not equal destiny, but only a receptivity to appeals from without.

But in our problem x and y may oppose each other, and our equation will read x minus y, or y minus x equals destiny, according as heredity or environment is the greater quantity. We are thus led to an investigation of the probable value of y as compared with x. We shall conclude that environment involves many elements: first, physical and social surroundings, as sanitary conditions, business, neighbors, street associations, places of resort and amusement, Sunday schools, churches; second, home influences, consisting of that of parents, brothers and sisters, servants, pictures, literature; third, the school, as to personality of the teacher, interaction of pupils, taste in the arrangements of the school-room, adaptation of the work to the child's appetencies, music, poetry. Thus the second term appears the more complex, though more possible of determination. And so to this we should devote the most careful consideration and endeavor to find for y a positive and known value.

The child-life may open in surroundings favorable or the reverse. Miasma, filth, and want of nourishing food may corrupt his blood. Overtaxing work may rob him of vitality, or idleness afford opportunity of learning evil. Penury may drive him to crime to secure a living, or luxury be the occasion for indulgence in hurtful pleasures. All the appeals to the eye or the ear in the little world about him, especially those constant or oft repeated, enter into and become part of his life. The very complexity of the influences operating upon the child may prevent the truest realization of his possible self. They may neutralize each other and produce mediocrity, where genius is possible. Entertaining and being entertained occupies a large part of the time of many young people. To fill the time with what amuses is the aim; disinclination for anything that calls for sacrifice, the result. Young people's societies and clubs in which the idea of growth is dominant are valuable, but too much social life weakens individuality. The one who must have company to have enjoyment or to accomplish anything lacks character. Were he shut off from so many diverse influences and left to the dominance of a few, the natural aptitudes might best assert themselves. And this may account for the fact that genius so often arises from unex

pected places and obscure parentage-that so many of the world's leaders come from the farm. The great souls are those who have lived near to nature's heart and nature's God, who have become such by communing long and deeply with self as Ernest in "The Great Stone Face." It was Elijah, fresh from the solitude of the widow's home in Sarepta who dared to say to wicked Ahab, "It is thou that troublest Israel." It was John the Baptist, returned from years spent in the wilderness who thundered at Herod, "It is not lawful for thee to have thy brother's wife." It was Lincoln, late come from the simplicity of Illinois life, who wrote the Emancipation Proclamation.

But all this physical and general social environment count for little when compared with the intimate associations of life, and we may reduce y practically to personal influence. To cast with any degree of assurance the horoscope of a life, one must know who are the intimates of the child and youth. It matters little who live about him, but those who would guide him to honor must have a care who live in him. These rather than those with whom he is conventionally associated and spends most of his time, are the ones who are determining his character. Brothers and sisters, parents even, may be less powerful than some bosom friend to lift him up or hurl him down. Great men have commonly ascribed their success to the influence of some one person. Many a boy, many a girl has become of great value to the world because some true and strong personality, inspiring and appreciative, has come within the radius of personal influence. It was the warm touch of such a one that stirred the soul of Dwight L. Moody and sent him forth as the messenger of life to thousands in all parts of this country and in Europe. It was the hand of Joel Stratton on the shoulder of John B. Gough, and the assuring word that he was a man yet, that raised him free from the gutter and made him a tongue of fire to proclaim hope to the captives of strong drink. Mark Hopkins was the teacher of James A. Garfield.

It must be borne in mind that character is, in a marked degree, an evolution. Natural tendencies meet conditions favorable for their development, and responding to these eventuate in character. The good and the bad may thus grow together and the individual become a veritable Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, with contending passions strug

gling for the mastery. But character may result from revolution. There are cases in which by some strong effort of the will, or in response to some powerful influence from without, a convulsion occurs in the nature and the one who was drifting hopelessly downward, suddenly lifts himself clear from the baser impulses and associations of life and rises to the dignity of a free man. Critical stages occur in most lives, and a mighty bound upward, or a terrible plunge downward occurs, according as some one uses or fails to use the opportunity to give help.

But these social forces are too uncertain, and others more constant must be called into right action if we solve the problem of the child's well-being. The one most constant and long-continued is the home. The child opens its eyes upon the realities of this life under the immediate care of those, who, by their parental instincts, are to supply its wants. The mother, for a time, is almost its whole world. With no forces operating now save inherited ones she has almost unbounded opportunity to shape character. The plastic being there in the crib responds to every touch, is moved by every vibration of character, is swayed by every breeze of impulse. The tender mother-look into its eyes meets a half-conscious and constantly awakening response of affection. By impatient, fretful word and manner, she may set its nerves tingling and unhealthfully stimulate nerve-tracts that will eventually become habit, character, destiny. Or she may be so sweet and gentle that it shall respond by growth into the beautiful. What a despotism is the mother's! But what if the despot be truly woman in all her instincts and in her intellectual and moral life? Then if there be any evil tendency in the child's inheritance, they find no conditions favorable for their development; while all that is good has a genial atmosphere in which to thrive. But if there be a weak sense of obligation, or a false ideal of child culture, or anarchy in the mother's method so that what is forbidden to-day is allowed to-morrow, promises are unkept, threats unfulfilled, passion rather than principle is seen in the exercise of authority; or, if the father and mother are not in accord in spirit and method of discipline; or, worse still, if they are unworthy in life and character, a most favorable soil and climate are provided in which the inherent evil tendencies may germinate, develop, blossom, and bear the sad fruits of

vice and sin and shame. The child is born into a world of law, a state, a social organization, where law reigns; but from infancy it has learned only lawlessness in the home. It must tread the paths of life where reciprocity is demanded in all relations, but it has been familiar only with animosity, accustomed to be like Ishmael-with every man's hand against it. It is expected to aspire and strive toward the ideal; but it has been trained only to burrow blindly like the mole. And to intensify all these unfavorable conditions, parents will probably so impress themselves on all in the home, and put themselves in surroundings and associations so in harmony with their own character, that hereditary tendencies shall be constantly and persistently re-enforced by environment, so that our equation becomes xy equals destiny, x into y, heredity multiplied by environment. And so in many lives well-born and well-bred go together all the influences of ancestry and association, uniting to make life "one grand, sweet song; while in others all the evil tendencies of heredity combine with corrupting environment to bind every noble aspiration, to foster every evil impulse, and destroy all chance for the child to rise above the state to which birth has doomed it.

Just here, with these two great forces reacting into each other in the home, the school takes the child. It must get such control of his interest, so appeal to all the strivings for good in his being, and so put him in antagonism to all downward forces from within and without, that these shall cease to sway him or find any response in his being. Virtue must be so adorned with beauty that he shall become enamored of her. With tenderest care, his thoughts must be guided to noble images, his affections placed on things above, his struggles and his oft-repeated lapses regarded with sympathetic interest, his speechless appeals for help and encouragement must meet a prompt and generous response. He must be made to realize that here and not there, he finds himself most truly; that this and not that is his true world.

But how is it possible for the school to become all this to him? If the school is what it ought to be, by virtue of this very fact it will be all this. The ideal school will so fit the inmost after something the conditio

ry soul

that