Green-Mountain freeman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1844-1884, 1848-02-03
BY N. GEORGE CLARK.

published by the request of the Associ.tion)
SUBJECT:--" Influence of the Habits formed IN the
School, Room upon the Character Of The Child IN after
lJe
Education has a two-fold o ect; the impartng of
knowledge and the formation of right habits. In com
parson with the vast field of investigation open before
US, the former must be limited. Considered in its re-
suits the latter hardly be said to have any limits.
Our whole character depends upon ourinellectua and
moral habits These constitute our principal inherit
they make up the outfit that parents and teach
give us wherewth to seek our fortunes; they are
the means, the first principles given, whereby each
man is to solve for himself the problem of life. They
form much stock in trade, good or bad, on which
will always be gain of the sane in kind, exposed
neither to accident of wind, food, or fire. In this
land, the great inequality in the character and fortunes
of men depends mainly upon habits formed by them
selves. BY them may sink himself below the
beasts that PERISH he may take out patent of his
own nobility of mightier significance than any of
prncely or royal imposition, fashioned by his
tive energy, and sealed on the tablets of his own
heart.
The formation of these habits belongs to our early
years, and once formed they are permanent
Turn river across a plain. It seems at first to
make very little difference where its course shall be-
Slight obstacles may hinder its current in this drec-
ton slight causes may set it in that, but once deter
mined, there it continues to flow. A channel is soon
formed, growing ever deeper and deeper. Time,
ages pass on and we look again for that river. The
plain has been cleft asunder by deep wide valley,
and as we descend, deposites of gravel rocks,
attest the presence of once flowing stream; TILL at
last reach that river, still flowing onstill wearing
the rock-stll deepening and deepening its channel.
1t cannot be changed again.
So too in our early life it often seems 10 depend on
the merest accident to the direction in which the
current of human thought and feeling shall flow. Yet
how important that direction! The moulding of our
mental and moral character depends on it. The clear
distinct outlines by which our individuality is marked
depend on it, growing ever more distinct by lapse OF
time Our influence upon others depends upon what
these outlines shall appear to them They become
the dress, the habits, of our intellectual life,-thc
modes of our acting and being,-the medium through
which we become visible to the gaze of other men,
through which we act on others, and are acted on b.
them.
know of physician whose mind was turned
his profession when mere child, by seeing physical
of neighborng town ride past with fne horse an
carriage. The eye of the child sees in the dasbin
equpOge his ideal of life and, associatng this with tn
physicians profession, in due time the man becomes
physician. How many of us can refer equally strkin
tendencies OF the mind to apparently trhng causes
How many wanderers have been recalled to virtue
the remembrance of mothers hand or mother
prayer? How then shall we estimate the shaping thu
can be given minds by the constant series Of in
pressions made in the School room? These impre
sions are ever making, they cannot be hindered The
are becoming the means for the minds clear and e.
ergec action, or the letters to bind and encase 70