dibly to me, behind her fan, I am even prone to believe her to have been the more influential and educative of the two.

In those days, those days when visits were long and frequent, the bond of kinship was firmly established and family characteristics were strong and vivid. There were Halsteds, Spencers, Hamiltons, Ogdens, and not to be mistaken, any more than you mistake now your reader for your speller, your history for your geography.

It seemed, it is true, that they were there but to visit; but how much were they there, though how little were they aware of it, to teach, to enlighten, to admonish! With them came the Halsted or Spencer or Portor imperiousness or graciousness or brains, the Halsted eyes which were beautiful and the Halsted tempers which were not; with them came those obstinate egotisms, those devotions and ideals, those headstrong weaknesses, those gentle fortitudes which, strong in themselves, survived vividly from generation to generation.

My aunt Henrietta, my aunt Sarah and the rest, it was plain to be seen, were the earthly abodes of strong antecedent family spirits; and now, these bodily abodes doomed to decay, had not those spirits, strong and nimble, already begun to frequent the available lives of the younger generation, resolved on living yet in the day-lighted world, and visiting still the glimpses of the moon; hopeful, perhaps, in the younger generation, to correct some old folly; or willful, and determined, it might be, to pursue in some younger life the old fatality and mistakes?

This was what it meant, this and not less, when often a little wistfully the passing generation remarked certain likenesses. 'Mary, how much she is getting to be like William'; or 'Do you know she reminds me of her great

grandmother Ferguson'; or 'She has the Portor eyes'; and sometimes cryptically, so that I might not guess too clearly what it meant, 'Very like the Halsteds.'

All these things were, I believe, far more influential and educative than the unthinking will admit. They gave me much food for thought. They roused in me commendable emotions, or salutary dismays. Might I some day be like my aunt Sarah? like my aunt Sarah? Was I really like my father? Could I worthily be classed with these others? And traits not to be proud of-was I in danger from these? So cautions and hopes and worthinesses grew up in me under the fine influence of what might be called a study in 'Comparative Characteristics.' There is not alone a dignity, but a tenderness as well, lent to life by such a study of former and passing generations. The results of living much of my childhood in the presence of the past, serving tea to it, offering it the required courtesies, putting footstools under its feet, were, I believe, a certain abiding reverence for human nobility, and a pity for human faults and weaknesses, and more, a desire and hope for nobility in myself, and a haunting dread that some family weakness might reappear in me; and these, as valuable assets to education, I would not rank below the dates of the battles of Crécy and Poictiers and the siege of Paris none of which dates, though I once learned them carefully, have remained with me.

II

There is not space to tell of that nearer constellation of warm and bright stars, guests who were my mother's and father's intimate friends and contemporaries. Even if there were nothing else to recommend them, these were men and women who had lived through the Civil War in their prime. To

sit on the knee of my ex-soldier uncle and know that where my head leaned he carried in his breast-pocket a little Testament, with a bullet-hole in it but not quite through it- the Testament having saved his life and stopped the bullet from reaching his heart; and to sit on the knee of another uncle who actually carried a bullet from Antietam about in his body, yes, and for all that was the very gayest of the gay these experiences were spelling-books of a high order and readings in life not to be looked down on.

There were other uncles who visited the house only in tradition but were entertained there how warmly of my eager fancy, their adventurous lives having ended before mine began, who were memorable lessons in daring, in courtesy, and in spirit!

There was, further, my mother's youngest sister, who was better than any legend. I would rather have inherited, as I did then, that love-story of hers, than very considerable worldly riches.

Another of my mother's sisters was mistress of a home on Fifth Avenue and of a very lovely country place on the Hudson. She had maids at every hand to wait upon her, and footmen whose eyes looked straight ahead of them, and who wore cockades in their hats. I liked her for herself: her beauty and her spirit and commandingness always stirred me, and she liked and approved of me besides. Moreover let me be frank I liked her too, in those days, for the footmen as well. One of my sisters had visited her for nine months, and had, on her return, entirely revolutionized all my ideas of the world.

But that rather, which confirmed and stablished me and my ideals as on a rock, was the love-story of my young

est aunt.

