Character and Conduct – 12 December – Moral Education

SELF-government with tenderness, – here you have the condition of all authority over children.   The child must discover in us no passion, no weakness of which he can make use;  he must feel himself powerless to deceive or to trouble us;  then he will recognise in us his natural superiors, and he will attach a special value to our kindness, because he will respect it.   The child who can rouse in us anger, or impatience, or excitement, feels himself stronger than we, and a child only respects strength.   The mother should consider herself as her child’s sun, a changeless and ever radiant world, whither the small restless creature, quick at tears and laughter, light, fickle, passionate, full of storms, may come for fresh stores of light, warmth and electricity, of calm and of courage.   The mother represents goodness, providence, law;  that is to say, the divinity under that form of it which is accessible to childhood.   If she is herself passionate, she will inculcate on her child a capricious and despotic God, or even several discordant gods.   The religion of a child depends on what its mother and its father are, and not on what they say.   The inner and unconscious ideal which guides their life is precisely what touches the child;  their words, their remonstrances, their punishments, their bursts of feeling, even, are for him merely thunder and comedy;  what they worship – this it is which his instinct divines and reflects.

The child sees what we are, behind what we wish to be.   Hence his reputation as a physiognomist.   He extends his power as far as he can with each of us;  he is the most subtle of diplomatists.   Unconsciously he passes under the influence of each person about him, and reflects it while transforming it after his own nature.   He is a magnifying mirror.   This is why the first principle of education is: train yourself;  and the first rule to follow if you wish to possess yourself of a child’s will is: master your own. 

Amiel’s Journal

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These quotes are from ‘Character and Conduct’ A selection of helpful thoughts from various authors arranged for daily reading.

Collected by Constance M Whishaw and first published in 1905 as a follow up to her volume of Daily Readings for members of the Being and Doing Guild who asked for an additional volume

In her preface Whishaw writes:

‘This collection of noble thoughts expressed by men and women of past and present ages who have endeavoured to leave the world a little better than they found it.’

It is my hope in publishing them here is that readers may be inspired to imitate the example of the authors.