- ence, silence, respect, right positions in sitting and
standing, regard for the rights of others, were named as helping to form habits that would make the child self-controlled and fit him to live in society.
Whatever you would wish the child to do and become, that let him practise. We learn to do, not by knowing, but by knowing and then doing. Ethical teaching, tales of heroic deeds, soul-stirring fiction that awakens sympathetic emotions may accomplish but little, unless in the child's early life regard for the right, little acts of heroism, and deeds of sympathy are employed; unless the ideas and feeling find expression in action, and so become a part of the child's power and tendency. George Eliot would have us make ready for great deeds by constant performance of little duties at hand.
Right habit is the only sure foundation for character. Sudden resolutions to change the tenor of life, sudden conversion from an evil life to one of ideal goodness are usually failures, because the old tendencies will hold on grimly until the new impulse, however great, has gradually evaporated. To prepare for the highest moral life and a persevering religious life, early habits of the right kind are the only secure foundation.
The teacher may have confidence in the value of requiring of pupils practice in self-restraint, practice in encountering difficulties that demand a little of courage, a little even of heroism—and each day furnishes opportunities. Pleasure may not always attend their efforts, but pleasure will come soon enough as a reward, in consciousness of strength and of noble development. Often we do wrong because it is pleasant, and avoid the right because it is painful.
