Looking for guidance to the literature of education, I learned much from various sources, though I failed to find what seemed to me an authoritative guide, that is, one whose thought embraced the possibilities contained in the human nature of a child, and, at the same time, measured the scope of education. I saw how religious teaching helped the children, gave them power and motives for continuous effort, and raised their desires towards the best things. I saw in how far law restrained from evil, and love impelled towards good. But with these great aids from without and from above, there was still the depressing sense of laboring at education in the dark; the advance made by the young people in moral, and even in intellectual, power was like that of a door on its hinges – a swing forward today and back again tomorrow, with little sensible progress from year to year beyond that of being able to do harder sums and read harder books.