evils of system by trying to understand the individual child, and by helping it to develop in accordance with its own individuality towards the fullest realisation of its capabilities. If he understands the child, he may be able to arouse dormant hereditary capacities, to repress tendencies to evil as they emerge, and to encourage and confirm the strong and well-balanced powers which promise most for the child's personal welfare and social influence.
(2) The teacher himself, as we have seen, forms a most important part of the child's social environment. He may use that environment, including himself, for the purposes of education in three ways.
(a) He can use the environment by way of exemplification. Nothing has so much influence over children, and especially young children, as an example to be followed. The example appeals to the child's primitive tendency to imitate. The teacher may utilise this tendency to imitation, by occasionally, e.g. during the History lesson or the Scripture lesson, drawing the attention of the children to examples that are worth imitating.
(6) The environment may be used to shape character by way of suggestion. This mode of influence is so quiet and pervasive that we rarely think about it, and perhaps for that very reason it is all the more potent in effecting its results. Nothing conduces more to the formation of good reading habits in a community than the institution of an attractive library, so arranged as to suggest in every detail the pleasures of reading. So, to influence the growth of the religious spirit, churches
