preserve their reputations, to have a sacred regard for their feelings, are some of the evidences which distinguish the kindhearted from the cruel and selfish. Society is bound together by the three ties of obedience, sympathy and usefulness. These virtues should be cultivated in the formation of every character. To these are added truthfulness and honesty as opposed to lying and stealing in various forms. The home life should be like a building which stands firm and strong when its foundation is composed of good material. A rotten piece of timber or stone endangers the whole structure, and the same is true of a family, if only one member is lacking in either truthfulness or honesty. The dishonest man or boy is a piece of rotten timber that society cannot trust. It is on this very principle that parents should insist that their children must be obedient, sympathetic, useful, truthful and honest. These positive virtues are as so many elements in the structure of human character. Each has a significant value.

ISSUES FROM THE HOME

Whatever is good and pure and clean, or whatever is bad and impure and vile in the life of the individual, has its rise in the home life. Wherever the home life is pure and wholesome, though it may be the home of the poor and lowly, or of the multi-millionaire, there the lives of the children are nourished under virtuous conditions. It is in the home life where the children are pampered and spoiled, and are made shirks and liars and thieves; or they become sincere, honest, truthful, industrious boys and girls. The boy or girl that has fallen by the wayside is seldom found who had been properly trained at home in the noblest virtues. But those boys and girls who have been spoiled, petted and mismanaged at home, or whose fathers and mothers have neglected them, or handed them over to nurses, or turned them out on the streets, or sent them into the back alleys, 'only by a miracle will they become useful and honorable members of any community. What has thus far been said refers to those homes in which the father and mother work together, or neglect their children; but there is another phase of home life that is frequently encountered, and that is when one parent wants the children to conduct themselves

properly, and the other parent obstructs every attempt thus made. Such dissensions react disastrously on the children. Children thus nurtured become self-willed, disobedient, deceitful and untrustworthy. When parents neglect to see or to correct the faults of their children, there is sure to come a day of reckoning which will bring sorrow and wretchedness to the parental roof, because the soul should be taught the law of duty which should keep under control envy, greed, spite, jealousy and hypocrisy.

THE RELATION OF PARENT AND CHILD

The relation of parent and child is one of such tenderness and dependence that both parents should always seek to ennoble and elevate their offspring. The child should be taught to hate meanness in every form, and to love the true and right, and to protect them in thought and act every day. Owing to diversity of the mental make-up of children, some are naturally quick, restless, enthusiastic and impulsive; others are always in the sunshine, or far behind a dark shadow, and others again are bold, daring, venturesome, always active, and willing to let consequences take care of themselves. There are also the slow, plodding, sturdy children, and others along with them who explode on the slightest provocation, while others are so fragile as to have a very slender hold on life. Even in the very same family may be found children of widely different temperamental conditions. Children of all these divergent types enter school, and several of these most pronounced types may even be found in the same room with which the teacher has to work.

Honesty with children always counts. The parent who practices deception either covertly or openly, or plays sharp tricks, or induces his child to engage in practices that will not bear the severest scrutiny,-if such a person can be labelled parent,-is false to the sacred trust committed to his care, no matter what his pretensions may be. Children know the difference between a true character and a deceitful one; between honesty and dishonesty. Oftentimes children pass judgment on shady transactions whether the parent or another person is the actor. The old adage-"Honesty is the best

policy" is as true to-day as it was a thousand years ago. The one who scorns to do a mean act whether in the brightest glare of sunlight or in the darkest hour of midnight gloom, is worthy of the very highest respect.

HABITS THAT SHOULD BE TAUGHT TO CHILDREN

Many subjects need to be presented to the child mind with the consequences most likely to flow from them. Among these may be enumerated the following: 1. Shirking honest work; 2. Avoiding responsibility; 3. Gaining ends by dishonest

means.

These tendencies are partly social, partly industrial and partly ethical. They involve the practical duties of life. Affecting the child's mind permanently is his attitude toward certain lines of thought and action which depend on sensory ideals and motor reactions that tighten the character.

