Sylvanus Stall.[B]

In respect to these matters more than in respect to others, but also
in respect to all matters, children often do not know that they are
doing wrong, even when it it very difficult for parents to believe
that they do not intend wrong-doing. As we have seen from our analysis
of truthfulness, the child may very often lie without a qualm of
conscience, and he may still more readily break the unwritten rules
of courtesy, asking abrupt and even cruel questions of strangers, and
haul the family skeleton out of its closet at critical moments. Such
things cannot be wholly guarded against, even by the exercise of the
utmost wisdom, but the habit of reasoning things out for himself is
the greatest help a child can have.

[Sidenote: Righteousness]

The formation of the bent of the child's nature as a whole is a matter
of unconscious education, but as he grows in the power to reason,
conscious education must direct his mental activity. It is not enough
for him, as it is not enough for any grown person, to do the best
that he knows; he must learn to know the best. The word righteousness
itself means right-wiseness, i.e., right knowingness.

To quote Froebel again, "In 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,