She and her husband had only the most moderate means. They lived in

what I like now to believe must have been a rose-covered cottage. But oh, the love of them! She had a mass of wonderful hair which it seems he loved to unpin at night, to see it fall at either side of her lovely face, down to her knees and beyond; and a tiny foot, whose slipper he would allow no one but himself to put on. All reports of every member of the family agreed: these were a pair of perfect lovers; no harsh word was ever spoken between them; they lived wholly for each other, in a blissful world apart, rich in their own manner; where neither poverty, nor distress, nor discord could find them; and where no hand could ever fall upon the latch to bring them sorsave only one.

row

She used to walk up and down the upper veranda, taking the air slenderly, a light shawl about her shoulders; her tiny foot pausing now and then for greater steadiness, when the wind swayed her frail body too rudely. I have known many faces since then; I never knew one with a lovelier look. Heartbroken though she was, the depth of her love was daily attested, for there never came complaint or bitter word across her lips; and you went to her, without question, for quiet and comfort, as to a sanctuary.

At first, it seems, she had been pitifully rebellious, had longed and prayed to die (we children knew these facts);

but, having been denied so much as this, she rose delicately, and lived on worthy of him, binding and unbinding her hair, fastening her little slippers anew for the daily road and routine of life. Sometimes, with tactful or tactless devotion (I do not know to this day which), I would offer to fasten them for her; and she would smile and let me do it, and usually kissed me afterward. There were years and years when I never saw her. She grew more frail, I am told, and her cheek withered; but to me she was always incomparable, and always 'Rose-in-Bloom'; and, like Rose-in-Bloom, looking always to one thing only reunion with her beloved.

'Will fortune after separation and distance, grant me union with my beloved?' sings the lover of Rose-inBloom. Close the book of estrangement and efface my trouble? Shall my beloved be my cup-companion once more? Where is Rose-in-Bloom, O King of the Age?'

It might have been her lover who so questioned a mightier king, while she waited far from him, there even in our very house. And the reply of the king in the story would still have been fitting: 'By Allah, ye are two sincere lovers; and in the heaven of beauty two shining stars, and your case is wonderful and your affair extraordinary.'

It were indeed impossible to explain all that these, the vivid lives of my own, meant to me, and what effect they had on what I like to call my education-how much indeed they were my education.

It is usually assumed that the sooner we get at books the sooner we shall become educated. I think it a pale assumption. The order might more happily be reversed. I am convinced that it was mainly by my reading of these men and women with whom the world of my childhood was peopled and whom

the gracious habit of visiting brought within my ken, that I came later to recognize and enjoy the best authors and the best literature. I had known Lear and Othello and Hamlet in my own circle, though without Shakespearean dramatization or language. I have already told you how well I knew 'Rose-in-Bloom,' so much better than the Arabian Nights could ever tell me of her. "The poet's eye in fine frenzy rolling' was familiar enough to me. I had had it rolled on me by the author of Herod and Mariamne. I was continually recognizing in books fragments of life, but glorified by the art of phrase or symbol. When I came one day upon the incomparable scene in Capulet's orchard, and those lines,

'By yonder blessed moon I swear, That tips with silver all these fruit-tree tops,' Had I not in real life heard Miss Lou was I, do you think, a stranger to it? Brooks sing with a full heart and a quivering voice,

'The stars shine o'er his pathway!'

It will without doubt be objected that my childhood was an exceptional one, even for my day; that the average child of the present would certainly have no such characters and types from which to draw knowledge. But this is, I am sure, a false premise. Humanity is a very ancient stuff, and human beings are to be found to-day quite as interesting and vivid as ever human beings were. But there lacks to the modern child the quiet opportunity for knowing and studying humanity at first hand. In place of long and comfortable and constant visits we have a kind of motion-picture hospitality soon over, a film on a roll soon spun out; and instead of life with its slower actions and reactions, a startling mere picture of life flashing by.

A short time ago I watched a party of married people and children receive

an automobileful of guests at a country home. The guests remained something over twelve hours, which is a long visit in these days.

When they came it was explained by them how many miles they had come that day and over what roads. An hour was now devoted to getting the dust off and to a change of clothes. After this there was much chatter among host and guests, talk of mutual friends and much detail as to journeying, what roads had been found good, what ones uncomfortable for speeding, with a comparing of road-maps among the men. Then there was luncheon, after that siestas, after these a spin to the polo grounds in the host's motor; after this, tea on the country-club veranda, and another spin home. Another halfhour was now again given to the removal of dust, then an hour to an exceptionally well-served supper; more chatter, with rather high laughter; then the summoning of the original motor; good-byes, some waving of hands, a little preliminary chugging of the machine, then a speeding away, a vanished thing. Gone in a flash! A clean sheet once more! The movingpicture visit was over; the host and hostess returned to the chairs on their own veranda; the handsome, longlegged, bronzed children looked bored; and the lares and penates inside, if there were any, shivered, I am sure, with what 'freezings' in the midst of 'old December's bareness everywhere.'

