The same Rule Parents should observe, thro’ the stated Actions of every Day; that is to say, at Rising, Breakfast, Dressing, School, Dinner, Supper, and Bed-time; all are to be under such Regulation, that no Opposition or Untowardness obstruct the Order of their Designs: these I call the stated Actions, because they are things that constantly and regularly return; and Parents should by all Means habituate their Children to consider them as Acts of Obedience and Duty that must be readily complied with. On this Head I earnestly recommend, that Parents introduce Order and Method among their Children; by laying out their Time, and allotting different Hours in the Day for different Exercises; by which Means all will go smoothly on, and render their various Employments extremely easy. Here I cannot help observing, how ready People are to give opprobrious Names to what they dislike or are Strangers to. A Man, because he does not love Order, or does not understand it, endeavours to brand it with the Epithet of Formality; whereas in reality, nothing considerable or truly important can be carried on without it. How comes it, that, besides the Artizans, and other Day-labouring Men, we so regularly see the Clerk in his Office, the Merchant upon Change, the Physician with his Patient, and the Judge on the Bench? but because the Nature of our various Employments in Life require it, and because Order is the Soul of Action. To be convinced of this, we need but view the first Elements of Learning, where we find Letters and Figures always ranged in the same exact Order. But we may go farther, by observing, that Logicians teach us the Arrangement even of our Ideas; so indispensably necessary is Order and Method for the conducting us through Life. But while I urge the Usefulness and Necessity of Order, I would not be understood to mean a rigorous and starch’d Preciseness in all we do; on the contrary, I have already recommended, that Parents endeavour to give their Children an easy and a graceful Air. I am very sensible, that as in the Productions of Nature there is often displayed a beautiful Irregularity, thus Order and stated Times may be dispensed with, in some of the greatest Actions the Soul of Man is capable of. And as in Wit the sudden Propriety of the Thought and Expression makes the Beauty of it; so in the Exigencies of Life, an unpremeditated Act of Benevolence, doubly proves the Goodness of the Heart from which it flows: still as Judgment is superior to Wit, so Order is superior to Irregularity.