Chapter 4—Thoughts on Education
No work every undertaken by man requires greater care and skill
than the proper training and education of youth and children. There
are no influences so potent as those which surround us in our early
years. Says the wise man, “Train up a child in the way he should
go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.” The nature of
man is threefold, and the training enjoined by Solomon comprehends
the right development of the physical, intellectual, and moral powers.
To perform this work aright, parents and teachers must themselves
understand “the way the child should go.” This embraces more than
a knowledge of books or the learning of the schools. It comprehends
the practice of temperance, brotherly kindness, and godliness; the
discharge of our duty to ourselves, to our neighbors, and to God.
The training of children must be conducted on a different principle
from that which governs the training of irrational animals. The brute
has only to be accustomed to submit to its master; but the child must be
taught to control himself. The will must be trained to obey the dictates
of reason and conscience. A child may be so disciplined as to have,
like the beast, no will of its own, his individuality being lost in that of
his teacher. Such training is unwise, and its effect disastrous. Children
thus educated will be deficient in firmness and decision. They are not
taught to act from principle; the reasoning powers are not strengthened
by exercise. So far as possible, every child should be trained to self-
reliance. By calling into exercise the various faculties, he will learn
where he is strongest, and in what he is deficient. A wise instructor
will give special attention to the development of the weaker traits, that
the child may form a well-balanced, harmonious character.
In some schools and families, children appear to be well-trained,
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while under the immediate discipline, but when the system which
has held them to set rules is broken up, they seem to be incapable of
thinking, acting, or deciding for themselves. Had they been taught to
exercise their own judgment as fast and as far as practicable, the evil
would have been obviated. But they have so long been controlled by
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