[Character by Samuel Smiles]@TWC D-Link bookCharacter CHAPTER III 3/39
But if this be true of the old, how much more true is it of the young, whose plastic natures are so much more soft and impressionable, and ready to take the stamp of the life and conversation of those about them! "There has been," observed Sir Charles Bell in one of his letters, "a good deal said about education, but they appear to me to put out of sight EXAMPLE, which is all-in-all.
My best education was the example set me by my brothers.
There was, in all the members of the family, a reliance on self, a true independence, and by imitation I obtained it." [121] It is in the nature of things that the circumstances which contribute to form the character, should exercise their principal influence during the period of growth.
As years advance, example and imitation become custom, and gradually consolidate into habit, which is of so much potency that, almost before we know it, we have in a measure yielded up to it our personal freedom. It is related of Plato, that on one occasion he reproved a boy for playing at some foolish game.
"Thou reprovest me," said the boy, "for a very little thing." "But custom," replied Plato, "is not a little thing." Bad custom, consolidated into habit, is such a tyrant that men sometimes cling to vices even while they curse them.
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