Page:Home Education by Isaac Taylor (1838).djvu/72

 tives, until the natural sensibility and delicacy of children's minds are, if the phrase may be allowed, worn threadbare; for all the gloss of the feelings is gone, and the warp and substance are going.

Such parents often, for the sake of making sure doubly sure, lift the arm of authority, when the raising of the finger is more than enough. An indiscreet anticipation of resistance never fails to suggest it. The simple law of the association of ideas is the immediate cause of a vastly larger amount of human actions than what springs from any formal resolution so to act. In all cases therefore, the probability of compliance is much greater when nothing but compliance is expected, than when a thought of the contrary is, by some inauspicious word, or a mere look of doubt and anxiety, suggested. The great world of moral agency turns glibly upon its pivots, by the momentum of habit and the association of ideas: mischief attends the attempt to urge its onward force, by more motive or reason, in any instance, than is wanted.

If we were to attempt to divine the secret of a prosperous management of children, perhaps it would resolve itself into the simple fact of a quick perception of the train of their ideas, at any moment, and a facility in concurring with the stream of thought, whatever it may be, which, by the slightest guiding word or gesture, can be led into whatever channel may be desired.

The rule of management might then be condensed into the three words—discern, follow, and lead. That is to say, there is first the catching of the clue of thought in a child's mind; then the going on with the same train a little way; and, lastly, the giving it a new, though not opposite direction. By the means of a governance of the wandering minds of children in some such method as this, there is hardly any limit to the control which may be exercised over, as well their conduct, as their moral and intel-