question to a child, we should avoid letting our own
opinion be known, lest we lead or intimidate his mind. We should also
avoid all appearance of anxiety, all impatience for the answer; our
pupil's mind should be in a calm state when he is to judge: if we turn
his sympathetic attention to our hopes and fears, we agitate him, and
he will judge by our countenances rather than by comparing the objects
or propositions which are laid before him. Some people, in arguing
with children, teach them to be disingenuous by the uncandid manner in
which they proceed; they show a desire for victory, rather than for
truth; they state the arguments only on their own side of the
question, and they will not allow the force of those which are brought
against them. Children are thus piqued, instead of being convinced,
and in their turn they become zealots in support of their own
opinions; they hunt only for arguments in their own favour, and they
are mortified when a good reason is brought on the opposite side of
the question to that on which they happen to have enlisted. To prevent
this, we should never argue, or suffer others to argue for victory
with our pupils; we should not praise them for their cleverness in
finding out arguments in support of their own opinion; but we should
praise their candour and good sense when they perceive and acknowledge
the force of their opponent's arguments. They should not be exercised
as advocates, but as judges; they should be encouraged to keep their
minds impartial, to sum up the reasons which they have heard, and to
form their opinion from these without regard to what they may have
originally asserted. We should never triumph over children for
changing their opinion. "I thought you were on _my_ side of the
question; or, I thought you were on the other side of the question
just now!" is sometimes tauntingly said to an ingenuous child, who
changes his opinion when he hears a new argument. You think it a proof
of his want of judgment, that he changes his opinion in this manner;
that he vibrates continually from side to side: let him vibrate,
presently he will be fixed. Do you think it a proof that your scales
are bad, because they vibrate with every additional weight that is
added to either side?

Idle people sometimes amuse themselves with trying the judgment of
children, by telling them improbable, extravagant stories, and then
ask the simple listeners whether they believe what has been told them.
Th