You will not fail to become acquainted with the girls who play and recite with your daughter. When one sees two bright heads close together, or follows lovingly the progress of two young girls walking arm in arm down the street, one is thrilled with the promise of the dawn, the gracious dawn of womanhood. It is the greatest of pities when, once in a while, the serpent enters the childish Eden in the person of a vulgar, curious or ill-bred little girl, who has not been taught the difference between right and wrong by a conscientious mother.

You will, of course, teach your little daughter to avoid those girls who seek to impart secrets to her, and you can best do this by giving her the password of safety, "I always tell everything to my mother." The child who does this is shielded from evil.

Does it sound trite to say that for children and mother alike the very happiest days are those when school and home meet in a benign partnership? They are busy days, crowded with cares and anxieties, and filled with responsibility, but each of them is a cup-bearer to the gods. Each of them carries a chalice brimming with honey. You will never have happier days in all your life than those you spend when the children go merrily to

school in the morning and rush home in the afternoon, shouting as they enter the door, "Mother, mother, where is mother?"

Do not worry over torn frocks and muddy trousers, do not be disturbed about trifles, but take the happy days as they come and live with your children. You will have plenty of time for other engagements a few years hence. At present nothing is so important as the children's education. Let the school help you, and on your part help the school.

The thorns are ever nigh the sweetest flowers.
Train them for gladness in the days to come,
For all sweet uses in the simple home.

ROM the hour of the little maid's arrival to the day when she reaches womanhood, and long after that, the daughter is a continual gift of God to the mother. She is often a puzzle and a wonder, a mystery and an interrogation point, but she is nevertheless an inspiration and a delight.

In a large family there is room for variety, and one daughter may be a replica of her mother, while another is dissimilar, and the same diversity may be seen among sons. American families are seldom very large, yet that mother is to be congratulated who is in no danger of emulating the hen with one chicken. Five or six children in a