Page:Home Education by Isaac Taylor (1838).djvu/71

 deavour to become such as shall command, without asking for it, the unrivalled affection of children.

Beside the affection of which we have spoken, and beside the energy of mind which should be its counterpoise, and beside also the natural taste for teaching, there is a tact and address, not easily described, any more than easily acquired, which, in the daily and hourly government of children, and in rendering them happy, avails far more than all other qualities put together, apart from itself. Mothers or teachers may be seen, in every respect, very poorly endowed with the knowledge or the principles, or with even the moral sentiments proper to the business of education, and yet unrivalled in the art of securing obedience, and of diffusing enjoyment, and of imparting so much knowledge as they profess to communicate.

It is difficult, except by naming its opposites, to fix in words our conception of this desirable tact. We may say, if it be really needful to say so much, that it is not the product of any laboriously obtained knowledge of human nature, or of a scientific acquaintance with its principles. The happy management of human beings is, no doubt, in fact, always in harmony with the laws of the human mind; but this harmony is intuitively perceived, not learnedly acquired. Many a village dame plies the machinery of human nature well; but never has a professor of philosophy told those to whom nature has not granted this tact, either how to acquire it, or how to manage without it.

Parents may be found, in the highest degree solicitous for the welfare of their children, and not deficient in general intelligence, who nevertheless are perpetually struggling with domestic embarrassments, and sadly depressed by disappointment in the discharge of their daily duties. In such instances there may be observed, a something too much in the modes of treatment—too much talking and preaching, and a too frequent bringing in of ultimate mo-