the book which brings the just to true wisdom and prudence. (Ps. cxix; civ; ciii: 2 Tim. iii; 15: 1 Tim. iv; 6: Prov. xxii; 19.

CHRISTIAN BUCHNER.

If you are blessed with children, so act that your children shall be carefully trained to the knowledge of God.

If a prince had honored you by presenting you his portrait, and you, out of folly or lack of respect, had permitted it to become covered with dust, cobwebs and dirt, could you hope to receive any further favors from him, if he should become aware of your carelessness, or should see it? But your children are the image of God.

If you act wrongly by them, the Omniscient will not leave you unpunished.

Men must consecrate to God the firstlings both of their thoughts and of their youth.

Then He will bestow his blessings on the rest.

You ought to pray for and with your children.

When your children have arisen, and are clean, washed and dressed, let them come to you and bid you a good morning.

Then you can see if there is anything wrong about them, and how to adjust it.

Then place them before you, and with uncovered head pray the prayer for parents over them, and bless them with laying on of hands; so that they may hear and understand how the eternal well-being of children is earnestly desired by their parents; so that they may not only be made more obedient, but may in the subsequent management of their own children do the like.

Watch that no wicked habit comes upon the children; for their depraved nature will otherwise always be before their better nature.

Boys and girls should always sleep in separate rooms; and brothers and sisters should not see each other without clothes, after they can go alone. Wherever possible, each child should have a separate bed.

Do not permit your children to hear loose and frivolous stories.

A child's Bible with pictures, to be explained by you, picture by picture, is the best book for children.

Christian parents should be very careful what sort of persons they have about their children; for from these, if they are immoral or vicious persons, they often learn tricks, improper speeches and curses, which they would otherwise never have heard, much more learned.

Children are, so to speak, like apes; they will imitate what they see. The children should not understand that their parents are man and wife.

The rod should only be used on important occasions.

Children should be made to give brief and intelligent answers.

Permit

no obscurity and no conceit of cunning to appear in their words. Do not praise witty children, but rather God-fearing ones.

They should be early cured of coarse and awkward habits.

Empty threats should be avoided.

The love for their children of many parents is a really foolish mere animal instinct.

Many parents admire the foolish and apish gestures and tricks, and even the improper speeches and wicked actions of their children; and thus do not love them as human beings, but amuse themselves with them as if they were young apes.

Many parents, if they have a nice morsel in their dish, give it to their children out of their own mouths, as a hen does to her chickens, and thus accustom them to lickerishness and to dainties, in a way that can produce nothing but corruption.

The more economically children are brought up, the more safely. Many parents beat and abuse their children for being so rude, ill-trained and boorish.

But the fault is with those who brought them up.

How can your children be well conducted, if you yourself are an uncultivated boor?

If you are a dirty fellow, how can your children be well trained?

It is as the fable reports of the crab, who told her young one not to walk backwards, but forwards. But the young one answered, "Show me the way and I will follow in it."

And that is a very foolish expression of those who say, "My children do not need to make bows. They are not going to be gentlemen."

They are not, truly!

But understand, you blockhead, that decent conduct is appropriate to all. (Sirach, xix; 26; Prov., xx; 11.)

Parents should not treat their own children with more respect than those of others.

To do so causes jealousy, however young they are.

It displeases them; and their dissatisfaction grows as they grow older; and will in the end cause dislike, anger, enmity and revenge, even if it is not until the parents are dead. MOSCHEROSCH.

Parents are indisputably most immediately called, and most naturally bound, to provide for the cultivation of the bodily and intellectual powers of those to whom they have given life.

An instinctive impulse makes them fittest and most skillful to attend to the first necessities of their children, and to endure their weaknesses with patience.

Early habituation to the company of their children makes it almost indispensable to parents in whom the voice of nature is not silenced by unhappy circumstances or by corruption of morals.

They thus learn to feel that these beings, at first so helpless, depend entirely upon their strength and their will; and this feeling which no other person can have so strongly as parents, except, (during their carliest years,) a nurse, strengthens their interest in their little ones.

The home, the family, will always be the most appropriate place for the growth of a child.

A child is like a young plant, to which a too early transplantation is injurious, even if the new soil is the best.

