The idea on which this mode of treatment is founded--namely, that it is
a _matter of course_ that children should do right, so that when they do
right there is nothing to be said, and that doing wrong is the abnormal
condition and exceptional action which alone requires the parent to
interfere--is, to a great extent, a mistake. Indeed, the _matter of course_
is all the other way. A babe will seize the plaything of another babe
without the least compunction long after it is keenly alive to the
injustice and wrongfulness of having its own playthings taken by any other
child. So in regard to truth. The first impulse of all children, when they
have just acquired the use of language, is to use it in such a way as to
effect their object for the time being, without any sense of the sacred
obligation of making the words always correspond truly with the facts. The
principles of doing justice to the rights of others to one's own damage,
and of speaking the truth when falsehood would serve the present purpose
better, are principles that are developed or acquired by slow degrees, and
at a later period. I say developed _or_ acquired--for different classes of
metaphysicians and theologians entertain different theories in respect to
the way by which the ideas of right and of duty enter into the human mind.
But all will agree in this, that whatever may be the origin of the moral
sense in man, it does not appear as a _practical element of control for the
conduct_ till some time after the animal appetites and passions have begun
to exercise their power. Whether we regard this sense as arising from a
development within of a latent principle of the soul, or as an essential
element of the inherited and native constitution of man, though remaining
for a time embryonic and inert, or as a habit acquired under the influence
of instruction and example, all will admit that the period of its
appearance as a perceptible motive of action is so delayed, and the time
required for its attaining sufficient strength to exercise any real and
effectual control over the conduct extends over so many of the earlier
years of life, that no very material help in governing the appetites and