But, supposing a mother succeeds in keeping her child alive and well, what knowledge does she desire next? She desires to know next how to guide it, influence it, mould its character. She does all these, whether she tries to or not, whether she knows it or not, whether she wishes to or not. Says Horace Mann, "It ought to be understood and felt, that in regard to children all precept and example, all kindness and harshness, all rebuke and commendation, all forms, indeed, of direct or indirect education, affect mental growth, just as dew, and sun, and shower, or untimely frost, affect vegetable growth. Their influences are integrated and made one with the soul. They enter into spiritual combination with it, never afterward to be wholly decompounded. They are like the daily food eaten by wild game, so pungent in its nature that it flavors every fibre of their flesh, and colors every bone in their bodies. Indeed, so pervading and enduring is the effect of education upon the youthful soul, that it may well be compared to a certain species of writing ink, whose color at first is scarcely perceptible, but which penetrates deeper and grows blacker by age, until, if you consume the scroll over a coal-fire, the character will still be legible in the cinders."
In regard to inherited bad traits, the question arises, if even these may not be changed for the better by skilful treatment given at a sufficiently early period. Children inheriting diseased bodies are sometimes so reared as to become healthy men and women. To do this requires watchfulness and wise management. How do we know that by watchfulness and wise management children born with inherited bad traits may not be trained to become good men and women? But the majority of mothers do not watch for such traits. It seldom occurs to them that they should thus watch. Why not bring the subject to the consideration of young women "beforehand," when, being assembled in companies, they are easy of access? It is too late when they are scattered abroad, and burdened each with her pressing family duties. "Forewarned is forearmed."
Some are of the opinion that the badness which comes by inheritance cannot be changed. This is equivalent to believing that there is no help for the evil in the world. Unworthy and vicious parents are continually transmitting objectionable traits to their children, who in turn will transmit them to theirs, and so on to the end of time. Shall we fold our hands, and resign ourselves to the prospect, while our educators go on ignoring the whole matter, and leaving those who might affect a change ignorant that it is in their power to do so?