A novelty in sports is an "obstacle race," in which every device, is used to hinder those who are on their way to the goal. Shall we have an obstacle race, or shall we see to it that our young athletes so run that they may obtain on a fair Olympian field! Instead of A-thousandWays and Means Society, let us have the "One-purpose Society" of Neesima, the Apostle of Japan, and of that other Apostle who said, "This one thing I do." Let us hush our clamor for the eyes and ears of the children long enough for the Lord himself to be seen and heard.

But to turn again to the School of the Heroes. The gentle old Centaur did not merely fill the memory, test the reason, and stretch the sinews of his Greek boys. He chanted the deeds of the immortals, the great poems from which the Iliad and the Odyssey sprang, and it was for the pupose of charging their souls with an inspiration that should make them immortals among men. He gave them the divine ideal, and making it their own, they came down from Mount Pelion trained for the conquest of evil. We hear nothing of the encumbrances of arms or armor as a preparation for their work. The gods bestowed the charmed sword, or the winged sandals, or the magic lyre, as there was need: but whether it was to stay the dragon, sail out on the unknown seas, deliver the bound, heal the sick, guard kingdoms, sing souls out of Hades, or undertake the impossible in any other form, they were ready, for they had faith in the divine within them, having received power to become the sons of the gods. What effluence of life — what strength to do and to dare-what courage to sail out in the sea of the unknown, filled the youth of this early race! They bore life as the beautiful Caryatides of the Acropolis of Athens bear up the frieze of the Erechtheum - with the strength and beauty of eternal youth. So have they become the custodians of the ideal in literature and in art for all time, while we, struggling with the accretions of the human thought and endeavor of ages, find it no longer possible to see or act in simplicity.

ness, haste, and overdoing, and to become simple, sincere, leisurely large in our living and teaching, there must be a way. It was the flood itself that carried the ark to its place of rest on top of the mountains. God's "way is in the sea," as well as in the sanctuary; and we all know how stumbling blocks become stepping-stones when the heart wishes to find the right

way.

The golden key with which the wise old teacher struck his lyre holds a meaning for us. The key is the symbol of power, and a key of gold opens into upper rooms and realms-opens the inner temple of the Word. It must be the golden quality of the love of truth that leads to truth; and with this key what wide domains may not the wise and loving teacher open to the youth of to-day! The apt scholar will build his life after the models he finds in the new realms opened to him, and happy is he who is thought to build

a Parthenon rather than a Palace of Versailles; to discern the spirit of the Gospels; to see without obstruction the grand outlines of spiritual manhood in the story of the Divine Man of Galilee, and be changed into the same image. A greater than a Cheiron, a Neesima, or a Paul taught on the slopes of Olivet, and in the fields of Galilee, and by the sea; and His words are the text-books in our schools.

The methods of the modern Sundayschool and of the modern day school, no less may be light-giving, but are they life-giving? The simple system of our childhood-a verse a day, seven verses to be recited to the teacher at Sunday-school -had its advantages; for, though it entered the memory only, it was bread stored for days of spiritual need. The cry of Christian as he fled from the City of Destruction was, "Life, life, eternal life!"-the cry of a hungry man whose soul was fed in the way by the shining ones who broke to him the word of life, "The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life."

Evil threatens us in a thousand new forms, and we need a thousand heroes. If, as some of us believe, the new century is to bring in the heroic age again on the higher plane of morals, the children of to-day must furnish the Heracles, the Perseus, the St. George of to-morrow, and we have them in training. But they must be taken directly to the great Teacher, and receive their inspiration from Him. "Bring him unto me,"

"Suffer the little children to come unto me," are the Lord's words to us concerning the children. We must take away the merchandise in human words and devices that we have brought into the temple. And when we have brought the children to Him, let us give them time, space, and quiet in which they may listen to Him. Who are we, that we should place ourselves between the Divine Teacher and the soul of a child when He stretches forth His hand to plant within it the seeds of eternal life?—Outlook.

THE LAW OF HABIT.

MABEL T. WELLMAN.

OR a long time the world has recog

FOR

nized the practical results of the law of habit, without much knowledge, perhaps, of the law itself. My aim, therefore, must be to point out the constant connection between this law and our common school studies, rather than to attempt to set forth any results with which we are not already perfectly familiar.

