122 MOEAL CONDITION OF THE CHILD 



empty until it is filled. But by some rather ex- 

 ceptional mode of reasoning they are ready to act 

 on this theory concerning his moral and religious 

 nature. 



The view is just as untrue morally as it is 

 mentally. No doubt at birth there are certain ele- 

 ments given that can with difficulty and only par- 

 tially be changed. These are all implications of 

 the nervous constitution; it will be very hard to 

 modify that or defy its workings. If we know 

 the nerve weaknesses we may protect him at that 

 point and secure to him a different and a longer 

 career than would be afforded by the average en- 

 vironment. The nerve qualities will aid or defeat 

 the avocation in life. They may make possible 

 or impossible the career of a musician, and modify 

 to a degree the possible success in various other 

 pursuits. But it is quite an extreme to say the 

 child is a born musician, or poet, or mathemati- 

 cian. It is better to think of him as an empty 

 vessel of a certain size and texture. He is made 

 so that he can hold certain things and a certain 

 amount; but the vessel has nothing in it yet. It 

 will never have in it anything that is not put in it. 

 It will be very hard to put into it something that 

 it was not made to hold, or to make it hold more 

 than nature constructed it for. Yet no one in 

 advance can profitably estimate the character- 

 capacity of a child. I think the prognosticates 

 would have missed it on Abraham Lincoln by very 

 large measurements. We can not make a brute 



