Familiarity. tage from your counfel. You must confider, that he is a young man, and has pleasures and fancies, which you are paffed. You must not expect his inclinations should be just as yours, nor that at twenty he should have the fame thoughts you have at fifty. All that you can wish is, that fince youth must have fome liberty, fome out-leaps; they might be with the ingenuity of a fon, and under the eye of a father, and then no very great harm can come of it. The way to obtain this, as I said before, is (according as you find him capable) to talk with him about your affairs, propose matters to him familiarly; and afk his advice; and when he ever lights on the right, follow it as his; and if it fucceed well, let him have the commendation. This will not at all leffen your authority, but increase his love and efteem of you. Whilft you keep your estate, the staff will still be in your own hands; and your authority the furer, the more it is strengthened with confidence and kindness. For you have not that power you ought to have over him, till he comes to be more afraid of offending fo good a friend, than of lofing fome part of his future expecta Reverence. tion. $ 98. FAMILIARITY of discourse, if it can become a father to his fon, may much more be condefcended to by a tutor to his pupil. All their time together should not be spent in reading of lectures, and magisterially dictating to him what he is to obferve and follow; hearing him in his turn, and using him to reason about what is propofed, will make the rules go down the easier, and fink the deeper, and will give him a liking to study and instruction: and he will then begin to value knowledge, when he sees that it enables him to difcourfe; and he finds the pleasure and credit of bearing a part in the conversation, and of having his reasons fometimes approved and hearkened to. Particularly in morality, prudence, and breeding, cafes fhould be put to him, and his judgment asked this opens the understanding better than maxims, how well foever explained; and fettles the rules better in the memory for practice. This way lets things into the mind, which stick there, and retain their evidence with them; whereas words at beft are faint reprefentations, being not fo much as the true shadows of things, and are much fooner forgotten. He will better comprehend the foundations and measures of decency and justice, and have livelier and more lasting impreffions of what he ought to do, by giving his opinion on cafes propofed, and reafoning with his tutor on fit inftances, than by giving a filent, negligent, fleepy audience to his tutor's lectures; and much more than by captious logical difputes, or fet declainations of his own, upon any question. The one fets the thoughts upon wit, and falfe colours, and not upon truth: the other teaches fallacy, wrangling, and opiniatry; and they are both of them things that spoil the judgment, and put a man out of the way of right and fair reafoning, and therefore carefully to be avoided by one who would improve himself, and be acceptable to others. $99. WHEN, by making your fon fenfible that he depends on you, and is in your power, you have established your authority; and by being inflexibly 5 inflexibly fevere in your carriage to him, when obftinately perfifting in Reverence. any ill-natured trick which you have forbidden, efpecially lying, you have imprinted on his mind that awe which is neceffary; and on the other fide, when (by permitting him the full liberty due to his age, and laying no reftraint in your prefence to thofe childish actions, and gaiety of carriage, which, whilft he is very young, are as neceffary to him as meat or fleep) you have reconciled him to your company, and made him fenfible of your care and love of him by indulgence and tenderness, efpecially carefling him on all occafions wherein he does any thing well, and being kind to him, after a thousand fashions, fuitable to his age, which nature teaches parents better than I can: when, I fay, by these ways of tenderness and affection, which parents never want for their children, you have alfo planted in him a particular affection for you; he is then in the ftate you could defire, and you have formed in his mind that true reverence, which is always afterwards carefully to be continued and maintained in both parts of it, love and fear, as the great principles whereby you will always have hold upon him to turn his mind to the ways of virtue and honour. § 100. WHEN this foundation is once well laid, and you find this reve- Temper. rence begin to work in him, the next thing to be done is carefully to confider his temper, and the particular conftitution of his mind.. Stubbornnefs, lying, and ill-natured actions, are not (as has been faid) to be permitted in him from the beginning, whatever his temper be: thofe feeds of vices are not to be fuffered