taught to defpife it. Or it may tend, if overdone, to harden and brutalize his temper, and lead him to use others as he has been used. Paltry rewards, as fine clothes or play-things, ought likewife never to be bestowed without a caution, that they are given not as things valuable in themselves, but only as marks of favour and approbation. If this be not taken care of, a child may be led to look upon fuch baubles as the fummum bonum of life, which will give him a quite wrong turn of mind.

In chiding, or correcting, it will be neceffary to take the utmost care not to reprefent to a young perfon his fault as unpardonable, or his cafe as defperate; but to leave room for reformation; left he think he has utterly loft his character, and fo become ftupidly indifferent about recovering your favour, or amending his manners. Nor is the recovery of any perfon under thirty years of age to be wholly defpaired of, where there is a fund of fenfe, and an ingenuous temper to work upon.

A turn to cruelty, appearing in a child's delighting in teazing his equals, in pulling infects to pieces, and in torturing birds, frogs, cats, or other animals, ought by all means to be rooted out as foon as poffible. Children ought to be convinced of what they are not generally aware of, That an animal can feel, though it cannot complain, and that cruelty to a beaft or infect, is as much cruelty, and as truly wicked, as when exercised upon our own fpecies.

There are few children that may not be formed to tractableness and goodness, where a parent has the confcience to ftudy carefully his duty in this refpect, the fleadiness to go through with it, and the fagacity to manage properly the natural tendencies of the mind, to play them against one another, to fupply what may be defective, to correct what may be wrong, and to lop off what may be redundant.

Let only a parent confider with himself what temper he would have his fon be of, when a man; and let him cultivate that in him, while a child. If he would not have him fierce, cruel, or revengeful, let him take care early to fhew his difpleasure at every inftance of furlinefs,

furlinefs, or malice, against his play-fellows, or cruelty to brutes or infects. If he would not with him to prove of a fretful and peevish temper, ready to loofe all patience at every little difappointment in life, let him take care from the first, not to humour him in all his childish freaks, not to fhew him that he can refuse him nothing, nor especially to give him what he asks, because he cries or is out of humour for it, but for that very reafon to withhold what might otherwife be fit for him. If he would not have him a glutton, when he comes to be a man, let him not confult his appetite too much in his childhood; and fo of the reft.

It is a most fatal mistake, which many parents are in with respect to the important bufinefs of forming the moral character of their children, That the faults of children are of little confequence. Yet it is the very fame difpofition, which makes a child, or youth, paffionate, false, or revengeful, and which in the man produces murder, perjury, and all the moft atrocious crimes. The very fame turn of mind, which puts a child, or youth, upon beating his play-fellows with his little harmless hand, will afterwards, if not corrected, arm him with a fword to execute his revenge. How then can parents be fo unthinking as to connive at, much: more to encourage, a wrong turn of mind in their children? At the fame time that they would do their utmoft to rectify any blemish in a feature or limb, as knowing that it will elfe be quickly incurable; they allow the mind to run into vice and diforder, which they know may be foon irretrievable.

If your child threatened to grow crooked, or deformed; if he were dwarfish and ftunted; if he were weak in one or more of his limbs; or did not look with both eyes alike; would you not give any thing in the world to have fuch infirmity ftrengthened, or wrong caft of features redreffed? Would you put off endeavouring this for one day after you had difcovered the defect? And will you trifle with a deformity of infinitely greater confequence, a blemish in the mind? Would you answer to any one, who advised you to a remedy for weak hams, or an arm threatening to wither;

that,

that, as your child grew up, they would ftrengthen of themselves, and therefore it was needlefs to take any trouble at prefent? Why then should you put off ufing your utmost endeavours, and that as foon as poffible, for breaking the impotency of his paffions, bettering his temper, and ftrengthening his judgment? Will you fay, that, though your child is now at fix years old, fretful, perverfe, crafty, given to idleness, lying, and difobedience; it does not follow, that he must be fo at twenty or thirty? Why do you not likewife perfuade yourself, that he muft outgrow fquinting, or a high fhoulder? You cannot think a fhort neck, or a wrong caft of the eye, a worfe blemish than a turn to falfehood, malice, or revenge? Yet you encourage your fon, at three years of age, to vent his fpite upon whatever dif obliges him, even upon the floor, when he catches a fall. He asks you what you have got in your hand : you do not choose to let him have it; and you have not the courage to tell him fo. You therefore put him off with anfwering, that it was nothing. By and by, he has laid hold of fomewhat not fit for him, which he endeavours to conceal. You afk him what he has got: Has he not your own example and authority for putting you off with a fhuffling anfwer? He afks fomewhat not fit for him. You refufe it: he falls a crying: you give it him. Is there any furer way of teaching him to make use conftantly of the fame means for obtaining whatever his wayward will is fet upon? You trick him up with tawdry ornaments, and dangle him about after all manner of fhews and entertainments, while he ought to be applying to his improvement in fomewhat useful. Is not this teaching him, that finery and gadding are the perfection of life? Is not this planting in his mind with your own hand the feeds of vice and folly? Yet you would turn away a nursery-maid, who fhould, for her diverfion, teach him to fquint, or flammer, or go

