recision. Help children at every turn of life
to be right--right in doing things, right in thinking, in saying, and in
execution. Precision at any point in life helps lift the life's whole
level. Truth-telling is not a separable virtue. You cannot make a boy
truthful in word if you let him lie in deed. You cannot expect he will
speak the truth if you do not train him to do the truth, in his play, in
ordering his room, in thinking through his school problems, and in
thinking through his religious difficulties. Truth-telling is the verbal
reaction of the life which habitually holds that nothing is right until
it is just right.

Two things would, ordinarily, make sure of a truthful statement, instead
of a protective lie, in answer to your question: first, that the young
person has been trained to the habit of seeing and stating things as
they are--and that you really give him a chance so to state them, and,
secondly, that to some degree there has been developed a recognition of
considerations or values that are higher than either escape from
punishment or the winning of your approbation. He will choose the course
that offers what seems to him to be the greater good; he will choose
between punishment, with rectitude, a good conscience, a sense of unity
with the higher good, of peace with God his friend, a greater
approximation to your ideal, on the one side, and, on the other, escape
from punishment.

Everything in that crisis will depend on how real you have made the good
to be, how much the sense of the reality of God and his companionship
has brought of joy and friendship, and how high are his values of the
actual, the real, the true.

Sec. 4. AT THE CRISIS

But what shall we do as we meet the lie on the lips of the child? First,
as already suggested, do not wait until you meet it. Train the child to
the truthful life. Second, be sure you do not make too heavy moral
demands. Remember the instinct to protect himself from immediate
punishment or disapprobation is stronger than any other just then. Do
not ask him to do what the law says the prisoner may not do, incriminate
himself. We have no right to put on our children tests harder than they
can bear. Often we put those which are harder than we could face. What
you will do just then depends on what you have been doing for the
training of the child or youth. Do not expect him to solve problems in
moral geometry if you have neglected simple addition in that realm.