A new water frog was one of the most interesting discoveries. The fishes in the collection represented both western and eastern types. Thirty-one species of birds were found breeding in the canon. Twenty-seven species of mammals were observed. Traces of the armadillo were discovered, carrying the range of this animal four hundred miles further north. Deer are common. The Mexican lion, Texas black bear, and Texan lynx, or bob-cat, are occasionally found.

The results of the expedition were very satisfactory. As we reluctantly pulled our tent stakes and looked back on this lovely place each member of the party expressed the opinion that the Palo Duro Canon is a natural national park. An altitude of four thousand feet makes it pleasant and healthful.

The scenery is delightful and typical of the West. Here may be preserved many animals that are indigenous to this part, that may otherwise soon become extinct. And now there is a growing sentiment in favor of converting this historic and picturesque place into a park, and the friends of this movement are more confident of success in the future. It is to be hoped that more and more attention will be paid to the esthetic side of our national life, and that more value will be placed on the dollars of the tourist, and greater efforts be made to have our people see home before going abroad. Our sister republic on the south, Mexico, puts us to shame with her parks and places of public interest. The western people are sending out a welcome to the world as broad as the great plains and as free as the breezes which sweep across them.

O

F all subjects connected with school work, the subject of "Moral Education" is perhaps among the most important. The work of the teacher depends much on what has been the training of the child in the home. If the seeds of morality have been sown, it is then the duty of the teacher to train and cultivate, but if the child has been surrounded by evil influences, and no foundation has been laid for its moral character, the work of the teacher is much greater, since the evils which have been planted must be uprooted and the soil prepared for the sowing of the good seed.

The home has the primary advantage in influence and power over the mind of the child. The moral culture of the home is therefore invaluable. The home comes first from the very nature of the case. From the parents, the child receives its earliest, most vivid, and most lasting impressions. They are its natural teachers. The influence of the home, be it moral or immoral, determines the character of the child more than all outside influences put together.

Those who best know the soil, and have the best opportunity of constant observation, are best calculated to sow good seed at the proper time. Those who have the best knowledge of the child's disposition and the strongest influence over it, are unquestionably its parents; and they cannot, therefore, afford to be negligent of their duty. Nothing can take the place of the teachings of the home. Nothing ever follows the child as he goes out into life like the lessons received at his mother's knee, or the prayers offered by his father at the family altar.

Let us consider for a moment the promise that is so familiar: "Train up

a child in the way he should go, and when he is old," etc. Now, you may subject that promise to the test of the severest analysis: you may examine it piecemeal, and trace the origin, and bring to light the meaning of every word, and you will find it in all respects and in all times literally true. But there is a condition associated with the promise, and that condition is just as much a part of the law, just as much a part of the necessity by which the fulfilment is made certain, as the promise itself. If, then, the child has been trained in a wrong way instead of a right one, the principle that underlies the promise will apply even there, and will insure a perpetuity of shame, just as inevitably, as in the other case, it will insure a perpetuity of honor.

There may be grave and radical mistakes in moral discipline, even where the character and intentions of the educator are in the main right: but often lack the wisdom and courage essential to the moral culture of the child. Such mistakes do not necessarily imply the want of piety in those who make them; but they do imply the want of that discernment of character in its various phases, which every one who assumes the responsibility should cultivate as an essential of self-training, in order to fit him for his duty. It is of vast importance that those who take upon themselves this work, by patience, purity, by holding up right standards and ideals of life, actually illustrate by their lives, the lives they would seek to have the child live. Their lives should be such that the child may see the concrete manifestations of the prin ciples they teach, in order that, by an unconscious influence, the child's moral nature may be elevated and ennobled,

There are often mistaken ideas of the laws and methods by which character is to be trained aright. There is undue severity of intercourse, or undue laxity of principle: while both mistakes are rendered more fatal by the entire neglect of moral inculcations.

