progression; they are not the same
to-day that they were yesterday; they have little reflection; their
consciousness of the present occupies them; and it would be extremely
difficult from day to day, or from hour to hour, to identify their
minds. Far from wishing that they should distinctly remember all their
past thoughts, and that they should value themselves upon their
continuing the same, we must frequently desire that they should forget
their former errours, and absolutely change their manner of thinking.
They should feel no interest in adhering to former bad habits or false
opinions; therefore, their pride should not be roused to defend these
by our making them a part of their standing character. The character
of children is _to be_ formed--we should never speak of it as
positively fixed. Man has been defined to be a bundle of habits; till
the bundle is made up, we may continually increase or diminish it.
Children who are zealous in defence of their own perfections, are of
all others most likely to become stationary in their intellectual
progress, and disingenuous in their temper. It would be in vain to
repeat to them this sensible and elegant observation--"To confess that
you have been in the wrong, is only saying, in other words, that you
are wiser to-day than you were yesterday." This remark will rather
pique, than comfort, the pride of those who are anxious to prove that
they have been equally wise and immaculate in every day of their
existence.

It may be said, that children cannot too early be made sensible of the
value of reputation, and they must be taught to connect the ideas of
their past and present _selves_, otherwise they cannot perceive, for
instance, why confidence should be placed in them in proportion to
their past integrity; or why falsehood should lead to distrust. The
force of this argument must be admitted; yet still we must consider
the age and strength of mind in children in applying it to practice.
Truth is not instinctive in the mind, and the ideas of integrity, and
of the advantages of reputation, must be very cautiously introduced,
lest, by giving children too perfect a theory of morality, before they
have sufficient strength of mind to adhere to it in practice, we may
make them hypocrites, or else give them a fatal distrust of
themselves, founded upon too early an experience of their own
weakness, and too great sensibility to shame.

Shame, when it once becomes familiar to the mind,