awry.

It is ftrange, that parents fhould either be fo weak, as to look upon any fault in the minds of their children as of little. confequence, and not worth correcting; or that they should not generally have the fagacity to dif

tinguish

tinguish between thofe infirmities, which, being the effects of unripe age, muit of courfe cure themfelves, and thofe, which, being occafioned by a wrong caft in the mind, are likely to grow ftronger and fironger. Thoughtleffness, timidity, and love of play, which are natural to childhood, may be expected to abate as years come on. But it is evidently not fo with a turn to deceit, malice, or perverseness.

I cannot help adding here one advice to parents, which, if it fhould not be thought over complaifant, is. however well meant. It is, that they would take care to fet before their children an unexceptionable example. The confequence of a neglect of this will be, that children will be drawn to imitate what is bad, and be prevented from regarding what good advice may be given them. Do not imagine you can effectually inculcate upon your fon the virtues of fobriety and frugality, while he fees your houfe and your table the fcenes of luxury and gluttony; or that your affected grave leffons will attach him to purity and piety, while your converfation is interlarded with fwearing and obfcenity; or that you can perfuade him to think of the care of his foul as the great concern, while he fees that you live only to get money.

Thofe natural inclinations of the human mind ought to be encouraged to the utmoft (under proper regulations) which tend to put it upon action and excelling. Whoever would with his fon to be diligent in his ftudies, and active in bufinefs, can ufe no better means for that purpose, than flirring up in him emulation, a defire of praife, and a sense of honour and fhame. Curiofity will put a youth upon inquiring into the nature and reafons of things, and endeavouring to acquire univerfal knowledge. This paffion ought therefore to be excited to the utmoft, and gratified, even when it fhews itfelf by his afking the most childith questions, which fhould always be anfwered in as rational and fatisfying a manner as poflible.

It is by habit rather than precept, that a young perfon is beft formed to readinefs and addrefs doing things. If your fon hands a glafs or a tea-cup awkG wardly,

wardly, he will profit more by making him do it over again, directing him how, than by preaching to him an hour. It is the fame in fcholarship, and in his behaviour to his equals, as to juftice and fincerity; which fhews the advantage of a focial, above a fölitary education. Therefore opportunities of planting proper habits in young people ought to be fought, and they kept doing, merely that by practice they may come to do things well at last.

On this head, I cannot help remarking on the unhappy constraint I have often, with much fympathy, feen very young children put under before company. The chiding lectures I have heard read to boys and girls of eight or ten years of age, about holding up of heads, putting back fhoulders, turning out toes, and making legs, have, I am perfuaded, gone a good way toward difgufting the poor children againft what is called behaviour. Did parents confider, that, even in grown people, the gracefulness of behaviour confifls in an eafy and natural motion and gefture, and looks denoting kindness and goodwill to thofe with whom they converfe; and that if, a child's heart and temper are formed to civility, the outward expreffions of it will come in all due time; did parents, I fay, confider, thefe obvious things, they would bestow their chief attention upon the mind, and not make themfelves, their children, and their friends, uneafy about making courtefies, and legs, twenty times in a quarter of an hour.

The bodily infirmities of children may often by proper management be greatly helped, if not wholly cured. Crookednefs, for example, by fwinging and hanging by the arm next to the crooked fide. Squinting, by fpectacles properly contrived, and by shooting with the bow. A paralytic motion in the eyes by the cold bath and nervous remedies. Weakness in the eyes, by wathing them in cold water, and not sparing them too much. Bathfulness and blufhing, by company and encourageCrookedness in the legs, by being fwung with moderate weights faftened to the feet, and ufing riding, as an exercile, more frequently than walking; never ftanding for any time together; and by iron strength

eners