§44. A compliance and suppleness of their wills, being by a steady hand introduced by parents, before children have memories to retain the beginnings of it, will seem natural to them, and work afterwards in them as if it were so, preventing all occasions of struggling or repining. The only care is, that it be begun early, and inflexibly kept to till awe and respect be grown familiar, and there appears not the least reluctancy in the submission, and ready obedience of their minds. When this reverence is once thus established, (which it must be early, or else it will cost pains and blows to recover it, and the more the longer it is deferred) ’tis by it, still mixed with as much indulgence as they make not an ill use of, and not by beating, chiding, or other servile punishments, they are for the future to be governed as they grow up to more understanding.
§45. That this is so, will be easily allowed, when it is but considered, what is to be aimed at in an ingenuous education; and upon what it turns.
- He that has not a mastery over his inclinations, he that knows not how to resist the importunity of present pleasure or pain, for the sake of what reason tells him is fit to be done, wants the true principle of virtue and industry, and is in danger never to be good for anything. This