And yet, after all, indiscriminate flogging is so bad, and the average teacher is so inadequate to that hardest and most tactful of all his varied duties, viz., selecting the right outcrop of the right fault of the right child at the right time and place, mood, etc., for best effect, that the bold statement of such principles as above is perhaps not entirely without practical danger, especially in two cases which Madame Necker and Sigismund have pointed out, and in several cases of which the present writer has notes. First, an habitually good child sometimes has a saturnalia of defiance and disobedience; a series of insubordinate acts are suddenly committed which really mark the first sudden epochful and belated birth of the instinct of independence and self-regulation, on which his future manliness will depend. He is quite irresponsible, the acts are never repeated, and very lenient treatment causes him, after the conflict of tumultuous feelings has expanded his soul, to react healthfully into habitual docility again, if some small field for independent action be at once opened him. The other case is that of _ennui_, of which children suffer such nameless qualms. When I should open half a dozen books, start for a walk, and then turn back, wander about in mind or body, seeking but not finding content in anything, a child in my mood will wish for a toy, an amusement, food, a rare indulgence, only to neglect or even reject it petulantly when granted. These flitting "will-spectres" are physical, are a mild form of the many fatal dangers of fatigue; and punishment is the worst of treatment. Rest or diversion is the only cure, and the teacher's mind must be fruitful of purposes to that end. Perhaps a third case for palliative treatment is, those lies which attend the first sense of badness. The desire to conceal it occasionally accompanies the nascent effort to reform and make the lie true. These cases are probably rare, while the temptation to lie is far greater for one who does ill than for one who does well, for fear is the chief motive, and a successful lie which concealed would weaken the desire to cure a fault.
We have thus far spoken of obedience, and come now to the later necessity of self-guidance, which, if obedience has wrought its perfect work, will be natural and inevitable. It is very hard to combine reason and coercion, yet it is needful that children think themselves free long before we cease to determine them. As we slowly cease to prescribe and begin to inspire, a very few well-chosen mottoes, proverbs, maxims, should be taught very simply, so that they will sink deep. Education has been defined as working against the chance influences of life, and it is certain that without some precepts and rules the will will not exert itself. If reasons are given, and energy is much absorbed in understanding, the child will assent but will not do. If the mind is not strong, many wide ideas are very dangerous. Strong wills are not fond of arguments, and if a young person falls to talking or thinking beyond his experience, subjective or objective, both conduct and thought are soon confused by chaotic and incongruous opinions and beliefs; and false expectations, which are the very seducers of the will, arise. There can be little will-training by words, and the understanding can not realize the ideals of the will. All great things are dangerous, as Plato said, and the truth itself is not only false but actually immoral to unexpanded minds. Will-culture is intensive, not extensive, and the writer knows a case in which even a vacation ramble with a moralizing fabulist has undermined the work of years. Our precepts must be made very familiar, copiously illustrated, well wrought together by habit and attentive thought, and above all clear cut, that the pain of violating them may be sharp and poignant. Vague and too general precepts beyond the horizon of the child's real experience do not haunt him if they are outraged. Now the child must obey these, and will, if he has learned to obey well the command of others.