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ALFRED T. SCHOFIELD, ESQ., M.D., ON 



true discipline of childhood is by the formation of habits, her 

 marvellous patience pre-eminently qualifies her for carrying 

 out the task. These habits produce railroads for the child's 

 body, mind, and spirit over which it finds it easier to travel than 

 along roads of its own choosing. Indeed, I may paraphrase 

 Solomon's dictum, and say that if we train up a child in the 

 way he should go, when he is old, he will not depart from it — 

 because he cannot. With ease and certainty, the child may 

 thus he taught courtesy, decision, self-respect, obedience, self- 

 control, truthfulness, unselfishness, reverence and much else, 

 as well as habits of cleanliness and health. A habit is conscious 

 action repeated until it is done unconsciously, from which time 

 it becomes an artificial refiex, and forms a part of the character, 

 and will last a lifetime. With constant care any special habit 

 may be formed in about six weeks. If the child should have any 

 bad habits, the surest way of destroying them is to implant the 

 opposite good habit, which in its growth chokes the other. 



The whole of this subject is of the most absorbing interest, 

 as well as of the greatest importance, and were my subject child 

 training, how gladly would I enlarge upon it ! 



The last of the three is the life — or teaching the child, not 

 directly, but indirectly — by example. Here, indeed, both 

 parents reach the summit of their high vocation ; but the part 

 belongs supremely to the woman. And this, not only on account 

 of her psychology, but because she is the head of the home, 

 though the father may be the head of the house, and she is as 

 a rule with the child continuously. What those mothers miss 

 whose poverty obliges themto go out to work, or whose riches 

 enable them to relegate the children entirely to the nursery, is 

 incalculable. 



The character of the child, one may say of the Nation, in 

 the future is, as we have seen, dependent mainly not on heredity, 

 but on the three mighty forces of environment or atmosphere, 

 of discipline or habit, and of an ideal or example in the parents' 

 life, in the much-loved and all-pervading presence of the mother 

 before its eyes. To my mind it is not only the height of folly, 

 but absolutely cruel, to allow girls to become wives and mothers 

 without their acquiring any knowledge of these mighty forces, 

 any idea of the value of their own minds, any insight into these 

 great but simple powers, or any skill in their use. 



Personally, I have done my best to alter this ; but if this brief 

 paper serves in any way to accentuate the importance to the 



