Early. Craving. a pretence is found for the other glafs of wine, to help digestion, though it Is my young mafter a little out of order? the first question is, "What AND where children are fo happy in the care of their parents, as by their prudence to be kept from the excefs of their tables, to the fobriety of a plain and fimple diet; yet there too they are scarce to be preserved from the contagion that poifons the mind. Though by a difcreet management, whilft they are under tuition, their healths, perhaps, may be pretty well fecured; yet their defires must need yield to the leffons, which everywhere will be read to them upon this part of epicurifm. The commendation that eating well has every-where, cannot fail to be a fuccessful incentive to natural appetite, and bring them quickly to the liking and expence of a fashionable table. This fhall have from every one, even the reprovers of vice, the title of living well. And what fhall fullen reafon dare to fay against the public teftimony? or can it hope to be heard, if it Thould call that luxury, which is fo much owned, and univerfally practifed by thofe of the best quality? THIS is now fo grown a vice, and has fo great fupports, that I know not whether it do not put in for the name of virtue; and whether it will not be thought folly, or want of knowledge of the world, to open one's mouth against it. And truly I fhould fufpect, that what I have here faid of it might be cenfured, as a little fatire out of my way, did I not mention it with this view, that it might awaken the care and watchfulness of parents in the education of their children; when they fee how they are befet on every fide, not only with temptations, but inftructors to vice, and that perhaps in those they thought places of fecurity. I SHALL not dwell any longer on this fubject; much less run over all the particulars, that would fhew what pains are used to corrupt children, and inftil principles of vice into them: But I defire parents foberly to conder, what irregularity or vice there is, which children are not visibly taught; and whether it be not their duty and wisdom to provide them other inftructions. $ 38. Ir feems plain to me, that the principle of all virtue and excellency lies in a power of denying ourselves the fatisfaction of our own defires, where reafon does not authorife them. This power is to be got and im'proved by cuftom, made eafy and familiar by an early practice. If therefore I might be heard, I would advife, that, contrary to the ordinary way, children should be used to submit their defires, and go without their longings, even from their very cradles. The very first thing they should learn ་ to know, fhould be, that they were not to have any thing, because it Craving. pleafed them, but because it was thought fit for them. If things fuitable to their wants were fupplied to them, fo that they were never fuffered to have what they once cried for, they would learn to be content without it would never with bawling and peevishness contend for mastery; nor be half fo uneafy to themselves and others as they are, because from the first beginning they are not thus handled. If they were never fuffered to obtain their defire by the impatience they expreffed for it, they would no more cry for other things, than they do for the moon. $39. I SAY not this, as if children were not to be indulged in any thing, or that I expected they should, in hanging-fleeves, have the reafon and conduct of counsellors. I confider them as children, who must be tenderly used, who muft play, and have play-things. That which I mean is, that whenever they craved what was not fit for them to have, or do, they hould not be permitted it, because they were little and defired it: nay, whatever they were importunate for, they fhould be fure, for that yery reafon, to be denied.. I have feen children at a table, who, whatever was there, never afked for any thing, but contentedly took what was given them and at another place I have feen others cry for every thing they faw, must be ferved out of every dish, and that first too. What made this vaft difference but this, that one was accustomed to have what they called or cried for, the other to go without it? The younger they are, the lefs, I think, are their unruly and diforderly appetites to be complied with; and the lefs reafon they have of their own, the more are they to be under the abfolute power and restraint of thofe, in whofe hands they are. From which I confefs, it will follow, that none but difcreet people fhould be about them. If the world commonly does otherwife, I cannot help that. I am faying what I think should be; which, if it were already in fashion, 1 fhould not need to trouble the world with a difcourfe on this fubject. But yet I doubt not but, when it is confidered, there will be others of opinion with me, that the fooner this way is begun with children, the cafier it will be for them, and their governors too: and that this ought to be obferved as an inviolable maxim, that whatever once is denied them, they are certainly not to obtain by crying or importunity; unless