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Untitled Article
made manifest to himself by the act of speaking them out to me , and I am enabled to help him to compare himself with himself , and to point him to further exertions . To-night he and S . were playing in the garden , and he wheeled S . in his wheelbarrow .
S . then tried to wheel him , but could not , whereupon J . began to scoff at S . * Never mind , S ., ' said B . ; ' once , do you know , I could not wheel this barrow full of cones ; and , I dare say , next year you will be able to wheel me , and I shall be able to wheel the gardener ' s barrow full of weeds and rubbish ; don ' t you think
we shall , mamma ? ' This little speech was delicious to me ; it was just what I wished or expected to see ; his habit of self-observation had taught him the improvability of human beings , and so far from exulting in the superiority the moment gave him over S ., he was sobered by the reflection , that as yet he could not manage the gardener ' s wheelbarrow . Teach the being to be emulous of himself , and he will never be the victim of emulation of others ,
but will for ever be straining after perfection . I never say to B . ' You do so and so better or worse than C . or E ., but always , 'Can you manage so and so better than you did a month ago ? ' 'How long has it taken you , ' or ' how long do you think it will take you to learn so and so ? ' The fact i 3 , that he scarcely ever thinks of comparing himself with others ; but he seldom closes his eyea
without scheming for the morrow the perfecting of to-day ' s enterprise , or undertaking some new work which to-day ' s labours have suggested . So we are slowly and pleasantly climbing the ladder , step by step , without noting who is above or who is beneath us . Give ' the love of excellence , * and ' the love of excelling- ' will never spring up and shadow the heart .
June . —* How sweetly the birds sing / said C . do they sing on Sunday V What a quantity of false notion must have been inculcated to produce such a question , Joy and sweetness were , in her idea , far removed from the Sunday . To my thinking , A . ' s feeling was perfect . When eight years old , he proposed that he and his brothers and sisters should do the work of the house , in
order to allow the servants that rest , leisure , and pleasure , which , he observed , they had not on the week day . His proposal was accepted , and nothing could be more beautiful than to see the zeal with which the children carried out the plan , and the sincere pleasure that they felt in hearing from the servants on Monday
morning the history of their visits to some beautiful spot or other in the neighbourhood , or to their friends . This was , indeed , to keep holy tne Sabbath day . &ept . — ' Do not eat any more plums , C , they will make you ill . ' ' Wel v said she , half-laughing , ' all nice things are bad for us ; I don ' t know how that is . ' This was the feeling of six years old , what will that of sixty be on this subject ? Nov . — -I have invariabl y observed in children a taste for imitating the occupations of men . As babies almost , they have
Untitled Article
556 . Memoranda of Obtervation *
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Aug. 2, 1834, page 556, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2636/page/26/
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