may teach him to manage his love of talking with
discretion, and may prevent those ineffectual exhortations to silence,
which irritate the temper of the vivacious pupil. Expostulations, and
angry exclamations, will not so effectually command from our pupils
temperance of tongue, as their own conviction that they are more
likely to gain attention from their friends, if they choose properly
their seasons for conversation.

To prevent, we cannot too often repeat it, is better than to punish,
without humouring children; that is to say, without yielding to their
caprices, or to their _will_, when they express their wishes with
impatience, we may prevent many of those little inconveniences which
tease and provoke the temper; any continual irritation exhausts our
patience; acute pain can be endured with more fortitude.

We have sometimes seen children become fretful from the constant
teasing effect of some slight inconveniences in their dress; we have
pitied poor little boys, who were continually exhorted to produce
their handkerchiefs, and who could scarcely ever get these
handkerchiefs out of the tight pockets into which they had been
stuffed; into such pockets the hand can never enter, or withdraw
itself, without as much difficulty as Trenck had in getting rid of his
handcuffs. The torture of tight shoes, of back-boards, collars, and
stocks, we hope is nearly abandoned; surely all these are unnecessary
trials of fortitude; they exhaust that patience which might be
exercised upon things of consequence. Count Rumford tells us, that he
observed a striking melioration in the temper of all the mendicants in
the establishment at Munich, when they were relieved from the
constant torments of rags and vermin.

Some people imagine, that early sufferings, that a number of small
inconveniences, habitual severity of reproof, and frequent
contradiction and disappointment, inure children to pain, and
consequently improve their temper. Early sufferings, which are
necessary and inevitable, may improve children in fortitude; but the
contradictions and disappointments, which arise immediately from the
will of others, have not the same effect. Children, where their own
interests are concerned, soon distinguish between these two classes of
evils; they submit patiently when they know that it would be in vain
to struggle; they murmur and rebel, if they dare, whenever they feel
the hand of power press upon them capriciously. We should not inve