provided their instructors know how to manage their dispositions, and do not joke on every occasion with children, without observing the proper time, especially during serious matters, such as prayer or admonition or exhortation. When children are disposed for jesting, they should not be frowned at or be angrily used or beaten. For by such means the mind of a child becomes distracted, so as not to know in what way this or that is to be understood. He who wishes a boy to become prudent, must himself act prudently with him,[1] and not make him foolish or stupid before he enables him to understand what he ought to do.
11. It greatly sharpens the innate capacity of children to be exercised with apologues, stories about animals, and other ingeniously constructed fables; for with such little narratives they are pleased, and they easily remember them. Moreover, as some moral principle is generally included in these ingeniously constructed parables, they become of twofold use to children; for while they occupy their minds, they instill something into them which may afterwards be profit able.[2]
12. So much respecting the rational instruction of children in the knowledge of things. I shall add one more suggestion. Although the parents and attendants may be of great service to children in all these matters, yet children of their own age are of still greater service. When they play together, children of about the same age, and of equal progress and manners and habits, sharpen each other more
- ↑ As the poet has expressed the same thought:—
“O’er wayward childhood wouldst thou hold firm rule,
And sun thee in the light of happy faces?
Love, hope, and patience—these must be thy graces,
And in thine own heart they must first keep school.” - ↑ Fénelon for similar reasons advised the use of stories and fables with young children.
