een wholesome and unwholesome dishes, or epicurean
distinctions between rarities and plain food, the imagination and the
pride of children will not be roused about eating. Their pride is
piqued, if they perceive that they are prohibited from touching what
_grown up people_ are privileged to eat; their imagination is set to
work by seeing any extraordinary difference made by judges of eating
between one species of food and another. In families where a regularly
good table is kept, children accustomed to the sight and taste of all
kinds of food, are seldom delicate, capricious, or disposed to exceed;
but in houses where entertainments are made from time to time with
great bustle and anxiety, fine clothes, and company-manners, and
company-faces, and all that politeness can do to give the appearance
of festivity, deceive children at least, and make them imagine that
there is some extraordinary joy in seeing a greater number of dishes
than usual upon the table. Upon these occasions, indeed, the pleasure
is to them substantial; they eat more, they eat a greater variety, and
of things that please them better than usual; the pleasure of eating
is associated with unusual cheerfulness, and thus the imagination, and
the reality, conspire to make them epicures. To these children, the
temptations to deceive about sweetmeats and dainties are beyond
measure great, especially as ill-bred strangers commonly show their
affection for them by pressing them to eat what they are not allowed
to say "_if you please_" to. Rousseau thinks all children are
gluttons. All children may be rendered gluttons; but few, who are
properly treated with respect to food, and who have any literary
tastes, can be in danger of continuing to be fond of eating. We
therefore, without hesitation, recommend it to parents never to hazard
the truth and honour of their pupils by prohibitions, which seldom
produce any of the effects that are expected.

Children are sometimes injudiciously restrained with regard to
exercise; they are required to promise to keep within certain
boundaries when they are sent out to play; these promises are often
broken with impunity, and thus the children learn habits of successful
deceit. Instead of circumscribing their play grounds, as they are
sometimes called, by narrow inconvenient limits, we should allow them
as much space as we can with convenience, and at all events exact no
promises. We should absolutely make it impossible for them