rising how slight a change in the mere
outward incidents of an affair will suffice to divert the thoughts of the
child from himself in such a case, and enable him to look at the lesson to
be imparted without personal feeling, and so to receive it more readily.

Johnny's mother may say, "There might be a story in a book about two boys
that were disputing a little about which was the tallest. What do you think
would be good names for the boys, if you were making up such a story?"

When Johnny has proposed the names, his mother could go on and give an
almost exact narrative of what took place between Johnny and his cousin,
offering just such instructions and such advice as she would like to offer;
and she will find, if she manages the conversation with ordinary tact and
discretion, that the lessons which she desires to impart will find a ready
admission to the mind of her child, simply from the fact that, by divesting
them of all direct personal application, she has eliminated from them the
element of covert censure which they would otherwise have contained. Very
slight disguises will, in all such cases, be found to be sufficient to veil
the personal applicability of the instruction, so far as to divest it of
all that is painful or disagreeable to the child. He may have a vague
feeling that you mean him, but the feeling will not produce any effect of
irritation or repellency.

Now, the object of these illustrations is to show that those errors and
faults which, when we look at their real and intrinsic character, we see to
be results of ignorance and inexperience, and not instances of willful
and intentional wrong-doing, are not to be dealt with harshly, and made
occasions of censure and punishment. The child does not deserve censure
or punishment in such cases; what he requires is instruction. It is the
bringing in of light to illuminate the path that is before him which he has
yet to tread, and not the infliction of pain, to impress upon him the evil
of the missteps he made, in consequence of the obscurity, in the path
behind him.

Indeed, in such cases as this, it is the influence of pleasure rather than
pain that the parent will find the most efficient means of aiding him; that
is, in these cases, the more pleasant and agreeable the modes by which he
can impart the needed knowledge to the child--in other words, the more
attractive he can make the paths by which he can lead his little charge
onward in its progress towa