Reputation. Children, that the Things they delight in, belong to, and are to be enjoyed, by those only, who are in a State of Reputation. If by these Means you can come once to shame them out of their Faults, (for besides that, I would willingly have no Punishment,) and make them in love with the Pleafure of being well thought on, you may turn them as you please, and they will be in love with all the Ways of Vertue.

§. 58. The great Difficulty here is, I imagine, from the Folly and Perverseness of Servants, who are hardly to be hinder'd from crossing herein the Design of the Father and Mother. Children discountenanced by their Parents for any Fault, find usually a Remedy and Retreat in the Caresses of those foolish Flatterers, who thereby undo whatever the Parents endeavour to establish. When the Father or Mother looks sowre on the Child, every Body else should put on the same Carriage to him, and no Body give him Countenance,till Forgiveness asked,and a contrary Carriage restored him to his Esteem and former Credit again. If this

were

were constantly observed, I guess there Reputation. would be little need of Blows, or Chiding: Their own Ease and SatisfaЄtion would quickly teach Children to court Commendation, and avoid doing that which they found every Body condemned, and they were sure to suffer for, without being chid or beaten. This would teach them Modesty and Shame; and they would quickly come to have a natural Abhorrence for that, which they found made them slighted and neglected by every Body. how this Inconvenience from Servants is to be remedied, I can only leave to Parents Care and Consideration; only I think it of great Importance: and they are very happy, who can get discreet People about their Children.

But

§. 59. Frequent Beating or Chiding Shame. is therefore carefully to be avoided, because it never produces any Good, farther than it serves to raise Shame and Abhorrence of the Miscarriage that brought it on them: And if the greatest part of the Trouble be not the Sense that they have done amiss, and the Apprehension that they have drawn

on

on themselves the just Displeasure of their best Friends, the Pain of Whipping will work but an imperfect Cure; it only patches up for the present, and skins it over, but reaches not to the Bottom of the Sore. Shame then, and Apprehension of Displeasure, being that which ought alone to give a Check, and hold the Reins, 'tis impossible but Punishment should lose that Efficacy, when it often returns. Shame has in Children the same Place as Modesty in Women, which cannot be kept, and often transgressed against. And as to the Apprehension of Difpleasure in the Parents, that will come to be very insignificant, if the Marks of that Displeasure quickly cease. And therefore I think, Parents should well consider what Faults in their Children are weighty enough to deserve the Declaration of their Anger: But when their Displeasure is once declared to a Degree, that carries any Punishment with it, they ought not presently to lay by the Severity of their Brows, but to restore their Children to their former Grace with some Difficulty; and delay till their Conformity, and

more

more than ordinary Merit, make good shame. their Amendment. If this be not so ordered, Punishment will be, by Familiarity, but a Thing of Course; and Offending, being punished, and then forgiven, be as natural and ordinary, as Noon, Night, and morning following one another.

§. 60. Concerning Reputation, I Reputation. fhall only remark this one Thing more of it; That though it be not the true Principle and Measure of Vertue, (for that is the Knowledge of a Man's Duty, and the Satisfaction it is, to obey his Maker, in following the Di&tates of that Light God has given him, with the Hopes of Acceptation and Reward,) yet it is that, which comes nearest to it; and being the Teftimony and Applause that other People's Reason, as it were by common Consent, gives to vertuous, and wellordered Actions, is the proper Guide and encouragement of Children, till they grow able to judge for themfelves, and to find what is right, by their own Reason.

§. 61. But if a right Course be taken with Children, there will not be

fo

Reputation. So much need of the Application of the common Rewards and Punishments as

we imagine, and as the general PraЯtice has established: For, All their Childish innocent F0lly, Playing, and Childish

ness.

Actions are to be left perfectly free and unrestrained, as far as they can consist with the Respect due to those that are present; and that with the greatest Allowance. If these Faults of their Age, rather than of the Children themselves, were as they should be, left only to Time and Imitation, and riper Years to cure, Children would escape a great deal of mis-applied and useless Correction; which either fails to over-power the natura Disposition of their Childhood, and so, by an ineffectual Familiarity, makes Corection in other necessary Cases of less use; or else, if it be of force to restrain the natural gaiety of that Age, it serves only to spoil the Temper both of Body and Mind. If the Noise and Bustle of their Play prove at any Time inconve nient, or unsuitable to the Place or Company they are in, (which can only be where their Parents are,) a Look or a Word from the Father or Mother, Mother