Rules. Habits. Practice. that be repeating the fame action, till it be grown habitual in them, the performance will not depend on memory, or reflection, the concomitant of prudence and age, and not of childhood; but will be natural in them. Thus, bowing to a gentleman when he falutes him, and looking in his face when he speaks to him, is by conftant use as natural to a well-bred man, as breathing; it requires no thought, no reflection. Having this way cured in your child any fault, it is cured for ever: and thus, one by one, you may weed them out all, and plant what habits you please. § 65. I HAVE feen parents so heap rules on their children, that it was impoffible for the poor little ones to remember a tenth part of them, much lefs to obferve them. However, they were either by words or blows corrected for the breach of thofe multiplied and often very impertinent precepts. Whence it naturally followed, that the children minded not what was faid to them; when it was evident to them, that no attention they were capable of, was fufficient to preferve them from tranfgreffion, and the rebukes which followed it. LET therefore your rules to your fon be as few as is poffible, and rather fewer than more than seem abfolutely neceffary. For if you burden him with many rules, one of these two things must neceffarily follow, that either he must be very often punished, which will be of ill confequence, by making punishment too frequent and familiar; or elfe you must let the tranfgreffions of fome of your rules go unpunished, whereby they will of courfe grow contemptible, and your authority become cheap to him. Make but few laws, but fee they be well obferved, when once made. Few years require but few laws; and as his age increases, when one rule is by practice well established, you may add another. § 66. BUT pray remember, children are not to be taught by rules, which will be always flipping out of their memories. What you think neceffary for them to do, fettle in them by an indifpenfable practice, as often as the occafion returns; and, if it be poffible, make occafions. This will beget habits in them, which, being once established, operate of themselves eafily and naturally, without the affiftance of the memory. But here let me give two cautions: 1. The one is, that you keep them to the practice of what you would have grow into a habit in them, by kind words and gentle admonitions, rather as minding them of what they forget, than by harsh rebukes and chiding, as if they were wilfully guilty. 2dly, Another thing you are to take care of, is, not to endeavour to fettle too many habits at once, left by a variety you confound them, and fo perfect none. When conftant cuftom has made any one thing eafy and natural to them, and they practife it without reflection, you may then go on to another. THIS method of teaching children by a repeated practice, and the fame action done over and over again, under the eye and direction of the tutor, till they have got the habit of doing it well, and not by relying on rules. tufted to their memories; has fo many advantages,, which way foever we confider it, that I cannot but wonder (if ill customs could be wondered at Practice. in any thing) how it could poffibly be fo much neglected. I fhall name one more that comes now in my way. By this method we fhall fee, whether what is required of him be adapted to his capacity, and any way fuited to the child's natural genius and conftitution: for that too must be confidered in a right education. We must not hope We must not hope wholly to change their original tempers, nor make the gay penfive and grave, nor the melancholy fportive, without fpoiling them. God has ftamped certain characters upon men's minds, which, like their fhapes, may perhaps be a little mended; but can hardly be totally altered and transformed into the contrary. He therefore, that is about children, fhould well ftudy their natures. and aptitudes, and fee, by often trials, what turn they eafily take, and what becomes them; obferve what their native stock is, how it may be improved, and what it is fit for: he fhould confider what they want, whether they be capable of having it wrought into them by induftry, and incorporated there by practice; and whether it be worth while to endeavour it. For, in many cafes, all that we can do, or should aim at, is, to make the best of what nature has given, to prevent the vices and faults to which fuch a conftitution is most inclined, and give it all the advantages it is capable of. Every one's natural genius fhould be carried as far as it could; but to attempt the putting another upon him, will be but labour in vain; and what is fo plaistered on, will at beft fit but untowardly, and have always hanging to it the ungracefulness of conftraint and affectation. AFFECTATION is not, I confefs, an early fault of childhood, or the Affectation. product of untaught nature: it is of that fort of weeds, which grow not in the wild uncultivated wafte, but in garden-plots, under the negligent hand, or unfkilful care of a gardener. Management and inftruction, and some sense of the neceffity of breeding, are requifite to make any one capable of affectation, which