Part 16

"We shall be agreed once more that the noblest fruit of education is character, and not acquirements: character which makes the simplest life rich and beneficent, character which for a Christian is determined by a true vision of God, _of whom, through whom, unto whom, are all things_."

_Christian Social Union Addresses_, Bishop WESTCOTT.

The Object of Education

DECEMBER 9

"The entire object of true education is to make people not merely _do_ the right things, but enjoy the right things--not merely industrious, but to love industry--not merely learned, but to love knowledge--not merely pure, but to love purity--not merely just, but to hunger and thirst after justice."

_The Crown of Wild Olive_, JOHN RUSKIN.

"Our great mistake in education is, as it seems to me, the worship of book-learning--the confusion of instruction and education. We strain the memory instead of cultivating the mind.... The important thing is not so much that every child should be taught, as that every child should be given the wish to learn.... If we succeed in giving the love of learning, the learning itself is sure to follow."

Lord AVEBURY.

A Happy Childhood

DECEMBER 10

"A happy childhood is one of the best gifts that parents have it in their power to bestow; second only to implanting the habit of obedience which puts the child in training for the habit of obeying himself, later on."

_Diana Tempest_, MARY CHOLMONDELEY.

"The main duty of those who care for the young is to secure their wholesome, their entire growth; for health is just the development of the whole nature in its due sequences and proportions: first the blade--then the ear--then, and not till then, the full corn in the ear; and thus, as Dr. Temple wisely says, 'not to forget wisdom in teaching knowledge.' If the blade be forced, and usurp the capital it inherits; if it be robbed by you, its guardian, of its birthright, or squandered like a spendthrift, then there is not any ear, much less any corn; if the blade be blasted or dwarfed in our haste and greed for the full shock and its price, we spoil all three. It is not easy to keep this always before one's mind, that the young 'idea' is in a young body, and that healthy growth and harmless passing of the time are more to be cared for than what is vainly called accomplishment."

Dr. JOHN BROWN.

Moral Education

December 11

"Remember that the aim of your discipline should be to produce a _self-governing_ being, not to produce a being to be _governed by others_. Were your children fated to pass their lives as slaves, you could not too much accustom them to slavery during their childhood; but as they are by-and-by to be free men, with no one to control their daily conduct, you cannot too much accustom them to self-control while they are still under your eye. This is it which makes the system of discipline by natural consequences so especially appropriate to the social state which we in England have now reached. In feudal times, when one of the chief evils the citizen had to fear was the anger of his superiors, it was well that during childhood parental vengeance should be a chief means of government. But now that the citizen has little to fear from any one--now that the good or evil which he experiences is mainly that which in the order of things results from his own conduct, he should from his first years begin to learn, experimentally, the good or evil consequences which naturally follow this or that conduct. Aim, therefore, to diminish the parental government, as fast as you can substitute for it in your child's mind that self-government arising from a foresight of results....

"All transitions are dangerous; and the most dangerous is the transition from the restraint of the family circle to the non-restraint of the world. Hence the importance of pursuing the policy we advocate, which, by cultivating a boy's faculty of self-restraint, by continually increasing the degree in which he is left to his self-restraint, and by so bringing him, step by step, to a state of unaided self-restraint, obliterates the ordinary sudden and hazardous change from externally-governed youth to internally-governed maturity. Let the history of your domestic rule typify, in little, the history of our political rule. At the outset, autocratic control, where control is really needful; by-and-by an incipient constitutionalism, in which the liberty of the subject gains some express recognition; successive extensions of this liberty of the subject, gradually ending in parental abdication."

_Education_, HERBERT SPENCER.