to take any root, but must be carefully weeded out, as foon as ever they begin to fhew themselves in him; and your authority is to take place, and influence his mind from the very dawning of any knowledge in him, that it may operate as a natural principle, whereof he never perceived the beginning; never knew that it was, or could be otherwife. By this, if the reverence he owes you be established early, it will always be facred to him; and it will be as hard for him to refift it, as the principles of his nature. . § 101. HAVING thus very early fet up your authority, and, by the gentler applications of it, fhamed him out of what leads towards an immoral habit; as foon as you have obferved it in him, (for I would by no means have chiding ufed, much lefs blows, till obftinacy and incorrigiblenefs make it abfolutely neceffary) it will be fit to confider which way the natural make of his mind inclines him. Some men, by the unalterable frame of their conftitutions, are ftout, others timorous; fome confident, others modeft, tractable or obftinate, curious or carelefs, quick or flow. There are not more differences in men's faces, and the outward lineaments of their bodies, than there are in the makes and tempers of their minds; only there is this difference, that the diftinguishing characters of the face, and the lineaments of the body, grow more plain and vifible with time and age, but the peculiar phyfiognomy of the mind is moft difcernible in children, before art and cunning have taught them to I 2 hide Temper. hide their deformities, and conceal their ill inclinations under a diffembled outfide. Dominion. Craving. § 102. BEGIN therefore betimes nicely to obferve your fon's temper and that, when he is under leaft reftraint, in his play, and, as he thinks, out of your fight. See what are his predominant paffions, and prevailing inclinations; whether he be fierce or mild, bold or bafhful, compaffionate or cruel, open or referved, &c. For as thefe are different in him, fo are your methods to be different, and your authority muft § 104. 1. WE fee children (as soon almost as they are born, I am fure long before they can fpeak) cry, grow peevish, fullen, and out of humour, for nothing but to have their wills. They would have their defires fubmitted to by others; they contend for a ready compliance from all about them, especially from thofe that ftand near or beneath them in age or degree, as foon as they come to confider others with thofe diftinctions. § 105. ANOTHER thing, wherein they fhew their love of dominion, is their defire to have things to be theirs; they would have property and poffeffion, pleafing themselves with the power which that feems to give, and the right they thereby have to difpofe of them as they please. He that has not obferved these two humours working very betimes in children, has taken little notice of their actions: and he who thinks that these two roots of almost all the injuftice and contention that fo disturb human life, are not early to be weeded out, and contrary habits introduced, neglects the proper feafon to lay the foundations of a good and worthy man. To do this, I imagine, these following things may fome what conduce. § 106. 1. THAT a child fhould never be fuffered to have what he craves, much less what he cries for, I had faid, or fo much as fpeaks for. But that being apt to be mifunderstood, and interpreted as if I meant a child fhould never fpeak to his parents for any thing, which will per- Craving.. haps be thought to lay too great a curb on the minds of children, to the prejudice of that love and affection which fhould be between them and their parents; I fhall explain myself a little more particularly. It is fit that they should have liberty to declare their wants to their parents, and that with all tenderness they should be hearkened to, and fupplied, at least whilst they are very little. But it is one thing to fay, I am hungry; another to fay, I would have roast-meat. Having declared their wants, their natural wants, the pain they feel from hunger, thirst, cold, or any other neceffity of nature; it is the duty of their parents, and thofe about them, to relieve them but children must leave it to the choice and ordering of their parents what they think propereft for them, and how much and must not be permitted to chufe for themselves; and fay, I would have wine, or white-bread; the very naming of it should make them lofe it. $107. § 107. THAT which parents fhould take care of here, is to diftinguish between the wants of fancy and those of nature; which Horace has well taught them to do in this verse, "Queis humana fibi doleat natura negatis." THOSE are truly natural wants, which reason alone, without fome other help, is not able to fence againft, nor keep from disturbing us. The pains of ficknefs and hurts, hunger, thirst and cold, want of fleep