Puslapio vaizdai
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cerely pronounced, than a cold asking for pardon. What you wish for is, not the humiliation of your child, but the expression of affectionate regret, of a real return to goodness.

We thus see how words and actions may alternately supply each other's place; and that it is the best plan not to employ both these means at once; we are then better able to preserve a calm manner, and a stronger impression is made on the child. Noise and scolding frighten children, but do not often correct them; they frequently produce tears, but seldom repentance. We should remember that our only object in punishment (and harsh reprimands are a kind of punishment) ought to be, to improve the inward disposition; if inflicted from any other motive, we become the offenders; and if it produce any other effect, it only proves our own incapacity and want of skill. In educating our children, the duty of guarding their happiness must yield only to that of guarding their innocence, which is of still more value, as involving an essential condition of their happiness.

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WERE it possible to doubt the innumerable benefits which the goodness of God has bestowed on our existence, we have only to look at young children, and our doubts must be removed. The most simple events, necessary actions of life, seeing, speaking, walking, are all to them sources of the greatest enjoyment.

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About two years old, we may generally perceive a remarkable change in children. Their desires become more decided; their will proceeds from a more definite motive; every thing in their life is less vague and uncertain, more full of meaning. Their very move

ments, more correct and easy, have also a more distinct object. They begin to form independent plans, and their existence, becoming more active in its nature, assumes a marked character, which displays itself in their speeches and their conduct.

The simple exercise of their strength is an

inexhaustible source of pleasure to children. Give them an idea of any action, and they are directly eager to try it; every thing they see others do excites their powers of imitation; but this imitation does not extend to more than outward actions: they do not trouble themselves as to either the causes or effects of these actions. They observe their mother working with a needle, or their father making black lines on a piece of paper, and will, as soon as they have the means, partake in these natural amusements. The pleasure they feel in the occupation is sufficient; there is no need of any farther, interest. But, as the enjoyment attached to a simple action diminishes, the necessity of an object supervenes.

Observe a group of children of different ages. He who can just walk proudly drags along an empty little cart; the noise of the wheels behind him is enough to make him happy. Another, a little older, must have a doll to ride in it: a third, still older, will give the doll a character, and make it act a part: while a child of five or six years old will fill the cart with sand, grass, or straw, thus trying to imitate, with some appearance of reality, any rural occupation. First arises the wish for simple activity—then that for the pleasures of imagination and lastly that for supposed, or real, utility. Such is the progress of the moral

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wants of early childhood; and to furnish continual food to this craving for activity, without making use of too strong stimulants, may perhaps, be called a summary of education. As far as regards the intellect we have, indeed, no other means of cultivating it; but our concern at present is with the formation of the character. For this object, the exercise of the moral faculties is necessary: children will not long be contented with external action only, or with sensations in which the mind remains passive; they will even grow weary of them. The amusements of this kind which we procure for them are often continued too long: but the activity that arises from internal feeling finds its own limits, and confines itself within them. We should sedulously endeavour to cultivate this mental activity; ill humour, turbulence, and disobedience almost always proceed from listlessness in children: the great art, if you wish them to be good and happy, is to furnish their minds with occupation.

In poor families, children, if their mother possess good sense and gentleness, are often more forward, and more rational, than those in a higher rank. They enjoy peculiar advantages. They not only interest themselves, but take a part, in most of the occupations carrying on around them: all the household affairs are within their comprehension, and in

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many they are able to assist. This succession of different employments, which they see going on, and in which they bear a part, exercises their minds; and whilst it affords them amusement, gives them at the same time a taste for making themselves useful. Occupied themselves, and seeing that others are not attending to them, they do not live for themselves alone: they have the feeling of a common interest in which each ought to partake according to his ability. What can be better for young children than this sort of discipline?

But circumstances are very different in families where the parents are of a higher class. Our employments, more refined and elevated in their character, are incomprehensible to children; and, not leaving our minds at liberty to attend to them, cause them only excessive weariness. If, from good nature, we suspend our occupation, they perceive directly that we are only trying to amuse them; or that we are caressing them only in order to excite their affection for us: and if this intention be too evident, our success becomes only the more doubtful. Children are exacting, capricious, fastidious; - parents who are trying to please them often show a degree of affectation in their attempts to lower themselves to their level; the intercourse is not natural on either side; they do not meet on the firm

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