Moral Education

DECEMBER 12

"Self-government with tenderness,--here you have the condition of all authority over children. The child must discover in us no passion, no weakness of which he can make use; he must feel himself powerless to deceive or to trouble us; then he will recognise in us his natural superiors, and he will attach a special value to our kindness, because he will respect it. The child who can rouse in us anger, or impatience, or excitement, feels himself stronger than we, and a child only respects strength. The mother should consider herself as her child's sun, a changeless and ever radiant world, whither the small restless creature, quick at tears and laughter, light, fickle, passionate, full of storms, may come for fresh stores of light, warmth and electricity, of calm and of courage. The mother represents goodness, providence, law; that is to say, the divinity under that form of it which is accessible to childhood. If she is herself passionate, she will inculcate on her child a capricious and despotic God, or even several discordant gods. The religion of a child depends on what its mother and its father are, and not on what they say. The inner and unconscious ideal which guides their life is precisely what touches the child; their words, their remonstrances, their punishments, their bursts of feeling, even, are for him merely thunder and comedy; what they worship--this it is which his instinct divines and reflects.

"The child sees what we are, behind what we wish to be. Hence his reputation as a physiognomist. He extends his power as far as he can with each of us; he is the most subtle of diplomatists. Unconsciously he passes under the influence of each person about him, and reflects it while transforming it after his own nature. He is a magnifying mirror. This is why the first principle of education is: train yourself; and the first rule to follow if you wish to possess yourself of a child's will is: master your own."

_Amiel's Journal._

Moral Education

DECEMBER 13

"All wise teachers, I believe, recognise now that the best way of dealing with naughty children is to absorb their whole attention with some _interest_, which will not only leave no energy to spare for naughtiness, but will of itself tend to organise their minds, to subordinate mental elements to a _purpose_, and so to develop character."

_The Standard of Life_, Mrs. BERNARD BOSANQUET.

"Discipline, like the bridle in the hand of a good rider, should exercise its influence without appearing to do so, should be ever active, both as a support and as a restraint, yet seem to lie easily in hand. It must be always ready to check or to pull up, as occasion may require; and only when the horse is a runaway, should the action of the curb be perceptible."

_Guesses at Truth_, edited by Archdeacon HARE.

"If 'Pas trop gouverner' is the best rule in politics, it is equally true of discipline."

_Children's Rights_, KATE DOUGLAS WIGGIN.

Punishment

DECEMBER 14

"Punishments, then, must in the first place be proportionate to the offence, lest, by an undiscriminating severity or an undiscriminating leniency, distinctions of moral desert be blurred or effaced.

"_Secondly_, they must be analogous to the offence. The greedy must be starved, the insolent humbled, the idle compelled to work. Otherwise the imposition will not effectually go home to the offender.

"_Thirdly_, punishments ought to be exemplary. Since they needs must come, it is not enough that they should simply open the eyes of the culprit, by giving him his deserts. They must be utilised as object-lessons for the behoof of that large class, the culprits in potentiality.

"_Fourthly_, they ought to be economical. 'It is good that they should suffer,' we sometimes say; and so it is, so long as suffering, in itself always an evil, do not exceed the quantum that is lamentably needful, needful, that is, to vindicate authority, to stigmatise the offence, and to impress the offender.

"_Fifthly_, punishments ought to be reformatory. Not only must they never, by vindictiveness in him who gives, and degradation in him who receives, impair the instincts and resolves for a better life; they must be devised in the belief, or at least in the hope, that these instincts and resolves exist, though they may be inhibited by the evil proclivities which punishment is meant to crush. The killing of what is bad must always look to the liberation of what is good.

"_Finally_, punishments ought to insist upon, and to define indemnity, so that the wrong-doer, in things small or great, may be forced to repair, so far as this is possible, the irreparable mischief which offence implies."

_The Making of Character_, Professor MACCUNN.

Rebuking

DECEMBER 15

"The gentleness of our Lord in rebuking, has an effect which gentleness often has, it awakens compunctions in those to whom it is shown. A child, who by severity is set on its defence or drawn into falsehood, is often melted into full confession by being loved and trusted more than it deserves."

_Pastor Pastorum_, HENRY LATHAM.

"Our Lord's reply is again gentle; to be hard on a fault that was confessed would have dried up that confidence which flowed so freely."