There is often, by far, too little systematic, intelligent, prayerful, persevering effort to fortify the youthful mind against the assaults that will be made upon it from without by the worldly and corrupt by the fascinations of gilded vice and the entirements of fashionable sin. The young are thrown into the world unwarned and unarmed to take their chances of companionship; they are often placed deliberately in business associations that are in perpetual conflict with every principle of honesty and uprightness. Is it any wonder then that, appointed thus to minister in the avenues of trade at the very altar of Belial, and lured and won by his services, they become his sons.

Many think their own personal piety, alone, without any other influence sufficient. They do not train the child at all by any system adapted to an end. They treat it very much as a gardener would treat a vine, were he to plan it near a substantial framework, and then let it take its chances of climbing its own way up or trailing on the ground. As though, by some instinct, needing no direction and no help, the young affection will eagerly climb heavenward, only stimulated by the knowledge that its educators are professedly climbing that way.

But we must remember cause and effect. We would not say, "only believe and the harvest will wave in luxuriance whether the seed is sown or not." No, the child must be trained morally. Every tendril of his young affection must be bound to unchanging principles of honesty and uprightness. Then he will not depart from the circle of moral

around him. We should throw upon either side of his path intrenchments of moral principles: make him see and feel that all pursuits, all desires, all companionships are to be subservient to the interests of his higher nature. The principles of morality should be so grafted and rooted in the child that when he enters upon life's active duties, where sin in gilded colors displays herself, all her attempts at beguilment, however pleasingly and persistently presented will be in vain.

It is generally agreed that moral character is the fundamental aim of education. All do not agree as to the way it is to be accomplished: suffice to say, that much care should be taken as to the time and manner of imparting moral instruction. There are times when the heart is not prepared to receive such training. Most educators agree that it should not be given in a formal way. Let us take for granted that the home training has been properly done.

Some of the essentials in school life are example of teacher, surroundings of school, care in selection of memory gems, rhetoricals, etc. One of the objects of a recitation is to impart moral instruction, and almost every recitation affords opportunities for the suggestive mind of the teacher.

Another effective way of teaching morals is by "nature study." Truths taught by nature lessons, if the things of nature be linked with life experiences, are quickly discerned by the children, since the figurative language arrests the attention and pleases the mind and the lesson is firmly fixed in the memory. If the lesson be properly taught, the child will desire to imitate. the attractive graces of nature in its character building. And seldom do we find a child which may not be led to motives purer and nobler by having instilled into his heart the refining, subduing influences of nature.

Another factor and one which has been most powerful in advancing the general harmony and elevating the general virtue, is music. Its power has Its power has been felt in all ages. Music tends to produce a sense of high moral feeling. It has a tendency to subdue and soften the soul. As a promoter of those virtues implanted in us by nature, music should be encouraged. Often does the fascination of music prevent the intrusion of destructive and more expensive pleasure. Teach a child to sing when it is young and keep it in the path and knowledge of music and when it arrives at mature years, it will have a smoother disposition, a more God-fearing spirit, and a greater desire to do what is right, and lead an upright and moral life than any other way in which it may be educated. Thibaut, the celebrated professor of law at Heidelberg, relates that a young man, his guest, who had listened to a composition of Lotti, exclaimed, when he left the house: "Oh, this night I could do no harm to my greatest enemy!" It is said that Zwingli, the Swiss reformer, when reproved by Faber, afterward bishop of Vienna, for cultivating music, said: "Thou dost not know, my dear Faber, what music is. I love to play a little upon the lute, the violin, and other instruments. And if thou couldst only feel the tones of the celestial lute, the evil spirit of ambition and the love of riches which possess thee would then quickly depart from thee."

Having considered the work of the teacher after the foundation of a moral character has been laid, let us look for a moment into the homes where conditions are opposite. In many homes, instead of finding the flames of love, concord and harmony glowing, we find parents treated with indifference and disrespect: we see evils practiced openly and without reproof under the very eye of the parent. And these evils increase. in magnitude as the child grows in

years.

