which it is,--"without
observation," gracious as sunshine, sweet as dew; it should begin with the
infant's first dawning of comprehension that there are two courses of
action, two qualities of conduct: one wise, the other foolish; one right,
the other wrong.

I am sure; for I have seen, that a child's moral perceptions can be so
made clear, and his will so made strong and upright, that before he is ten
years old he will see and take his way through all common days rightly and
bravely.

Will he always act up to his highest moral perceptions? No. Do we? But one
right decision that he makes voluntarily, unbiassed by the assertion of
authority or the threat of punishment, is worth more to him in development
of moral character than a thousand in which he simply does what he is
compelled to do by some sort of outside pressure.

I read once, in a book intended for the guidance of mothers, a story of a
little child who, in repeating his letters one day, suddenly refused to
say A. All the other letters he repeated again and again, unhesitatingly;
but A he would not, and persisted in declaring that he could not say. He
was severely whipped, but still persisted. It now became a contest of
wills. He was whipped again and again and again. In the intervals between
the whippings the primer was presented to him, and he was told that he
would be whipped again if he did not mind his mother and say A. I forget
how many times he was whipped; but it was almost too many times to be
believed. The fight was a terrible one. At last, in a paroxysm of his
crying under the blows, the mother thought she heard him sob out "A," and
the victory was considered to be won.

A little boy whom I know once had a similar contest over a letter of the
alphabet; but the contest was with himself, and his mother was the
faithful Great Heart who helped him through. The story is so remarkable
that I have long wanted all mothers to know it. It is as perfect an
illustration of what I mean by "educating" the will as the other one is of
what is called "breaking" it.

Willy was about four years old. He had a large, active brain, sensitive
temperament, and indomitable spirit. He was and is an uncommon child.
Common methods of what is commonly supposed to be "discipline" would, if
he had survived them, have made a very bad boy of him. He had great
difficulty in pronouncing the letter G,--so much that he had formed almost
a habit of omitting it. One day his mother sa