d himself by companionship
with others. Every new educator effects less than his predecessor;
until at last, if we regard all life as an educational institution, a
circumnavigator of the world is less influenced by all the nations
he has seen than by his nurse." [112] Models are therefore of every
importance in moulding the nature of the child; and if we would have
fine characters, we must necessarily present before them fine models.
Now, the model most constantly before every child's eye is the Mother.

One good mother, said George Herbert, is worth a hundred schoolmasters.
In the home she is "loadstone to all hearts, and loadstar to all eyes."
Imitation of her is constant--imitation, which Bacon likens to "a globe
of precepts." But example is far more than precept. It is instruction
in action. It is teaching without words, often exemplifying more than
tongue can teach. In the face of bad example, the best of precepts are
of but little avail. The example is followed, not the precepts. Indeed,
precept at variance with practice is worse than useless, inasmuch as
it only serves to teach the most cowardly of vices--hypocrisy. Even
children are judges of consistency, and the lessons of the parent who
says one thing and does the opposite, are quickly seen through. The
teaching of the friar was not worth much, who preached the virtue of
honesty with a stolen goose in his sleeve.

By imitation of acts, the character becomes slowly and imperceptibly,
but at length decidedly formed. The several acts may seem in themselves
trivial; but so are the continuous acts of daily life. Like snowflakes,
they fall unperceived; each flake added to the pile produces no
sensible change, and yet the accumulation of snowflakes makes the
avalanche. So do repeated acts, one following another, at length become
consolidated in habit, determine the action of the human being for good
or for evil, and, in a word, form the character.

It is because the mother, far more than the father, influences the
action and conduct of the child, that her good example is of so much
greater importance in the home. It is easy to understand how this should
be so. The home is the woman's domain--her kingdom, where she exercises
entire control. Her power over the little subjects she rules there is
absolute. They look up to her for everything. She is the example and
model constantly before their eyes, whom they unconsciously observe and
imitate.

Cowley, speaking of th