Here, in this atmosphere of love and sympathy, character thrives and ripens. And were the skill for touching its tender sensibilities, calling forth its budding gifts, equal to the charms the child has for us, what noble characters would graduate from our families,--the community receiving its members accomplished in the Personal graces, the state its patriots, the church its saints, all glorifying the race. One day the highest culture of the choicest gifts will be deemed essential to the heads of families, and the arts of nurture and of culture honored as the art of arts. "Boys are dear to divinity," dear to all mankind. What more charming than to watch the dawning intelligence, clearing itself from the mists which obscure its vision of the world into which it has but lately entered? The more attractive, since a fine sentiment then mingles mythically with the freshness of thought, confuses the sexes, as if the boy were being transformed into the girl, first entering her wider world of affection; and the girl in turn were being metamorphosed into the boy, first becoming conscious of the newer world of intellect; each entering, by instinct, into the mind of the other. I know not which is the more charming each in their ways, the coy manners of girls, or the shy behavior of beautiful boys,--mysteries both to each other, nor less to their elders. 'Tis the youthful sentiment, whether feminine or masculine, that renders friendship delightful, the world lovely; this gone, all is gone that life can enjoy. "There are periods in one's life," says Pythagoras, "which it is not in the power of any casual person to connect finely, these being expelled by one another, unless some sympathetic friend conduct him from birth in a beautiful and upright manner." PYTHAGORAS. Of the great educators of antiquity, I esteem Pythagoras the most eminent and successful. Everything of his doctrine and discipline comes commended by its elegance and humanity, and justifies the name he bore of the golden-souled Samian, and founder of the Greek culture. He seems to have stood in providential nearness to the human sensibility, as if his were a maternal relation as well, and he owned the minds whom he nurtured and educated. The first of philosophers, taking the name for its modesty of pretension, he justified his claim to it in the attainments and services of his followers; his school having given us Socrates, Plato, Pericles, Plutarch, Plotinus, and others of almost equal fame, founders of states and cultures.