none other has felt just the same, or can know how nearly the experiences coincide. It is not a pleasant thought, this of even partial isolation, and there is companionship for all. It needs not that we should go into the sealed chambers of another's heart, or that we should open for others, that which belongs but to ourselves and to our God. In this as in the search for happiness, those who are least grasping for themselves, realize the most.

Let us think less of what cannot be spoken, than of that which can be shared; less of isolation than companionship; and how often shall we find response where least expected. We are more nearly alike than we know, and may well "Look into our bosoms, for the key to other's lives." Let us find there the sympathy of feeling, whether for joy or sorrow, for success or failure, which will unlock the heart for us, revealing that which we had known before, only through faith in one another. The key of sympathy is with the true lover of nature and of little children; with the one who recognizes God's children everywhere, or the faintest trace of His hand upon the heart. Wherever other keys may be, let us keep this one, not even in the drawer, but in the hand, as we go through life; ready to give the magic touch that will open for us a world of blessing.

EDUCATIONAL.

INTEREST IN STUDIES.

How shall we induce our children to keep up an interest in their studies after they leave school?

We shall take it for granted that it is desirable to interest young people in pursuing their studies after leaving school, for education is really the training which the mind receives by mastering different branches of knowledge, arranged in such order as experience has taught to be the wisest.

As in preparing for any trial of our physical strength we train our muscles and members to utilize their best forces, so in preparing for the great struggle of life we train our finer powers, the mental faculties, that they may be of the greatest service to

us.

But while speaking of the importance of physical training we must consider how vastly more important is the mental training.

In either case we must supply the incentive to work and practice, and how to do it for the mental power is the question before us.

This may be considered in two ways: first, in regard to the teacher's influence and work; secondly, in regard to the parent's influence and work. In either way it can be best accomplished by creating in the child himself a "thirst of knowledge," and furnishing him with the means of satisfying that thirst. In this, while teacher and parent each has an influence the other does not have, which influence must be exerted independently; yet co-operation is necessary.

The time to commence to create the eagerness for knowledge is when the child enters the school, for that is about the period at which his powers and inclinations begin to be systematically cultivated.

Let us consider, in the beginning, the first elements in the solution of the problem, viz., the teach

our children

er's influence and work in inducing to keep up an interest in their studies after leaving school." We shall not open the way to a long discussion as to whether language or science, mathematics or history, the one or the other, should occupy the first place in a course of study leading to the result we desire.

We must discuss general principles, and leave the application to the individual teacher, and the class and quality of material in the teacher's hand.

A successful instructor is not limited in his consideration of the requirements for attaining good results by the fence which encloses his school-yard, or by the boundaries of his district or State. His range of vision extends backward and forward beyond the He associates with men limits of the school year. of every land and of all times, if not in person, through the medium of the press. He thus knows something of the requirements upon the boy or girl when arriving at maturer years. To illustrate: the teacher knows that the farmer's time is at certain periods of the year occupied in tending his crops, and no opportunity for study remains. At other seasons he has times of comparative leisure, which he will spend in one way or another.

The merchant's life is more uniformly divided, and his requirements differ from those of the farmer. The life of the mechanic varies in some respects from either of the preceding.

Something must also be known of the demands upon the time of the girls in domestic cares and society requirements.

Knowing these things, we can intelligently proceed to lay the foundation for a successful career by marking out for the individual certain training that his future will likely demand. But the structure to be erected is not of the teacher's architecture. While we can, in a measure, mark out the foundations, the structure itself, in durability, form and beauty, depends upon the individual. For

"All are architects of fate,

Working in these walls of time.
Some with massive deeds and great;
Some with ornaments of rhyme."

This structure is one that grows day by day, and the building material is not created instantaneously by the touch of some magic wand. It is the outcome of gradual mental growth; when that ceases there is the beginning of decay and ruin. Evidently, we must be provided with the best means of securing this mental growth, and these means it is the sacred duty of the home and school to provide, and in these we shall find the answer to the question before us.

We must begin, at the very first, with thoroughness in work, and carve in every stone of the foundation, "not how much, but how well." There must be a desire to go to the bottom of every subject.

Superficiality will never cultivate an interest in work, for our Creator has implanted that principle in the mind that only work well done will lead to the pursuit of knowledge.