endeavours to correct natural defects, and has always the laudable aim of pleafing, though it always miffes it; and the more it labours to put on gracefulness, the farther it is from it. For this Feason it is the more carefully to be watched, because it is the proper fault of education; a perverted education indeed, but fuch as young people often fall into, either by their own miftake, or the ill conduct of thofe about them. He that will examine wherein that gracefulness lies, which always pleafes, will find it arifes from that natural coherence, which appears between the thing done, and fuch a temper of mind, as cannot but be approved of as fuitable to the occafion. We cannot but be pleafed with an humane, friendly, civil temper, wherever we meet with it. A mind free, and mafter of itself and all its actions, not low and narrow, not haughty and infolent, not blemished with any great defect; is what every one is taken with. The actions, which naturally flow from fuch a well formed Afotation. formed mind, pleafe us alfo, as the genuine marks of it; and being, as it were, natural emanations from the spirit and disposition within, cannot but be eafy and unconftrained. This feems to me to be that beauty, which shines through fome men's actions, fets off all that they do, and takes with all they come near; when by a conftant practice they have fathioned their carriage, and made all thofe little expreffions of civility and refpect, which nature or custom has established in converfation, fo easy to themselves, that they seem not artificial or ftudied, but naturally to follow from a fweetness of mind and a well-turned difpofition. On the other fide, affectation is an aukward and forced imitation of what should be genuine and eafy, wanting the beauty that accompanies what is natural; because there is always a difagreement between the outward action, and the mind within, one of these two ways: 1. Either when a man would outwardly put on a difpofition of mind, which then he really has not, but endeavours by a forced carriage to make shew of; yet so, that the constraint he is under, discovers itself: And thus men affect sometimes to appear fad, merry, or kind, when, in truth, they are not fo. 2. THE other is, when they do not endeavour to make fhew of dispofitions of mind, which they have not, but to express those they have by a carriage not suited to them: And fuch in converfation are all constrained motions, actions, words, or looks, which, though defigned to fhew either their respect or civility to the company, or their fatisfaction and eafinefs in it, are not yet natural nor genuine marks of the one or the other; but rather of fome defect or mistake within. Imitation of others, without difcerning what is graceful in them, or what is peculiar to their characters, often makes a great part of this. But affectation of all kinds, whencefoever it proceeds, is always offenfive: because we naturally hate whatever is counterfeit; and condemn those who have nothing better to recommend themselves by. PLAIN and rough nature, left to itself, is much better than an artificial ungracefulness, and such studied ways of being ill-fashioned. The want of an accomplishment, or fome defect in our behaviour, coming fhort of the utmost gracefulness, often escapes obfervation and cenfure. But affectation in any part of our carriage, is lighting up a candle to our defects; and never fails to make us be taken notice of, either as wanting fense, or wanting fincerity. This governors ought the more diligently to look after; because, as I above obferved, it is an acquired ugliness, owing to mistaken education; few being guilty of it, but those who pretend to breeding, and would not be thought ignorant of what is fashionble and becoming in converfation: and, if I mistake not, it has often its rife from the lazy admonitions of those who give rules, and propose examples, without joining practice with their inftructions, and making their pupils repeat the action in their fight, that they may correct what is indecent or constrained in it, till it be perfected into an habitual and becoming eafinefs. · § 67. MANNERS, as they call it, about which children are fo often Manners, perplexed, and have fo many goodly exhortations made them, by their wife maids and governeffes, I think, are rather to be learned by example than rules; and then children, if kept out of ill company, will take a pride to behave themselves prettily, after the fashion of others, perceiving themselves esteemed and commended for it. But if, by a little negligence in this part, the boy fhould not put off his hat, nor make legs very gracefully, a dancing-mafter will cure that defect, and wipe off all that plainnefs of nature, which the a-la-mode people call clownishness. And fince nothing appears to me to give children fo much becoming con-fidence and behaviour, and fo to raise them to the converfation of those. above their age, as dancing; I think they fhould be taught to dance, as Dancing.. foon as they are capable of learning it. For, though this confift only in outward gracefulness of motion, yet, I know not how, it gives children manly thoughts and carriage, more than any thing. But otherwife