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desires so expressed will not be gratified, and to show that a contrary mode of conduct will be successful, when the object desired is not considered improper. From this point she must proceed, step by step, until she makes her pupil know by repeated experience, that he is not to obey his first impulse, and that self-control, a thing which even an infant can comprehend, is necessary to his own comfort. Example has been pronounced the best instructor in the arts; and so it is in education. Those who undertake that great and interesting duty must first learn to know themselves, and to command themselves. An angry look, a violent action, an overharsh word, will undo hours of advice upon the necessity of a well-regulated temper. Unreasonableness, irregu larity, insincerity, and indolence of mind or body, will overturn precepts however well worded and judiciously expressed.

Theory is only comprehensible to a child when illus. trated by practice. "I shall do or say so, because mamma or papa does or says so," is an unanswerable argument, and an excuse for or a defence of what is wrong. "Do as I say, and not as I do," is unintelligible to a child. Parents or preceptors are at first supposed by their children or pupils to be perfect in conduct; their very authority and power invest them with a dignity, which, in the innocent minds of children, presupposes virtue. When, therefore, they perceive in parents or instructors any deviation from the rules laid down for their own government, the opinion as to their virtue sinks as much too low, as before it was too elevated.

The operations of a child's mind are sources of deep interest, and it is with and upon these that the instructor

has to work. Repetition of acts, association, and affection, are the foundation of habits and opinions, as soon as the perceptive powers are called into exertion. An infant that has been regularly accustomed to eat and sleep at particular hours will, in a very short time, become hungry and sleepy at those hours. It is happy when in the arms of those to whom it is accustomed, uneasy when with strangers; its agreeable feelings are associated with those with whom it is at ease-this then is the result of habit.

The association of pleasure with what is right, of pain with what is wrong, is in fact the true foundation of reward and punishment; reward and punishment should grow, if possible, out of the acts which have deserved either; the commission or omission, whether of good or evil, should lead to its own penalty or reward. Severe measures can never be necessary, except where there is crime; but this presupposes total early neglect. To reward is less difficult than to punish; the former may be founded on affection and conscience, for the consciousness of rectitude, where a love of right is instilled, is as strong in childhood as in manhood; and where selfcontrol is a ruling power, self-approbation and the praise of the loving and the loved will be all-sufficient.

The time at which reason begins to show itself in children varies considerably: some children are capable of slight control at the age of fourteen months, and even earlier; others not till eighteen or twenty months. Crying is the means by which, in earliest infancy, pain, uneasiness, or hunger, and progressively, the wish for an object, and anger at being deprived of the source of amusement, are expressed; but when the child has learned to make other sounds, when it has acquired the

many little actions which need not be described to the tender mother, but which are ever a source of deep interest, (inasmuch as they are the signs which tell of the gradual development of the imitative powers, and consequently indicate the existence of intellect,) it would be easy to accustom the child to make known its wishes by the use of these sounds or actions. When this power is acquired, the infant should never be allowed to obtain its object by crying. We are not going to maintain that, in a well-regulated nursery, a young child will never be heard to cry-it has no other means of expressing pain or uneasiness; but a child who, after the age of fourteen or sixteen months, is never gratified in its desires when so signified, will soon cease to express them in this way. The great difficulty is to convince the child's understanding, when the wished for object is an improper toy. We would recommend the substitution of some other plaything, and, in the early stages of discipline, the removal of the source of temptation entirely out of sight: if the child refuses the substitute, (which rarely happens at a tender age, because the impressions on the mind are then slight and easily removed,) the mother or nurse will manifest by voice or countenance that she is grieved or displeased; will remove the child into another room; will seek by every means short of violence, or weak persuasion, to remove the improper ideas which have taken possession of the mind. Very young children have no words, neither can they altogether comprehend them, and until they have acquired the power of understanding speech, they must be taught by actions.

When the child has learned to ask by the means we have pointed out, all deviation from these means must be resisted, and all exhibitions of temper be corrected.

This is best done by submitting the pupil to personal inconvenience; but, let it be observed, we do not by this intend personal violence or chastisement. We have

seen a passionate screaming child checked in its violence by holding its hand firmly in one position; and on another occasion, the same child, at the age of nineteen months, was cured of a habit of shrieking by shutting it up for a half an hour in a small but not a dark closet.

But there may be tempers which require to be treated in a different way from that which we have suggested, and the choice of means must consequently be left to the judicious parent.* One invariable rule may be laid down, that the parent, in endeavouring to check the propensities of the child, can never succeed without uniformity of conduct, and kindness of manner joined to

* For the following note the writer of this article is indebted to a member of the Committee, who has had much experience in education. It frequently happens that manifestations of illtemper, and even violence on the part of a child, are attributable wholly to physical causes. The writer of this note suffered, when a child, from roughness and want of moisture in the skin, to such a degree in winter, that the mere contact of any rough substance, as woollen cloth, was unendurable, and the necessity for handling the most ordinary objects sometimes occasioned great irritation of temper, which was attributed by his friends to moral defect. He has observed like effects to arise from a variety of causes, as want of ventilation, want of ample room for exercise, tightness of clothing, the direct light of a window falling upon the eyes, (which causes irritation perhaps more frequently than is supposed,) the use of food unsuited to the digestive organs of children, &c.

Physical remedies may often be applied with advantage, when ill temper may have arisen from moral causes. A run in the open air, the effort of carrying a chair from one room to another, a draught of cold water, &c., may stop a fit of crying or screaming when other means would fail: the writer can say from experience that children may be readily taught to acquiesce in such means, and even, with a little encouragement at the time, to employ such means themselves, for recovering their lost serenity of temper.

firmness of purpose. It is of the highest importance that while we are gaining an ascendancy over the minds of our children, we do not lose our hold upon their affections.

It has been urged that children should never be rewarded or punished by means of their appetite. We object to the adoption of such means as a principle; but may they not be effective when judiciously and sparingly employed? For instance, if the desired possession of fruits, cakes, or sweetmeats, supposing them not to be injurious to the health, be violently expressed, or cause an infringement of discipline, would it not be right to refuse them, and afterwards to give them occasionally when the conduct has been proper and satisfactory? The privation would then be associated with misconduct, the enjoyment with the reverse.

It should be the care of every parent or guardian not to expose her child to temptation at an early age. Nevertheless a child must be accustomed to the various ornaments of a room, such as the books, which must always be seen there; but let it be a rule never at any time to give a child that which it is at all improper it should afterwards desire. To exemplify our meaning fully an infant is on its mother's lap-the attention of the mother being diverted from its immediate amusement, she gives it her thimble to save herself from interruption-she does not; at the moment, consider what she has long known, and afterwards perceives, when her thoughts are wholly devoted to the child, that the thimble is a dangerous toy, because it is easily swallowed; the next time the child sees the thimble, it expresses its wish to have it, for it has already known the pleasure of possession, and if its desire be signified with gentleness,

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