It must be recognized from the beginning that the work is slow; if it is forced on too fast either a breaking point comes and the child, too much teased into perfection, turns in reaction and becomes self-willed and rebellious; or if, unhappily, the forcing process succeeds, a little paragon is produced like Wordsworth's "model child":-- "Full early trained to worship seemliness, This model of a child is never known To mix in quarrels; that were far beneath Its dignity; with gifts he bubbles o'er As generous as a fountain; selfishness May not come near him, nor the little throng Of flitting pleasures tempt him from his path; The wandering beggars propagate his name.
Dumb creatures find him tender as a nun, And natural or supernatural fear, Unless it leap upon him in a dream, Touches him not.

To enhance the wonder, see How arch his notices, how nice his sense Of the ridiculous; not blind is he To the broad follies of the licensed world, Yet innocent himself withal, though shrewd, And can read lectures upon innocence; A miracle of scientific lore, Ships he can guide across the pathless sea, And tell you all their cunning; he can read The inside of the earth, and spell the stars; He knows the policies of foreign lands; Can string you names of districts, cities, towns, The whole world over, tight as beads of dew Upon a gossamer thread; he sifts, he weighs; All things are put to question; he must live Knowing that he grows wiser every day Or else not live at all, and seeing too Each little drop of wisdom as it falls Into the dimpling cistern of his heart: For this unnatural growth the trainer blame, Pity the tree,"-- "The Prelude," Bk.

V, lines 298-329.
On the other hand if those who have to bring up children, fear too much to cross their inclinations, and so seek always the line of least resistance, teaching lessons in play, and smoothing over every rough peace of the road, the result is a weak, slack will, a mind without power of concentration, and in later life very little resourcefulness in emergency or power of bearing up under difficulties or privations.
We are at present more inclined to produce these soft characters than to develop paragons.

But such movements go in waves and the wave-lengths are growing shorter; we seem now to be reaching the end of a period when, as it has been expressed, "the teacher learns the lessons and says them to the child." We are beginning to outgrow too fervid belief in methods, and pattern lessons, and coming back to value more highly the habit of effort, individual work, and even the saving discipline of drudgery.

_We_ are beginning, that is those who really care for children, and for character, and for life; it takes the State and its departments a long time to come up with the experience of those who actually know living children--a generation is not too much to allow for its coming to this knowledge, as we may see at present, when the drawbacks of the system of 1870 are becoming apparent at last in the eyes of the official world, having been evident for years to those whose sympathies were with the children and not with codes.