TRAINING FOR CHARACTER. 763 



It is a law of some of the motions we are talking of that exer- 

 cise perfects them ; we can, therefore, to a certain degree, hasten 

 their development. But we must be very careful how we do this, 

 for every premature exercise is accompanied by dangers ; all pre- 

 cocity is paid for in bad money. The precept, follow Nature, is 

 especially pertinent in the earlier years. Then, more than ever, 

 Nature takes her revenge if we try to hurry her and do violence 

 to her. No artificial excitations. They are rarely necessary, and 

 are dangerous. 



People sometimes ask, At what age can we seat a child in a 

 chair ; when put him on his legs ; how old must he be before we 

 teach him to walk ? The answers are easy. He must not be made 

 to sit till he has spontaneously sat up in his bed and has been able 

 to hold his seat. This sometimes happens in the sixth or seventh 

 month, sometimes later. The sitting position is not without dan- 

 ger, even when he takes it himself ; imposed prematurely upon 

 him, it tires the backbone and may interfere with the growth, so 

 the child should never be taught to stand or to walk. That is his 

 affair, not ours. Place him on a carpet in a healthy room or in 

 the open air, and let him play in freedom, roll, try to go ahead on 

 his hands and feet, or go backward, which he will do more suc- 

 cessfully at first, it all gradually strengthens and hardens him. 

 Some day he will manage to get upon his knees, another day to go 

 forward upon them, and then to raise himself up against the chairs. 

 He thus learns to do all he can, as fast as he can, and no more. 



But, they say, he will be longer in learning to walk if he is left 

 to go on his knees or his hands and feet indefinitely. What differ- 

 ence does it make if, exploring the world in this way, he becomes 

 acquainted with things, learns to estimate distances, strengthens 

 his legs and back, prepares himself, in short, to walk better when 

 he gets to walking ? The important thing is, not whether he 

 walks now or then ; but that he learn to guide himself, to help 

 himself, and to have confidence in himself. I hold, without exag- 

 geration, that education of the character is going on at the same 

 time with training in locomotion, and that the way one learns to 

 walk is not without moral importance. From different points of 

 view, but for reasons identical at the bottom, hygienists and 

 moralists agree in disapproving of leading-strings. In a moral 

 and physical sense, the pre-eminent educating agent is liberty, 

 natural activity, unfolding itself without constraint under a dis- 

 creet surveillance that is limited to removing grave changes and 

 preventing real faults. The necessity of such surveillance is 

 otherwise evident from the fact that the body of the child, on ac- 

 count of its extreme suppleness, takes every sort of wrinkle, if we 

 may speak thus, with equal facility. Vigilance at every moment 

 is all that can prevent it from contracting every kind of vicious 



