Page:The Spoilt Child.djvu/117

 and reflection generally lies dormant, and the idea of bringing the different activities of the mind into play seems not to exist. The chief end of education being to develop the mental powers and qualities harmoniously with the gradual growth of the scholar, one faculty should not be abnormally exerted at the expense of another. Just as the body gets compact and grows well-knit by an harmonious exercise of all the limbs, so the mind is strengthened and the intelligence developed by an harmonious exercise of the sum total of their energies. All the moral qualities likewise should be simultaneously elicited: because one may be brought into play it does not follow that all will be. Reverence for truth, for instance, may be developed, without a single particle of kindliness: a man may have a large element of kindliness in his nature, but no practical knowledge of the business of life. Again, he may be perfectly honest in his business relations, and yet display indifference or absolute want of affection for his father, mother, wife and children; or he may be all that is proper in his domestic relations, but wanting in uprightness in his business affairs. Barada Babu was well aware in fact, that faith in God was the foundation of the due development and exercise of the qualities of the mind, and that they could only be duly developed in proportion as that faith increased; for otherwise the task was as futile as trying to write on water.

Most fortunately for him, Ramlall had become Barada Babu's pupil, and all his faculties were being harmoniously developed and exercised. Association with a good man is a far more potent factor in developing moral qualities than mere instruction; indeed by such intercourse a mind may be as completely transformed as a branch of the wild plum grafted on to a mango tree. So great is the majesty of a really noble character that even its shadow falling