nt scolding,
and threatening, and forbidding, by which many parents induce a
chronic irritation, in a foolish hope that they will thus make their
children what they should be."

[Sidenote: Rules in Character Building]

In conclusion, the rules that may be safely followed in
character-building may be summed up thus:

(1) Recognize that the object of your training is to help the child to
love righteousness. Command little and then use positive commands
rather than prohibitions. Use "do" rather than "don't."

(2) Make right-doing delightful.

(3) Establish Fichte's doctrine of right, see page 64.

(4) Teach by example rather than precept. Therefore respect the
child's rights as you wish him to respect yours.

(5) Use a low voice, especially in commanding or rebuking.

(6) In chiding, remember Richter's rule and rebuke the sin and not the
sinner.

(7) Confess your own misdeeds, by this means and others securing the
confidence of your children.

Finally, remember that this is an imperfect world, you are an
imperfect mother, and the best results you can hope for are likely
to be imperfect. But the results may be so founded upon eternal
principles as to tend continually to give place to better and better
results.

[Footnote A: Pestalozzi, Educator, Philosopher, and Reformer. Author
of "How Gertrude Teaches Her Children."]

[Footnote B: "What a Young Girl Ought to Know" and "What a Young Woman
Ought to Know" by Dr. Mary Wood Allen. "What a Young Boy Ought to
Know," "What a Young Man Ought to Know," by Rev. Sylvanus Stall.]

PLAY

Although Froebel is best known as the educator who first took
advantage of play as a means of education, he was not, in reality, the
first to recognize the high value of this spontaneous activity. He was
indeed the first to put this recognition into practice and to use the
force generated during play to help the child to a higher state of
knowledge.

But before him Plato said that the plays of children have the
mightiest influence on the maintenance or the non-maintenance of laws;
that during the first three years the child should be made "cheerful"
and "kind" by having sorrow and fear and pain kept away from him and
by soothing him with music and rhythmic movements.

[Sidenote: Aristotle]

Aristotle held that children until they were five years old "should be
taught nothing, not even necessary labor, lest it hinder growth, but
should be accustomed to use much motion a