It is only in the family that certain impressions can be received, and certain feelings awakened, which, as being those most distinctively human, should be deeply and strongly rooted in the human breast; such are love of parents, sense of domestic happiness, early sympathy in all that relates to the family; pure susceptibilities, which contain the germ of those feelings for universal humanity, which are so easily quenched for ever.

Children who by accident or convenience, or perhaps the mistaken views of their parents, are thrust too soon out of their homes among strangers, usually cease to be children too soon, and perhaps even to have childish faults, but without becoming for that reason any better.

They omit a step in their experience which, according to the wise arrangements of nature, should not be omitted.

But the advantages above mentioned can only be expected where the parents, by their own example, awaken and nourish the germ of a pure humanity in their children; for this means is undoubtedly more efficient than all possible positive instrumentalities and institutions.

It is entirely natural that children should respect and value nothing so much as what is commended to them by the words and actions of those

whose offspring they are, under whose protection they grow up, and who are thus the first objects of their reverence and love.

The influence, moreover, of constant association, and the tone of family life which proceeds from the character and spirit of parents, have so uninterrupted and strong an influence, although it is imperceptible, that this cause alone will serve to explain all the peculiarities of children, not only the resemblances, but also for they are not all brought up under the same circumstances and the same time, if they are by the same parents -the dissimilarities of brothers and sisters.

It is true, however, that not even the highest degree of morality and education in parents can of itself protect their children from injuries; for the world and actual life, work along with them, and join in the work of education. NIEMEYER.

Whoever has a father, or mother, or both, must be educated by him, her, or both; and no one, neither father nor mother, can for gold or good words hire another mother and another father for their children.

Parents can infinitely lighten their duties in this respect, by apportioning to themselves such parts of the child's training as are most proper for each of them, and at the same time a corresponding part of the enjoyment arising from every advance in knowledge or usefulness.

The mutual instructive affections of teacher and pupil, in this care also diminish by at least half, the labor of the occupation.

But what is it that people of rank-the question is worth considering— secure by employing all sorts of nurses for their children?

If the question is rightly answered, this is it:-nurses' stories and all manner of vulgarisms in speech and action. HIPPEL.

And whether a father or a mother be ever so much absorbed, one in business and labor, the other in domestic affairs, time enough in evenings and unoccupied days to instruct their children in what they themselves know -whether the treasure of their lives and experiences be great or smallto set before them examples from the Holy Scriptures and from life, to impress good advice and pious principles upon their hearts-time enough for this can be commanded even by those who have to earn their daily living by their daily labor.

I recommend my children, O God, to Thee: Thou gavest them to me, and I praise and thank thee therefor with my whole soul. Be their protection; forsake them not; bless and watch over them, so that they may easily walk in thy ways, to Thy satisfaction.

Father! Ah how many dangers await them in this world! Who could escape them unless supported by Thy hand! Let them be free from the dominion of all lusts, pure and pious; let them act only as shall be well pleasing to Thee, and disregard the impulses of vice.

I do not and ought not to pray Thee to preserve them from all afflictions here on earth; nor to reward their virtue here with constant happiness, the granting of every wish and the fulfillment of every hope; nor for such treasures as vanish away.

Give them during the journey of their lives, O Lord, only what to Thy wisdom shall seem good; only what shall render them wise and fit for heaven. If they should turn away from Thee, not all the treasures of earth could compensate for the loss of their soul's happiness.

Let but one petition from me meet a gracious ear;-Let not all their days be entirely joyless. If they are to be proved by Thee, let it be in a paternal manner; and let not their souls be deprived of faith and strength.

Let none of my children, O God, be made miserable by vice. Let none of them be a vexation to his neighbors, nor the sport of his enemies.

Let them be useful to the world, not afraid of exertion nor labor; let them live by the proceeds of their own industry, and thus escape from want. May the triumphal day of Thy pious one be a day of bliss to me! Help me, that when we appear before Thee, none of mine shall be wanting. Then shall I say with joy, See, Father, here am I, and here are also those whom Thy grace gave unto me to be trained for heaven."

66

A father should every day pray to God, "Lord, teach me aright to stand in Thy place towards my children." RUCKERT. (Poem.)

Education in the "nurture and admonition of the Lord," is and must be the principal thing.

All wisdom is not founded in the fear of the Lord,-all corporeal training and artistic skill, are of little use; but the fear of God, a pious Christian feeling, habitude to virtue and good order, the right training of the heart, are useful in all things. They are security for present and future happiness.

