208 MOEAL CONDITION OF THE CHILD 



is fitted to receive command without interruption 

 or disturbance of his proper development. This 

 authoritative direction should be supplied to him 

 just as food is supplied to his body, as unswerv- 

 ingly as the planets in their course. So, if we will 

 give him proper direction, we will secure from 

 him proper action. And still, as he acts so he is. 

 The vessel is not yet full. Every time he acts 

 aright he is still dropping a grain of selfhood 

 down into his character, against the day when 

 he must take up moral self -direction for himself. 

 On authority as a fundamental law of being, 

 Dr. Charles H. Parkhurst has the following 

 thoughtful words: "Parents do well to foster in 

 their children a liberty-loving spirit; but liberty 

 is a positive matter, and not a negative, and con- 

 sists not in what we renounce but in what we 

 espouse. We emancipate ourselves, not in what 

 we tear ourselves lose from, but in what we tie 

 ourselves up to ; and the only liberty fit to be set 

 up in the home, or anywhere else, as an object of 

 admiration and an end to be attained, is the lib- 

 erty that fulfills itself in zealous adherence to ex- 

 ternal authority, not in its rejection. Liberty is 

 a genius for obeying, and consists not in our 

 successful escape from ordinance, but in the 

 graceful facility with which we are able to exe- 

 cute it. It is the liberty to do consciously what 

 the flower does unconsciously when, without con- 

 straint and without revolt, it accomplishes the 



