120 MOEAL CONDITION OF THE CHILD 



love the beautiful, the true, the chaste; does he 

 love to study, to investigate, to discover facts and 

 truths? Each one of these tastes is like a hook 

 on which may be securely fastened certain moral 

 appeals in the after life. Appeals have influence 

 not because of their own weight and justness, but 

 rather because of the reaction that the nature 

 makes to which the appeal is made. So in the 

 first or second childhood we are arranging the 

 conditions on which future conquests may be se- 

 cured. This chance lost, and after-efforts will 

 have little effect. Habits, which are originally 

 merely habits' imposed by the parent, come later 

 to be rationalized, adopted, and made the basis 

 of feeling and intellectual attitudes. 



SECTION II. SECOND CHILDHOOD. 



Many conceive of the nature of a child as an 

 infolded being like a rosebud. The petals, the sta- 

 mens, and every element are already there in the 

 form in which they will afterwards be manifested. 

 One may take the rose and analyze it and find 

 all of these parts as they will afterwards appear 

 in the complete rose. It may change its color and 

 acquire toughness of texture as it opens, but noth- 

 ing new will be added to it as it unfolds. Such 

 is a rather popular conception of the child. Many 

 do not conceive of the possibility of adding any- 

 thing to his nature or putting anything into his 

 character. They think of the child as having a 



