Parents are apt to leave training in Self-compelling Power to the schoolmaster––Now it is this sort of ‘bringing under’ that parents are apt to leave to the schoolmaster. They do not give their children the discipline which results in self-compelling power; and by-and-by, when they make over the task to another, the time for training in the art of self-mastery has gone by, and a fine character is spoiled through indolence and wilfulness.
‘But why will it not do to leave it to the schoolmaster to make a child “sit up”? It is natural for a child to be left free as a bird in matters of no moral significance. We would not let him tell lies, but if he hate his lessons, that may be Nature’s way of showing he had better let them alone.’