As a matter of fact, what is known in Sweden and in Finland as SLOYD, or manual instruction, may be regarded as a continuation of the Kindergarten system. Through the exertions of Uno Cygnaeus the whole of the national system of education in Finland was reorganized, and manual work was first made a part of the regular instruction in the common schools. In Sweden, likewise, the same principles have been introduced chiefly by Herr Otto Salomon, the director of the great sloyd seminarum at Naas. Sloyd work is used in the schools in a disciplinary way as an integral part of general education; the children, generally boys, are employed for a certain number of hours a week in making articles of common household use. It is maintained that work of this kind is specially invaluable in supplementing the ordinary school education of the three R's. It fulfils the injunction "to put the whole boy to school;" it develops faculties which would otherwise lie dormant, while at the same time it trains the eye and does away with clumsy fingers. THE PURPOSE OF EDUCATION. From the foregoing it will be seen that within the last 130 years a striking change has come over the view held respecting education. Prior to that time an artificial and pedantic method prevailed, which received its first check from the pen of Rousseau. The system which he attacked, however, built up as it was upon centuries of mediaeval learning, was not to be disposed of by this one encounter. Such a result was not to be expected in the natural order of things; but as the ideas of Rousseau contained the living truth, they were bound to find advocacy in due course, and though the seed might lie quiescent for a time, yet it was sure to germinate sooner or later. After him the path of educational reform was illumined by the genius of Pestalozzi, and a few years later Froebel appeared to influence for ever the methods of education. Indeed, it was the latter who by his kindergarten system has founded the practical education of our own day. The vast change, then, along the whole line of education has been from scholastic learning towards that of education in manual training. This is the truest recognition of the fact that the purpose of education is to prepare a child for his journey through life, and not merely to get him ready for an examination; but although the meaning of education has thus become more apparent, there is still too much a tendency in the present day to burden the developing mind with a multiplicity of subjects. We do not wish to produce a living encyclopaedia, but we desire to create a being, well trained in all his senses, and thoroughly competent to take his part in the battle of life. Far be it from imagining that I decry the advantages of learning in the slightest degree, but surely there is the broadest distinction between a scholastic prodigy and a practical well-informed mortal.