_Pastor Pastorum_, HENRY LATHAM.

"Better make penitents by gentleness than hypocrites by severity."

S. FRANCIS DE SALES.

Example

DECEMBER 16

"Children have more need of models than of critics."

JOUBERT.

"It is by imitation, far more than by precept, that we learn everything; and what we learn thus we acquire not only more effectually, but more pleasantly. This forms our manners, our opinions, our lives."

BURKE.

"Meanwhile there is much that we can do. It need not be said that home is the most effective school of character. On the duties of home I cannot dwell now. But there is a more general influence of common tone and habits of which serious account ought to be taken. We are at all times unconsciously educating others by our own example. Our standard of duty in the discharge of business and in the use of leisure necessarily influences the desires and the actions of those who look to us for guidance. The young are quick-eyed critics, and the sight of quiet devotion to work, of pleasure sought in common things--and all truly precious things are common--will enforce surely and silently some great lessons of school. We do not, as far as I can judge, rate highly enough our responsibility for the customary practices of society. Not infrequently we neutralise our teaching through want of imagination by failing to follow out the consequences of some traditional custom. We seem to be inconsiderate when we are only ignorant."

Bishop WESTCOTT.

Wealth

DECEMBER 17

"Christ did not denounce wealth any more than He denounced pauperism. He did not abhor money; He used it. He did not abhor the company of rich men; He sought it. He did not invariably scorn or even resent a certain profuseness of expenditure. With a fine discrimination, He, while habitually discouraging it, yet recognised that, here and there, there was place for it. What he denounced was the _love_ of, the _lust_ of riches; the vulgar snobbishness that chose exclusively the fellowship or the ways of rich men; the habit of extravagance; in one word, greed and luxury and self-indulgence. He taught men, first of all and last of all, that they were stewards, that in the final analysis of men and things neither they nor theirs were their own.

* * * * *

We must not only affirm the brotherhood of man: we must live it. For then the State, and in the State, the home, the Church, and the individual shall become the incarnation of a regenerated humanity, and earth, this earth, our earth, here and to-day, the vestibule of heaven!"

_The Citizen in Relation to the Industrial Situation_, Bishop POTTER.

The Limit of Luxury

DECEMBER 18

"The expenditure of money is no easy matter. It is wrong to let the poor want. It is wrong to starve the nature which asks for other things than food. There is only one principle of guidance. Whatever is done must be done in thought for others, and not in thought for ourselves. Money on luxuries which end in ourselves is wrongly spent; money spent on luxuries--on scents, sounds and sights--which directly or indirectly pass on to others is rightly spent. The limit of luxury is the power of sharing."

_The Service of God_, Canon BARNETT.

"All that depends on individual choice--our recreations, our expenditure--can be brought to one test, which we are generally able to apply: Does this or that help me to do my work more effectively? To us most literally, even if the confession overwhelms us with shame, whatsoever is not of faith is sin."

Bishop WESTCOTT.

"Imitate a little child.... While you gather and use this world's goods with one hand, always let your other be fast in your Heavenly Father's hand, and look round from time to time, and make sure that He is satisfied."

S. FRANCIS DE SALES.

Expenditure

DECEMBER 19

"I will take heart to lay down what I hold to be a fundamental rule, that, while we endeavour to gain the largest and keenest power of appreciating all that is noblest in nature and art and literature, we must seek to live on as little as will support the full vigour of our life and work. The standard cannot be fixed. It will necessarily vary, within certain limits, according to the nature and office of each man. But generally we shall strive diligently to suppress all wants which do not tend through their satisfaction to create a nobler type of manhood, and individually we shall recognise no wants which do not express what is required for the due cultivation of our own powers and the fulfilment of that which we owe to others. We shall guard ourselves against the temptations of artificial wants which the ingenuity of producers offers in seductive forms. We shall refuse to admit that the caprice of fashion represents any valuable element in our constitution, or calls into play any faculties which would otherwise be unused, or encourages industry. On the contrary, we shall see in the dignity and changelessness of Eastern dress a typical condemnation of our restless inconstancy. We shall perceive, and act as perceiving, that the passion for novelty is morally and materially wasteful: that it distracts and confuses our power of appreciating true beauty: that it tends to the constant displacement of labour: that it produces instability both in the manufacture and in the sale of goods to the detriment of economy. We shall, to sum up all in one master-principle, estimate value and costs in terms of life, as Mr. Ruskin has taught us; and, accepting this principle, we shall seek nothing of which the cost to the producer so measured exceeds the gain to ourselves."

