THE CHILDREN'S CELEBRATION.

Press, Volume LIX, Issue 11347, 9 August 1902, Page 8

THE CHILDREN'S CELEBRATION.

It is well that the children- celebatioa was put in the very forefront of the Coraa*. tion rejoicings. To oar minds they ata - of chief importance to be considered in aa affair of this kind. To those of us *_o have arrived at mature years, one festivity tends to become very much like anot&er, and to many of us celebrations may even' become a weariness of the flesh. But i! we look back, as the Mayor did yesterday in his speech, to "the days of our youth," * we shall see with-what different eyes tri then looked upon tie world, and haw bright and freah were even our __$p&ri pleasures. And it is well that every child should have as happy a time as posa&k in the days of tender innocence. T_ey e_« then laying in a stock of mental impressions and reflections which is to I__ them through life. Professor Maason, treating the subject pMcsophically, te_a us that "a great part of the education oi " every child consists of those impreaakcoi, "visual and others, which the senses of "the little being are taking in busily, " though unconsciously, amid the scenes ol " their first exercise." He adds that "much "of the original capital on which aU men "trade intellectually through life coasarf"of thai mass of miscellaneous fact aod " imagery -which they have acquired imper* "ceptibly by the observations of tbafc "earlier years." It is a trite saying ths* the children of to-day will be the people of the future, and •therefore, if we wkh to see patriot—in and loyalty flourish, we mast be careful to give tbem right teaching «sd good impressions in early youth. Bot go less calculating' grounds *.ha-n these the children should be given their fill, not only of the Coronation rejoicings, but of aU innocent pleasures. We should wish the - storehouse of memory to be full of bright pictures when they come to re-open it in after-life. And their happiness will bring even to us its reward. For does not their mirth and glee send us back to our ova cluldhood- days, thehalcyon time of life? It "so takes _s out of our present selves " that the weight of years falls from us a_ "a garment; that the freshness of life "seems to begin anew, and the heart and " the fancy resuming their first joyous con« "sciousness to launch again into this moving "world as on a sunny sea whose pliant " waves yield to the touch, sparkling and "buoyant." We live again in our childrea, and if it be true, as Wordsworth says, ih_t "Heaven lies about us in oar -af&-cy t *; surely their happiness is twice bleat.