It should come sooner, like the kingdom of God, which it is,—­“without observation,” gracious as sunshine, sweet as dew; it should begin with the infant’s first dawning of comprehension that there are two courses of action, two qualities of conduct:  one wise, the other foolish; one right, the other wrong.

I am sure; for I have seen, that a child’s moral perceptions can be so made clear, and his will so made strong and upright, that before he is ten years old he will see and take his way through all common days rightly and bravely.

Will he always act up to his highest moral perceptions?  No.  Do we?  But one right decision that he makes voluntarily, unbiassed by the assertion of authority or the threat of punishment, is worth more to him in development of moral character than a thousand in which he simply does what he is compelled to do by some sort of outside pressure.

I read once, in a book intended for the guidance of mothers, a story of a little child who, in repeating his letters one day, suddenly refused to say A. All the other letters he repeated again and again, unhesitatingly; but A he would not, and persisted in declaring that he could not say.  He was severely whipped, but still persisted.  It now became a contest of wills.  He was whipped again and again and again.  In the intervals between the whippings the primer was presented to him, and he was told that he would be whipped again if he did not mind his mother and say A. I forget how many times he was whipped; but it was almost too many times to be believed.  The fight was a terrible one.  At last, in a paroxysm of his crying under the blows, the mother thought she heard him sob out “A,” and the victory was considered to be won.

A little boy whom I know once had a similar contest over a letter of the alphabet; but the contest was with himself, and his mother was the faithful Great Heart who helped him through.  The story is so remarkable that I have long wanted all mothers to know it.  It is as perfect an illustration of what I mean by “educating” the will as the other one is of what is called “breaking” it.

Willy was about four years old.  He had a large, active brain, sensitive temperament, and indomitable spirit.  He was and is an uncommon child.  Common methods of what is commonly supposed to be “discipline” would, if he had survived them, have made a very bad boy of him.  He had great difficulty in pronouncing the letter G,—­so much that he had formed almost a habit of omitting it.  One day his mother said, not dreaming of any special contest, “This time you must say G.”  “It is an ugly old letter, and I ain’t ever going to try to say it again,” said Willy, repeating the alphabet very rapidly from beginning to end, without the G. Like a wise mother, she did not open at once on a struggle; but said, pleasantly, “Ah! you did not get it in that time.  Try again; go more slowly, and we will have it.”  It was all in vain;