The
general principle is, however, well established; and if understood, even as
a general principle, by parents and teachers, it will greatly modify their
action in dealing with the incessant restlessness and activity of the
young. It will teach them, among other things, the following practical
rules:

_Practical Rules_.

1. Never find fault with children for their incapacity to keep still. You
may stop the supply of force, if you will, by refusing to give them food;
but if you continue the supply, you must not complain of its manifesting
itself in action. After giving your boy his breakfast, to find fault with
him for being incessantly in motion when his system has absorbed it, is
simply to find fault with him for being healthy and happy. To give children
food and then to restrain the resulting activity, is conduct very analogous
to that of the engineer who should lock the action of his engine, turn all
the stop-cocks, and shut down the safety-valve, while he still went on all
the time putting in coal under the boiler. The least that he could expect
would be a great hissing and fizzling at all the joints of his machine; and
it would be only by means of such a degree of looseness in the joints as
would allow of the escape of the imprisoned force in this way that could
prevent the repression ending in a frightful catastrophe.

Now, nine-tenths of the whispering and playing of children in school, and
of the noise, the rudeness, and the petty mischief of children at home, is
just this hissing and fizzling of an imprisoned power, and nothing more.

In a word, we must favor and promote, by every means in our power, the
activity of children, not censure and repress it. We may endeavor to turn
it aside from wrong channels--that is, to prevent its manifesting itself in
ways injurious to them or annoying to others. We must not, however, attempt
to divert it from these channels by damming it up, but by opening other
channels that will draw it away in better directions.

2. In encouraging the activity of children, and in guiding the direction
of it in their hours of play, we must not expect to make it available for
useful results, other than that of promoting their own physical development
and health. At least, we can do this only in a very limited degree. Almost
all useful results require for their attainment a long continuance of
efforts of the same kind--that is, expenditure of the vital force by the
continued action of th