Who Teaches Early…

“Every man must or other be trusted to himself.”

Pursuing further this thought and theme, we would share some observations as to fathers and sons, as to parents an children, and the urgent need for the earliest possible teaching and training: ” Would you have your son obedient to you when past a child”; asked John Locke, “be sure then to…imprint it in his infancy;…so shall you have him…obedient…whilst he is a child, and your affectionate friend when he is a man…For the time must come, when [he] will be past the rod and correction;…and he that is a good, a virtuous, and able man, must be made so within. And therefor what he is to receive form education, what is to sway and influence his life, must be habits woven into the very principles of his nature,… The little, or almost insensible impressions on our tender infancies, have very important and lasting consequences.”

There is an old Greek proverb, often quoted, which says in substance: “He gives twice who gives quickly.” It could be paraphrased to say, “He teaches twice who teaches early”—not convenient only, not at some too long delayed a time, but when children are young, when they are with us—and not by what we tell them only, but by the living impressions we live upon their lives—impressions they cannot and will not forget whether they are with us or without.

From John Locke we cite this sentence: “For you must take this for a certain truth, that let them have what instructions you will, and ever so learned lectures…daily inculcated into them, that which will most influence their carriage will be the company they converse with, and the fashion of those about them.”