For this purpose I shall not have to recall James' theory of brain paths or discuss the physiological results of habit, but merely give a very general statement of the law of habit, one which all scientists, I think, would accept : The performance of any action leaves behind it a tendency in the individual to perform that action again under similar circumstances. more often any action is repeated, the stronger this tendency becomes, until in time action is performed almost, if not quite, automatically, that is, without conscious thought.

The

To emphasize, then, some of the familiar results of this law, in the first place, let me call attention to the sureness of habit. If a man does anything once, it is easier for him to do it again. If his action were good, less effort will be required to repeat it; if it were bad, the result is the same, next time it will be harder to resist. Habit is like the first rolling stones of an avalanche that any child might stop: once set going it gathers a growing power which finally increases beyond all control. Habit, then, would be a terrible, irresistible force if it were not that on account of its very sureness of action, it is the best weapon against itself. As Mark Twain puts it, "No man is strong enough to throw habit out of the

window; it must be coaxed step by step down stairs." The surest way of overcoming a bad habit is to start a counter habit which, by its increasing force, makes resistance to the evil grow constantly less difficult yet, this counter habit may be no more than a habit of not doing the thing. Thus we have a power that may be controlled by starting it in the right direction, and which may work as surely for good as for evil. But habit aids us in another way by increasing the ease with which we perform accustomed actions, reducing them finally to automatic movements. Did we wish to walk across the room, we must give as much attention and force of will to the action as a child spends over his first steps from the chair to the sofa. During such a performance we would be far too busy to use our hands or our minds for any other purpose.

What, then, is the connection between this undeniable law of habit and our common school studies? If we entered a primary school we should find the children learning to read words or sentences written on the black-board. These words are learned by connecting the written symbol with the already familiar sound, the two being constantly repeated together. At first, perhaps, the child gives the sound and the teacher writes the word, then the teacher writes the word and the child gives the sound: last of all, the teacher gives the sound and the child writes the word. But there is always the connection of sound and written symbol until finally through habit the association is made, and made so strongly that one calls to the child's mind all that the other does. When this method of teaching is used, I believe there is little or no trouble found with the child's expression in reading a sentence. If he supplied the idea in the first place, or if it conveys to his mind all its thought content, he gives it all its proper natural expression.

A child, too, may be taught to form a habit of keeping his eyes always a few words ahead of those he is pronouncing, an easy means of helping him know what he is reading about. But again, if the reading is full of unfamiliar words, this habit can never be formed.

Methods of teaching spelling now-adays vary somewhat. By one system, children are taught merely by seeing a word written. It is supposed that the eye will immediately detect whether a word is spelled right or not by its appear

ance; that is, the eye will tell us if the words differ from those we habitually see. Advocates of this method hold that if a child writes a word wrong, his attention should not be called to the mistake, lest the wrong form be impressed upon his memory; but that the word should be quietly rubbed out and the child told to try again. Psychologically, this method would be perfect if we could only guard our children from seeing their own mistakes and thus from having this experience, which should be unvarying, frequently broken.

The second method calls for a good deal of oral drill, but as the words are seen by the children while they are being committed to memory, this would seem in no way to destroy the habit of sight; but to serve rather as a second prop which may often either correct or confirm a word of whose appearance there is doubt. Moreover, the oral work teaches a child whatever connection there is between letters and sounds and gives him some idea of syllables, thus guarding against the use of a letter that has merely a written form similar to the correct letter, and also against the division of a word in the midst of a syllable.

I

Punctuation, and in most cases capitalization, is a matter that is nearly pure habit. I mean, of course, the ordinary cases of punctuation, not those puzzling ones that occur in complex sentences. do not suppose any of us stop to think consciously;-at the end of a sentence, I must put a period; after a question, I must put an interrogation mark; a sentence must begin with a capital. Yet this unerring application of the rules with which even the smaller children seem perfectly familiar, can be insured only by constant practice. Not for one week of each school year must the children be drilled on periods, for example, but for every week and every day of the year until the subject may be safely dropped because punctuation has become almost automatic action.

Accuracy in arithmetic can easily be made the result of habit, and a reward of an ever-ready vigilance in never allowing inaccurate results to pass uncorrected. to-day a child is permitted to write upon. his paper that 3 X 6 is 24, we cannot wonder if to-morrow he really cannot remember whether 3 X 6 is 24 or not; we cannot wonder if 24 recurs to his mind rather than 18, the correct number. We seldom, if

ever, stop to reason out the multiplication table.

