Here we have a proposition which is perhaps seldom denied, but very commonly ignored by those who bring up the young. But Locke seems to have been entirely possessed with this notion, and the greater part of the _Thoughts_ is nothing but a long application of it. The principle which lies at the root of most of his advice, he has himself expressed as follows: “That which I cannot too often inculcate is, that whatever the matter be about which it is conversant whether great or small, the main, I had almost said only thing, to be considered in every action of a child is what influence it will have upon his mind; what habit it tends to, and is likely to settle in him: how it will become him when he is bigger, and if it be encouraged, whither it will lead him when he is grown up.” (_Thoughts_, § 107, p. 86.) Here we see that Locke differed widely from the schoolmasters of his time, perhaps of all time. A man must be a philosopher indeed if he can spend his life in teaching boys, and yet always think more about what they will _be_ and what they will _do_ when their schooling is over than what they will _know_. And in these days if we stopped to think at all we should be trodden on by the examiner.[115] In this respect Locke has not been surpassed. Like his predecessor Montaigne he took for his centre not the object, knowledge, but the subject, man.[116] § 14. In some other respects he does not seem so happy. He makes little attempt to reach a scientific standpoint and to establish general truths about our common human nature. He thinks not so much of the man as the gentleman, not so much of the common laws of the mind as of the peculiarities of the individual child. He even hints that differences of disposition in children render treatises on education defective if not useless. “There are a thousand other things that may need consideration” he writes “especially if one should take in the various tempers, different inclinations, and particular defaults that are to be found in children and prescribe proper remedies. The variety is so great that it would require a volume, nor would that reach it. Each man’s mind has some peculiarity as well as his face, that distinguishes him from all others; and there are possibly scarce two children who can be conducted by exactly the same method: besides that I think a prince, a nobleman, or an ordinary gentleman’s son should have different ways of breeding. But having had here only some general views in reference to the main end and aims in education, and those designed for a gentleman’s son, whom being then very little I considered only as white paper or wax to be moulded and fashioned as one pleases, I have touched little more than those heads which I judged necessary for the breeding of a young gentleman of his condition in general.” (_Thoughts_, § 217, p. 187.)