A Full Life: The Works of Charlotte Mason

Response of Docility to Authority, a Natural Function.––So far as the daily routine of small obediences goes, we help them thus to fulfil a natural function––the response of docility to authority. It may be said that a child who has acquired the habit of involuntary obedience has proportionately lost power as a free moral agent; but, as the acts of obedience in question are very commonly connected some physical effort, as, ‘Make haste back,’ ‘Sit straight,’ ‘Button your boots quickly,’––they belong to the same educational province as gymnastic exercises, the object of which is the masterly use of the body as a machine capable of many operations.  Now, to work a machine such as a typewriter or a bicycle, one must, before all things, have practice; one must have got into the way of working it involuntarily, without giving any thought to the matter: and to give a child this power over himself––first in response to the will of another, later, in response to his own, is to make a man of him.