ould entirely repress, in the company of their own family,
the pleasure which they feel from the praise that is given to them by
their friends, we should rather indulge them in this natural expansion
of mind; we should rather permit their youthful vanity to display
itself openly to those whom they most love and esteem, than drive
them, by unreasonable severity, and a cold refusal of sympathy, into
the society of less rigid observers. Those who have an aversion to
vanity, will not easily bear with its uncultivated intemperance of
tongue; but they should consider, that much of what disgusts them, is
owing to the simplicity of childhood, which must be allowed time to
learn that respect for the feelings of others, which teaches us to
restrain our own: but we must not be in haste to restrain, lest we
teach hypocrisy, instead of strength of mind, or real humility. If we
expect that children should excel, and should not know that they
excel, we expect impossibilities; we expect at the same time,
intelligence and stupidity. If we desire that they should be excited
by praise, and that, at the same time, they should feel no pleasure in
the applause which they have earned, we desire things that are
incompatible. If we encourage children to be frank and sincere, and
yet, at the same time, reprove them whenever they naturally express
their opinions of themselves, or the pleasurable feelings of
self-approbation, we shall counteract our own wishes. Instead of
hastily blaming children for the sincere and simple expression of
their self-complacency, or of their desire for the approbation of
others, we should gradually point out to them the truth--that those
who refrain from that display of their own perfections which we call
vanity, in fact are well repaid for the constraint which they put upon
themselves, by the superior degree of respect and sympathy which they
obtain; that vain people effectually counteract their own wishes, and
meet with contempt, instead of admiration. By appealing constantly,
when we praise, to the judgment of the pupils themselves, we shall at
once teach them the habit of re-judging flattery, and substitute, by
insensible degrees, patient, steady confidence in themselves, for the
wavering, weak, impatience of vanity. In proportion as any one's
confidence in himself increases, his anxiety for the applause of
others diminishes: people are very seldom vain of any accomplishments
in which they obviously excel, but the