That I must be as flexible as the reed in the fable, lest, by
resisting the tempest, like the oak, I be torn up by the roots. Well,
I'll do the best I can!--There is no great likelihood, I hope, that I
should be too perverse; yet sure, the tempest will not lay me quite level
with the ground, neither.
8. That the education of young people of condition is generally wrong.
Memorandum; That if any part of children's education fall to my lot, I
never indulge and humour them in things that they ought to be restrained
in.
9. That I accustom them to bear disappointments and control.
10. That I suffer them not to be too much indulged in their infancy.
11. Nor at school.
12. Nor spoil them when they come home.
13. For that children generally extend their perverseness from the nurse
to the schoolmaster: from the schoolmaster to the parents:
14. And, in their next step, as a proper punishment for all, make their
ownselves unhappy.
15. That undutiful and perverse children make bad husbands and wives:
And, collaterally, bad masters and mistresses.
16. That, not being subject to be controlled early, they cannot, when
married, bear one another.
17. That the fault lying deep, and in the minds of each other, neither
will mend it.
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