kindergarten or primary teacher.

We have often heard it said that "it is never too late to mend," and this is true in a sense; but it would be truer to say that it is always too late to mend entirely. The pathway that thought and action have made in our nervous system can never be entirely destroyed. The man who acquired in his early years the habit of dishonesty can never be quite trusted in his later life. His best judgment may tell him that honesty is the best policy and he may try to be honest, but at a moment when he least expects it the old habit will express itself. The nerve force will jump the track he has been trying to form and will go back to the more easily traveled track made in early life. We have taken honesty as an example, but the same is true of the other virtues. They must be built up in early life, if they are ever built up. Parents do not intend to cultivate in their children the habit of extravagance, for instance, but they humor them in everything they want when they are young, and the habit is built up before they know it. If the child acquires

the habit of thrift and economy, he must live in such an environment from his early days.

One of the most pathetic cases I ever knew illustrative of the fixity of nervous pathways after they have once been formed was that of a man who had worked hard in his early manhood and acquired by the time he was thirty-five enough property to retire. At that time he took a notion that he wanted an education, and he actually attended school a number of years with the hope of acquiring enough culture to admit him to good society. He had a bright mind and succeeded in mastering his studies fairly well; but his "had went," "could a saw," and other such blunders of speech were always a source of embarrassment to him and betrayed his early training. As soon as he had uttered such expressions, he knew they were incorrect; but habit was quicker than thought, and they came out before he could stop them. This case is merely illustrative of the impossibility of entirely overcoming habits formed in early life, and most of us have our struggles with a nervous system that was improperly shaped in our childhood. We acquired in school, perhaps, the habit of doing slovenly and inaccurate work, thinking only of "getting by" the teacher and making our grade, not realizing that every act of slovenliness or inaccuracy was writing itself deep in our nervous system ready to manifest itself in our business and in every relation of our lives.

The girl learns to be a snob in school. She snubs all the girls except a small coterie of those she calls her friends, not knowing that each time she repeats an act of snobbery she is cutting deeper in her nerve cells the pathway traveled by nerve force controlled by such centers and fixing the habit more firmly in her each day. Each little act does not amount to much she thinks, if

she thinks at all, but nevertheless the habit is slowly forming and will make her friendless and unhappy in after-years.

Let the student remember that what he wants to be he must try to be. He may be able to overcome a few bad habits if he has the strength of will, but the odds are one hundred to one against his having the strength of will, and the best plan is never to form them. As soon as his attention is called to the importance of forming correct habits, he should begin in earnest to form those habits that will be of value to him in life and avoid those that will be hostile to his best interests. If he would have his actions approved by his neighbors, he must begin early to make habitual those actions that meet their approval. He need not imagine that he can do as he pleases, regardless of the feelings of others, during the formative days of his life, and have his actions approved by his fellows later on. William James says:

The hell to be endured hereafter, of which theology tells us, is no worse than the hell we make for ourselves in this world by habitually fashioning our characters in the wrong way. Could the young but realize how soon they will become mere walking bundles of habits, they would give more heed to their conduct while in the plastic state. We are spinning our fates, for good or evil, and never to be undone. Every small stroke of virtue or vice leaves its never-so-little scar. The drunken Rip Van Winkle, in Jefferson's play, excuses himself for every fresh dereliction by saying, "It won't count this time." Well, he may not count it, and a kind Heaven may not count it, but it is being counted just the same. Deep down in his nerve cells and fibres, the molecules are counting it, registering it, and storing it up to be used against him when the next temptation comes. Nothing we ever do is, in strict scientific literalness, wiped out.1

Those are strong words, and we are amazed at even the small amount of their meaning we are able to grasp. 1 Talks to Teachers, pp. 77-78.

Our amazement increases when we know that they were written by a man who knew more about the development of our nervous system than, perhaps, any other man in his day; besides, practically every psychologist of any note to-day most heartily indorses what he said. They are all of the opinion that we are making ourselves what we are from day to day. Beginning with the day of our birth and ending on the day of our death, we are spinning our fates, writing the book of life that contains a perfect record of what we are. This is the meaning-full message that the study of the nervous system brings us, and it is a message that should be brought to every child as early in life as possible.

The development of the nervous system is, without doubt, the important problem in the education of children, and the question that should be foremost in the minds of parents and teachers is: How can such development be brought about?

In the first place, parents should begin early to help their children form correct habits. If they depend upon the school and wait until the school age, the battle will be largely lost. By the age of seven the child has formed the habits that will in great part determine his future career. These early years are the most important of the child's life. They are the time when he needs the most careful, painstaking, and sympathetic supervision, and there is to-day no danger threatening our civilization to be compared to that of the home's failure to make these years count for the most in the child's education. If the child's work in school is going to be made to count in preparing him for a life of happiness and success, a foundation for that work must be laid in the home before he starts to school. The home must take hold of its task and not seek to shift its responsibility to the kindergarten

and the school, for in the sacred precincts of the home, under the loving care of father, mother, brothers, and sisters, is the only place where the delicate nervous system of the little child can receive adequate training. In the home must be laid, if it is ever laid, the foundation for the habits of self-control, of obedience, of honesty, of industry, of kindness and patience, and all the other virtues necessary to a successful and happy life. Here the child's tastes must be formed; here the love of study, an appreciation of music, art, and good literature, must be created. It is fatal for parents to make the mistake of thinking that they can neglect the formation of these habits in the child's early life and make good the loss later on. It is fatal for them to think that they can shift the responsibility for the child's early education to the kindergarten or the school, for these institutions at best are but poor substitutes for the home. The purpose of the kindergarten in the mind of its founder was to offer a poor substitute for the home to those unfortunate children of the very rich and the very poor who did not have the advantage of a home. Let no mother think that she can shift to the kindergarten her responsibilities in the education of her children without paying the price in their improper development. The mother is heaven's appointed instructor for the child during his early years, and she knows instinctively more of his needs and how to satisfy those needs than does the most skilled kindergartner or primary teacher. The mother's most sacred duty is the education of her children, and she cannot afford to shift the task to less wise, patient, and sympathetic hands.

ENVIRONMENT IN EDUCATION

The most important factor in the education of the nervous system is environment. The child instinctively