Among the child-loving Eskimo we find many tales in which children and animals are associated; very common are stories of children metamorphosed into birds and beasts. Turner has obtained several legends of this sort from the Eskimo of the Ungava district in Labrador. In one of these, wolves are the gaunt and hungry children of a woman who had not wherewithal to feed her numerous progeny, and so they were turned into ravening beasts of prey; in another the raven and the loon were children, whom their father sought to paint, and the loon's spots are evidence of the attempt to this day; in a third the sea-pigeons or guillemots are children who were changed into these birds for having scared away some seals. The prettiest story, however, is that of the origin of the swallows: Once there were some children who were wonderfully wise, so wise indeed that they came to be called _zulugagnak_, "like the raven," a bird that knows the past and the future. One day they were playing on the edge of a cliff near the village, and building toy-houses, when they were changed into birds. They did not forget their childish occupation, however, and, even to this day, the swallows come to the cliff to build their nests or houses of mud,--"even the raven does not molest them, and Eskimo children love to watch them" (544. 262, 263). From time immemorial have the life and actions of the brute creation been associated with the first steps of education and learning in the child. CHAPTER XIII. CHILD-LIFE AND EDUCATION IN GENERAL. The mother's heart is the child's school-room.--_Henry Ward Beecher_. The father is known from the child.--_German Proverb_. Learn young, learn fair, Learn auld, learn mair. --_Scotch Proverb._ We bend the tree when it is young.--_Bulgarian Proverb_. Fools and bairns should na see things half done. --_Scotch Proverb_. No one is born master.--_Italian Proverb_. _Mother as Teacher_. _Nihil est in intellectu quod non prius in sensu_ is a favourite dictum of philosophy; primitive peoples might, perhaps, be credited with a somewhat different crystallization of thought: _nihil est in puero quod non prius in parenti_, "nothing is in the child which was not before in the parent," for belief in prenatal influence of parent upon child is widely prevalent. The following remarks, which were written of the semi-civilized peoples of Annam and Tonquin, may stand, with suitable change of terms, for very many barbarous and savage races:--