The sufferings of childhood seem to us trifling and easy to endure, because time has interposed distance between them and us; and we have no fear of ever meeting them again. It does not cease to be a fact, that the child that passes a year under the discipline of the ferule of a severe master, is as unhappy as a man deprived a year of his liberty. The latter, in truth, has less reason to complain; since he ought to find, in the discipline of his reason, and his maturity and force of character, more powerful motives for patient endurance. Parents! Providence has placed the destiny of your children in your hands. When you thus sacrifice the present to an uncertain future, you ought to have strong proof that you will put at their disposal the means of indemnification. If the sacrifice of the present to the future were indispensable, I would not dissuade from it. But my conviction is, that the best means of preparing them for the future may be found in rendering them as happy as possible for the present. If it should be your severe trial to be deprived of them in their early days, you will, at least, have the consolation of being able to say, ‘I have rendered them happy during the short time they were confided to me.’ Strive then, by gentleness, guided by wisdom and authority, to cast the sunshine of enjoyment upon the necessary toils and studies of the morning of their existence. It is the stern award of nature to bring them sorrows. Our task is to soothe them. I feel an interest when I see the child regret the trinket it has broken, or the bird it has reared. Nature in this way, gives them the first lessons of pain, and strengthens them to sustain the more bitter losses of maturer days. Let us prudently second the efforts of nature; and to console the weeping child, let us not attempt to change the course of these fugitive ideas, nor to efface the vexation by a pleasure. In unavoidable suffering let the dawning courage and reason find strength for endurance. Let us first share the regrets, and gently bring the sufferer to feel the inutility of tears. Let us accustom him not to throw away his strength in useless efforts; and let us form his mind to bear without a murmur the yoke of necessity. These maxims, I am aware, are directly against the spirit of modern education, which is almost entirely directed towards the views of ambition.