much
together, and from fear of the strong becoming tyrants, and the weak
slaves, it had been thought prudent to separate them a good deal. It
was believed that they would consequently grow fonder of each
other's company, and that they would enjoy it more as they grew more
reasonable, from not having the recollection of anything
disagreeable in each other's tempers. But my father became
thoroughly convinced that the separation of children in a family may
lead to evils greater than any partial good that can result from it.
The attempt may induce artifice and disobedience on the part of the
children; the separation can scarcely be effected; and, if it were
effected, would tend to make the children miserable. He saw that
their little quarrels, and the crossings of their tempers and
fancies, are nothing in comparison with the inestimable blessings of
that fondness, that family affection which grows up among children,
who have with each other an early and constant community of
pleasures and pains. Separation as a punishment, as a just
consequence of children's quarrelling, and as the best means of
preventing their disputes, he always found useful. But, except in
extreme cases, he had rarely recourse to it, and such seldom
occurred. . . . The greatest change, which twenty years further
experience made in his practice and opinions in education, was to
lessen rather than to increase regulations and restrictions. He saw
that, where there is liberty of action, one thing balances another;
that nice calculations lead to false results in practice, because we
cannot command all the necesssary circumstances of the data. . . .

'For many years of his life he had, I think, been under one
important mistake, in his expectations relative to the conduct of
his fellow-creatures, and of the effects of cultivating the human
understanding. He had believed that, if rational creatures could be
made clearly to see and understand that virtue will render them
happy, and vice will render them miserable, either in this world or
in the next, they would afterwards, in consequence of this
conviction, follow virtue, and avoid vice. . . .

'Hence, both as to national and domestic education, he formerly
dwelt principally upon the cultivation of the understanding, meaning
chiefly the reasoning faculty as applied to the conduct. But to see
the best, and to follow it, are not, alas! necessary consequences of
each other. Resolution is often wanting where co