'And yet this time removed was summer's time.' There were in that flashing speeding automobile six people: there was an old gentleman (very trig and alert) who had hunted tigers in India and had buried three wives; there was a woman who was one of the most proud and vain women in the world as well as one of the most beautiful; there was a man who had carried through a great panic in Wall Street

and who wore an invisible halo of prayers of widows and orphans; there was a middle-aged woman with a broken heart, whose lover had been buried at sea; there was a fresh-looking young girl chained to the rock of modern conventions, and a square-jawed handsome young Perseus who was in love with her and determined to rescue her and carry her away to dwell with Poverty and himself on a claim in Eastern Idaho.

Flash, flash! They are moving pictures, they are gone! What might they not have been, what might they not have contributed, very especially to the host's children, in the way of lessons and knowledge and education, had they remained long enough to be guests! What? Education? But the children all go to school and to the best school to be had; and the little one there is just starting in under the Montessori method. You should see how amazingly from fifty-seven varieties she can select and grade the different shades and colors.

III

Madame Montessori recommends that children be under the care of a 'directress' (note the name) in the 'Houses of Childhood,' each day, the day to begin at eight and to last until six, in a schoolroom where the Montessori 'method' is practiced by means, mainly, of the didactic material'! The thing revolts me. I do not say, 'What time for arithmetic and geography and the sterner realities of schooling?' No, nor do I complain as does Sir Walter Scott when he touches on Waverley's education, you remember, that 'the history of England is now reduced to a game at cards.' I say to myself more solemnly, 'But what time is left for life? What time for guests?'

They have a great care of children's

education nowadays. We were neglected to a higher learning; and abandoned to a larger fate. There were guests coming! We made off to don our best dresses and behaviors. We hoped to be worthy the gracious occasion. We meant to try. Life was at the door.

It was not mere shrewdness in St. Paul, surely, when he recommended the Romans so earnestly to be 'given to hospitality'; but a wistfulness as well, and a certain longing for a higher education to be given unto them; and it was his correspondents' welfare he had in mind, you remember, rather than the welfare of their guests, when he bade the Hebrews that they 'be not forgetful to entertain strangers'; for -now note carefully the sequel-'for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.'

I have an old friend who is on his way, I am told by those in authority, to be one of our great modern psychologists. He gives anxious thought to the education of his children. Lately he approached me seriously in the matter of his boy's educational needs. Would I talk them over with him? He wished to consult me. I looked for a careful discussion of 'methods,' and was ready with all my arguments concerning the Montessori teachings. Instead he inquired, 'Now when will you come and visit us? a real visit, I mean? That is what I wanted to ask you. It is with that that I am most concerned. That is exactly what Jack needs.'

I am needed as a guest in their house, for the sake of the children! My heart rises at the thought! Cheered, I seem to see ahead, clearly, a time when if we do not provide them with guests we shall think that we have shamefully neglected our children's education; when we will no more deny them visitors than we would now neglect to have them taught to read.

To love life for ourselves and others;

to be forever interested in it; to be loyal to it, and that down to the grave; to dwell helpfully and appreciatively with one's kind; to understand others as generously as is possible to faulty human nature, and to make ourselves understood as much as is consistent with courtesy; these are, I take it, the fine flower of culture; here is all that I would dare call education, or presume to think of permanent importance.

And by no means, I feel sure, can youth be led to all this so readily, so happily, so effectually, as by means of the age-old virtue of hospitality. These things are things which guests bring with them, knowing it not, and bestow on those who are not aware of the bestowal.

-

This is the old manner of entertaining and — I ask your patience — it is God's manner, not less. The gentle sympathy, the unfailing hospitality of my mother, how gentle and understanding she was of all types which frequented the old house! - her patience and hospitality had in them, I like to think, some resemblance to that larger patience of Him in whose House of Life we do but for a time visit, some of us how gayly, how romantically, some how fretfully and inconsiderately, lingering past our time; some contributing but idle gossip; some lending to the hearth-fires the glow of our poetic dreams; some adding truth or dignity of our own; some possessed of foibles and accomplished in failures; some shining with hopes of final successes that shall never be ours. Yet all of us, by the grace of God, and God be