others, when a little thought would make his own so clearly manifest. In Cowper's words:

"Knowledge is proud that he has learned so much; Wisdom is humble that he knows no more."

T

THE READING HABIT

HERE are some persons who are so fortu

nate as to be unable to tell when they

formed the habit of reading; who find it a constant and ever-increasing advantage and pleasure, their whole lives long; and who will not lay it down so long as they live. Their youth and old age are so bound up in the reading habit that, if questioned as to its first inception and probable end, they can only reply, like Dimple-chin and Grizzled-face, in Mr. Stedman's pretty poem of "Toujours Amour": "Ask some younger lass than I"; "Ask some older sage than I." Happy are those whose early surroundings thus permit them unconsciously to associate with books; whose parents and friends surround them with good reading; and whose time is so apportioned, in childhood and youth, as to permit them to give a fair share of it to reading, as well as to study in school, on the one hand, and physical labour, on the other. It is plain that a great duty and responsibility thus rests upon the parents and guardians and teachers of the young, at the

very outset.

It is theirs to furnish the books, and to stimulate and suggest, in every wise way, the best methods of reading.

Just where, in this early formation of the reading habit, absolute direction should end and advice begin, is a matter which the individual parent or guardian inust decide for himself, in large measure. Perhaps there is greater danger of too much direction than of too much suggestion. It is well to give the young reader, in great part, the privilege of forming his own plans and making his own choice. Of this promotion of self-development Herbert Spencer says: "In education the process of self-development should be encouraged to the fullest extent. Children should be led to make their own investigations, and to draw their own inferences. They should be told as little as possible, and induced to discover as much as possible. Humanity has progressed solely by self-instruction; and that to achieve the best results each mind must progress somewhat after the same fashion, is continually proved by the marked success of self-made men. Those who have been brought up under the ordinary school-drill, and have carried away with them the idea that education is practicable only in that

style, will think it hopeless to make children their own teachers. If, however, they will call to mind that the all-important knowledge of surrounding objects which a child gets in its early years is got without help; if they will remember that the child is self-taught in the use of its mother's tongue; if they will estimate the amount of that experience of life, that out-of-school wisdom which every boy gathers for himself; if they will mark the unusual intelligence of the uncared-for London gamin, as shown in all directions in which his faculties have been tasked; if, further, they will think how many minds have struggled up unaided, not only through the mysteries of our irrationally-planned curriculum, but through hosts of other obstacles besides, they will find it a not unreasonable conclusion that if the subjects be put before him in right order and right form, any pupil of ordinary capacity will surmount his successive difficulties with but little assistance. Who indeed can watch the ceaseless observation and inquiry and inference going on in a child's mind, or listen to its acute remarks on matters within the range of its faculties, without perceiving that these powers which it manifests, if brought to bear systematically upon any studies within the same range,

would readily master them without help? This need for perpetual telling is the result of our stupidity, not of the child's. We drag it away from the facts in which it is interested, and which it is actively assimilating of itself; we put before it facts far too complex for it to understand, and therefore distasteful to it; finding that it will not voluntarily acquire these facts, we thrust them into its mind by force of threats and punishment; by thus denying the knowledge it craves, and cramming it with knowledge it cannot digest, we produce a morbid state of its faculties, and a consequent disgust for knowledge in general; and when as a result partly of the stolid indifference we have brought on, and partly of still continued. unfitness in its studies, the child can understand nothing without explanation, and becomes a mere passive recipient of our instruction, we infer that education must necessarily be carried on thus. Having by our method induced helplessness, we straightway make the helplessness a reason for our method.”

After making all needed deductions from the somewhat impatient spirit in which Mr. Spencer here speaks, it can hardly be questioned that the young reader - and most of these suggestions