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"How is the young mind to be enlightened upon the principles of piety and religion; and how is the young heart to be duly impressed with those principles? The former is effected by the usual modes of inculcating truth. The authorized canons of moral law are to be analyzed and presented in a manner to gain the assent of the understanding. The process should be simple and lucid, but complete and forcible, so that no one escape legitimate inferences from well-established propositions. For instance: the child is taught to look upon himself, not as the production of his own will and might, but as the work of some foreign agency. Hence, in an important sense, he belongs not to himself, but to the Being who created him. To this Being he must, of course, be under an irreversible allegiance. Nor does he find himself existing in the world alone. He is in the midst of multitudes, on whom he is, in a measure, dependent for the supply of his wants. To them, also, by the same process of reasoning, he is owing a species of allegiance. These are truths which even the young child may be enabled to comprehend. But the more difficult task is to impress duly the young heart with the belief of these truths. Something, without doubt, may be done, as in the other case, by abstract syllogisms; yet that gush of virtuous affection, which gives amiability to the human character, requires an additional instrument. They may give motion to the mental organization; but in their action are as unsympathetic as any material mechanism with which we are acquainted. In giving activity to social impulses, some new and peculiar energy is to be exerted. The heart must be made to feel, as well as to know what is truth; must be made to expand and contract from its own vitality, as well as receive impressions from external agencies. It is believed that symbolic language is the most efficient in developing the latent moral and social attributes of the soul. This language steals, as it were, unperceived upon the sensibilities of the young disciple of moral truth. He finds himself completely enclosed amid its soft filaments as a first result; and the more he meditates on the truth presented to his mind, the more does he become enraptured with the picture. The compiler of this volume has long considered the writings of Dr. Percival, as richly abounding in the description of symbolic language most happily adapted to this desirable end. In making the selection from his posthumous works, in order to complete the volume, it was necessary to select from more miscellaneous sources several articles of a kindred character"--Preface. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2008 APA, all rights reserved).

Moral education. --- Child rearing.