Begin then by inducing, nay requiring, if need be, the work to be thoroughly performed from the first. Avoid cramming and over-taxing the mind, thereby creating lassitude rather than longing. With the habit of thoroughness-and in speaking of habit we

do not mean the blind routine which is the result of repeated action in one line or groove, but as the cultivated desire or pleasure of doing a thing for the satisfaction obtained from the performance of the act; with this habit of thoroughness we must instil the principles of system and industry.

All the time must be profitably and systematically employed in work, physical or mental, and in the much needed recreation and rest. When there is work, work; when there is play, play; but one thing at a time and in its proper season. These lessons must be taught in school and at home; taught by example and precept. The Arithmetic aud Grammar of school become, in later years, the selling of goods, the tending of corn, the caring for the sick, the work of the home. The thorougness and order of doing the one prepares for the other, and creates a desire for pursuing studies and will often secure time for additional or supplementary work in the shape of reading and study. And this is the desire we wish awakened.

Outside or supplementary work in connection with studies seems to us to be a very effective means in the hands of a teacher, of arousing an enthusiasm which the pupils will carry with them after leaving school. But we obstruct our way to success in the employment of this means with an over-crowded curriculum of study. Would it not be well to take a smaller number of studies at a time, and encourage more original research bearing on the subject taught? In most of the Sciences this practice of searching for additional information will be a most valuable aid towards accomplishing the objects we have in view. And in the Languages it will open out rich fields for exploration. Pupils will thus be taught how to work independently of text-books, and how to obtain information on any subject of particular interest. We see many people who master difficulties by sheer brute force, or strength of will. Others can overcome the same difficulties with ease, simply by knowing how to do it, and by using their powers to the best advantage. The "Conservation of Energy" is necessary. In the business world we have Broadway, New York, on a large scale. Every one is rushing on a run to arrive before his neighbor at his place of business, and get the first and best customers. The banker, the broker, the merchant, the lawyer, the doctor, all crowding forward to attain the prize. What friction there is to wear away all the well-stored resources; and what influences to smother the germ of intellectual growth. The young man entering upon this struggle must carry with him from his schooldays, the desire and power of dividing his time so as to carry on some line of intellectual work, in other words a course of study.

We have dwelt thus at length on carefulness in school training, because we hold it to be necessary in order to accomplish the object set forth in our topic; and because we believe that it is the most important nay even the essential element of success in any career, and especially in causing our young people to carry on their studies. But taking it for granted that such work is now well done, there are certain aids which suggest themselves to us. We hesitate in approaching the second division of our subject or the parents' influence, and feel constrained to leave this

part for the thoughtful parents to discuss, and allow a few words to suffice for us. Every parent is anxious that his child should attain to a higher level than he himself has reached; and for this reason he will often be lavish in providing means to accomplish this end. Often his zeal will outweigh his judgment. Papers and periodicals will be supplied in abundance, and various amusements and pastimes providedwith, perhaps, frequent excursions from home. These, it will be seen on a moment's reflection, are sources of much injury to the child, by distracting his attention from any settled work. A judicious parent will take as much care in providing healthful food, exercise and pleasure for the minds of his children, as he does in attending to their physical requirements. It is necessary for him to be always on the watch-tower, and place about the children such influences as will cause them unconsciously to be interested in some improving work. Libraries, institutes, literary and scientific associations, and societies for home study are available for homes, after the school days. But the demand of our times is not only for men of general culture, but men of special qualifications. In consequence of this, considerable time ought to be devoted to some special branch, and there must be a careful selection of the means to be used to induce or to assist study after a school-course is finished and the proper desire aroused to pursue a special line of work. ISAAC T. JOHNSON. Wilmington, Del.

MORAL TRAINING.

A correspondent sends us the following extract from an address of Joseph May on the above subject, which we present to our readers:

And now we come to the core of the matter of moral training. It consists in arousing in a man a value of himself; not mere self-esteem, but a feeling of the dignity of his essential nature, and to a value of and interest in his moral career. Whenever you have done this you have touched the spring of moral ambition. Why should not one enjoy and be ambitious of moral attainments, moral facility, moral progress, as of intellectual and worldly?

Why and wherein would it be impracticable to arouse in a child the determination to make his life successful and dignified in these respects as in the others? I do not see; on the contrary, I believe that it is practicable and is all important.

If you do effect it, you have pledged him to virtue and given him a touchstone as his guide through all the temptations of life which will be better than any possible statement of the moral law which you could give his memory. And yet is it not still true that too few parents and teachers clearly apprehend these principles, and aim at the corresponding result? Of those who try to do their duty by the young, few, I think, yet see clearly the point they aim at. They are still too apt to offer merely rules and regulations of conduct instead of effective moral incitements and inducements to self-culture.

