[22 INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS OF EDUCATION. 
Desire is the controlling element of will, and Preyer tells us that ¢¢ desire 
presupposes ideas, and through the cultivation of ideas of a higher order 
she will may be directed even in the second year, and thereby character 
formed ; but only through the inexorable consistency which allows no 
exception to a prohibition, is it possible to maintain the form once 
‘mpressed on the character.” 
The will plays a very important part in the process of living ; indeed, 
it would almost seem that the combined action of the psychologists of 
to-day would succeed in reducing all mental activity to some form of will ; 
and can parents afford to neglect so important a duty as the training of 
she will ? Or, worse still, can they afford, through ignorance, to mis- 
direct it, thus warping the characters of their children ? Many a child has 
been saved by an enthusiasm—by some line of diversion that has been 
opened to him generally by some one other than his father or mother. The 
discipline of parents is usually negative—what you may no? do, not what 
vou may do. 
Again, take the matter of heredity. Who knows so well as the parent 
what tendencies the child is likely to inherit ? Yet how far has empirical 
knowledge advanced along this line ? May not the sum total be expressed 
in the saying, “He is a chip of the old block”? This phrase suggests 
Spencer’s law of least resistance, but there is in it no suggestion of the 
suppression of evil tendencies through the establishment of new and better 
ones. Whether one believes with Galton that “nature prevails enormously 
over nurture, when the differences of nurture do not exceed what is com- 
monly to be found among persons of the same rank of society and in the 
same country,” or whether one holds the opposite belief, certain it is that 
only through a knowledge of these laws can one be led to feel the respon- 
sibility of parentage or to intelligently discharge these responsibilities. 
The popular conception concerning habit is that there are certain bad 
nabits, such as smoking, gambling, reading trashy novels, etc., which 
children catch much as they do whooping cough or measles, when they 
reach the right age for being exposed to them. This conception of habit 
is most disastrous in its results. Evil habits are only the fruitage of 
certain tendencies, which in their earlier stages have seemed harmless. 
Habit is somewhat like that fresh-water mussel, Unio, in which the young 
Jiffer so widely from the adult that they were supposed to be parasites, 
and were so described. Tabit is a subtle thing, and requires a far-seeing 
eye to detect the tendency of its growth. The theory of ‘sowing wild 
oats” has always been warmly advocated by the old, and devoutly followed 
by the young. The truth that ‘© Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he 
also reap,” seems to be disregarded. 
Since total ignorance concerning the development of mental activities 
obtains so largely among parents, and, we may add, teachers as well, the 
period of sense-perceptions (if I may so designate the period when these