THE CONGRESS OE WOMEN.

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In this century, as never before, God is revealing to the nationsWoman’s place and work in the world. She will lead the children aright, she will influence them through those institutions which are the glory and the hope of America—the home and the public school. She will direct the physical, the intellectual, the spiritual energy of her life toward the rising generation. In the home, in the Sunday-school, and in the day school, she will feed the mind upon pure and noble thoughts, thus giving it a habit, a tendency, which shall determine character and destiny. And now, in the full­ness of time, God has given her such agencies of self-improvement for the guidance of others as the Chautauqua Circle and University Extension. Ealrly disadvantages no longer form a barrier to her usefulness. Through physical culture, hygienic reform in dress and fashion, intellectual ambition awakened by opportunity, she becomes young at fifty; is beginning the study of foreign languages at seventy. With our greatest American author, James Russell Lowell, she sings:

“ One day, with life and heart, is more than time enough to find a world.”

No longer will she entrust the education of her child to the teacher alone, but she will co-operate with that teacher to secure the best results.

Instruction in science has awakened in the mind of many a boy and girl a train of thought, an interest in nature, which has led to research, and has redeemed the life from devotion to degrading literature and its attendant evils.

The educational progress of this century is in no way more manifest than in the introduction of elementary science into the lower grades of our leading schools.

It has been stated that “ childhood is the era of scientific acquisition.” Every day the child gathers facts, makes discoveries, and deduces generalizations far grander and far richer in practical import to him than any made by Newton or Cuvier. These dis­coveries stimulate and ennoble him, not only in the same way as the Newtons and Cuviers were ennobled, but relatively to a far higher degree.

The instructor must first have accepted Dame Nature’s invitation to Agassiz:

“ Come, wander with me,” she said,

“ Into regions untrod,

And read what is still unread In the manuscripts of God.”

Let us commune with Coleridge, Ruskin, Wordsworth and Bryant. We would not banish Mother Goose from childhood lore, but we plead for the use of sim- .ple stories from the world’s mythology and from the Bible, interesting incidents of history, the gems of poetry and the ideals of fiction. So bright, so attract­ive must the stories seem, that curiosity will be awakened to be gratified only by reading. Suitable books are now prepared with a view to this instruction. The fairy tale can cultivate the imagination, the fable illustrate and impress truth; the carefully chosen story from mythology may become a teacher of ethics, and certainly will develop a taste for classic and historic literature.

Let us begin this work in the simplest manner, with the little child, and continue until he pursues, as special studies, those branches of knowledge to which he has been so gradually and delightfully introduced.

It is now admitted that the correct use of language is to be learned through asso­ciation with pure English, spoken and written. Is our speech in the home chaste and accurate? So will be that of our youth. Then let them study standard English, com­mitting to memory often “ grand and ennobling thoughts, clothed in beautiful language; thoughts that will incite them to noble aspirations; thoughts that incul­cate virtue, patriotism, love of God, of father, of mother, kindness to dumb animals, and that give correct rules of action.”

In the child’s reading aloud, too much time is often given to “ mere imitative reading, and not enough to logical analysis to ascertain the meaning of the words and sentences.” The skillful hearer will ask many questions, and the well-trained child will question, too. Shall we avoid an answer, reply indifferently or ignorantly?