Page:Home Education by Isaac Taylor (1838).djvu/45

 under such auspices, will be nothing better than a prison, whence the luckless inmates will wildly rush the moment it is possible for them todo so. An austere master is but as one to forty, sixty, or eighty; but an austere father, or a crabbed in other, sourly loquacious, is as one to three, or five, or eight; and so large a proportion of the ingredient of bitterness will be more than enough to spoil happiness.

The recollection of a thoroughly happy childhood (other advantages not wanting) is the very best preparation, moral and intellectual, with which to encounter the duties and cares of real life. A sunshine childhood is an auspicious inheritance, with which, as a fund, to commence trading in practical wisdom and active goodness. It is a great thing only to have known, by experience, that tranquil, temperate felicity is actually attainable on earth; and we should think so if we knew how many have pursued a reckless course, becauseor chiefly because, they early learned to think of HAPPINESS as a chimera, and believed momentary gratifications to be the only substitute placed within the reach of man. Practicable happiness is much oftener wantonly thrown away, than really snatched from us; but it is the most likely to be pursued, overtaken, and husbanded by those who already, and during some considerable period of their lives have been happy. To have known nothing but misery is the mast portentous condition under which human nature can start on its course.

Due care being taken to elicit the benevolent sensibilities, it is the happiest children who (natural dispositions allowed for) will be the most sympathetic, and the most ready to forego personal gratifications for the relief of the wants of others. The substantial principles, or habits of feeling, whence, in alter life, a course of self-denying beneficence should take its rise, are best bottomed upon the personal experience of much felicity; and if angels are