The fact is this-the youth of our land is beginning to realize that this is a free country-this, in their acceptation of the term, means they can do as they please without fear of punishment. In many cases they are permitted to go and come when and where they please young boys on the streets late at night, loafing on the street corners, associating with gangs of worthless grown-ups, who take pride in teaching them evil habits and entertaining them with talk too vile to listen to. But the parent consoles himself with the thought that the boy will be all right "by and by." This is not the worst feature of the case, for if it would only extend to the few with which it began, it would be a comparatively small matter: but the example appears to be contagious, and other boys who have been better bred, wish to follow it; and parents who undoubtedly know better, fearing that their own sons will be looked upon as dull in this fast age give way and, contrary to their better judgment, suffer their sons to associate and walk in the footsteps of those whom they see passing on the broad road to destruction. And thus it goes on from bad to worse until many of the boys from nine and ten years up to the full-grown boy seem entirely beyond parental control.

Understand that this ungovernable spirit in children does not apply to any particular community, nor is it of a few weeks growth: but has been gradually increasing in stubbornness for years and is now developing in its true magnitude and all its hideous aspects, the unbridled passions of human nature.

The home discipline has so relaxed its severity that that once formidable barrier to youthful disobedience appears utterly demolished, and the youth of our land appear given up to their own licentious passions.

We follow it next to our public schools. It is here we see the rapid strides it has been making toward the

utter ruin and demoralization of our schools. And many teachers unable to grasp its gigantic dimensions, have given way to its force and been swept down by its fierce current; others, for one cause or another, seem to close their eyes to these evils and retain their popularity, while those who stand out fearlessly and boldly against immoral conduct are baffled and interfered with and are usually termed "cranks."

We come now to the duty of the school teacher with regard to checking this fearful evil, and thereby dispelling the dark clouds which appear to envelop our schools. Although this great evil did not originate in the school room, yet we, as teachers, have been criminally neglectful of our duty in suffering a thing to a great extent, which has been apparent to every teacher, to grow and flourish without using our utmost exertions to root it

out.

Teachers, the trouble with us is this: Too many of us fear to brave public opinion. When we see the children upheld in what we know to be wrong, we, when those children come under our control, pass those same acts by unnoticed and unpunished, contrary to the dictates of conscience; and because the parent passed over those offences, we fear to visit on them the punishment they deserve lest perhaps the parent becomes offended and we become unpopular. This is not right. In taking upon ourselves the duty of training the youth of our country, we take upon ourselves not only a troublesome, but also a fearfully responsible one: troublesome from the opposition we must inevitably encoun

ter from would-be critics and intermeddlers.

Fearfully responsible from the duty we have to perform in moulding the moral character, of instilling into them the principles of industry, honesty and uprightness of heart that they may perform the duties of this life to the glory of their Creator and with honor to themselves. We have willingly taken upon ourselves this duty and there is now no way of evading the responsibility. Some can console themselves with the idea that if the parent permits the child to do wrong, that he is not responsible for permitting the same conduct while in his charge.

This is a mistake. If the parent is responsible to the great Giver for the training of the child, are we not-we who stand in the place, and have taken upon ourselves the duties of parentsequally responsible for its conduct while in our charge? This burden of responsibility will and must rest upon us as teachers and we cannot evade it. There remains, therefore, but one course which we can pursue. Then, forward! is the word. No more faint courage; no more trembling of weak knees while marching on to duty. No more bribing obedience or immoral conduct for fear conscience, or shutting the eyes to disof being found fault with. Let us then go firmly forward in the discharge of our whole duty, and if what we feel and know to be our duty is opposed, let us trample down all opposition and do our duty with a benefit to the rising generation and the cause of humanity. And if we should fail, let it be with the proud recollection that we have conscientiously endeavored to do our

best.