Education As It Ought to Be
of anyone, as too often happens, when, without any deliberate intention, the absent nurse is picked to pieces in the drawing-room.
Inevitably this fatal example will be followed, and may produce later a real catastrophe.
Awaken in them a desire to know the reason of things and a love of Nature, and endeavor to interest them by giving all possible explanations very clearly, in a cheerful, good-tempered tone. You must answer their questions pleasantly, instead of checking them with—"What a bother you are, do be quiet, you will learn that later."
Never on any account say to a child, "You are lazy and good for nothing" because that gives birth in him to the very faults of which you accuse him.
If a child is lazy and does his tasks badly, you should say to him one day, even if it is not true, "There this time your work is much better than it generally is. Well done". The child, flattered by the unaccustomed commendation, will certainly work better the next time, and, little by little, thanks to judicious encouragement, will succeed in becoming a real worker.
At all costs avoid speaking of illness before children, as it will certainly create in them bad autosuggestions. Teach them, on the contrary, that health is the normal state of man, and that sickness is an anomaly, a sort of backsliding which may be avoided by living in a temperate, regular way.
Do not create defects in them by teaching them to fear this or that, cold or heat, rain or wind, etc. Man is created to endure such variations without injury and should do so without grumbling.
Do not make the child nervous by filling his mind with stories of hob-goblins and were-wolves, for there is always the risk that timidity contracted in childhood will persist later.
It is necessary that those who do not bring up their children themselves should choose carefully those to whom they are entrusted. To love them is not sufficient, they
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