Children soon learn to distinguish those children and animals, who can, and will, resent cruelty, from those who will not; and therefore, speculate on the results accordingly, and become self-taught up to this point.

A child should never be without a kind and wise guide at this period; that which in itself descends to evil, for the want of a moral guide, may be turned to good.

The faculties mentioned, cannot be extinguished, but can be regulated.
This is the office of the teacher.

Too frequently we try to crush the powers that early want training and regulating.

The same powers which run to vice, may be trained to virtue, but the activities cannot, and ought not, to be kept too much in abeyance.
Children are not naturally cruel, although they differ much in the propensity to annoy and reduce animals and each other under their individual control; the passive submit at once, but the energetic will not; it is then that the active assailant learns an important lesson, which can only be learned in society, and which to him, is of great importance.