and reft, or relaxation of the part wearied with labour, are what all men feel, and the best disposed mind cannot but be fenfible of their uneafinefs; and therefore ought, by fit applications, to feek their removal, though not with impatience, or over-great hafte, upon the first approaches of them, where delay does not threaten fome irreparable harm. The pains that come from the neceffities of nature, are monitors to us to beware of greater mischiefs, which they are the forerunners of; and therefore they must not be wholly neglected, nor ftrained too far. But yet, the more children can be inured to hardships of this kind, by a wife care to make them stronger in body and mind, the better it will be for them. I need not here give any caution to keep within the bounds of doing them good, and to take care, that what children are made to fuffer fhould neither break their spirits, nor injure their health; parents being but too apt of themselves to incline, more than they should, to the fofter fide. BUT, whatever compliance the neceffities of nature may require, the wants of fancy children fhould never be gratified in, nor fuffered to mention. The very fpeaking for any fuch thing should make them lose it. Cloaths, when they need, they must have; but if they speak for this stuff, or that colour, they fhould be fure to go without it. Not that I would have parents purposely cross the defires of their children in matters of indifferency: on the contrary, where their carriage deferves it, and one is. fure it will not corrupt or effeminate their minds, and make them fond of of trifles, I think, all things fhould be contrived, as much as could be, to their fatisfaction, that they might find the ease and pleasure of doing well. The beft for children is, that they fhould not place any pleasure in fuch things at all, nor regulate their delight by their fancies; but be indifferent to all that nature has made fo. This is what their parents and teachers should chiefly aim at: but till this be obtained, all that I oppose here, is the liberty of afking; which, in these things of conceit, ought to be restrained by a conftant forfeiture annexed to it. THIS may perhaps be thought a little too fevere, by the natural indulgence of tender parents: but yet it is no more than neceffary. For fince the method I propofe is to banish the rods, this reftraint of their tongues will be of great ufe to fettle that awe we have elsewhere spoken of, and to keep up in them the respect and reverence due to their parents. Next, it will teach them to keep in, and fo mafter their inclinations. By this means they will be brought to learn the art of ftifling their defires, as foon as they rife up in them, when they are eafieft to be fubdued. For giving vent, gives life and ftrength to our appetites; and he that has the confidence to turn his wishes into demands, will be but a little way from thinking he ought to obtain them. This I am fure of, every one can more eafily bear a denial from himself, than from any body elfe. They should therefore be accustomed betimes to confult and make use of their reafon, before they give allowance to their inclinations. It is a great step towards the maftery of our defires, to give this stop to them, and shut them up in filence. This habit, got by children, of staying the forwardnefs of their fancies, and deliberating whether it be fit or no before they speak, will be of no fmall advantage to them in matters of greater confequence in the future courfe of their lives. For that which I cannot too often inculcate, is, that whatever the matter be, about which it is converfant, whether great or small, the main (I had almost faid only) thing to be confidered, in every action of a child, is, what influence it will have upon his mind; what habit it tends to, and is like to fettle in him; how it will become him when he is bigger; and, if it be encouraged, whither it will lead him when he is grown up. : My meaning therefore is not, that children fhould purpofely be made uneafy this would relish too much of inhumanity and ill-nature, and be apt to infect them with it. They fhould be brought to deny their appetites; and their minds, as well as bodies, be made vigorous, eafy and ftrong, by the cuftom of having their inclinations in fubjection, and their bodies exercifed with hardships; but all this without giving them any mark or apprehenfion of ill-will towards them. The conftant lofs of what they craved or carved to themselves fhould teach them modesty, fubmiffion, and a power to forbear: but the rewarding their modesty and filence, by giving them what they liked, should also affure them of the love of those who rigorously exacted this obedience. The contenting themselves now, in the want of what they wished for, is a virtue, that another time fhould be rewarded with what is fuited and acceptable to them; |