although you never desire a boy to do a certain thing, if you do or say that thing in his presence you will see that he will try to do the same; and this perpetual experience confirms. For this reason, there is need of the greatest circumspection in the home where there are children, so that nothing be done contrary to virtue; but let the whole house observe temperance, cleanliness, and neatness, due respect for superiors, mutual complaisance, truthfulness, etc.[1] If this were diligently observed, there would certainly be no necessity for many words to teach, or blows to enforce. But inasmuch as grown-up persons themselves often fall into excess, it is no wonder that children should also imitate what they see in others.
3. Instruction, however, and that properly timed and prudent, must accompany example.[2] It will be a suitable time for teaching children by words, when we discover that examples have not sufficiently profited them, or when they really desire to conduct themselves according to the example of others, but yet fail of doing it properly. In
- ↑ Plato has observed: “To him who has an eye to see there can be no fairer spectacle than that of a man who combines the possession of moral beauty in his soul with outward beauty of form, corresponding and harmonizing with the former, because the same great pattern enters into both.”
- ↑ Comenius here gives expression to a thought which the editor believes must some day find acceptance in the public schools of this country; namely, provision in our courses of study for specific and formal moral instruction. Germany and England provides religious instruction, France requires instruction in ethics, but in many states of the Union religious instruction is not allowed and ethical instruction not provided. In England and Germany assuredly the smaller number of religious denominations makes religious instruction possible; but the editor believes that the larger and broader ethical instruction in France to be more wholesome than the specific denominational instruction in Germany. And this broad ethical instruction is possible where all shades of religious opinion may be represented.
