bedience is not
to be expected to come by nature into the heart of her child, but to be
implanted by education. She must understand this so fully as to feel that
if she finds that her children are disobedient to her commands--leaving out
of view cases of peculiar and extraordinary temptation--it is _her_ fault,
not theirs. Perhaps I ought not to say her _fault_ exactly, for she may
have done as well as she knows how; but, at any rate, her failure. Instead,
therefore, of being angry with them, or fretting and complaining about the
trouble they give her, she should leave them, as it were, out of the case,
and turn her thoughts to herself, and to her own management, with a view to
the discovery and the correcting of her own derelictions and errors. In
a word, she must set regularly and systematically about the work of
_teaching_ her children to subject their will to hers.

_Three Methods_.

I shall give three principles of management, or rather three different
classes of measures, by means of which children may certainly be made
obedient. The most perfect success will be attained by employing them all.
But they require very different degrees of skill and tact on the part
of the mother. The first requires very little skill. It demands only
steadiness, calmness, and perseverance. The second draws much more upon
the mother's mental resources, and the last, most of all. Indeed, as will
presently be seen, there is no limit to the amount of tact and ingenuity,
not to say genius, which may be advantageously exercised in the last
method. The first is the most essential; and it will alone, if faithfully
carried out, accomplish the end. The second, if the mother has the tact
and skill to carry it into effect, will aid very much in accomplishing the
result, and in a manner altogether more agreeable to both parties. The
third will make the work of forming the habit of obedience on the part of
the mother, and of acquiring it on the part of the child, a source of the
highest enjoyment to both. But then, unfortunately, it requires more skill
and dexterity, more gentleness of touch, so to speak, and a more delicate
constitution of soul, than most mothers can be expected to possess.

But let us see what the three methods are.

_First Method_.

1. The first principle is that the mother should so regulate her management
of her child, that he should _never_ gain any desired end by any act of
insubmission, but _always_ incur some small tro