The stamp
that she leaves on the earliest years of training is never entirely
effaced; it remains as some instinct of faith, a habit of resignation
to the will of God, and habitual recourse to prayer. Both these types
of educators rule by their gift from God, and it is hard to believe
that the most finished training in the art of nursery management can
produce anything like them, for they govern by those things that
lectures and handbooks cannot teach--faith, love, and common sense.
Those who take up the training of the next stage have usually to learn
by their own experience, and study what is given to very few as a
natural endowment--the art of so managing the wills of children that
without provoking resistance, yet without yielding to every fancy,
they may be led by degrees to self-control and to become a law to
themselves. It must be recognized from the beginning that the work is
slow; if it is forced on too fast either a breaking point comes and
the child, too much teased into perfection, turns in reaction and
becomes self-willed and rebellious; or if, unhappily, the forcing
process succeeds, a little paragon is produced like Wordsworth's
"model child":--
"Full early trained to worship seemliness,
This model of a child is never known
To mix in quarrels; that were far beneath
Its dignity; with gifts he bubbles o'er
As generous as a fountain; selfishness
May not come near him, nor the little throng
Of flitting pleasures tempt him from his path;
The wandering beggars propagate his name.
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