I would not have little children much tormented about punctilio's, or niceties of breeding. NEVER trouble yourself about thofe faults in them, which you know age will cure. And therefore want of well-fashioned civility in the car-riage, whilft civility is not wanting in the mind, (for there you must take: care to plant it early) fhould be the parents least care, whilst they are young. If his tender mind be filled with a veneration for his parents and teachers, which confifts in love and esteem, and a fear to offend them; and with refpect and good-will to all people; that refpect will of itself teach thofe ways of expreffing it, which he obferves moft acceptable. Be fure to keep up in him the principles of good-nature and kindness; make them as habitual as you can, by credit and commendation, and the good things accompanying that state: and when they have taken root in his mind, and are fettled there by a continued practice, fear not; the ornaments of converfation, and the outfide of fashionable manners, will come in their due time, if, when they are removed out of their maids care, they are put into the hands of a well-bred man to be their governor.. WHILST they are very young, any careleffness is to be borne with in children, that carries not with it the marks of pride or ill-nature: but thofe, whenever they appear in any action, are to be corrected immediately, by the ways abovementioned. What I have faid concerning manners, I would not have fo understood, as if I meant that thofe, who have the judgment to do it, fhould not gently fashion the motions and carriage of children, when they are very young. It would be of great advantage,. if they had people about them, from their being firft able to go, that had the skill, and would take the right way to do it. That which I com-plain of, is the wrong courfe that is ufually taken in this matter. dren who were never taught any fuch thing as behaviour, are often (espe-cially when strangers are prefent) chid for having fome way or other fail-ed in good manners, and have thereupon reproofs and precepts heaped Chil メ upon Manners. upon them, concerning putting off their hats, or making of legs, &c. Though in this thofe concerned pretend to correct the child, yet, in truth, for the moft part, it is but to cover their own fhame: and they lay the blame of the poor little ones, fometimes paffionately enough, to divert it from themselves, for fear the by-ftanders fhould impute to their want of care and fkill the child's ill behaviour. FOR, as for the children themselves, they are never one jot bettered by fuch occafional lectures: they at other times fhould be fhewn what to do, and by reiterated actions be fashioned before-hand into the practice of what is fit and becoming; and not told, and talked to do upon the fpot, what they have never been accustomed to, nor know how to do as they fhould to hare and rate them thus at every turn, is not to teach them, but to vex and torment them to no purpofe. They should be let alone, rather than chid for a fault, which is none of theirs, nor is in their power to mend for fpeaking to. And it were much better their natural, childish negligence, or plainnefs, fhould be left to the care of riper years, than that they should frequently have rebukes mifplaced upon them, which neither do, nor can give them graceful motions. If their minds are well difpofed, and principled with inward civility, a great part of the roughness, which sticks to the outfide for want of better teaching, time and obfervation will rub off, as they grow up, if they are bred in good company; but if in ill, all the rules in the world, all the correction imaginable, will not be able to polish them. For you must take this for a certain truth, that let them have what inftructions you will, and ever fo learned lectures of breeding daily inculcated into them, that which will most influence their carriage, will be the company they converse with, and the fashion of those about them. Children (nay, and men too) do most by example. We are all a fort of chameleons, that ftill take a tincture from things near us: Nor is it to be wondered at in children, who better understand what they fee, than what they hear. $68. I MENTIONED above, one great mifchief that came by fervants. to children, when by their flatteries they take off the edge and force of the parents rebukes, and fo leffen their authority. And here is another great inconvenience, which children receive from the ill examples which they meet with, amongst the meaner fervants. THEY are wholly, if poffible, to be kept from fuch converfation: for the contagion of these ill precedents, both in civility and virtue, horribly infects children, as often as they come within reach of it. They frequently learn, from unbred, or debauched fervants, fuch language, untowardly tricks and vices, as otherwise they poffibly would be ignorant of, all their lives. § 69. Ir is a hard matter wholly to prevent this mischief. You will have very good luck, if you never have a clownish or vicious fervant, and if from them your children never get any infection. But yet, as much must be done towards it, as can be; and the children kept as much as may |