er and happier. Let no idle visiter, no intrusive, injudicious
friend, for one moment interfere to lessen the authority necessary for
the purposes of education. Let no weak jealousy, no unseasonable love
of command, restrain young people after they are sufficiently
reasonable to judge for themselves. In the choice of their friends,
their acquaintance, in all the great and small affairs of life, let
them have liberty in proportion as they acquire reason. Fathers do not
commonly interfere with their sons' amusements, nor with the choice of
their acquaintance, so much as in the regulation of their pecuniary
affairs: but mothers, who have had any considerable share in the
education of boys, are apt to make mistakes as to the proper seasons
for indulgence and control. They do not watch the moments when
dangerous prejudices and tastes begin to be formed; they do not
perceive how the slight conversations of acquaintance operate upon the
ever-open ear of childhood; but when the age of passion approaches,
and approaches, as it usually does, in storms and tempest, then all
their maternal fears are suddenly roused, and their anxiety prompts
them to use a thousand injudicious and ineffectual expedients.

A modern princess, who had taken considerable pains in the education
of her son, made both herself and him ridiculous by her anxiety upon
his introduction into the world. She travelled about with him from
place to place, to _make him see_ every thing worth seeing; but he was
not to stir from her presence; she could not bear to have him out of
sight or hearing. In all companies he was _chaperoned_ by his mother.
Was he invited to a ball, she must be invited also, or he could not
accept of the invitation: he must go in the same coach, and return in
the same coach with her. "I should like extremely to dance another
dance," said he one evening to his partner, "but you see I must go; my
mother is putting on her cloak." The tall young man called for some
negus, and had the glass at his lips, when his mamma called out in a
shrill voice, through a vista of heads, "Eh! My son no drink wine! My
son like milk and water!" The son was at this time at years of
discretion.

CHAPTER VI.

ON TEMPER.

We have already, in speaking of the early care of infants, suggested
that the temper should be attended to from the moment of their birth.
A negligent, a careless, a passionate servant, must necessarily injure
the temper of a child. The fi