one has a mind to teach them to be impatient and troublesome, by rewarding them for it, when they are fo. § 40. THOSE therefore that intend ever to govern their children, Early. hould begin it whilft they are very little; and look that they perfectly comply with the will of their parents. Would you have your fon obedient to you, when paft a child? Be fure then to establish the authority of a father, as foon as he is capable of fubmiffion, and can understand in whofe power he is. If you would have him ftand in awe of you, imprint it in his infancy; and, as he approaches more to a man, admit him nearer to your familiarity: fo fhall you have him your obedient fubject (as is fit) whilst he is a child, and your affectionate friend when he is a man. For methinks they mightily mifplace the treatment due to their children, D 2 Early. children, who are indulgent and familiar when they are little, but severe to them, and keep them at a distance when they are grown up. For liberty and indulgence can do no good to children: their want of judgment makes them ftand in need of restraint and difcipline. And, on the contrary, imperioufnefs and feverity is but an ill way of treating men, who have reafon of their own to guide them, unless you have a mind to make your children, when grown up, weary of you; and fecretly to say within themselves, "When will you die, father?" $41. I IMAGINE every one will judge it reasonable, that their children, when little, fhould look upon their parents as their lords, their abfolute governors; and, as fuch, ftand in awe of them: and that, when they come to riper years, they should look on them as their beft, as their only fure friends and, as fuch, love and reverence them. The way I have mentioned, if I mistake not, is the only one to obtain this. We muft look upon our children, when grown up, to be like ourselves; with the fame paffions, the fame defires. We would be thought rational creatures, and have our freedom; we love not to be uneafy under constant rebukes and brow-beatings; nor can we bear fevere humours, and great distance, in those we converfe with. Whoever has such treatment when he is a man, will look out other company, other friends, other converfation, with whom he can be at eafe. If therefore a ftrict hand be kept over children from the beginning, they will in that age be tractable, and quietly fubmit to it, as never having known any other: and if, as they grow up to the use of reafon, the rigour of government be, as they deferve it, gently relaxed, the father's brow more fmoothed to them, and the diftance by degrees abated; his former restraints will increase their love, when they find it was only a kindness for them, and a care to make them capable to deserve the favour of their parents, and the esteem of every body elfe. $42. THUS much for the fettling your authority over your children in general. Fear and awe ought to give you the firft power over their minds, and love and friendship in riper years to hold it: for the time muft come, when they will be past the rod and correction; and then, if the love of you make them not obedient and dutiful; if the love of virtue and reputation keep them not in laudable courfes; I afk, what hold will you have upon them, to turn them to it? Indeed, fear of having a fcanty portion, if they difplease you, may make them flaves to your eftate; but they will be never the lefs ill and wicked in private, and that reftraint will not laft always. Every man muft fome time or other be trusted to himself, and his own conduct; and he that is a good, a virtuous, and able man, must be made fo within. And therefore, what he is to receive from education, what is to fway and influence his life, must be fomething put into him betimes: habits woven into the very principles of his nature; and not a counterfeit carriage, and diffembled outfide, put on by fear, only to avoid the present anger of a father, who perhaps may difinherit him. § 43. THIS § 43. THIS being laid down in general, as the course ought to be taken, Punishments. it is fit we come now to confider the parts of the difcipline to be used, a little more particularly. I have spoken fo much of carrying a ftrict hand over children, that perhaps I fhall be fufpected of not confidering enough what is due to their tender age and conftitutions. But that opinion will vanish, when you have heard me a little farther. For I am very apt to think, that great feverity of punishment does but very little good; nay, great harm in education: and I believe it will be found, that, cæteris paribus, thofe children who have been moft chastised, seldom make the best men. All that I have hitherto contended for, is, that whatsoever rigour is neceffary, it is more to be used, the younger children are; and, having by a due application wrought its effect, it is to be relaxed, and changed into a milder fort of government. $44. A COMPLIANCE, and fuppleness of their wills, being by a fteady Awe hand introduced by parents, before children have memories to retain the beginnings of it, will seem natural to them, and work afterwards