What is home-education?  It is the physical, mental, moral, and religious development of the child.  To educate means to draw out as well as to instil in.  It means the evolution of our nature as well as the communication of facts and principles to us.  The home training does not, therefore, consist of simple information, but is a nurture of body, mind and spirit.  From this we may infer the frequent mistakes of parents, in substituting mere book-learning for a training up and nurture, dealing with their children as if they had no faculties, and making the entire education of their children mechanical and empirical.  Home training involves the development of all their faculties as a unit and in their living relation, causing the body to move right, the mind to think right, the heart to feel right, and the soul to love right; changing your children from creatures of mere impulse, prejudice and passion, to thinking, loving and reasoning beings.  To educate them is to bring out their hidden powers, to form their character, and prepare them for their station in life.  Thus home-education means a drawing out and also a bringing up,—­a training for man, and a bringing up for God; a training and nurture for the family, the state, and the church,—­for time and for eternity.  These must be done together; they involve but one process, and are conditioned by each other.  We cannot separate a secular from a religious education, neither can we separate a training from a bringing up.  While those faculties of the child which exist in a state of mere involution, are being developed, its nature must be supplied with appropriate food; and every element of its education must possess the plastic power of evolving and giving specific form to its future character and destiny.  Thus the parent, in teaching, must have a forming influence over the child; and his instructions must correspond in character, kind and extent, with the nature, wants, and destiny of the child.

What are now the different kinds or parts of home-education?

It must be physical.  The child has a physical nature, physical wants, and is related to the material world; and should, therefore, receive a physical education.  The object of this is to ensure that sound, vigorous frame of body which is not only a great blessing in itself, but an essential concomitant of a sound state and vigorous development of mind.  It refers to the proper management of the health of the child, its diet, habits of exercise and recreation.  Parents should teach their children the nature of the body, its dangers, and bearing upon their future happiness.  They should teach them to govern their appetite, and train them up to habits of exercise and early rising.  This part of home-education begins in the nursery,—­in the cradle, and is not complete till the body is brought to maturity in all its functions.  Neglect of it will result in physical imbecility, and often in mental derangement.  The object secured by it is, the preservation of the health and constitution of the child.  In this we see its importance.  What is your wealth, your station, your influence, if through your neglect of your children, they are deprived of health, and grow up with the seeds of immature death springing up in their system?