=Fortitude.=—Touch the right spring and children are capable of an amazing amount of steady effort. I know a little boy of ten who set himself the task of a solitary race of three miles every day in the hot summer holidays because he was to compete in a race when he went back to school; and this, not because he cared much about sports, but because his eldest brother had always distinguished himself in them, and he must do the same. When we think how little power we have to do the tiresome things we set ourselves to do every day, we appreciate the self-compelling power a child can use, given a strong enough impulse. The long name, Fortitude, would have its effect on the little boy in the dentist’s hands. It is good to know that it is a manly and knightly virtue to be strong to bear pain and inconvenience without making any sign. The story of the Spartan boy and the fox will still wake an echo; and the girl who finds it a fine thing to endure hardness will not make a fuss about her physical sensations. She will be pained for the want of fortitude which called forth the reproof, ‘Could ye not watch with me one hour?’ and will brace herself to bear, that she may be able to serve. Portia, the wife of Brutus, gave a fair test of her quality when she wounded her tender flesh to prove that she was fit to share her husband’s counsels. =Service.=—Service is another knightly quality which a child should be nerved for by heroic examples until he grudges to let slip an opportunity. =Courage.=—Courage, too, should be something more than the impulse of the moment; it is a natural fire to be fed by heroic example and by the teaching that the thing to be done is always of more consequence than the doer. =Prudence.=—Prudence, too, is a condition of knightly service, whether to our kind or to our kin, and courage without prudence is recklessness; but, in this connection of bodily service, prudence is largely concerned with the duty of health. I have heard of a boy at a school where a good deal of hygienic teaching was given, getting quite anxious and overcharged with the care of his own health. This meaner kind of caution is not worthy to be called prudence, which should regard every physical power as a means of service and of conflict, and should think it a shame by any foolhardiness to make any part of the body unable for its due service.