CHAPTER XII.


COMMENDATION AND ENCOURAGEMENT.

We are very apt to imagine that the disposition to do right is, or ought to
be, the natural and normal condition of childhood, and that doing wrong is
something unnatural and exceptional with children. As a consequence, when
they do right we think there is nothing to be said. That is, or ought to
be, a matter of course. It is only when they do wrong that we notice
their conduct, and then, of course, with censure and reproaches. Thus our
discipline consists mainly, not in gently leading and encouraging them in
the right way, but in deterring them, by fault-finding and punishment, from
going wrong.

Now we ought not to forget that in respect to moral conduct as well as to
mental attainments children know nothing when they come into the world, but
have every thing to learn, either from the instructions or from the
example of those around them. We do not propose to enter at all into the
consideration of the various theological and metaphysical theories held by
different classes of philosophers in respect to the native constitution
and original tendencies of the human soul, but to look at the phenomena
of mental and moral action in a plain and practical way, as they present
themselves to the observation of mothers in the every-day walks of life.
And in order the better to avoid any complication with these theories, we
will take first an extremely simple case, namely, the fault of making too
much noise in opening and shutting the door in going in and out of a room.
Georgie and Charlie are two boys, both about five years old, and both prone