He who would draw disciples does not trust to force, but to these three things--to the attraction of his doctrine, to the persuasion of his presentation, to the enthusiasm of his disciples; so the parent has teachings of the perfect life which he knows how to present continually with winning force until the children are quickened with such zeal for virtue and holiness as carries them forward with leaps and bounds. Again, the teacher does not indoctrinate his pupils all at once, but here a little and there a little, steady progress on a careful plan; so the parent who would have his child a partaker of the Divine nature has a scheme, an ascending scale of virtues, in which he is diligent to practise his young disciple. He adds to the faith with which the child is so richly dowered virtue, and to virtue, knowledge, and to knowledge, self-control. Having practised his child in self-control, he trains him in patience, and to patience he adds godliness, and to godliness, kindness, and to kindness, love. These, and such as these, wise parents cultivate as systematically and with as definite results as if they were teaching the “three R’s.” But how? The answer covers so wide a field that we must leave it for another chapter. Only this here--every quality has its defect, every defect has its quality. Examine your child; he has qualities, he is generous; see to it that the lovable little fellow, who would give away his soul, is not also rash, impetuous, self-willed, passionate, “nobody’s enemy but his own.” It rests with parents to make low the high places and exalt the valleys, to make straight paths for the feet of their little son. CHAPTER VIII _THE CULTURE OF CHARACTER_ PART I “What get I from my father? Lusty life and vigorous will; What from my gentle mother? Cheerful days and poet’s skill,”[6] says Goethe; for poets, like the rest of us, are born, not made, and get the most of what they are from their parents. But it did not take poet or modern scientist to discover this; people have known it time out of mind. Like father, like child, they said, and were satisfied; for it was not the way in earlier days to thresh out the great facts of life. Not so now; we talk about it and about it; call it _heredity_, and take it into count in our notions, at any rate, if not in our practice. Nobody writes a biography now without attempting to produce progenitors and early surroundings that shall account for his man or his woman. This fact of heredity is very much before the public, and by-and-by will have its bearing on the loose notions people hold about education. In this sort of way--“Harold is a bright little boy, but he hasn’t the least power of attention.”