These are the things I had to offer on the Part of Manners; these are the Steps I have already in great measure taken with my own Children, and these the Sentiments I wish to inspire them with. If therefore, as general Laws, they are equally applicable to others, my presenting them in Print will, I hope, be consider’d with the same Candour they are offered. But notwithstanding what has already been said, Parents have still much to do. To keep up the Spirit of Government, they must constantly remember that Nature and Reason are to be their Guides: if we distort Nature, our Children will be preposterous Figures; and if we banish Reason, they will be Brutes or Monsters. Parents must remember too, that it is not for themselves that they labour to train up their Children in Order, Obedience, and Knowledge; there must be no self-pointed Views, no Pride, no Dispositions to tyrannise over their own Flesh and Blood; these are Motives unworthy a Place in any Parent’s Breast. Their principal Aim must be to make their Children happy, by making them wise and good; and if they succeed herein, so much Happiness will be reflected back on themselves as will amply reward all their Labours. But they must not stop even here; tho’ this Design is noble, they should have a nobler yet in view; that is, the universal Good of Mankind: ’tis too narrow a Good that seeks itself alone; Children must therefore be animated by their Parents with all those Virtues that will make them dear and valuable to Society. Now what Chance is there that Children will come on the Stage of Life with the necessary Requisites, unless due Pains are taken to mould and temper their Hearts, to form their Minds, and cultivate their Understandings? Mr. _Pope_, after labouring to prove for what End we are in being, what Good we are to pursue, and what Evil avoid, concludes, “that all our Knowledge is ourselves to know.” If then this Self-knowledge is of such vast Importance for the securing our Happiness even in a moral Sense, and is so very difficult to be attained; surely Parents are under the highest Obligation to their Children of improving every Means within their Reach, for the gaining this only true Philosopher’s Stone. The End, as Philosophers agree, is the first thing in the Intention; but the Means to attain that End are surely, in the Case before us, either but little known, or little practised; else we should not see such daily and grievous Mistakes committed in the training up our little Offspring; nor such a continued Chain of Vice, Folly, and Ignorance, as is the general Result of this mistaken Manners, this want of Self-knowledge.