, considering it a matter of
course that he should tell the truth. We reserve our action altogether for
the first case when, overcome by a sudden temptation, he tells a lie, and
then interpose with reproaches and punishment. Nineteen times he gives up
what belongs to his little brother or sister of his own accord, perhaps
after a severe internal struggle. The twentieth time the result of the
struggle goes the wrong way, and he attempts to retain by violence what
does not belong to him. We take no notice of the nineteen cases when the
little fellow did right, but come and box his ears in the one case when he
does wrong.

_Origin of the Error_.

The idea on which this mode of treatment is founded--namely, that it is
a _matter of course_ that children should do right, so that when they do
right there is nothing to be said, and that doing wrong is the abnormal
condition and exceptional action which alone requires the parent to
interfere--is, to a great extent, a mistake. Indeed, the _matter of course_
is all the other way. A babe will seize the plaything of another babe
without the least compunction long after it is keenly alive to the
injustice and wrongfulness of having its own playthings taken by any other
child. So in regard to truth. The first impulse of all children, when they
have just acquired the use of language, is to use it in such a way as to
effect their object for the time being, without any sense of the sacred
obligation of making the words always correspond truly with the facts. The
principles of doing justice to the rights of others to one's own damage,
and of speaking the truth when falsehood would serve the present purpose
better, are principles that are developed or acquired by slow degrees, and
at a later period. I say developed _or_ acquired--for different classes of
metaphysicians and theologians entertain different theories in respect to
the way by which the ideas of right and of duty enter into the human mind.
But all will agree in this, that whatever may be the origin of the moral
sense in man, it does not appear as a _practical element of control for the
conduct_ till some time after the animal appetites and passions have begun
to exercise their power. Whether we regard this sense as arising from a
development within of a latent principle of the soul, or as an essential
element of the inherited and native constitution of man, though remaining
for a time embryonic and inert, or as a habit acquired