for let me tell you, though it be but in light and trivial matters (wherein yet a child may have as strong affections, as a plodding man to gain a great estate) it will interpretatively be a teaching them to lye, or be unfaithful, which natural pravity will easily promote. Not only speeches, but gestures, fashions, and all kind of habits are soon learned by example, because man is of all creatures the most mimical or apt to imitate, especially what affects him in those he esteems; this being a kind of adjunct to Reason: we know the little Children had learned to mock the Prophet to their cost; Go up thou Bald-pate, Go up thou Bald-pate(w). As many men are known by their Associates they much converse with and delight in, who yet carry it so smoothly, they are not otherwise discovered; and so are the ill-manners of some Parents by some of their Children. Wherefore all should observe a good decorum, lest they should give occasion to any of their Children to say as that evil one, who told his Father‖, If I have done ill, I learned it of you. It much behoves Parents to do all things so, that they may not make themselves cheap and despicable(x), and cannot but be advantageous to a child's education, to have his Parents keep a good port in all things: which put Pliny † into that pathetic exclamation in one of his Epistles,4 O! you are an happy young man, who have him above all to imitate, to whom nature would have you be most like. 2. Rules of morality, or necessary documents of civility, which teach due respect to every one. These are requisite to the formation and culture of manners, that Children may learn how to behave themselves to Domestics, to those that are elder and younger, to Ministers of the Gospel, to School-masters, to Equals, Acquaintance, ⟨p. 415⟩Friends, Strangers, in all places, on all occasions, at home, abroad, in the School, in the Church; business, recreations; company, solitude, in secret, public; in mourning, joy; under benefits, injuries, in praise, dispraise; flatteries, reproaches, jests, serious matters; various and uncertain changes of affairs, wherein special Rules cannot be prescribed to reach every case, but general precepts which may engage evermore to things lawful and honest: and instruct them with their distance and relation.
for let me tell you, though it be but in light and trivial matters (wherein yet a child may have as strong affections, as a plodding man to gain a great estate) it will interpretatively be a teaching them to lye, or be unfaithful, which natural pravity will easily promote. Not only speeches, but gestures, fashions, and all kind of habits are soon learned by example, because man is of all creatures the most mimical or apt to imitate, especially what affects him in those he esteems; this being a kind of adjunct to Reason: we know the little Children had learned to mock the Prophet to their cost; Go up thou Bald-pate, Go up thou Bald-pate(w). As many men are known by their Associates they much converse with and delight in, who yet carry it so smoothly, they are not otherwise discovered; and so are the ill-manners of some Parents by some of their Children. Wherefore all should observe a good decorum, lest they should give occasion to any of their Children to say as that evil one, who told his Father‖, If I have done ill, I learn'd it of you. It much behoves Parents to do all things so, that they may not make themselves cheap and despicable(x), and cannot but be advantageous to a child's education, to have his Parents keep a good port in all things: which put Pliny † into that pathetick exclamation in one of his Epistles,4 O! you are an happy young man, who have him above all to imitate, to whom nature would have you be most like. 2. Rules of morality, or necessary documents of civility, which teach due respect to every one. These are requisite to the formation and culture of manners, that Children may learn how to behave themselves to Domesticks, to those that are elder and younger, to Ministers of the Gospel, to School-masters, to Equals, Acquaintance, ⟨p. 415⟩Friends, Strangers, in all places, on all occasions, at home, abroad, in the School, in the Church; business, recreations; company, solitude, in secret, publique; in mourning, joy; under benefits, injuries, in praise, dispraise; flatteries, reproaches, jests, serious matters; various and uncertain changes of affairs, wherein special Rules cannot be prescribed to reach every case, but general precepts which may engage evermore to things lawful and honest: and instruct them with their distance and relation.
- (w)2 Kings 2.23, 24, Dignoscitur socio, qui non noscitur è see.2 Kings 2.23, 24, Dignoscitur socio, qui non noscitur è se.
- ‖Si malè feci; à te didici.
- (x)Tit. 2.15.
- 4O te beatum Adolescentum! qui cum potissimum imitandum habes, cui natura te simillimum esse voluit. Lib, 8. Epist. 13. Bod. in Eph.