That one's language is determined largely by what we are accustomed to hear, no one will dispute. Moreover, any one who has fought the use of a double negative among a certain class of children, will realize how strong such habits of expression are. Language together with pronunciation is a marked result of habit.

Let me turn, however, to a moment's consideration of the economy of habit. If we had always to deduce our multiplication table from addition, or to put in punctuation by recalling rules, we should finish few problems, write few papers. Contrast the time a child spends over its first written words with the time a college boy uses in writing notes at a lecture. Habit seems to lessen the time of any given movement almost without limit. Accurate measurements of the so-called reaction time of any given movements are being studied in some of the Experimental Psychology laboratories, that is, the measurement of the time necessary to perform any given movement after a given signal is made. But without these exact results, we can judge of the difference in time necessary, for example, to the addition of a column of figures by a child and a skilled accountant; or the difference in speed with which a child who is accustomed to mental arithmetic will give answers, compared with a child taught differently, and we cannot doubt that habit is the greatest economizer of time. This is especially marked in drawing, writing and manual work of all kinds, as is also the increasing precision and skill with which such work is accomplished, although in an ever-decreasing amount of time. For skill is no less a matter of habit than increased quickness; for quickness itself is not a habit, but rather a test of the strength of habit, or in mechanical work, a test of skill. Not only does our college boy write at greater speed, but his penmanship is firmer, his writing is formed," as we say.

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Because we find such vigilance necessary to the formation of good habit, we must not forget to guard against so strongly accustoming a child to our way of doing a thing, that he may never be able to adopt a better. It is true that his sense of color, for example, may be trained to such an extent that he can never see in a picture anything but color, just

as a child who is allowed to count too long | on his fingers, or by other material objects, may never be able to count in any other way. I have had a pupil in algebra, brought up in a private school, who really could not reckon without at least moving his fingers. We must be careful not to impress too firmly a one-sided view, even though for the time that view may be right and proper.-Education.

THE SLAUGHTER OF BIRDS.

Philadelphia Ledger, says: The strenuous efforts that have been made by the Selborne Society and kindred institutions to prevail upon the woman of the period to so far dissociate fashion from cruelty as to refuse to adorn herself with the plumes of the breeding osprey and the heron seem, from the figures of some recent auction sales of birds' feathers and skins in London, to have met with little, if any success. are the ravages upon the beautiful birds of the world at the behest of woman for her personal adornment confined to the osprey and the heron.

Nor

At a great sale, for instance, which took place only yesterday at the Commercial Salesrooms in Mincing Lane, some startling evidence was offered of the gigantic scale on which birds possessing beautiful plumage are being slaughtered for the purposes of feminine adornment. A glance over the catalogue shows that among the lots offered were items such as these: 125,300 parrot skins, 91,800 humming birds, 6,900 birds of paradise, 900 kingfishers, 1300 owls, 6700 creepers and tanagers; while there were no less than 248 lots of osprey feathers, ranging from 205 ounces each downwards, for so valuable are these feathery plumes that they are sold by the ounce. It was these lots in especial that excited the keenest competition at yesterday's sale, the greater number being sold at over $5 an ounce, while some brought no less than $22 an ounce. I am told that this is by no means a record price, however, a choice South American variety having recently reached as much as $30 an ounce.

The birds of paradise came next in turn to the ospreys, and the skins of these beautiful creatures brought in some cases as much as $5 apiece. The parrot skins, to judge from yesterday's prices, seem

hardly worth the labor of preserving, let alone of slaughtering the unhappy birds from which they are taken, for one lot of over 200 sold at an average of something like four for one cent. I am further told that yesterday's sale was by no means to be considered an exceptionally large one. Early in the fall one consignment put up and offered at the same rooms comprised, among other items, 11,000 ounces of osprey plumes, over 116,000 bundles of humming birds, and 228,000 bundles of Indian parrots.

It is quite evident that at this rate some of the rarest and most beautiful birds on our planet are being destroyed solely to gratify this passing feminine fancy. An eminent ornithologist, for instance, says, when speaking of the lyre bird, that this extraordinary and beautiful creature will soon become a thing of the past, and with it will disappear the sole survivor of a very ancient race, before even its habits and structure are known.

EDUCATION AND THE HIGHER LIFE: IDEALS.

BISHOP J. L. SPALDING.

