“See how pretty they look!  And how nicely the work went on while we were making them!  That was because you obeyed me so well while we were doing it.  You did exactly as I said in every thing.”

A Beginning only.

Now this was an excellent first lesson in training the children to the habit of obedience.  It is true that it was only a first lesson.  It was a beginning, but it was a very good beginning.  If, on the following day, Mary had given the children a command which it would be irksome to them to obey, or one which would have called for any special sacrifice or self-denial on their part, they would have disregarded it.  Still they would have been a little less inclined to disregard it than if they had not received their first lesson; and there can be no doubt that if Mary were to continue her training in the same spirit in which she commenced it she would, before many weeks, acquire a complete ascendency over them, and make them entirely submissive to her will.

And yet this is a species of training the efficacy of which depends on influences in which the hope of reward or the fear of punishment does not enter.  The bouquets were not promised to the children at the outset, nor were they given to them at last as rewards.  It is true that they saw the advantages resulting from due subordination of the inferiors to the superior in concerted action, and at the end they felt a satisfaction in having acted right; but these advantages did not come in the form of rewards.  The efficacy of the lesson depended on a different principle altogether.

The Philosophy of it.

The philosophy of it was this:  Mary, knowing that the principle of obedience in the children was extremely weak, and that it could not stand any serious test, contrived to bring it into exercise a great many times under the lightest possible pressure.  She called upon them to do a great many different things, each of which was very easy to do, and gave them many little prohibitions which it required a very slight effort of self-denial on their part to regard; and she connected agreeable associations in their minds with the idea of submission to authority, through the interest which she knew they would feel in seeing the work of gathering the flowers and making the bouquets go systematically and prosperously on, and through the commendation of their conduct which she expressed at the end.

Such persons as Mary do not analyze distinctly, in their thoughts, nor could they express in words, the principles which underlie their management; but they have an instinctive mental perception of the adaptation of such means to the end in view.  Other people, who observe how easily and quietly they seem to obtain an ascendency over all children coming within their influence, and how absolute this ascendency often becomes, are frequently surprised at it.  They think there is some mystery about it; they say it is “a knack that some people have;” but there is no mystery about it at all, and nothing unusual or strange, except so far as practical good sense, considerate judgment, and intelligent observation and appreciation of the characteristics of childhood are unusual and strange.