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Study of Child Life by Marion Foster Washburne
page 69 of 195 (35%)
struggle against habit, but not against original depravity in man, and
this is accomplished so much the more rapidly and surely because man
himself tends to abandon his shortcomings, for man prefers right to
wrong." The natural deduction from this is that we should say "do"
rather than "don't"; open up the natural way for rightful activity
instead of uttering loud warning cries at the entrance to every wrong
path.

[Sidenote: Kindergarten Methods]

It is for this reason that the kindergarten tries by every means to
make right doing delightful. This is one of the reasons for its songs,
dances, plays, its bright colors, birds, and flowers. And in this
respect it may well be imitated in every home. No one loves that which
is disagreeable, ugly, and forbidding; yet many little children are
expected to love right doing which is seldom attractively presented to
them.

The results of such treatment are apparent in the grown people of
to-day. Most persons have an underlying conviction that sinners, or
at any rate unconscientious persons, have a much easier and pleasanter
time of it than those who try to do right. To the imagination of the
majority of adults sin is dressed in glittering colors and virtue in
gray, somber garments. There are few who do not take credit for right
doing as if they had chosen a hard and disagreeable part instead
of the more alluring ways of wrong. This is because they have been
mis-taught in childhood and have come to think of wrongdoing as
pleasant and virtue as hard, whereas the real truth is exactly the
opposite. It is wrongdoing that brings unpleasant consequences and
virtue that brings happiness.
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