for a
short time, however great it may be. Anger, they know, is a
short-lived passion, and they do not scruple running the hazard of
exciting anger in the hearts of those they love the best in the world.
The experience of lasting, sober disapprobation, is intolerably
irksome to them; any inconvenience which continues for a length of
time, wearies them excessively. After they have endured, as the
consequence of any actions, this species of punishment, they will long
remember their sufferings, and will carefully avoid incurring, in
future, similar penalties. Sudden and transient pain appears to be
most effectual with persons of an opposite temperament.

Young people, of a torpid, indolent temperament, are much under the
dominion of habit; if they happen to have contracted any disagreeable
or bad habits, they have seldom sufficient energy to break them. The
stimulus of sudden pain is necessary in this case. The pupil may be
perfectly convinced, that such a habit ought to be broken, and may
wish to break it most sincerely; but may yet be incapable of the
voluntary exertion requisite to obtain success. It would be dangerous
to let the habit, however insignificant, continue victorious, because
the child would hence be discouraged from all future attempts to
battle with himself. Either we should not attempt the conquest of the
habit, or we should persist till we have vanquished. The confidence,
which this sense of success will give the pupil, will probably, in his
own opinion, be thought well worthy the price. Neither his reason nor
his will was in fault; all he wanted, was strength to break the
diminutive chains of habit; chains which, it seems, have power to
enfeeble their captives exactly in proportion to the length of time
they are worn.

Every body has probably found, from their own experience, how
difficult it is to alter little habits in manners, pronunciation, &c.
Children are often teased with frequent admonitions about their habits
of sitting, standing, walking, talking, eating, speaking, &c. Parents
are early aware of the importance of agreeable, graceful manners;
every body who sees children, can judge, or think that they can judge,
of their manners; and from anxiety that children should appear to
advantage in company, parents solicitously watch all their gestures,
and correct all their attitudes according to that image of the "_beau
ideal_," which happens to be most fashionable. The most convenient and
natural