_Christian Social Union Addresses_, Bishop WESTCOTT.

Money

DECEMBER 20

"If money be not thy servant, it will be thy master. The covetous man cannot so properly be said to possess wealth, as that wealth may be said to possess him."

BACON.

"The covetous man is like the camel, with a great haunch on his back; heaven's gate must be made higher and broader, or he will hardly get in."

ADAMS.

"Who shuts his hand hath lost his gold, Who opens it hath it twice told."

GEORGE HERBERT.

"Wealth in every form, material, intellectual, moral, has to be administered for the common good. God only can say of any possession 'My own.'"

Bishop WESTCOTT.

Courage to be Poor

DECEMBER 21

"How the sting of poverty, or small means, is gone when one keeps house for one's own comfort, and not for the comfort of one's neighbours."

DINAH MARIA MULOCH.

"I wish that more of us had the courage to be poor; that the world had not gone mad after fashion and display; but so it is, and the blessings we might have are lost in the effort to get those which lie outside the possible."

ALICE CAREY.

"To have what we want is riches; but to be able to do without is power."

GEORGE MACDONALD.

Hospitality

DECEMBER 22

"The truest hospitality is shown not in the effort to entertain, but in the depth of welcome. What a guest loves to come for, and come again, is not the meal, but those who sit at the meal. If we remembered this, more homes would be habitually thrown open to win the benedictions upon hospitality. It is our ceremony, not our poverty, it is self-consciousness oftener than inability to be agreeable that makes us willing to live cloistered. Seldom is it that pleasantest homes to visit are the richest. The real compliment is _not_ to apologise for the simple fare. That means trust, and trust is better than fried oysters."

W. C. GANNETT.

"Hospitality must be for service, and not for show, or it pulls down the host."

EMERSON.

Hospitality

DECEMBER 23

"I pray you, O excellent wife, not to cumber yourself and me to get a rich dinner for this man or this woman who has alighted at our gate, nor a bedchamber made ready at too great a cost. These things, if they are curious in, they can get for a dollar at any village. But let this stranger, if he will, in your looks, in your accent and behaviour, read in your heart and earnestness, your thought and will, which he cannot buy at any price in any village or city, and which he may well travel fifty miles and dine sparely and sleep hard in order to behold. Certainly, let the board be spread and let the bed be dressed for the traveller; but let not the emphasis of hospitality lie in these things. Honour to the house where they are simple to the verge of hardship, so that there the intellect is awake and reads the laws of the universe."

EMERSON.

"I should count myself fortunate if my home were remembered for some inspiring quality of faith, charity and aspiring intelligence."

HAMILTON W. MABIE.

Christmas Eve

DECEMBER 24

A CHRISTMAS CAROL

"It chanced upon the merry, merry Christmas Eve, I went sighing past the church across the moorland dreary-- 'Oh! never sin and want and woe this earth will leave, And the bells but mock the wailing rounds, they sing so cheery. How long, O Lord! how long before Thou come again! Still in cellar, and in garret, and on moorland dreary The orphans moan, and widows weep, and poor men toil in vain, Till earth is sick of hope deferred, though Christmas bells be cheery.'

"Then arose a joyous clamour from the wild-fowl on the mere, Beneath the stars, across the snow, like clear bells ringing, And a voice within cried,--'Listen! Christmas carols even here! Tho' thou be dumb, yet o'er their work the stars and snows are singing. Blind! I live, I love, I reign; and all the nations through, With the thunder of my judgments even now are ringing; Do thou fulfil thy work but as yon wild-fowl do, Thou wilt heed no less the wailing, yet hear through it angels singing.'"

