That the doctrine of evolution constitutes to-day a most important guiding principle in education no competent educationist could be found to deny. It teaches us to deal with the young as in a very true sense the heirs of all the ages, to make due allowance in childhood for instincts and habits which partake of the earlier stages of human development, and to look forward with confidence to later and higher manifestations. We have less faith than our ancestors had in the rod, and more in the gradual unfolding of the powers and capacities of the mind, and therewith the enlargement and improvement of the moral nature. We do not believe as our forefathers did in breaking children's wills; nor do we view their peccadilloes in the lurid light of a gloomy theological creed. We recognize that veracity, in the sense of strict accuracy of speech, purged of all imaginative elements, is a virtue which not all adults are able to practice, and which is not a natural product of the child mind. We can not accept Emerson's doctrine of infant Messiahs, and yet we can recognize very fully the mission of the child in the home, the demand it makes for tenderness, for patience, for thoughtfulness on the part of parents, the hopes and fears and heart-searchings that it calls into play, the aspirations that it promotes toward the realization, if for its sake only, of a higher life. Froebel grasped a large measure of truth in regard to children, but too much of sentiment, in our opinion, entered into his treatment of them. In the full light of the doctrine of evolution we take them as they are, and help them to work out under favorable conditions that development of which they are capable. We are not imposed upon by childish imitations of mature virtues, and are rather disposed to repress recognized tendencies to precocity; but we believe that the germs of good are sown in every normal human being, and that, unless killed by most unwise treatment, they will fructify in due time.