Everything is to him a model--of manner, of gesture, of speech, of habit, of character.

"For the child," says Richter, "the most important era of life is that of childhood, when he begins to colour and mould himself by companionship with others.

Every new educator effects less than his predecessor; until at last, if we regard all life as an educational institution, a circumnavigator of the world is less influenced by all the nations he has seen than by his nurse." [112] Models are therefore of every importance in moulding the nature of the child; and if we would have fine characters, we must necessarily present before them fine models.
Now, the model most constantly before every child's eye is the Mother.
One good mother, said George Herbert, is worth a hundred schoolmasters.
In the home she is "loadstone to all hearts, and loadstar to all eyes." Imitation of her is constant--imitation, which Bacon likens to "a globe of precepts." But example is far more than precept.

It is instruction in action.

It is teaching without words, often exemplifying more than tongue can teach.