dness, and
to follow after the ways of wisdom. Where such obedience is a
settled habit of the entire household, it easily, and, as it were,
unconsciously, becomes the habit of the child. Where such obedience is
not the habit of the household, it is only with great difficulty that
it can become the habit of the child. His will must set itself against
its instinct of imitativeness, and his small house, not yet quite
built, must be divided against itself. Probably no cold even rendered
entire obedience to any adult who did not himself hold his own wishes
in subjection. As Emerson says, "In dealing with my child, my Latin
and my Greek, my accomplishments and my money, stead me nothing,
but as much soul as I have avails. If I a willful, he sets his will
against mine, one for one, and leaves me, if I please, the degradation
of beating him by my superiority of strength. But, if I renounce my
will and act for the soul, setting that up as an umpire between us
two, out of his young eyes looks the same soul; he reveres and loves
with me."

[Sidenote: Negative Goodness]

Suppose the child to be brought to such a stage that he is willing to
do anything his father or mother says; suppose, even, that they never
tell him to do anything that he does not afterwards discover to be
reasonable and just; still, what has he gained? For twenty years
he has not had the responsibility for a single action, for a single
decision, right or wrong. What is permitted is right to him; what
is forbidden is wrong. When he goes out into the world without his
parents, what will happen? At the best he will not lie, or steal, or
commit murder. That is, he will do none of these things in their bald
and simple form.

But in their beginnings these are hidden under a mask of virtue and
he has never been trained to look beneath that mask; as happened to
Richard Feveril,[D] sin may spring upon him unaware. Some one else,
all his life, has labeled things for him; he is not in the habit of
judging for himself. He is blind, deaf, and helpless--a plaything of
circumstances. It is a chance whether he falls into sin or remains
blameless.

[Sidenote: Real Disobedience]

Disobedience, then, in a true sense, does not mean failure to do as he
is told to do. It means failure to do the things that he knows to
be right. He must be taught to listen and obey the voice of his own
conscience; and if that voice should ever speak, as it sometimes
does, differently from the v