Order and beauty are sacrificed in many of our schools because one third or one fourth of the window-glass is out. Sometimes I have seen obsolete hats and discarded dresses doing duty in the absence of window-glass or window-panes knocked out in order that the stovepipe might be run through the broken place. The child never outlives the impression made by such a sight. The parents will join their children in helping to patch broken plastering if the teacher will take the lead. When the plastering is mended, a few pictures should be placed on the walls, and in this work the parents’ coöperation can be depended upon. Teachers must put not less conscience but more thought into the work for the children to whose lives they are giving direction. By putting into their work more of their better selves, more of their personality, teachers will add not only to their own happiness and usefulness, but will be doing real work toward hastening the coming of that kingdom for which they daily pray. iv Industrial Efficiency an Aid to The Higher Life It was Emerson who said that “One generation clears the forests, the next builds the palaces.” Each generation is very anxious to engage in the building of the palaces, an ambition which is altogether laudable, but the forests must first be cleared or there will be no palaces. And so it falls to the lot of every successful individual of every race and nation to engage at some time or period in their existence in dealing in a large degree with the industrial or material affairs of life. The forms of industry that occupy the majority of people in a civilized country may be classed under one of the following heads: first and perhaps most largely, the production of raw material in one form or another; the second step is the manufacturing of these materials; third, the problem of transportation and getting these products on the markets of the world, and having them properly distributed and economically and wisely consumed. The production of cotton in the South presents a familiar example of all these processes. The growing of cotton is an industry largely in the hands of my race; in the second step, the manufacturing of cotton, the colored people have as yet little part; in putting these materials on the market through the medium of steamboats, steam-cars, and their distribution through wholesale and retail establishments, colored people have diminishing interests. The lesson for all young people to learn in this busy industrial age is to deal with materials, whether at first hand in getting something out of the soil, or as constructing or distributing agents, so as to increase the value of the material they handle and to make themselves more useful as individuals.