scarcely be able to know them apart. But if this be true of the
old, how much more true is it of the young, whose plastic natures
are so much more soft and impressionable, and ready to take the
stamp of the life and conversation of those about them!

"There has been," observed Sir Charles Bell in one of his letters,
"a good deal said about education, but they appear to me to put
out of sight EXAMPLE, which is all-in-all. My best education was
the example set me by my brothers. There was, in all the members
of the family, a reliance on self, a true independence, and by
imitation I obtained it." (1)

It is in the nature of things that the circumstances which
contribute to form the character, should exercise their principal
influence during the period of growth. As years advance, example
and imitation become custom, and gradually consolidate into habit,
which is of so much potency that, almost before we know it, we
have in a measure yielded up to it our personal freedom.

It is related of Plato, that on one occasion he reproved a boy for
playing at some foolish game. "Thou reprovest me," said the boy,
"for a very little thing." "But custom," replied Plato, "is not a
little thing." Bad custom, consolidated into habit, is such a
tyrant that men sometimes cling to vices even while they curse
them. They have become the slaves of habits whose power they
are impotent to resist. Hence Locke has said that to create
and maintain that vigour of mind which is able to contest the
empire of habit, may be regarded as one of the chief ends
of moral discipline.