set a good example himself. Three of these are put by my Master under the head of cruelties caused by superstition.

1. Animal sacrifice. Among civilised nations this is now found only in India, and is tending to disappear even there. Parents and teachers should tell their boys that no custom which is cruel is really part of any true religion. For we have seen that religion teaches unity, and therefore kindness and gentleness to everything that feels. God cannot therefore be served by cruelty and the killing of helpless creatures. If Indian boys learn this lesson of love in school they will, when they become men, put an end entirely to this cruel superstition.

2. Much more widely spread is what my Master calls "the still more cruel superstition that man needs flesh for food." This is a matter that concerns the parent more than the teacher, but at least the teacher may gradually lead his boys to see the cruelty involved in killing animals for food. Then, even if the boy is obliged to eat meat at home, he will give it up when he is a man, and will give his own children a better opportunity than he himself had. If parents at home and teachers at school would train young children in the duty of loving and protecting all living creatures, the world would be much happier than it is at present.

3. "The treatment which superstition has meted out to the depressed classes in our beloved India," says the Master, is a proof that "this evil quality can breed heartless cruelty even among those who know the duty of Brotherhood." To get rid of this form of cruelty every boy must be taught the great lesson of love, and much can be done for this in school as well as at home. The boy at school has many special opportunities of learning this lesson, and the teacher should point out the duty of showing courtesy and kindness to all who are in inferior positions, as well as to the poor whom he may meet outside. All who know the truth of reincarnation should realise that they are members of one great family, in which some are younger brethren and some elder. Boys must be taught to show gentleness and consideration to servants, and to all who are below them in social position; caste was not intended to promote pride and rudeness, and Manu teaches that servants should be treated as the children of the family.

A great part of the teacher's work lies in the playground, and the teacher who does not play with his boys will never quite win their hearts. Indian boys as a rule do not play enough, and time should be given for games during the school day. Even the teachers who have not learned to play in their youth should come to the playground and show interest in the games, thus sharing in this part of the boy's education.

In schools where there are boarding-houses the love of the teacher is especially necessary, for in them the boarding-house must take the place of the home, and a family feeling must be created there. Bright and affectionate teachers will be looked on as elder brothers, and difficulties which escape rules will be got rid of by love.

In fact, all the many activities of school life should be made into channels through which affection can run between teacher and pupil, and the more channels there are the better it will be for both. As the boy grows older these channels will naturally become more numerous, and the love of the school will become the friendship of manhood. Thus love will have her perfect work.

Love on the physical plane has many forms. We have the love of husband and wife, parents and children, brothers and sisters, the affection between relatives and friends. But all these are blended and enriched in the love of the Master to His disciple. The Master gives to His pupil the gentleness and protection of a mother, the strength of a father, the understanding of a brother or a sister, the encouragement of a relative or a friend, and He is one with His pupil and His pupil is a part of Him. Besides this, the Master knows His pupil's past, and His pupil's future, and guides him through the present from the past into the future. The pupil knows but little beyond the present, and he does not understand that great love which draws its inspiration from the memory of the past and shapes itself to mould the powers of the future. He may even sometimes doubt the wisdom of the love which guides itself according to a pattern which his eyes cannot see.

That which I have said above may seem a very high ideal for the relation between a teacher and pupil down here. Yet the difference between them is less than the difference between a Master and His disciple. The lower relation should be a faint reflection of the higher, and at least the teacher may set the higher before himself as an ideal. Such an ideal will lift all his work into a higher world, and all school life will be made happier and better because the teacher has set it before him.

II. DISCRIMINATION

The next very necessary qualification for the teacher is Discrimination. My Master said that the most important knowledge was "the knowledge of God's plan for men, for God has a plan, and that plan is evolution." Each boy has his own place in evolution, and the teacher must try to see what that place is, and how he can best help the boy in that place. This is what the Hindus call Dharma, and it is the teacher's duty to find out the boy's dharma and to help him to fulfil it. In other words, the teaching given to the boy should be that which is suitable for him, and the teacher must use discrimination in choosing the teaching, and in his way of giving it. Under these conditions, the boy's progress would be following out the tendencies made in past lives, and would really be remembering the things he knew before. "The method of evolution," as a great Master said, "is a constant dipping down into matter under the law of readjustment," i.e. by reincarnation and karma. Unless the teacher knows these truths, he cannot work with evolution as he should do, and much of his time and of his pupil's time will be wasted. It is this ignorance which causes such small results to be seen, after many years at school, and which leaves the boy himself so ignorant of the great truths which he needs to guide his conduct in life.

Discrimination is wanted in the choice of subjects and in the way in which they are taught. First in importance come religion and morals, and these must not only be taught as subjects but must be made both the foundation and the atmosphere of school life, for these are equally wanted by every boy, no matter what he is to do later in life. Religion teaches us that we are all part of One Self, and that we ought therefore help one another. My Master said that people "try to invent ways for themselves which they think will be pleasant for themselves, not understanding that all are one, and that therefore only what the One wills can ever be really pleasant for anyone." And He also said: "You can help your brother through that which you have in common with him, and that is the Divine life." To teach this is to teach religion, and to live it is to lead the religious life.

At present the value of the set moral teaching is largely made useless by the arrangements of the school. The school day should always open with something of the nature of a religious service, striking the note of a common purpose and a common life, so that the boys, who are all coming from different homes and different ways of living may be tuned to unity in the school. It is a good plan to begin with a little music or singing so that the boys, who often come rushing in from hastily taken food, may quiet down and begin the school day in an orderly way. After this should come a prayer and a very short but beautiful address, placing an ideal before the boys.

But if these ideals are to be useful, they must be practised all through the school day, so that the spirit of the religious period may run through the lessons and the games. For example, the duty of the