There is undoubtedly a very close connection existing between the intelligence, the honesty and the industry of the nation and. its social and economic conditions. No large ideas originate in ignorant minds. A wide expanse of deep thought is the only sure method that will enable one to go to the bottom of things, and to be inspired to aim at the best in all things in thinking and doing.

I. Work is not relished by most people. The history of the human race has always been a contest between those who directed work, those who avoided it, and those who tried to avoid it. Most people work because they cannot get along without it, realizing that work is a decree pronounced upon man by the course and constitution of his environment. In this must be recognized the activity of play, the activity of work, and the activity of drudgery. To work or to starve are alternate propositions. To heed the one is life; to accept the opposite is physical and spiritual death. Everything depends here upon the right choice. Home habits have more to do with work than the school. All that the school can do is to train pupils into habits of industry, punctuality, silence, strict attention to business, and the realizing of higher ideals. through sacrifice.

II. In the life of each person come critical periods, crises,

so to speak, when important decisions have to be made. Upon a single issue at such a moment one's success in life may depend. Everything now depends upon how one thinks, resolves and acts at the supreme moment. Responsibility has to be shouldered,-not shifted. A firm, vigorous character, such a one as accepts issues as they arise, estimating them at their true worth, is of more value to a community or a nation than thousands whose wills are as unstable as water, and can be swerved by every breath of hasty public opinion that blows. To watch and help a human soul grow is one of the grandest and most sublime sights that one can behold in connection with the family life. For such lofty ideals and the successful execution of such work, clearsightedness, promptitude, ready resources, quick and vigorous conceptions, cool self-possession, and a commanding survey of the whole situation involved, are pre-requisites for success. These sterling qualities should be nurtured and developed to their utmost limit in the home life.

III. The boy that will lie and cheat on the playground in order to win a game, or to get the better of a fellow schoolmate in a trade, or will tell lies on the girls,-will do all these things in a greatly aggravated form when he grows up to manhood. A boy that will slip up to a farmer's wagon and steal apples or peaches, or will pick up things at the door of a grocery store when the proprietor is not looking, is taking rapid lessons for admission to the penitentiary. Parents should always strive to inculcate good habits and upright conduct in the minds of their children, and never shift this work to others. Let the important lesson of "mine and thine" be insisted on a thousandfold more than it is. This fact, too, should always be borne in mind,-that the descent into the realm of crime is always by easy steps, and never by a single bound.

(To be continued.)

A Plea for the Conservation of Another

Great National Resource

FRANK P. CHISHOLM, FINANCIAL SECRETARY TUSKEGEE, ALABAMA

I

N the midst of the present deep interest growing out of the widespread discussion regarding the conservation of our nation's natural resources, there are those who assert with a great deal of earnestness that unless the proper remedy is applied, the nation stands in immediate danger of losing its water powers, coal lands and forest reserves. These specific dangers of public loss are merely parts of the conservative issue in this country. There is another national resource which needs conservation. I refer to the conservation of negro efficiency. There are signs at present of tremendous waste of negro brains and industrial efficiency, through lack of training, which we can ill afford. To know what this waste is, let us investigate common school conditions in the eleven Southern States where, according to the Twelfth Census, live 8,500,000 of the 9,500,000 negroes in the United States, or 89.7 per cent of the negro population of the country.

The United States Commissioner of Education, in his report for 1908, gives figures which illustrate the condition of the common or elementary schools for negroes in the United States, and which are positively discreditable to us as an enlightened and progressive nation. His returns show that of the negro children between the ages of five and eighteen there are close on to 1,500,000 who never see the inside of a schoolhouse. In the case of thousands of them, notably in the country districts, where from 80 to 85 per cent of the negroes live, the average length of school term is from three to four months, or about ninety-two days. When to the fact of the short school session we add the further fact that the instruction given is of the most elementary sort, the teacher pitiably ignorant, the school building woefully inadequate, and then consider that less than one half of the negroes of school age