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and condition; yet they keep the knowledge of their estates and concerns from them with as much reservedness as if they were guarding a secret of state from a spy or an enemy. This, if it looks not like jealousy, yet it wants those marks of kindness and intimacy, which a father should show to his son; and, no doubt, often hinders or abates that cheerfulness and satisfaction, wherewith a son should address himself to, and rely upon, his father. And I cannot but often wonder to see fathers, who love their sons very well, yet so order the matter, by a constant stiffness, and a mien of authority and distance to them all their lives, as if they were never to enjoy or have any comfort from those they love best in the world till they have lost them by being removed into another. Nothing cements and establishes friendship and good-will so much as confident communication of concernments and affairs. Other kindnesses, without this, leave still some doubts; but when your son sees you open your mind to him; when he finds that you interest him in your affairs, as things you are willing should, in their turn, come into his hands, he will be concerned for them as for his own; wait his season with patience, and love you in the mean time, who keep him not at the distance of a stranger. This will also make him see, that the enjoyment you have, is not without care; which the more he is sensible of, the less will he envy you the possession, and the more think himself happy under the management of so favourable a friend, and so careful a father. There is scarce any young man of so little thought, or so void of sense, that would not be glad of a sure friend, that he might have recourse to, and freely consult on occasion. The reservedness and distance that fathers keep often deprive their sons of that refuge, which would be of more advantage to them than a hundred rebukes and chidings. Would your son engage in some frolic, or take a vagary; were it not much better he should do it with, than without your knowledge? For since allowances for such things must be made to young men, the more you know of his intrigues and designs, the better will you be able to prevent great mischiefs;

and, by letting him see what is like to follow, take the right way of prevailing with him to avoid less inconveniencies. Would you have him open his heart to you, and ask your advice? You must begin to do so with him first, and by your carriage beget that confidence.

$97. But whatever he consults you about, unless it lead to some fatal and irremediable mischief, be sure you advise only as a friend of more experience; but with your advice mingle nothing of command or authority, nor more than you would to your equal, or a stranger. That would be to drive him for ever from any farther demanding, or receiving advantage from your counsel. You must consider, that he is a young man, and has pleasures and fancies, which you are passed. You must not expect his inclinations should be just as yours, nor that at twenty he should have the same thoughts you have at fifty. All that you can wish is, that since youth must have some liberty, some outleaps; they might be with the ingenuity of a son, 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 ask his advice; and when he ever lights on the right, follow it as his; and if it succeed well, let him have the commendation. This will not at all lessen your authority, but increase his love and esteem of you. Whilst you keep your estate, the staff will still be in your own hands; and your authority the surer, 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 so good a friend than of losing some part of his future expectation.

$ 98. Familiarity of discourse, if it can become a father to his son, may much more be condescended 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 observe and follow hearing him in his turn, and using him to reason about

;

what is proposed, will make the rules go down the easier, and sink 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 discourse; and he finds the pleasure and credit of bearing a part in the conversation, and of having his reasons sometimes approved and hearkened to. Particularly in morality, prudence, and breeding, cases should be put to him, and his judgment asked: this opens the understanding better than maxims, how well soever explained; and settles 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 best are faint representations, being not so much as the true shadows of things, and are much sooner forgotten. He will better comprehend the foundations and measures of decency and justice, and have livelier and more lasting impressions of what he ought to do, by giving his opinion on cases proposed, and reasoning with his tutor on fit instances, than by giving a silent, negligent, sleepy audience to his tutor's lectures; and much more than by captious logical disputes, or set declamations of his own, upon any question. The one sets the thoughts upon wit, and false 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 reasoning, and therefore carefully to be avoided by one who ·would improve himself, and be acceptable to others. $99. When, by making your son sensible that he depends on you, and is in your power, you have established your authority; and by being inflexibly severe in your carriage to him, when obstinately persisting in any ill-natured trick which you have forbidden, especially lying, you have imprinted on his mind that awe which is necessary; and on the other side, when (by permitting him the full liberty due to his age, and laying no restraint in your presence to those childish actions, and gaiety of carriage, which, whilst he is very young, are as necessary -to him as meat or sleep) you have reconciled him to

Reverence.

your company, and made him sensible of your care and love of him by indulgence and tenderness, especially caressing him on all occasions wherein he does any thing well, and being kind to him, after a thousand fashions, suitable to his age, which nature teaches parents better than I can: when, I say, by these ways of tenderness and affection, which parents never want for their children, you have also planted in him a particular affection for you; he is then in the state you could desire, 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 Temper. laid, and you find this reverence begin to work in him, the next thing to be done is carefully to consider his temper, and the particular constitution of his mind. Stubbornness, lying, and ill-natured actions, are not (as has been said) to be permitted in him from the beginning, whatever his temper be: those seeds of vices are not to be suffered to take any root, but must be carefully weeded out as soon as ever they begin to show 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 otherwise. By this, if the reverence he owes you be established early, it will always be sacred to him; and it will be as hard for him to resist it, as the principles of his nature.

§ 101. Having thus very early set up your authority, and, by the gentler applications of it, shamed him out of what leads towards an immoral habit; as soon as you have observed it in him, (for I would by no means have chiding used, much less blows, till obstinacy and incorrigibleness make it absolutely necessary) it will be fit to consider which way the natural make of his mind inclines him. Some men, by the unalterable frame of

their constitutions, are stout, others timorous; some confident, others modest, tractable or obstinate, curious or careless, quick or slow. 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 distinguishing characters of the face, and the lineaments of the body, grow more plain and visible with time and age; but the peculiar physiognomy of the mind is most discernible in children, before art and cunning have taught them to hide their deformities, and conceal their ill inclinations under a dissembled outside.

$102. Begin therefore betimes nicely to observe your son's temper; and that, when he is under least restraint, in his play, and, as he thinks, out of your sight. See what are his predominant passions, and prevailing inclinations; whether he be fierce or mild, bold or bashful, compassionate or cruel, open or reserved, &c. For as these are different in him, so are your methods to be different, and your authority must hence take measures to apply itself different ways to him. These native propensities, these prevalencies of constitution, are not to be cured by rules, or a direct contest; especially those of them that are the humbler and meaner sort, which proceed from fear and lowness of spirit; though with art they may be much mended, and turned to good purpose. But this be sure of, after all is done, the bias will always hang on that side where nature first placed it: and, if you carefully observe the characters of his mind now in the first scenes of his life, you will ever after be able to judge which way his thoughts lean, and what he aims at even hereafter, when, as he grows up, the plot thickens, and he puts on several shapes to act it.

Dominion.

§ 103. I told you before, that children love liberty; and therefore they should be brought to do the things that are fit for them, without feeling any restraint laid upon them. I now tell you they love something more; and that is dominion: and this is the first original of most vicious habits, that are ordinary

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