O few men does life bring a brighter

day than that which places the crown upon their scholastic labors, and bids them go forth from the halls of the Alma Mater to the great world's battle-field. There is a freshness in these early triumphs which, like the bloom and fragrance of the flower, is quickly lost, never to be found again even by those for whom Fortune reserves her most choice gifts. Fame, though hymned by myriad tongues, is not so sweet as the delight we drink from the tear-dimmed eyes of our mothers and sisters, in the sacred hours when we can yet claim as our own the love of higher things, the faith and hope which make this mortal life immortal, and fill a moment with a wealth of memories which lasts through years. The highest joy is serious, and in the midst of supreme delight there comes to the soul a stillness which permits it to rise to the serene sphere where truth is most gladly heard and most easily perceived; and in such exaltation, the young see that life is not what they take it to be. They think it long; it is short. They think it happy; it is full of cares and sorrows. This two-fold illusion

widens the horizon of life and tinges it with gold. It gives to youth its charm and makes of it a blessed time to which we ever turn regretful eyes. But I am wrong to call illusion that which in truth is but an omen of the divine possibilities of man's nature. To the young, life is not mean or short, because the blessed freedom of youth may make it noble and immortal. The young stand upon the threshold of the world. Of the many careers which are open to human activity, they will choose one; and their fortunes will be various, even though their merits should be equal. But if position, fame, and wealth are often denied to the most persistent efforts and the best ability, it is consoling to know they are not the highest; and as they are not the end of life, they should not be made its aim. An aim, nevertheless, we must have, if we hope to live to good purpose. All men, in fact, whether or not they know it, have an ideal, base or lofty, which moulds character and shapes destiny. Whether it be pleasure or gain or renown or knowledge, or several of these, or something else, we all associate life with some end, or ends, the attainment of which seems to us most desirable.

This ideal, that which in our inmost souls we love and desire, which we lay to heart and live by, is at once the truest expression of our nature and the most potent agency in developing its powers. Now, in youth we form the ideals which we labor to body forth in our lives. What in these growing days we yearn for with all our being, is heaped upon us in old age. All important, therefore, is the choice of an ideal; for this more than rules or precepts will determine what we are to become. The love of the best is twin-born with the soul. What is the best? What is the worthiest life-aim? It must be something which is within the reach of every one, as Nature's best gifts-air and sunshine and water-belong to all. What only the few can attain, cannot be life's real end or the highest good. The best is not far removed from any one of us, but is alike near to the poor and the rich, to the learned and the ignorant, to the shepherd and the king, and only the best can give to the soul repose and contentment. What then is the true life-ideal? Recalling to mind the thoughts and theories of many men, I can find nothing better than this, "Seek ye first the kingdom of

God." "Love not pleasure," says Carlyle, "love God. This is the everlasting Yea, wherein all contradiction is solved; wherein whoso walks and works, it is well with him."

To the high and aspiring heart of youth, fame, honor, glory, appeal with such irresistible power, and appear clad in forms so beautiful, that at a time of life when all of us are unreal in our sentiments and crude in our opinions, they are often mistaken for the best. But fame is good only in so far as it gives power for good. For the rest, it is nominal. They who have deserved it care not for it. A great soul is above all praise and dispraise of men, which are ever given ignorantly and without fine. discernment. The popular breath, even when winnowed by the winds of centuries, is hardly pure.

And then fame cannot be the good of which I speak, for only a very few can even hope for it. To nearly all, the gifts which make it possible are denied; and to others, the opportunities. Many, indeed, love and win notoriety, but such as they need not detain us here. A lower race of youth, in whom the blood is warmer than the soul, think pleasure life's best gift, and are content to let occasion die, while they revel in the elysium of the senses. But to make pleasure an end is to thwart one's purpose, for joy is good only when it comes unbidden. The pleasure we seek begins already to pall. It is good, indeed, if it come as refreshment to the weary, solace to the heavyhearted, and rest to the care-worn; but if sought for its own sake, it is "the honey of poison flowers and all the measureless ill.' Only the young, or the depraved, can believe that to live for pleasure is not to be fore-ordained to misery, Whoso loves God or freedom or growth of mind or strength of heart, feels that pleasure is his foe.

A king of feasts and flowers, and wine and revel, And love and mirth, was never king of glory.

Of money, as the end or ideal of life, it should not be necessary to speak. As a fine contempt for life, a willingness to throw it away in defence of any just cause or noble opinion, is one of the privileges of youth, so the generous heartof the young holds cheap the material conforts which money procures. To be young is to be free, to be able to live anywhere on land or sea, in the midst of deserts or among strange people;