MR RUSKIN AND CHILDREN.

Te Aroha News, Volume IV, Issue 175, 23 October 1886, Page 7 (Supplement)

MR RUSKIN AND CHILDREN.

"If I have a faculty for anything in thia world," he says, "it is for teaching children,.and making them good, and perfectlj happy going alone. My 'whole principle is thatj no government ia of the, least use except self-government, and the worst children will do right, if told which is right and wrong, and they muet act for themselves. Then I have a fashion, told me by a % friend when Francesca, was a, baby; which is thia — never see evil, but praise good ; for instance}., if children are/ untidy do not find fault, nor appear to notice it, but the first timci possible praise them for being neat and fresh, and they will Boon becomjr so. I daresay you can account for this. I cannot* hut I have tried it many times and have never' known it fail. I have other ideas* but you might not approve of them — the; religious instruction I limited to paying mv little friends for learning Dr. Wattate 14 Though I'm now in younger days," but I Buppose that, like my system generally, i» hopelessly old-fashioned. Very young children can learn this verse from it : I'll not willingly offend, Nor be easily offended ; What's amiss I'll strive to mend. And endure what can't be mended* "There was an old American' sea- captain who said he had been many times round the world comfortably by the help of this verse," Suppose you all try how far, and how com* fortably, you can get along that ever widening pathway of your own little lives by its aid. ,