After all, it is not right to be impatient with them; for, in nine cases
out of ten, they are no more responsible for their mental limp than the
poor Chinese woman is for her feeble feet. From their infancy up to what
in our comic caricature of words we call "maturity," they have been
bandaged. How should their muscles be good for any thing? From the day
when we give, and take, and arrange the baby's playthings for him, hour by
hour, without ever setting before him to choose one of two and give up the
other, to the day when we take it upon ourselves to decide whether he
shall be an engineer or a lawyer, we persist in doing for him the work
which he should do for himself. This is because we love him more than we
love our own lives. Oh! if love could but have its eyes opened and see!
If we were not blind, we should know that whenever a child decides for
himself deliberately, and without bias from others, any question, however
small, he has had just so many minutes of mental gymnastics,--just so much
strengthening of the one faculty on whose health and firmness his success
in life will depend more than upon any other thing.
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