I propose in the present lecture to cast a glance at the moral training which the normal child receives before it enters school, and the moral outfit which it may be expected to bring with it at the time of entering. Fortunately, it is not necessary to go very deeply into the study of development of conscience for this purpose. A few main points will suffice for our guidance.
_First Point._--The moral training of a child can be begun in its cradle. Regularity is favorable to morality. Regularity acts as a check on impulse. A child should receive its nourishment at stated intervals; it should become accustomed to sleep at certain hours, etc. If it protests, as it often does vigorously enough, its protests should be disregarded. After a while its cries will cease, it will learn to submit to the rule imposed, and the taking of pleasure in regularity and the sense of discomfort when the usual order is interrupted become thenceforth a part of its mental life. I do not maintain that regularity itself is moral, but that it is favorable to morality because it curbs inclination. I do not say that rules are always good, but that the life of impulse is always bad. Even when we do the good in an impulsive way we are encouraging in ourselves a vicious habit. Good conduct consists in regulating our life according to good principles; and a willingness to abide by rules is the first, the indispensable condition of moral growth. Now, the habit of yielding to rules may be implanted in a child even in the cradle.
_Second Point._--A very young child--one not older than a year and a half--can be taught to obey, to yield to the parent's will. A child a year and a half old is capable of adhering to its own will in defiance of the expressed will of father or mother. In this case it should be constrained to yield. We shall never succeed in making of it a moral person if it does not realize betimes that there exists a higher law than the law of its will. And of this higher law, throughout childhood, the parent is, as it were, the embodiment. When I say that obedience can be exacted of a child of such tender age, that a child so young is capable of deliberately opposing the will of the parent, I speak from experience. I know a certain little lady who undertook a struggle with her father precisely in the way described. The struggle lasted fully thirty-five minutes by the clock. But when it was over, the child stretched out her little arms and put up her lips to be kissed, and for days after fairly clung to her father, showing him her attachment in the most demonstrative manner. Nor should this increase of affectionateness excite surprise--it is the proper result of a conflict of this sort between father and child when conducted in the right spirit. The child is happy to be freed from the sway of its wayward caprice, to feel that its feeble will has been taken up into a will larger and stronger than its own.