SECTION III. 539 are to get their bread by their hands, should be inured to toil- some and vigorous labours almost from their infancy: they should be accustomed to work in heat and cold, and to bear rougher ex- ercises and fatigues of body, that they may be fit to endure hard- ships, and go through those difficulties which their station of life may call them to, without any injury or inconveniency. And it is desirable that the sons of all families should be in some degree inured to such difficulties as these, which men of all ranks are sometimes called to encounter. If some fond and tender mothers had brought up their chil- dren in this hardy manner, they had not now, in all human pro- bability, been mourning over their graves. In their younger years they would scarcely let them set Me sole of their .foot to the ground, nor suffer the wind to blow upon them : thus they grew up in a state of tenderness and infirmity, sickly and feeble creatures; a sudden heat or a cold seized them ; their natures, which were never accustomed to bear hardship, were unable to resist the enemy ; a fever kindled in their blood, or a catarrh or cough injured their lungs, and early buried their parents' hopes in the dust. Thus I have finished tine second general head of instruction, that is, children should be instructed to exercise and improve their natural powers, both of mind and body i and this is one 'neces- sary part of a good education, which parents and other teachers should attend betimes. SECT. JALSelf-Government. CHILDREN should be instructed in the art of self- government. They should be taught (as far as possible) to govern their thoughts ; to use their wills to be determined by the light of their understandings, and not by head- strong and foolish humour ; they. should learn to keep the lower powers of nature under the command of their reason : they should be instructed to regulate their senses, their imagination, their ap- petites, and their passions. Let it he observed that I speak of these things in this place, not as a part of religion, though they are an important part of it, but give it as a direction ex- ceedingly useful to all the purposes of human life in this world. 1. Their thoughts and fancies should be brought under early government. Children should be taught, as far as possi- ble, to keep their thoughts and attention fixed upon what is their proper business; and to withhold them from roving and wander- ing away from the work in which they are engaged. Many children have such wild fluttering fancies, that they will not be easily confined to fix upon one object for any considerable time : every flying feather, every motion of any person or thing that is near them, every sound, or noise, or shadow, calls them away
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy OTcyMjk=