parenthood is so uncertain, she should make the sacrifices necessary
to such training, sacrifices entailed by this highest education of
body, mind, and spirit, I can only say that it is better to be ready,
even if one is not called for, than to be called for and found
wanting.




CHILDREN'S PLAYS

"The plays of the age are the heart-leaves of the whole future life,
for the whole man is visible in them in his finest capacities and his
innermost being."


Mr. W.W. Newell, in his admirable book on "Children's Games," traces
to their proper source all the familiar plays which in one form or
another have been handed down from generation to generation, and are
still played wherever and whenever children come together in any
numbers. The result of his sympathetic and scholarly investigations
is most interesting to the student of childhood, and as valuable
philologically as historically. In speaking of the old rounds and
rhymed formulas which have preserved their vitality under the effacing
hand of Time, he says,--

"It will be obvious that many of these well-known game-rhymes were not
composed by children. They were formerly played, as in many countries
they are still played, by young persons of marriageable age, or even
by mature men and women.... The truth is, that in past centuries all