or rather made them feel something, which will outweigh in influence, for good or evil, all that we have supposed ourselves to be inculcating."

Fifthly, mere emotion that evaporates without a deed is weakening. Hence the harm of crying at the theatre and "with no language but a cry." Any working of the feelings without opportunity to act is likely to result in impairment. It produces a soft sentimentality. Hence the common outcry against emotionalism.

Sixthly, we must not think too much about our own emotions and must therefore beware of leading the children to think or speak of their own. Professor James in his "Talks to Teachers" speaks with no uncertain sound on this point, thus: "There is, accordingly, no better known or more generally useful precept in the moral training of youth, or in one's personal self-discipline, than that which bids us pay primary attention to what we do and express, and not to care too much for what we feel. If we only check a cowardly impulse in time, for example, or if we only don't strike the blow or rip out with the complaining or insulting word that which we shall regret as long as we live, our feelings themselves will presently be the calmer and better, with no particular guidance from us on their own account. Action seems to follow feeling, but really action and feeling go together; and by regulating the action, which is under the more direct control of the will, we can indirectly regulate the feeling which is not.

"Thus the sovereign voluntary path to cheerfulness, if our spontaneous cheerfulness be lost, is to sit up cheerfully, to look round cheerfully, and to act and speak as if cheerfulness were already there. If such conduct does not make you soon feel cheerful, nothing else on that occasion can. So to feel brave, act as if we were brave, use all our will to that end and a courage-fit will very likely replace the fit of fear. Again, in order to feel kindly towards a person to whom we have been inimical, the only way is more or less deliberately to smile, to make sympathetic inquiries, and to force ourselves to say genial things. One hearty laugh together will bring enemies into a closer communion of heart than hours spent on both sides in inward wrestling with the mental demon of uncharitable feeling. To wrestle with a bad feeling only pins our attention on it, and keeps it still fastened in the mind: whereas if we act as if from some better feeling, the old bad feeling soon folds its tent like an Arab and silently steals away. The best manuals of religious devotion accordingly reiterate the maxim that we must let our feelings go, and pay no regard to them whatever."

Professor James then quotes Mrs. Hannah Whitall Smith, in substance, "Act faithfully, and you really have faith, no matter how cold and even how dubious you may feel." And in Mrs. Smith's own words, "It is your purpose God looks at, not your feelings about that purpose, and your purpose or will, is therefore the

only thing you need attend to. Let your emotions come or let them go, just as God pleases, and make no account of them either way." Alice Wellington Rollins, however speaks thus: "The whole value, the just claim to originality of method, in the kindergarten system, is that it labors to associate emotion with knowledge. The prejudice against the word 'emotional' is intended only for emotion that ends in mere emotion. It is a pity for you to weep with appreciative sympathy over the sorrows of Dickens' Little Nell, or Dombey or Oliver Twist, if your interest in the story ends with that, or perhaps actually prevents your doing something for an unfortunate child, whom you are yourself neglecting for the pleasure of reading how other people neglected theirs. But if the book inspires you to look up a few instances in real life, you will do it more heartily from the emotion that has been stirred in you, than if you had merely read the town statistics and made up your mind that it was your duty to call a meeting and vote for investigation of the poor houses. This is why the cultivation of the beautiful is not always an inspiration to nobility. Exquisite sensitiveness to beauty in music, art, nature, or manners, may become an esthetic impulse that develops to deadly selfishness. The result is an effort, not to bring harmony out of chaos, but at all hazards to avoid chaos, and to insist upon ignoring everything that might jar on that artistic temperament' which is so often presented as an

excuse for the most hideous forms of selfishness."

Thinking about our own feelings is one thing and regarding the feelings of another is quite another thing-especially when that other is a child. In the early part of this chapter reference was made to our debt to the feelings of Paul, Savonarola, Luther, Knox, Bunyan, Froebel, Whittier, Lincoln and others. But it is hardly to be supposed that they spent much time thinking of their own feelings. They not only felt but acted. But in a knowledge of their actions our own feelings gain inspiration and training for right and heroic deeds. When we read of these impassioned heroes of humanity we live in their atmosphere. They are our nurturers, our educators; and shame on us if we do not grow morally better and more valiant by the wholesome nurture of their example!

IV

NURTURE BY LIGHT

education Through Vision: The Power of the Pictorial.

F%

NOR months, and even years, the attitude of Spain towards Cuba, and her methods of dealing with the Cubans, created a widespread feeling of indignation and even animosity among the American people. Under the frequent recital of the sufferings of the impoverished colonists, a tidal wave of retributive emotion swept over the United States, although few could think of resorting to war. But there came a moment when an explosion sent the battleship Maine to the bottom of Havana harbor, and this as a discerning editor said—simply made Spain visible. On this dramatic spectacle the entire American gaze, in imagination, was turned. It was never proved that the Spanish government was in any direct sense responsible for the destruction of the battleship, but the name of Spain was no longer a mere abstract emotion; it became a concrete visible image in the form of the Maine, imprinted on the retina of the American mind's eye. As we shall see, immediate action was almost inevitable.

174