He sys we over-educate it, We clog its wonderful brain with mass of unin teresting facts and foolish formulas that we call knowledge. He does not know that all this time the Child is alive and kicking. He is under the delusion that the Child is taking all this lying down. Wo tell the Child it has got to be quiet or else we will wring ite neck. The gentleman from Cambridge pictures the Child as from that moment a silent saint moving Yoiceless towards the grave. We catch the Child in the morning, and clean it up, and Put a little satchel on its back, and pack it ff to school; and the maiden lady Understander pictures that Child wasting the all too brief period of youth crowding itself up with knowledge. "My dear Maiam, you take it from me that your tears are being wasted. You wipe your eyes and cheer up. The dear Child is not going to be overworked: he is seeing to that.
As a matter of fact, the Child of the present day is having, if a"ything, too good atime. Ishail be considered a brute for saying this, but I am thinking of its future, and my opinion is that we are giving' it swelled head. The argument just now in the air is that the parent exists merely for the Children. The parent doesn't count. It is as if a gardener were to say, "Bother the flowers, let them rot. The sooner they are out of the way the better. The seed is the only thing that interests me." You can't produce respectable seed but from carefully cultivated flowers. The—philosopher clamouring for improved children, will later grasp the fact that the parent is of importance. Then he will change his tactics, and address the children, and we ime. He will impress upon them how necessary it is for their own sakes that they should be careful of us. We shall have books written about mis: understood fathers who were worried into early graves. Fresh Air Funds will be started for sending parents away to the seaside on visits to kind bachelors living in detached houses, miles away from children, Books will be specially written for us picturing a world where school fees are never demanded and babies never howl o' nights, Societies for the Pret tion of Cruelty to Parents will aris Little girls who got their hair entangled and missly all their clothes just before they ure starting for the party—little boys who kick holes in their best shoes—will be spanked at the public expe
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.