To quote Froebel again, “In order, therefore, to impart true, genuine firmness to the natural will-activity of the boy, all the activities of the boy, his entire will should proceed from and have reference to the development, cultivation, and representation of the internal.  Instruction in example and in words, which later on become precept and example, furnishes the means for this.  Neither example alone, nor words will do; not example alone, for it is particular and special, and the word is needed to give the particular individual example universal applicability; not words alone, for example is needed to interpret and explain the word, which is general, spiritual, and of many meanings.

“But instruction and example alone and in themselves are not sufficient; they must meet a good pure heart and this is the outcome of proper educational influences in childhood.”

[Sidenote:  Moral Precocity]

Lest these directions should seem to demand an almost superhuman degree of control and wisdom on the part of the mother, remember that moral precocity is as much to be guarded against a mental precocity.  Remember that you are neither required to be a perfect mother nor to rear a perfect child.  As Spencer remarks, a perfect child in this imperfect world would be sadly out of joint with the times, would indeed be a martyr.  If your basic principles are right and if your child has before him the daily and hourly spectacle of a mother who is trying to conform herself to high standards, he will grow as fast as it is safe for him to grow.  Spencer says:  “Our higher moral faculties like our higher intellectual ones, are comparatively complex.  As a consequence they are both comparatively late in their evolution, and with the one as with the other, a very early activity produced by stimulation will be at the expense of the future character.  Hence the not uncommon fact that those who during childhood were instanced as models of juvenile goodness, by and by undergo some disastrous and seemingly inexplicable change, and end by being not above but below par; while relatively exemplary men are often the issue of a childhood not so promising.

“Be content, therefore, with moderate measures and moderate results, constantly bearing in mind the fact that the higher morality, like the higher intelligence, must be reached by a slow growth; and you will then have more patience with those imperfections of nature which your child hourly displays.  You will be less prone to constant scolding, and threatening, and forbidding, by which many parents induce a chronic irritation, in a foolish hope that they will thus make their children what they should be.”

[Sidenote:  Rules in Character Building]

In conclusion, the rules that may be safely followed in
character-building may be summed up thus: 

(1) Recognize that the object of your training is to help the child to love righteousness.  Command little and then use positive commands rather than prohibitions.  Use “do” rather than “don’t.”