fact. The effect of this privation may be seen at the moment in the weary and vacant countenances of the pupils; a result still more lamentable is, the facility with which, in future life, they allow themselves to be carried along by custom, by fashion, or by a weak dread of RIDICULE*: they feel the exertion of thinking too great; to form, and to act upon an opinion of their own, to dare to be practical Christians, requires, they find, more strength of mind than they have been accustomed to exert; they therefore remain satisfied to regulate their conduct, to form their habits, and to estimate their happiness, by the opinion of others t. Parents! let your daily lesson to your * Too great facility, such as is apt to lead a young person astray, is a weakness that ought to be carefully guarded against. Young men are misled by the vicious inclinations of others more frequently than by their own: they are ashamed of scrupling to do what their companions do without scruple.-Lord Kaimes. † How many consciences are kept quiet upon no other foundation, but because they sin under the authority of the professing Christian world.-Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life.-Rev. W. Law. children be, THINK ALWAYS, and THINK FOR YOURSELVES *. Attention unrelaxing should be paid to every shade of effect produced on the mind and hearts of the children; and discriminating tenderness and delicacy will vary the measures accordingly. However excellent may be the theory which has for its object a gradual development of the infant faculties, and however well adapted to that end may be the matter of the exercises, success must depend upon the administration. It must not be rigid-it must not be languid—but the whole must flow from the pure source of never-failing charity †. Should the little ones evince a dislike to their exercises, return to them with evident reluctance, and quit them with joy, let the Mother look within HERSELF for the cause; she may have kept to the strict letter of the Pestalozzian system, but she has not seized the SPIRIT: but let her not be discouraged. Let her beware of abandoning her duty, by * If you put any value on morals, permit not your son to enter a public school till he can pronounce with a manly assurance the monosyllable No!-Lord Kaimes. + The culture of the heart during childhood is the chief branch of education.-Lord Kaimes. weakly giving way either to despair or to weariness.-Let her persevere. Is she not a Mother? and whose powers of developing the infant faculties are so well founded as a Mother's? Are they not founded upon love? and upon no other foundation can there be a right development of the infant faculties. Other instructors act on the surface of the being. The Mother acts on the HEART; and out of the heart alone all true development springs. |