are built into character with painstaking effort, but untidiness and selfishness and irreverence and all their kin reach fullest unfolding in the thoughtless outflow of activity, when no one is attending.

But activity, untrammeled, means more than wrong habits. It means lawlessness and undisciplined character. The child who has learned no higher authority for his acts than his own erratic whims, has laid good foundation for future disregard of the laws of man and God.

The converse of all that has been said concerning both repression and neglect of activity characterizes its wise direction. When the child, ignorant and unskilled, hears a voice saying, "This is the way, walk ye in it," his willing response means activity going out in right channels or the formation of right habits. It means a dual joy for him, the joy of activity itself and also the joy from the approval and sympathy of the parent or teacher. Under encouragement he puts forth greater effort, which means constant development of greater power. Yet more than all, it means that he is learning the greatest lesson of early life, obedience.

Obedience is only activity under law. It begins with submission to the will of the parent, but when at last it is a response of the whole life to the will of God and rendered of voluntary and loving choice, it has reached its highest unfolding. This is the goal toward which all nurture of activity must be directed, else no life is safe after it goes out from the restraints of the home. In the heart of the parent who is a seer, the mere closing of the door or putting away of the toy in response to a request is not the thing most desired, for that is external and true obedience is internal. The father, possessing insight, wants the heart as well as the hand of the boy to close the door or put away the toy. Without this, no victory is gained. The act itself is the least of all. "Sacrifice and offering thou didst not desire. ... Then said I, Lo, I come. ... I delight to do Thy will, O my God; yea, Thy law is within my heart." This attitude of voluntary heart acquiescence to the will of another is never the product of compelling power, else God would force His children to obey, since obedience is the thing He most desires. Force can sway the hand but not the heart. Paul, whose tireless activity spent itself out under the direction of his Master, discloses the great secret when he says, "The love of Christ constraineth us." The eternal Father says to His child, "I have loved thee with an everlasting love; therefore with loving kindness have I drawn thee."

It is by love, by words of approval, by patient encouragement and help, and also by experiencing the consequences of each act, whether joyous or painful, that the child is led to follow the one who points out the path for his activity. Soon he faces the words, "right," and "wrong," and though knowing only at first that "right" is the thing permitted, and "wrong," the thing denied, he feels the difference in the results of each. Then he learns that the pathway of the thing called "right," is not an arbitrary one laid down by mother or teacher, but the pathway traced by God Himself, wherein we all must walk, parent and child, teacher and pupil alike. When with dimmest understanding but loving heart, he first sets faltering foot in that path, because he catches glimpse of its shining light, that "shineth more and more unto the perfect day," the one who has nurtured him will hear God's voice speaking to his soul, "Well done, good and faithful servant."

HUNGRY SENSES

Hungry senses, directed in their quest by a hungrier mind, mark the second great characteristic of early childhood. These are the channels through which the world around comes into the life of the child. The sights and sounds of the physical realm, when carried beyond the portals of the senses, under the marvelous transmutation of God's touch, become ideas. The process, in so far as its secret has been revealed, will not be discussed at this point, but rather the relation of these impressions to character.

In early years the senses are undiscriminating as far as the real worth of an impression is concerned. The vulgar picture will be admired as quickly as the beautiful one, if its colors are attractive. The impure word is caught as readily as the pure. There is no standard of values; even taste is not yet formed, and eyes and ears hungrily reach out for anything to satisfy their voracious appetite. Each sensation which is reported to the mind through the senses and intricate nervous system, supplies an idea, embodying itself. It is with these that all the thinking of the child is done, these rouse his feelings and prompt his actions and, finally, mean character. Manifestly, then, his life can be no better than the things he sees and hears, handles and tastes, for he lives in a world of sensations and not of ideas. This was the thought of the mother who said, "I never wash my little children's faces at night, and put them to bed all sweet and clean on the outside, that I don't think that I would give all the world if I could somehow get inside and wash that too." But the inner cleansing from the influence of sight and sound no hand can perform. God forgives sin, but even His touch does not remove the impression of the picture or the word which memory has put away. The only hope of beautiful character lies in bringing to the unfolding life helpful influences which shall be stronger in their power than the vitiating. When some definite counteracting impression is needed, it is in the sacred confidences of the twilight hour, and at the confessional of a mother's knee, that it can be most effectively given.

Aside from the moral import of the impressions, there is a vital relationship between the senses and the quality of the intellectual life. Since knowledge can come to the child only through his senses, the amount of knowledge, as well as its sort, depends upon the story the senses tell. If they be dull, the knowledge is meagre and life has little with which to build. If they be defective, the impression is either falsely reported or not at all. Tests have revealed the amazing fact that over fifty per cent of children have imperfect sight and hearing. This means that the first idea given through eye or ear may be wrong; consequently each subsequent idea growing out of it is wrong, at least in part, and ultimately, false conceptions and mistaken courses of action appear, all traceable directly to the ear that did not hear accurately and the eye that told a false tale.

There is also a direct connection between defective senses and conduct. Naturally, the boy who can't see the blackboard, pays no attention to the work placed upon it, and the child partially deaf, disregards the words of the teacher. The overwhelming number of personally observed cases of difficult discipline, disclosed the unvarying fact of defect, either in the senses or the body itself. Therefore a teacher or parent should be very sure that the "bad boy problem" is not physical rather than moral, lest cruel injustice be done.

While the dull senses call for limitless patience, that life be not pitifully narrow, and the defective senses call for wise and remedial attention, the normal, keen, wide-awake senses exact the most from the conscientious parent or teacher. Eternal vigilance is the price of beautiful building material for the character in such an unfolding life. Each day adds to the store put away in the brain, to reappear later. "We must soon be careful what we do before the baby," says the mother who half grasps the connection between impressions and character building, not realizing that the work is already far under way, that foundations are in. Nurture of the senses must begin with the first dim reaching out for impressions, that only the best may enter, that right tastes may be formed, and self control in this fiercest battle-field of life be learned.

CHAPTER III

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