in them, as if it were fo; preventing all occafions of ftruggling, or repining. The only care is, that it be begun early, and inflexibly kept to, till awe and refpect be grown familiar, and there appears not the leaft reluctancy in the fubmiffion, and ready obedience of their minds. When this reverence is once thus established, (which it must be early, or else it will coft pains and blows to recover it, and the more, the longer it is deferred) it is by it, mixed still with as much indulgence, as they made not an ill use of, and not by beating, chiding, or other fervile punishments, they are for the future to be governed, as they grow up to more understanding. $45. THAT this is fo, will be easily allowed, when it is but confider- Self-denial. ed what is to be aimed at, in an ingenuous education; and upon what it turns. I. HE that has not a maftery over his inclinations, he that knows not how to refift the importunity of present pleasure or pain, for the fake of what reafon tells him is fit to be done, wants the true principle of virtue and industry; and is in danger of never being good for any thing. This temper, therefore, fo contrary to unguided nature, is to be got betimes; and this habit, as the true foundation of future ability and happiness, is to be wrought into the mind, as early as may be, even from the first dawnings of any knowledge or apprehenfion in children; and fo to be confirmed in them, by all the care and ways imaginable, by those who have the overfight of their education. $46. 2. On the other fide, if the mind be curbed, and humbled too Dejected. much in children; if their spirits be abafed and broken much, by too ftrict an hand over them; they lofe all their vigour and induftry, and are in a worse state than the former. For extravagant young fellows, that have liveliness and fpirit, come fometimes to be fet right, and fo make able and great men : but dejected minds, timorous and tame, and low fpirits, are hardly ever to be raised, and very feldom attain to any thing. To Dejected. Beating. To avoid the danger that is on either hand is the great art: and he that has found a way how to keep up a child's fpirit, eafy, active, and free; and yet, at the fame time, to reftrain him from many things he has a mind to, and to draw him to things that are uneafy to him; he, 1 fay, that knows how to reconcile thefe feeming contradictions, has, in my opinion, got the true fecret of education. § 47. THE ufual lazy and fhort way by chastisement, and the rod, which is the only inftrument of government that tutors generally know, or ever think of, is the most unfit of any to be used in education; because it tends to both thofe mifchiefs; which, as we have fhewn, are the Scylla and Charybdis, which, on the one hand or the other, ruin all that mifcarry. $48. 1. THIS kind of punishment contributes not at all to the mastery of our natural propenfity to indulge corporal and prefent pleasure, and to avoid pain at any rate; but rather encourages it; and thereby ftrengthens that in us, which is the root, from whence fpring all vicious actions and the irregularities of life. From what other motive, but of fenfual pleasure, and pain, does a child act by, who drudges at his book against his inclination, or abftains from eating unwholesome fruit, that he takes pleasure in, only out of fear of whipping? He in this only prefers the greater corporal pleasure, or avoids the greater corporal pain. And what is it to govern his actions, and direct his conduct, by fuch motives as these? what is it, I fay, but to cherish that principle in him, which it is our business to root out and deftroy? And therefore I cannot think any correction useful to a child, where the fhame of fuffering for having done amifs does not work more upon him than the pain. $49. 2. THIS fort of correction naturally breeds an averfion to that which it is the tutor's business to create a liking to. How obvious is it to obferve, that children come to hate things which were at firft acceptable to them, when they find themselves whipped, and chid, and teazed about them? And it is not to be wondered at in them; when grown men would not be able to be reconciled to any thing by fuch ways. Who is there that would not be difgufted with any innocent recreation, in itself indifferent to him, if he should with blows, or ill language, be hauled to it, when he had no mind? or be constantly so treated, for fome circumstances in his application to it? This is natural to be fo. Offenfive circumstances ordinarily infect innocent things, which they are joined with and the very fight of a cup, wherein any one uses to take naufeous phyfic, turns his ftomach; fo that nothing will relish well out of it, though the cup be ever so clean, and well-fhaped, and of the richest materials. § 50. 3. SUCH a fort of flavish discipline makes a flavish temper. The child fubmits, and diffembles obedience, whilft the fear of the rod hangs over him; but when that is removed, and, by being out of fight, he can promise himself impunity, he gives the greater fcope to his natural incli nation ; |