CHARLES KINGSLEY.

Christmas Day

DECEMBER 25

"And now once more comes Christmas Day. Once more, borne abroad on the words of simple-minded shepherds, runs the story. God and man have met, in visible, actual union, in a life which is both human and divine.... Lift up yourselves to the great meaning of the Day, and dare to think of your Humanity as something so sublimely precious that it is worthy of being made an offering to God. Count it a privilege to make that offering as complete as possible, keeping nothing back, and then go out to the pleasures and duties of your life, having been truly born anew into His Divinity, as He was born into our Humanity, on Christmas Day."

PHILLIPS BROOKS.

"Let not the hearts, whose sorrow cannot call This Christmas merry, slight the festival; Let us be merry that may merry be, But let us not forget that many mourn; The smiling Baby came to give us glee, But for the weepers was the Saviour born."

COLERIDGE.

Mile-marks

DECEMBER 26

"But Christmas is not only the mile-mark of another year, moving us to thoughts of self-examination: it is a season, from all its associations, whether domestic or religious, suggesting thoughts of joy. A man dissatisfied with his endeavours is a man tempted to sadness. And in the midst of the winter, when his life runs lowest and he is reminded of the empty chairs of his beloved, it is well he should be condemned to this fashion of the smiling face. Noble disappointment, noble self-denial, are not to be admired, not even to be pardoned, if they bring bitterness. It is one thing to enter the kingdom of heaven maimed; another to maim yourself and stay without. And the kingdom of heaven is of the childlike, of those who are easy to please, who love and who give pleasure."

_Across the Plains_, R. L. STEVENSON.

Growing Old

DECEMBER 27

"To grow old is more difficult than to die, because to renounce a good once and for all, costs less than to renew the sacrifice day by day and in detail. To bear with one's own decay, to accept one's own lessening capacity, is a harder and rarer virtue than to face death. There is a halo round tragic and premature death; there is but a long sadness in declining strength. But look closer: so studied, a resigned and religious old age will often move us more than the heroic ardour of young years. The maturity of the soul is worth more than the first brilliance of its faculties, or the plenitude of its strength, and the eternal in us can but profit from all the ravages made by time. There is comfort in this thought."

_Amiel's Journal._

"To know how to grow old is the master-work of wisdom, and one of the most difficult chapters in the great art of living."

_Amiel's Journal._

Old Age

DECEMBER 28

"We must not take the faults of our youth into our old age; for old age brings with it its own faults."

GOETHE.

"It is only to the finest natures that age gives an added beauty and distinction; for the most persistent self has then worked its way to the surface, having modified the expression, and to some extent, the features, to its own likeness."

MATHILDE BLIND.

"The most beautiful existence, it seems to me, would be that of a river which should get through all its rapids and waterfalls not far from its rising, and should then in its widening course form a succession of rich valleys, and in each of them a lake equally but diversely beautiful, to end, after the plains of age were past, in the ocean where all that is weary and heavy-laden comes to seek for rest."

_Amiel's Journal._

The Love and Grace and Tenderness of Life

DECEMBER 29

"Neither toil, nor the end of toil in oneself or in the world, is all vanity, in spite of the preacher; but there is enough vanity in both to make one sit loose to them. What seems to grow fairer to me as life goes by is the love and grace and tenderness of it; not its wit and cleverness and grandeur of knowledge--grand as knowledge is--but just the laughter of little children and the friendship of friends, the cosy talk by the fireside, the sight of flowers and the sound of music."

J. R. GREEN.

"Life is sweet, brother.... There's night and day, brother, both sweet things; sun, moon and stars, brother, all sweet things; there's likewise the wind on the heath. Life is very sweet, brother; who would wish to die?"

BORROW.

A Prayer

DECEMBER 30