Is it not the "thou shalt," "thou: hilt not," of Moses, rather than the "be ye perfect" of Jesus. Virtue to the childish imagination is left to possess too

much of the quality of constraint. It is left unintelligible, and this is doubly unattractive.

There is one illustration close at hand of the point I wish to enforce. We hear much from time to time of the need of religion, religious influences, in our schools. But what do men seem to mean by it? Apparently, that there should be some verses read and a formal prayer. Little good these or their lack will do, till the main office of a teacher is seen to be to impress himself nobly upon the characters of to be to impress himself nobly upon the characters of his pupils; to awaken enthusiasm for manly lives, to give them an idea of the value and purpose of life, to show them the difference between pinch-beck and gold; to make them love and desire wisdom and virtue for their own sake. Such a man needs no formal exercises; every word, action, and look of one who is really fit for the teacher's sacred office will contribute to this culture of character in his pupil; this awakening of elevated motives; this formation of a practical religious view of life. Once in a great while you see such a one, and no man leaves behind him such a record; like Arnold of Rugby's-a living espistle written in his pupils' hearts and they scattered like his apostles all over the country. So I have seen a woman, of no great intellectual culture, but possessed of this moral force and aiming at the right end, that is, to make her pupils noble, train a generation of young women whom, thirty years after, you could pick out as a social stratum in her time and label with her name. It is a long and difficult task this culture of character. Patience, resolution, clearness of vision, it needs. But it ought not to seem weary and discouraging. Rome was not built in a day, was it not, then worth the building? The oak is a hundred years in growing to its height, for other centuries it refreshes the traveler.

CORRESPONDENCE.

SINCE reading various articles in Friends' Intellioffer as suggestions. I have had reflections which I am drawn to gencer,

method to attract or hold the young among us. There seem to be many queries as to the best

Would it not be well and profitable to survey the as charitable towards the erring as Christianity depast, and examine our individual actions? Are we mands? Are we watchful over the unsuccessful, and careful to offer a helping hand, even though it be slight, and of little import?-as little added to little ing the surrounding obstacles, too great to be overoften makes large and mighty works, thus overcomcome individually.

ploying them in preference to others? and are we Do we encourage those of our own Society by emmindful to be not too exacting in our requirements? not waiting until they assume a downward tendency, then comment and point out their shortcomings, to their disadvantage, instead of lovingly showing them the way out of difficulties, and thus doing good service in the church.

and condemn those not moving or acting as the more We fear there is a growing inclination to criticise strenuous would deem proper. What may be right for one does not always appear in the same light to another, yet both may be right. We require different food, and no one is accountable for another; and if charitable and Christian-like actions are cultherefore we are not capable of judging for others; tivated, we will look at home, and see the good in the motives and feelings of others, and the hurtfulevery character, and feel our inability to decide on ness of proclaiming failings to the public ear.

When members feel obliged to plod on their way, outside of the Society (not finding help in it), as has demn their success, because not attained in the one been the case in some instances, we should not conprescribed track, and they made to feel there had been a want of interest in them, while nothing could take from them their love of Friendly principles.

These points are surely worth a thought, and in my humble opinion would do more than aught else to bind loving hearts together, and gather the young and tender about us.

ting others.

ALGERNON S. HIGGINS.

Brooklyn, February 13, 1885.

[The correspondent is right so far as Webster and Worcester go. The word is defined by them only in its strict theological sense as "one who denies the divinity of Christ and believes Him to be a mere man." But the new Imperial Dictionary, by Dr. John Ogilvie, sanctions the use which we made of the word by defining it as one who has a great regard or love for humanity; a philanthropist." The word is now in general use in this sense both in England and America, and, as there is the highest dictionary authority for it, our correspondent can adopt it hereafter

without reserve.-Ed.]

whence they come.

Let us not cast adrift those who see differently from ourselves, or who vary somewhat from the style of the olden times, or who feel it right to follow a more liberal dictation of conscience. Respect individual opinions, even though they do not accord with our own, and suppress all spirit of overbearance or determination to control. Remember the admonition, Do unto others as we would that others should do unto us. H. M.

"SUFFER not your thoughts to dwell on the injury you have received, or the provoking words that have been spoken to you. neglecting them at the time you receive them, but let been spoken to you. Not only learn the art of them grow less and less every moment, until they die out of your mind."