A Full Life: The Works of Charlotte Mason

No Spartan Regimen––I am not advising any Spartan regimen. It is not permitted to us to inflict hardness in order that the children may learn to endure. Our care is simply to direct their consciousness from their own sensations. The well-known anecdote of the man who, before the days of chloroform, had his leg cut off without any conscious sensations of pain, because he determinedly kept his mind occupied with other things, is an extreme but instructive instance of what may be done in this direction. At the same time, though the child himself be taught to disregard them, his sensations should be carefully watched by his elders, for they must consider and act upon the danger signals which the child himself must be taught to disregard. But it is usually possible to attend to a child’s sensations without letting him know they have been observed.