Page:Littell's Living Age - Volume 126.djvu/775

Rh into them. Still the wise parent will not let them pass away unimproved. A few walks and talks will draw out and satisfy the "honest curiosity" always to be encouraged in young people. No boy will object to learn how to distinguish a faint from a fit, how to tie up a wound or recover a person from drowning, how to put out a fire or sew on a button, knock in a nail, or make a salad. In short, the exigencies of a picnic or a journey may provide him with resources to be developed afterwards beside a bush fire at the antipodes, in a shipwreck, under the guns of an enemy, or at a competitive examination. It can do him no harm to have a clear idea as to the relative position of the prime minister and the leader of the opposition, and to know the difference between a bluebell and a buttercup, a crocodile and an alligator, a barrister and a solicitor. It is also desirable that he should be able to come into a room without slouching, and to hand a lady a chair with politeness. He will find that the power to sing a simple tune at sight and join in a rational conversation will not take much from the pleasures of life, nor prevent his being able to catch a ball or a salmon. A few weeks will often suffice to teach a mere infant the notes of music and their places on the piano. It is amusing to watch the rays of delight which beam from the faces of the children at the Kindergartens when they are asked to sing something. Then too, the use of a needle and thread is as easily learnt by a boy as a girl; he does not instinctively feel that there is anything ridiculous in the employment of sewing, and the accomplishment is sure to come in usefully in many ways. Every sailor knows something about it, and does not think himself a Miss Molly in consequence.

One of the best things a young man can be indulged in is a taste. It will save him from the ennui which might drive him to gambling or undesirable company. Few boys with a real love for some science or art ever come to much harm. The intelligence developed in a child who collects specimens of stone or birds' nests, learns to cultivate a garden, or to carve a piece of wood, will make him a better man of business, or help him in a profession, as the case may be. A few hyacinth bulbs to nurse, a fern-case to water, some flowers to arrange, will give a feeling of home even to a dingy London lodging; but the love of flowers, like many other things, must be learnt in childhood. Tastes are not, as a rule, exorbitantly expensive; they are certainly very much cheaper than vices. A very moderate percentage of an income judiciously laid out will soon secure an excellent library. It is surprising how small a sum will suffice for the purchase of every standard work worth having. The most famous private libraries cost their owners nothing in comparison with the price of a few racehorses. Pictures judiciously selected are not an extravagance to those who can afford them. Any collection made with knowledge and love of the subject is almost sure to be worth at least what it cost. The time occupied in collecting is in many instances rescued from being employed in idleness or frivolity.

 

 From The Economist.

need not, perhaps, be too gravely apprehensive of the evil consequences which may flow from the renewal of disturbances in the East. The insurrection of the people of the Herzegovina against the Turkish rule is a movement towards which our sympathies naturally turn, yet we cannot help feeling that we must qualify those sympathies with a cautious distrust. The Turkish power is so weak and so vicious, so ill-managed, and so unstable that if the peace of Europe was not likely to be disturbed by its overthrow, we should not easily find anything to regret in its fall. It does not even tranquillize men's minds by an appearance of permanence; every one knows that the arrangements in which Europe acquiesces for the maintenance of the sultan's authority are merely provisional, and that whenever it suits the great powers to re-open the questions that were formally closed by the Treaty of Paris, the settlement of 1856 will not stand for a moment against a general conviction that it is not expedient any longer to keep the "sick man " alive. But though Turkey has now few friends who believe in her vitality, or would be willing to risk anything in her cause, there is equally little confidence inspired by the character of the Christian populations who are struggling by alternating revolts and intrigues for the autonomy they regard as their inheritance. The truth is that we have been disillusioned both as to the character of the Turk and of his subject