exhortation "Yield not to temptation" is no empty one. Temptations as real if not as violent as those of later life beset him—temptations to cheat, to tell lies, to use bad language—and in presence of such temptations he must learn to control and govern himself.
Justice is a virtue to which most children are exceedingly sensitive. The child is alert to notice any suspicion of favouritism on the part of the teacher. If the teacher pays special attention to any one pupil, the rest are apt to think that this one is a "pet," and that the teacher's attitude is "not fair." Partiality is quickly seen by the children to be inconsistent with justice. None of them want to be "pets" ; but they all want to be treated fairly. The ethics of childhood is very largely based on this virtue. In the view of the child, it is wrong to carry tales, because it is "not fair"; it is wrong for a big boy to bully a small one, because it is "not fair"; it is wrong to cheat, because it is "not fair." In the child's work, as in his games, a practice is immediately and universally condemned if it is seen to be "not fair." The school offers an admirable training-ground for the child to cultivate the virtue of fairness and justice.
Little need be said of the place of wisdom in the school. The school primarily exists to teach wisdom in the best sense. It is now universally recognised in theory, however imperfectly that theory may be carried out in practice, that education which merely supplies the child with pre-digested knowledge of facts succeeds only in producing obtuseness and stupidity in the child. The aim of the school is to
