Page:Home Education by Isaac Taylor (1838).djvu/73

 lectual habits. The same law of influence holds good even with adults or at least with all but the most highly cultured and vigorous minds, which renounce this sort of control; and it is on this principle that the demagogue, or the religious orator, who is gifted with an intuition of human nature, leads and turns the minds of thousands, by the lifting of his finger.

But to return to our proper sphere—we may affirm that the government of minds is the easiest of all exercises, to whoever possesses the secret of influence, and is confident of success; but the most difficult, and the most vexatious, to those who attempt it on formal principles, such as may be laid down in so many rules fitted to occasions.

As the labours of instruction cannot be carried forward in a family except on the principle of spontaneous and perfect obedience, nor this obedience be ensured apart from warm and vigorous reciprocal sentiments of love between parents and children, so we may add is there needed, for the animation of the entire system, and for giving it ease and velocity of movement, a certain hilarity, and even playfulness, always saving decorum, on the part of parents and teachers, such as shall prevent, if we might so speak, the minds of children from dragging on the ground.

If a mother preserves the gloss and brightness of her children's love by indulging them in playful caresses, so may a father render his authority the more intimate by holding it in reserve, while his ordinary manner toward his children is marked by vivacity, and a discreet intellectual sportiveness. It must, indeed, be thoroughly understood in the house that a father has, not only the power, but the resolution to enforce absolute submission to whatever he may command:—but it is enough if this be tacitly known; and the fact need very rarely be brought under notice. On the contrary, a father, immoveably firm as he may be in maintaining his rights if disputed or resisted, is yet, in com-