What error, then, can be greater than to take it for granted that children have no mind, because they have not had time and means to bring out their whole mind? As far as it goes, is not their mind the great human intelligence? and even in its lispings and stumblings, does it not give hints and promises of the majestic powers that are on the way to development? Children are, indeed, treated and written about, sometimes, as if they were _little fools_, and any baby-talk or twaddle were good enough for them; but we are inclined to believe that they are in the main _great fools_ who make this mistake, and so sadly libel God's handiwork. In fact, it is probably safe to say, that, so far as their mind works, it works with more intensity and quickness than the adult mind; for they are fresh and unworn, and they put their whole life into the first play of their faculties. They do not know many things, indeed, and require constant instruction; but their _intelligence_ is by no means as defective as their _knowledge_, but is as sharp and unwearied as their insatiate appetite for food. Talk nonsense to children, forsooth! Rather talk it to anybody else,--far rather to the pedants and worldlings who have fooled away their common-sense by burying thought under book-dust, or by hiding nature under shams and artifices. Children not only want the true thing said to them, but want to have it said in a true and fitting way; and no language pleases them so much as the pure, simple speech which the good old Bible uses, and which all our great masters of style follow. Any one who has seen the quizzical expression of a score or two of bright little children in listening to some old or young proser, who is undertaking to palm off upon them his platitudes for wisdom and his baby-talk for simplicity, cannot remain long in doubt as to which party leans most towards the fool.