Accordingly, it is the holiest of the duties of parents, and universally for church and state, not only to train the understandings of the youthful branches of humanity entrusted to them, but to elevate their hearts, and thus to educate a future generation deserving of happiness and of a blessing.

SCHWABE.

Teachers should treat their pupils as they would their own children; should have pleasure in being with and among them; should love them as affectionately as a good hen does her chickens; for in Donatus, first comes Amo, and Doceo follows afterwards. GIZAS.

The teacher should be free from all selfishness; he should love, in his pupils, themselves and humanity; he should not respect a pupil less than himself, but should even observe, with reverence, whether he has not met, in the pupil, an individual of even higher grade of mind and capacity than himself.

The teacher should use all his powers to make his pupil a more valuable man than he himself is.

He should not claim any influence over the pupil than the latter feels of himself.

If love inspire him, and patience assist him, the consciousness of his divine vocation will enable him to overcome the difficulties of his work. He should employ only such incitements and means of training as are noble, pure, and in harmony with the essential ideas of humanity, and such as unite virtue, love, justice and beauty; so that the pupil may respect him as a true man. KRAUSE.

The first and principal mark of eminent mental endowments is a memory which easily grasps knowledge, retains it faithfully, and renders it up when desired.

The second mark is imitation.

For it indicates capacity for being taught, if young people endeavor to repeat what they see.

A young man however does not give hopeful indications by trying to imitate for the sake of making others laugh.

If he really has talent, he will be modest; a feeble intellect would be preferable to a vicious tendency.

Yet this modesty will be very different from stupidity or indolence. What such a boy is taught, he will understand without difficulty. He will question inquisitively about many things; thus endeavoring rather to follow than to lead.

Too carly a development of the mind does not easily bear good fruit.

Such children easily learn some little things, but soon lose their mental activity.

Precocious geniuses accomplish everything quickly, but not much.
What they know has no substantial foundation.

It is like seeds of grain scattered on the surface of the earth, which indeed quickly spring up and put out leaves, but wither before harvest with empty ears.

This rapid faculty of learning is very successful in early youth, but soon comes to a stand, and all admiration of it dies with it.

As soon as a teacher has otherwise examined the capacity of a pupil, he should seek how his mind requires to be managed.

Some, if not stimulated, grow indifferent; others will not endure anything of an imperative nature. Fear restrains some, others it deprives of their spirits. A continuous strictness quite prostrates some, while others are encouraged by it.

A teacher must be able to study the variations of character in his pupils, and to treat them accordingly; and so to instruct each, that the peculiar excellences of his character will be developed, and that thus he will be directed as his powers require.

Nature must advance by means of art.

He who is urged into employments to which he is not adapted, will accomplish no more than he whose mind is neglected.

Examination of the mental faculties and of their reference to instruction is absolutely necessary.

For some show a preference for history, some for poetry, some for law; while others had better be sent to the plough.

But if we find one whose mind is quite corrupt, shall we allow him to proceed with his studies?

It is necessary for a young person to apply himself to something; shall he not be permitted to make any exertions to do so?

If he has any one good natural trait, it ought not to be neglected, but rather strengthened, and existing deficiencies, as far as possible, supplied. Feeble intellects must be condescended to, at least so far as to learn what their natural tendencies are.

For in this way they may at least accomplish whatever they are capable of. QUINTILIAN.

The same education, under the same circumstances, may not produce the same virtues; for these differ according to natural endowments. For instance; the manly virtues are more commanding, the womanly more obedient, in character; and in like manner, minds vary in the same sex. Our endeavors must therefore be directed towards the subjection of the unreasoning part to the reasoning part.

Thus are the virtues produced.

Education is intended to prepare the mind for instruction in moral excellence; as the land is prepared before the seed is sown in it.

Nature has planted within us an innate faculty of knowing and of conscience; by which we decide within ourselves upon existence and nonexistence, in doing and not doing, with a yes or no, without any further reasonings.

The better manners are, the better the condition of the whole state; for the power of the law rests in great part upon usage.

If the gods concern themselves about men, that which lies nearest their hearts with regard to them is their nobler part; the improvement of the mind and moral faculties.

For as the eye receives light throughout the surrounding atmosphere, so does the mind through instruction.

ARISTOTLE.