Poem.

Some people roam the fields and hills,
And others work in noisy mills;

Some dress in silks, and dance and play,
While others drudge their lives away;

Some glow with health and bound with song,,
And some must suffer all day long.

Which is your lot, my girl and boy?
Is it a life of ease and joy?
Ah, if it is, its glowing sun

The poorer life should shine upon.
Make glad one little heart today,
And help one burdened child to play.

-ANONYMOUS.

FURTHER SUGGESTIONS TO THE TEACHER.-This little gem in verse has fine sentiment in it and should be talked over with the class members. Take care not to confuse acts of generosity or kindliness with what is now called charity. We should not wish to discourage acts of charity. But we can point out that this latter kind of giving must usually be more indirect, either through donations of money, or in the way of assisting others to do the work for us, as in Charity Societies. But the points of this lesson are concerned rather with personal or private deeds which may require a sacrifice or call for individual effort, where two persons may be brought into close relationship with each other, and one must render a service to the other.

CHAPTER XXVII.

CHEATING.

Proverbs or Verses.

"A clean mouth and an honest hand

Will take a man through any land."

"A nod of an honest man is enough."

"An honest countenance is the best passport."

"An honest man has half as much more brains as he needs! a knave hath not half enough."

"An honest man is none the worse because a dog barks at him."

"An honest man is the noblest work of God."-Pope.

"Honest men are bound, but you cannot bind a knave." "Honesty is the best policy; but he who acts on that principle is not an honest man.”—Archbishop Whately.

"No honest man ever repented of his honesty."

"To be honest as this world goes, is to be one man picked out of ten thousand."-Shakespeare.

Dialogue.

Today we must speak of one very bad habit, and you will know what it is the moment I mention it.

Suppose two boys are playing at checkers. One of them happens to look away for a moment, and the other changes the place of the checkers slightly in his own favor, while the boy looking away fails to see it. What do you call that?

"Cheating," you say. Is that the name you give it? What do you think about it? "Oh," you assert, "it is mean." How mean; just a little so? "No," you answer, "awfully mean."

But is it ever done? Would a boy ever cheat in that way? "Yes," you admit, "it does happen sometimes."

But why is it so mean, as you say? "Because it is not playing fair," you answer. "It is winning the

game when one does not deserve to win it." Then, what does that boy do to the other? "Steals the game," you assert. Yes. It is certainly like stealing, to cheat at a game.

How is it that boys and girls can cheat at play? Can you describe how it is ever done? For instance, at baseball? Or in other games?

What if two persons were racing? How do you think one could cheat in order to win the race?

Note to the Teacher.-It would be worth while to go on drawing out the discussion for a long while at this point, even perhaps taking a whole lesson for the purpose. Just let the young people name over possible ways that cheating might occur. The mere mention of the forms in which it could happen would be an influence against it; simply putting it in language or having it described. It would be well for the teacher also to write down and preserve what the children say, with the descriptions they give of different methods of cheating. This feature would perhaps answer for one entire session before we go on to a further consideration of the habit of cheating.

Did you ever hear of a boy who cheated at school? What does it mean?

"Why," you explain, "he may look into his book when he is reciting or at examinations, or use other false methods in order to be able to give an answer."

And whom is he cheating then? "Oh," you tell me, "he is cheating the teacher." Yes, but is that all; anybody else? How about the other boys and girls?

"Yes," you admit, "perhaps he may be cheating them too." But in what way? "Why," you continue, "he may get ahead of them, by that means receiving higher marks; or he may show off to the other boys and girls, and seem to them to know a great deal more than he does."

Then, apparently, according to your account, in acting that way we may not only cheat our playmates or those of our own age, but cheat grown people too.

What is the feeling we suddenly have when we discover that a person has been cheating us? "Why," you answer, "we dislike him. We don't want to play with him any more." But is that all?

Suppose we knew that a person would cheat others.

Then, if we had something valuable we intended to put in the hands of another person to be taken care of, would we put it into the hands of one we know to have cheated at any time? "Not by any manner of means," you answer. But why not?

"Oh," you exclaim, "we could not trust him. He might not take good care of it, or he might run away with it."

What is it that one always loses in the minds of others by cheating? "A's to that," you say, "one loses the trust or the confidence of others." Yes, you are right. But how will those others act toward the one who cheats? Will they believe his word? "No," you tell me, "they will think perhaps he is lying."

In school, for instance, how will the teacher act toward the boy or girl who cheats, and is known to cheat? "Why," you add, "the teacher will have to watch them all the time and will not trust them.”

Do you suppose, however, that before the teacher discovered it, he trusted them? "Yes," you say. And when we are playing a game, if we do not know a person cheats, we trust him, do we not? "Surely," you answer.

Then why is it-to come back to the first pointthat we think it so awfully mean to cheat? "Oh," you exclaim, 'it is because a person trusts us, and if we cheat, we are going back on that trust."

Suppose we write that down: "Cheating is a breach. of trust." What is it that a person is supposed to lose, who has been cheating and has been found out."

It is described in a word of two syllables, beginning with "h." Can you think of it now? "Honor," you suggest? Yes.

Among grown people we say the man who cheats has lost his honor. Which persons do you think sometimes are most despised; the man who cheats, or the man who deliberately steals? "As to that," you tell me, "perhaps the man who cheats may be despised even more.' But why? I ask.

"Well," you add, "it may be because he has not

only stolen something which belongs to us, but he has broken trust with us." Yes, I suspect that is true. Cheating seems often worse than downright stealing.

Do you think it matters so very much sometimes in play if we cheat just a little; move something very slightly so as to help us the least bit? Do you think that is ever done? "We are afraid it is," you reply.

But if it is just the least bit, why should it matter? "It is cheating just the same," you assert. And would anything worse come by doing it the least bit? Do you think a person who began that way, would always cheat only a very little?

"No," you say, "by and by he would begin to cheat more and more, until he would have the regular habit of cheating."

What do you think, by the way, of the difference between cheating at play and cheating at work? Suppose, on the one hand, a person cheats at a game, and again in making change of money in some business transaction. Which would seem the worse?

"Well," you answer, "they both are very bad." But which usually would come first, if one began to form the habit? Does one usually begin by cheating in serious matters, or in play?

"More likely," you tell me, "in play." But why? "Oh," you point out, "perhaps because it does not seem quite as bad." Why should it not seem quite so bad? "Well, just because it is play." But it is cheating, is it not, all the same? "Yes," you assert, "it is certainly cheating."

Do you suppose that if a person falls a little into the habit of cheating at play, by and by he may cheat in business when he grows up? What do you say as to that? Or do you think he may outgrow the habit and become honest and upright when he is a grown man? "We are afraid not," you reply. But why? "Oh," you tell me, "he has acquired the habit, and it is cheating just the same, even if it is in play."

True, I am inclined to think that many persons in our state prisons, the convicts, have begun their bad