h cheap colors
almost as soon as it has sense enough to wish for them. If it merely
daubs the paper with shapeless stains, the color-box may be taken away
till it knows better: but as soon as it begins painting red coats on
soldiers, striped flags to ships, etc., it should have colors at
command; and, without restraining its choice of subject in that
imaginative and historical art, of a military tendency, which children
delight in, (generally quite as valuable, by the way, as any historical
art delighted in by their elders,) it should be gently led by the
parents to try to draw, in such childish fashion as may be, the things
it can see and likes,--birds, or butterflies, or flowers, or fruit.

iii. In later years, the indulgence of using the color should only be
granted as a reward, after it has shown care and progress in its
drawings with pencil. A limited number of good and amusing prints should
always be within a boy's reach: in these days of cheap illustration he
can hardly possess a volume of nursery tales without good wood-cuts in
it, and should be encouraged to copy what he likes best of this kind;
but should be firmly restricted to a _few_ prints and to a few books. If
a child has many toys, it will get tired of them and break them; if a
boy has many prints he will merely dawdle and scrawl over them; it is by
the limitation of the number of his possessions that his pleasure in
them is perfected, and his attention concentrated. The parents need give
themselves no trouble in instructing him, as far as drawing is
concerned, beyond insisting upon economical and neat habits with his
colors and paper, showing him the best way of holding pencil and rule,
and, so far as they take notice of his work, pointing out where a line
is too short or too long, or too crooked, when compared with the copy;
_accuracy_ being the first and last thing they look for. If the child
shows talent for inventing or grouping figures, the parents should
neither check, nor praise it. They may laugh with it frankly, or show
pleasure in what it has done, just as they show pleasure in seeing it
well, or cheerful; but they must not praise it for being clever, any
more than they would praise it for being stout. They should praise it
only for what costs it self-denial, namely attention and hard work;
otherwise they will make it work for vanity's sake, and always badly.
The best books to put into its hands are those illustrated by George
Cruikshank or b