Government be, as they deserve it, Early gently relaxed, the Father's Brow be more smooth to them, and the Distance by Degrees abated, his former Restraints will increase their Love, when they find it was only a Kindness to them and a Care to make them ca pable to deserve the Favour of their Parents, and the Esteem of every Body else.

§. 41. Thus much for the Setting your Authority over your Children in general. Fear and Awe ought to give you the first Power over their Minds, and Love and Friendship in riper Years to hold it: For the Time must come, when they will be past the Rod, and Correction; and then, if the Love of you make them not obedient and dutifull, if the Love of Vertue and Reputation keep them not in Laudable Courses, I ask, What Hold will you have then upon them, to turn them to it? Indeed, Fear of having a scanty Portion if they displease you, may make them Slaves to your Estate, but they will be never the less ill and wicked in private; and that Restraint will not last always. Every Man muft

fome

Early.

Punish

ments.

fome Time or other be trusted to himfelf, and his own Conduct; and he that is a good, a vertuous, and able Man, must be made so within; and therefore, what he is to receive from Education, what is to sway and influence his Life, must be something put into him betimes, Habits woven into the very Principles of his Nature; and not a counterfeit Carriage, and dissembled Out-side, put on by Fear, only to avoid the present Anger of a Father, who perhaps may dis-inherit him.

S. 42. This being laid down in ge neral, as the Course ought to be ta ken, 'tis fit we now come to consider the Parts of the Discipline to be used, a little more particularly. I have spoken so much of Carrying a frict Hand over Children, that perhaps I shall be suspected of not Considering enough what is due to their tender Ages and Constitutions. But that Opinion will vanish, when you have heard me a little farther. For I am very apt to think, that great Severity of Punishment does but very little Good; nay, great Harm in Education: And I believe it will be found, that, Cæteris paribus, those

Children who have been most chasti- Punifo fed seldom make the best Men. All, ments. 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 Sort of Government.

§. 43. A Compliance, and Sup- Awe pleness of their Wills, being by a steady 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 so, preventing all Occafions of Strugling, or repining. The only Care is, That it be begun early,and inflexibly kept to,till Awe and Respect be grown familiar, and there appears not the least Reluctancy in the Submission and ready Obedience of their Minds. When this Reverence is once thus established, (which it must be early, or else it will cost pains and Blows to recover it; and the more, the longer it is deferred, 'tis by it, mixed still with as much Indulgence as they make not an ill Use of; and not by Beating,

Chiding,

Awe

Self-de

nial.

Dejected.

Chiding, or other Servile Punishments, they are for the future to be governed as they grow up to more Understanding.

§. 44. That this is so, will be easily allowed, when it is but considered, what is to be aimed at in an ingenuous Education; and upon what it turns.

1. He that has not a mastery over his Inclinations, he that knows not how to resist the importunity of prefent Pleasure or Pain, for the sake of what Reason tells him is fit to be done, wants the true Principle of Vertue and Industry; and is in danger never to be good for any thing. This Temper therefore, so 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 Apprehension in Children; and so to be confirmed in them, by all the Care and Ways imaginable, by those who have the over-fight of their Education.

§.45. 2. On the otherside, if the Mind be curbed, and humbled too much in Children; if their Spirits be aba

fed

fed and broken much, by too strict Dejected an hand over them, they lose all their Vigor, and Industry, and are in a worse State than the former. For extravagant young Fellows, that have Liveliness and Spirit, come sometimes to be set right, and so make Able and Great Men: But dejected Minds, timorous, and tame, and low Spirits, are hardly ever to be raised, and very seldom attain to any Thing. 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 Spirit, easy, active and free; and yet at the same time, to restrain him from many things, he has a Mind to, and to draw him to things that are uneasy to him; he, I say, that knows how to reconcile these seeming Contradictions, has, in my Opinion, got the true Secret of Education.

§. 46. The usual lazy and short Beating. way by Chastisement, and the Rod, which is the only Instrument ofGovernment, that Tutors generally know, or ever think of, is the most unfit of any to be used in Education, because it tends to both those Mischiefs, which,

as