erning them; in all their
commands and prohibitions, in the distribution of praise and blame, of
reward and punishment, there must be unanimity. Where there does not
exist this unanimity in families; where parents have not sufficient
firmness to prevent the interference of acquaintance, and sufficient
prudence to keep children _from all private communication with
servants_, we earnestly advise that the children be sent to some
public seminary of education. We have taken some pains to detail the
methods by which all hurtful communication between children and
servants, in a well regulated family, may be avoided, and we have
asserted, from the experience of above twenty years, that these
methods have been found not only practicable, but easy.

In the chapters on Obedience, Temper and Truth, the general principle,
that pleasure should excite to exertion and virtue, and that pain
should be connected with whatever we wish our pupils to avoid, is
applied to practice with a minuteness of detail which we knew not how
to avoid. Obedience we have considered as a relative, rather than as a
positive, virtue: before children are able to conduct themselves,
their obedience must be rendered habitual: obedience alters its nature
as the pupil becomes more and more rational; and the only method to
secure the obedience, the willing, enlightened obedience of rational
beings, is to convince them by experience, that it tends to their
happiness. Truth depends upon example more than precept; and we have
endeavoured to impress it on the minds of all who are concerned in
education, that the first thing necessary to teach their pupils to
love truth, is in their whole conduct to respect it themselves. We
have reprobated the artifices sometimes used by preceptors towards
their pupils; we have shown that all confidence is destroyed by these
deceptions. May they never more be attempted! May parents unite in
honest detestation of these practices! Children are not fools, and
they are not to be governed like fools. Parents who adhere to the firm
principle of truth, may be certain of the respect and confidence of
their children. Children who never see the example of falsehood, will
grow up with a simplicity of character, with an habitual love of
truth, that must surprise preceptors who have seen the propensity to
deceit which early appears in children who have had the misfortune to
live with servants, or with persons who have the habits of meanness
and c