Page:The physical training of children (IA 39002011126464.med.yale.edu).pdf/159

 and whenever you can; and make him feel that, by perseverance and by God's blessing, he will make a good man. Speak truthfully to your child; if you once deceive him, he will not believe you for the future. Not only so, but if you are truthful yourself you are likely to make him truthful—like begets like. There is something beautiful in truth! A lying child is an abomination! Sir Walter Scott says "that he taught his son to ride, to shoot, and to tell the truth."

As soon as a child can speak, he should be made to lisp the noble words of truth, and to love it, and to abhor a lie! What a beautiful character he will then make! Blessed is that child who can say,—

"Parental cares watched o'er my growing youth, And early stamped it with the love of truth."

Have no favorites, show no partiality; for the young are very jealous, sharp-sighted, and quick-witted, and take a dislike to the petted one. Do not rouse the old Adam in them. Let children be taught to be "kindly affectionate one to another, with brotherly love;" let them be encouraged to share each other's toys and play-*things, and to banish selfishness.

Attend to a child's little pleasures. It is the little pleasures of a child that constitute his happiness. Great pleasures to him and to us all (as a favorite author remarks) come but seldom, and are the exceptions, and not the rule.

Let a child be nurtured in love. "It will be seen that I hold this law of kindness as the Alpha and Omega of education. I once asked one, in his own house, a father in everything but the name, his authority unquestioned, his least word held in reverence, his smallest wish obeyed,—'How did you ever manage to bring up these children?' He said, By love!"