I have touched very inadequately, not upon all that is necessary to bring up children in ‘the nurture and admonition of the Lord,’ but on a few of the principles which seem to me essential. CHAPTER XIV A MASTER-THOUGHT =A Motto.=—Some of my readers will know the Parents’ Union motto, ‘Education is an atmosphere, a discipline, a life,’ especially well in the neat diagrammatic form in which it appears on the covers of our Library books. I am told that we, as a society, are destined to live by our motto. A notable educationalist writes to me, in connection with public education: ‘There is more need than ever for such a view of education as that embodied in the memorable words which are the motto of the _Parents’ Review_.’ An inspiring motto must always be a power, but to live _upon_ the good repute of our motto, and to live _up_ to it and _in_ it, are two different things, and I am afraid the Parents’ Union has much and continual thinking and strenuous living to face, if it proposes to stand before the world as interpreting and illustrating these ‘memorable words.’ But we are not a faint-hearted body; we _mean_, and mean intensely; and to those who purpose the best, and endeavour after the best, the best arrives. =Nineteenth-Century Formula, Education is an Atmosphere.=—Meantime, we sometimes err, I think, in taking a part for the whole, and a part of a part for the whole of that part. Of the three clauses of our definition, that which declares that ‘education is an atmosphere’ pleases us most, perhaps, because it is the most inviting to the _laissez aller_ principle of human nature. By the way, we lose something by substituting ‘environment’ (that blessed word, Mesopotamia!) for atmosphere. The latter word is symbolic, it is true, but a symbol means more to us all than the name of the thing signified. We think of fresh air, pure, bracing, tonic,—of the definite act of breathing which must be fully accomplished; and we are incited to do more and mean more in the matter of our children’s surroundings if we regard the whole as an atmosphere, than if we accept the more literal ‘environment.’