that would otherwise baffle as well as annoy us. In the second
place, by watching the rise of ideals we shall be better able to
direct the child's playing and his reading and those other
activities that are needed to supply the experiences and ideas that
seem to be lacking, or to discourage tendencies that seem to us
undesirable. In the third place, if we know our children's ideals we
can make use of these as motive forces in helping us to carry out
our larger plans. It is when the boy is in the military stage of his
ambitions that we should try to make the virtues of the soldier
habitual parts of his character. It is when the girl is ambitious to
make a fine garden that we should try to make her fix the habits of
orderliness, regularity, and attention to details. Of course, not
every girl will want to have a garden, and many a boy never cares to
be a soldier; but at every stage there are ideals that can be called
upon to fix the heart upon certain virtues until the latter become
habits.

It is very easy to ridicule the ideals and ambitions of children when
they seem to us too high-flown or futile. But a person's ideals stand
too close to the centre of his character to be treated so rudely. It
is better to ignore the many trifling flights of fancy that are not
likely to have any permanent effect, and to throw the child into
circumstances that will force the emergence of more deep-seated or
far-reaching ambitions.

There is another danger in the ease with which a child's faith in
ideals is destroyed, when these happen to interfere with our own
immediate comfort and desires. When a boy has gotten into some
mischief with his friends, and is the only one caught, we are
tempted to bring pressure to bear upon him to make him tell who the