to go
without detection into any place which we forbid. It requires some
patience and activity in preceptors to take all the necessary
precautions in issuing orders, but these precautions will be more
useful in preserving the integrity of their pupils, than the most
severe punishments that can be devised. We are not so unreasonable as
to expect, with some theoretic writers on education, that tutors and
parents should sacrifice the whole of their time to the convenience,
amusement, and education of their pupils. This would be putting one
set of beings "_sadly over the head of another_:" but if parents
would, as much as possible, mix their occupations and recreations with
those of their children, besides many other advantages which have been
elsewhere pointed out with respect to the improvement of the
understanding, they would secure them from many temptations to
falsehood. They should be encouraged to talk freely of all their
amusements to their parents, and to ask them for whatever they want to
complete their little inventions. Instead of banishing all the freedom
of wit and humour, by the austerity of his presence, a preceptor, with
superior talents, and all the resources of property in his favour,
might easily become the _arbiter deliciarum_ of his pupils.

When young people begin to taste the pleasures of praise, and to feel
the strong excitations of emulation and ambition, their integrity is
exposed to a new species of temptation. They are tempted, not only by
the hope of obtaining "well-earned praise," but by the desire to
obtain praise without the labour of earning it. In large schools,
where boys assist each other in their literary exercises, and in all
private families where masters are allowed to show off the
accomplishments of young gentlemen and ladies, there are so many
temptations to fraudulent exhibitions, that we despair of guarding
against their consequences. The best possible method is to inspire
children with a generous contempt for flattery, and to teach them to
judge impartially of their own merits. If we are exact in the measure
of approbation which we bestow, they will hence form a scale by which
they can estimate the sincerity of other people. It is said[52] that
the preceptor of the duke of Burgundy succeeded so well in inspiring
him with disdain for unmerited praise, that when the duke was only
nine years old, he one day called his tutor to account for having
concealed some of his childish fau