some occult molding influence on the infantile abilities and propensities. Thus it is not at all uncommon, even in these days, for children to be dedicated at birth to the ministry, the missionary field, the service of the king, or to some particular cause or propaganda. A woman of the writer's acquaintance, solicitous for the future welfare of her babe, read solid and serious books during gestation in order to balance the emotional influences due to her absorption in music teaching during that period. Many practices of the most superstitious kind are resorted to in order to predetermine the sex, and hence the vocational prospects, of children yet unborn. Reliance on prayer as an effective agent in changing the course of events or the disposition and habits of some other individual is by no means confined to savages. Petitions that a neighbor may lose his appetite for drink, recover his lost eyesight, or find his wallet are as current in modern times as are official days of prayer for rain. Seeking to influence public opinion by the passing of formal resolutions, and modifying character, curing diseases and prolonging life through "absent treatment," the laying on of hands, the contemplation of relics, visitation of shrines, and concerted supplication, are practices which find high warrant in contemporary life. The essential idea behind all these practices seems to be the simple faith that nothing will interfere with the realization of desire, if only that desire is indicated by a method which has official or traditional sanction. The true nature of cause and effect and the conception of natural law are not yet realized on this level of thought.

THE PRACTICES OF MEDIEVAL CLAIRVOYANCE

A more advanced stage in the development of such thinking is indicated by the recognition that both the series of physical events and the individual endowment follow laws which transcend the personal desires of men. Nature comes to be recognized as a system of facts and connections. Both control and foresight henceforth seek to base themselves on the utilization of these stable laws and relationships. Instead of willing the individual's fortune to be thus and so, there is an earnest endeavor to seek for signs and clues of what that fortune is inevitably destined to be. Fortune-making becomes fortune-telling. The accidents and accompaniments of birth, the momentary positions of the planets, the calendar incidents, the hour or day of birth, the local meteorological conditions, birth-marks, stigmata, physiognomic and anthropometric characteristics, the folds of the flesh, the lines of the hand, the mode of birth: every fact that can participate in a relation of coincidence with the birth of the individual is selected as a sign of some future state of affairs, desirable or untoward, in the fortune of the individual, of his personal, domestic and occupational career.

Thus, in a recently published guide to character analysis based on ancient astrological pretensions, the following characteristics are asserted to belong to those who are born in the month of February:

"Those born in this month are very intuitive and good judges of character and human nature. They are successes in mercantile interests and enterprises. It is said that the best wives are born in this month, being always faithful and devoted. Great sincerity and power are possible for those born in this month. They rise to great heights and on the other hand are inclined to sink to the lowest depths. At times they are inclined to be melancholy, a tendency which they may overcome.

"Most February persons have good taste, are quick at absorbing information, and intuitive. One of their great faults is that they are inclined to be intolerant and cannot make themselves think from another's point of view.

"Their most common diseases are of the nervous and rheumatic orders. They should guard their actions on the ninth and sixteenth day of each month. Luck day, Saturday. Favorite colors, all shades of blue, pink, and Nile green. Lucky stones, sapphire, opal, or turquoise. Lucky numbers, 5 and 7. They will excel in music and art, and should marry with those born in October, January, or June."

Hardly less common than faith in the horoscope is belief in the detailed prophecies of palmistry. The following is a direct reproduction of paragraphs from a well-known metropolitan American newspaper, of the year 1915 (A. D.), headed, "What Your Fingers Mean:"

"Shorter palm and longer fingers, these show an aptitude for doing small things well. Their owners analyze everything, are supersensitive over trifles, often feeling unintentional slights. When these fingers are slim, as well as longer than the palm, they give to one the quality of diplomacy. Card sharps and gamblers have these long, slim, smooth fingers. The average-length fingers with an ordinary-sized palm show a well-balanced mind, with a thoroughly commonplace nature. When long fingers (with shorter palm) are knotted at the joints we find an extreme love for the minor parts of construction, whether it be in the building of a bridge or the endless tasks pertaining to a kitchen."

The same thing happens in the case of the individual's own acts. Every petty move and caper is taken to be significant of his future disposition, powers, or achievements. The first word the child utters, the first object for which he reaches, the animal he first imitates, the form of his earliest play activities, nothing that can be identified and described but comes to possess, in someone's mind, some peculiar significance and prognostic value. "Homely in the cradle, lovely at the table," is an oft-quoted maxim among hopeful mothers. "Happy is the bride that the sun shines on," has doubtless served to postpone more than one nuptial ceremony, and being "born under an unlucky star" has equally often afforded a certain consolation for personal awkwardness. A father of the writer's acquaintance believed his boy destined to follow the career of a druggist or pharmacologist, because, as a child, "he was so fond of playing with bottles and of pouring water from one into the other." Any lack of submissive devotion to a rubber doll is calculated to fill the parent's heart with apprehension and dire forebodings for the domestic peace of his daughter. War-babies and infants born on the high seas are envied for their romantic prospects. Illegitimate children are expected to be idiotic or else to be especially gifted with some poetic form of talent.

Belief in vocational magic and clairvoyance is clearly not entirely confined to medieval days. Nor is it true that such instances as those just cited arise only as material for frivolous conversations or as journalistic space-fillers in a dearth of more serious copy. So firmly are these superstitions established among large classes of people that special legislation is required to prevent their exploitation at the hands of crafty fakers. The fortune-teller is far from being a romantic and vestigial institution; and the type of prophecy which medieval clairvoyance represents continues to provide many with a substitute for more rigorous and less exciting inquiry.

MODERN PERIOD OF GUIDANCE AND SELECTION

However, as knowledge develops, a third stage is reached, in which we may be said to be moving, even though somewhat slowly, in our own scientific and educational work. This stage is marked by relative inattention to the series of physical events and by special emphasis on the original nature of the individual and on changes wrought in that original nature through the experiences of school life and other forms of educational process. The conditions and