A good character consists in the readiness to act according to moral principles, which the inner reason gives us as necessary and universal laws. The youth, therefore, must be taught to honor reason, and be allowed to exercise his inner freedom of personality. But in the case of younger children things are different. Reason is not yet developed in them, so they must first begin by following the external reason exercised for them--namely, they must be accustomed to give prompt obedience to the objective laws assigned by parents or schools. And although willing obedience is desirable and important, even “absolute” obedience is necessary to prepare the child “for the fulfilment of laws that he will have to obey later, as a citizen, even though he may not like them” (2: p. 86). Of course, it goes without saying, that these laws assigned by teachers or parents should always represent the universal laws, not their caprice or arbitrary will. Kant is not so rigorous in regard to the moral education of children as he is in his moral metaphysics. He admits a place for “inclination,” and permits use to be made of children’s instinct of fear. Yet he still makes a plea for the inculcation of the sense of duty, saying: “Even though a child should not be able to see the reason of a duty, it is nevertheless better that certain things should be prescribed to him in this way; for, after all, a child will always be able to see that he has certain duties as a child, while it will be more difficult for him to see that he has certain duties as a human being” (2: p. 87). The duties they have to perform must be placed, as far as possible, by examples and rules. According to Kant, the child’s duty toward himself consists in “being conscious that man possesses a certain dignity, which ennobles him above all other creatures,” and in “so acting as not to violate in his own person this dignity of mankind” (2: p. 101). Uncleanness, lying, and the like should be most effectively taught as unbecoming to mankind and degrading to oneself, and at the critical period of adolescence, the idea of dignity of man can alone suffice to keep young men in bound. The child’s duty toward others consists in the recognition of the dignity of mankind in the personality of others--namely, in justice. “A child should learn early to reverence and respect the rights of others, and we must be careful to see that his reverence is realized in his actions” (2: p. 102). Generosity is a virtue beyond the child’s comprehension and power. As to benevolence, it is well to arouse the sympathies of children, “not so much to feel for the sorrows of others as to a sense of their duty to help them” (2: p. 104). Children ought to be prevented from contracting a habit of sentimental, maudlin, sympathy, which is really nothing else than the delicacy of sensitiveness, and is “an evil, consisting as it does merely in lamenting over a thing” (2: p. 97).