n order, therefore, to impart true, genuine
firmness to the natural will-activity of the boy, all the activities
of the boy, his entire will should proceed from and have reference
to the development, cultivation, and representation of the internal.
Instruction in example and in words, which later on become precept
and example, furnishes the means for this. Neither example alone, nor
words will do; not example alone, for it is particular and special,
and the word is needed to give the particular individual example
universal applicability; not words alone, for example is needed to
interpret and explain the word, which is general, spiritual, and of
many meanings.

"But instruction and example alone and in themselves are not
sufficient; they must meet a good pure heart and this is the outcome
of proper educational influences in childhood."

[Sidenote: Moral Precocity]

Lest these directions should seem to demand an almost superhuman
degree of control and wisdom on the part of the mother, remember that
moral precocity is as much to be guarded against a mental precocity.
Remember that you are neither required to be a perfect mother nor
to rear a perfect child. As Spencer remarks, a perfect child in this
imperfect world would be sadly out of joint with the times, would
indeed be a martyr. If your basic principles are right and if your
child has before him the daily and hourly spectacle of a mother who is
trying to conform herself to high standards, he will grow as fast as
it is safe for him to grow. Spencer says: "Our higher moral faculties
like our higher intellectual ones, are comparatively complex. As a
consequence they are both comparatively late in their evolution, and
with the one as with the other, a very early activity produced by
stimulation will be at the expense of the future character. Hence the
not uncommon fact that those who during childhood were instanced as
models of juvenile goodness, by and by undergo some disastrous and
seemingly inexplicable change, and end by being not above but below
par; while relatively exemplary men are often the issue of a childhood
not so promising.

"Be content, therefore, with moderate measures and moderate results,
constantly bearing in mind the fact that the higher morality, like the
higher intelligence, must be reached by a slow growth; and you will
then have more patience with those imperfections of nature which your
child hourly displays. You will be less prone to consta