older people, say their prayers, to fight occasionally in order
to be strong. But who teaches the new souls to choose for
themselves the path they must tread? Who thinks that the desire
for this path of their own can be so profound that a hard or
even mild pressure towards uniformity can make the whole of
childhood a torment.

The child comes into life with the inheritance of the preceding
members of the race; and this inheritance is modified by
adaptation to the environment. But the child shows also
individual variations from the type of the species, and if his
own character is not to disappear during the process of
adaptation, all self-determined development of energy must be
aided in every way and only indirectly influenced by the
teacher, who should understand how to combine and emphasise the
results of this development.

Interference on the part of the educator, whether by force or
persuasion, weakens this development if it does not destroy it
altogether.

The habits of the household, and the child's habits in it must
be absolutely fixed if they are to be of any value. Amiel truly
says that habits are principles which have become instincts,
and have passed over into flesh and blood. To change habits, he
continues, means to attack life in its very essence, for life
is only a web of habits.

Why does everything remain essentially the same from generation
to generation? Why do highly civilised Christian people