spect to any
statement which they make, that the case is not one of those in which, for
reasons not manifest to us, they think it is expedient--that is, conducive
in some way to good--to state what is not true.

While, therefore, we must allow children a reasonable time to bring their
minds to a full sense of the obligation of making their words always
conform to what is true, instead of shaping them so as best to attain their
purposes for the time being--which is the course to which their earliest
natural instincts prompt them--and must deal gently and leniently with
their incipient failures, we must do all in our power to bring them forward
as fast as possible to the adoption of the very highest standard as their
rule of duty in this respect; inculcating it upon them, by example as well
as by precept, that we can not innocently, under any circumstances, to
escape any evil, or to gain any end, falsify our word. For there is no evil
so great, and no end to be attained so valuable, as to justify the adoption
of a principle which destroys all foundation for confidence between man and
man.

CHAPTER XVII.

JUDGMENT AND REASONING.

It is a very unreasonable thing for parents to expect young children to be
reasonable. Being reasonable in one's conduct or wishes implies the taking
into account of those bearings and relations of an act which are more
remote and less obvious, in contradistinction from being governed
exclusively by those which are immediate and near. Now, it is not
reasonable to expect children to be influenced by these remote
considerations, simply because in them the faculties by which they are
brought forward into the mind and invested with the attributes of reality
are not yet developed. These faculties are all in a nascent or formative
state, and it is as idle to expect them, while thus immature, to fulfill
their functions for any practical purpose, as it would be to expect a baby
to expend the strength of its little arms in performing any useful labor.

_Progress of Mental Development_.

The mother sometimes, when she looks upon her infant lying in her arms, and
observes the intentness with which he seems to gaze upon objects in the
room--upon the bright light of the window or of the lamp, or upon the
pictures on the wall--wonders what he is thinking of. The truth probably is
that he is not thinking at all; he is simply _seeing_--that is to say, the
light from external objects is entering his