I have always found horses, animals I am attached to, very
tractable when treated with humanity and steadiness, so that I
doubt whether the violent methods taken to break them, do not
essentially injure them; I am, however, certain that a child
should never be thus forcibly tamed after it has injudiciously
been allowed to run wild; for every violation of justice and
reason, in the treatment of children, weakens their reason. And,
so early do they catch a character, that the base of the moral
character, experience leads me to infer, is fixed before their
seventh year, the period during which women are allowed the sole
management of children. Afterwards it too often happens that half
the business of education is to correct, and very imperfectly is
it done, if done hastily, the faults, which they would never have
acquired if their mothers had had more understanding.
