“Mighty prophet!  Seer blest,
      On whom those truths do rest
  Which we are toiling all our lives to find;”

if you are a fair-minded man or woman, and have had much experience with young children, you will be compelled to confess that they generally have a tolerably clear sense of right and wrong, needing only gentle guidance to choose the right when it is put before them.  I say most, not all, children; for some are poor, blurred human scrawls, blotted all over with the mistakes of other people.  And how do we treat this natural sense of what is true and good, this willingness to choose good rather than evil, if it is made even the least bit comprehensible and attractive?  In various ways, all equally dull, blind, and vicious.  If we look at the downright ethical significance of the methods of training and discipline in many families and schools, we see that they are positively degrading.  We appoint more and more “monitors” instead of training the “inward monitor” in each child, make truth-telling difficult instead of easy, punish trivial and grave offenses about in the same way, practice open bribery by promising children a few cents a day to behave themselves, and weaken their sense of right by giving them picture cards for telling the truth and credits for doing the most obvious duty.  This has been carried on until we are on the point of needing another Deluge and a new start.

Is it strange that we find the moral sense blunted, the conscience unenlightened?  The moral climate with which we surround the child is so hazy that the spiritual vision grows dimmer and dimmer,—­and small wonder!  Upon this solid mass of ignorance and stupidity it is difficult to make any impression; yet I suppose there is greater joy in heaven over a cordial “thwack” at it than over most blows at existing evils.

The kindergarten attempts a rational, respectful treatment of children, leading them to do right as much as possible for right’s sake, abjuring all rewards save the pleasure of working for others and the delight that follows a good action, and all punishments save those that follow as natural penalties of broken laws,—­the obvious consequences of the special bit of wrong-doing, whatever it may be.  The child’s will is addressed in such a way as to draw it on, if right; to turn it willingly, if wrong.  Coercion in the sense of fear, personal magnetism, nay, even the child’s love for the teacher, may be used in such a way as to weaken his moral force.  With every free, conscious choice of right, a human being’s moral power and strength of character increase; and the converse of this is equally true.