There is, perhaps, nothing more irksome to children than to listen to advice given to them in a direct and simple form, and perhaps there is nothing that has less influence upon them in the formation of their characters than advice so given.

And there is good reason for this; for either the advice must be general, and of course more or less abstract, when it is necessarily in a great measure lost upon them, since their powers of generalization and abstraction are not yet developed; or else, if it is practical and particular at all, it must be so with reference to their own daily experience in life--in which case it becomes more irksome still, as they necessarily regard it as an indirect mode of fault-finding.
Indeed, this kind of advice is almost certain to assume the form of half-concealed fault-finding, for the subject of the counsel given would be, in almost all cases, suggested by the errors, or shortcomings, or failures which had been recently observed in the conduct of the children.
The art, then, of giving to children general advice and instruction in respect to their conduct and behavior, consists in making it definite and practical, and at the same time contriving some way of divesting it entirely of all direct application to themselves in respect to their _past_ conduct.

Of course, the more we make it practically applicable to them in respect to the future the better.
There are various ways of giving advice of this character.

It requires some ingenuity to invent them, and some degree of tact and skill to apply them successfully.

But the necessary tact and skill would be easily acquired by any mother whose heart is really set upon finding gentle modes of leading her child into the path of duty.
_James and his Cousins_.
James, going to spend one of his college vacations at his uncle's, was taken by his two cousins, Walter and Ann--eight and six years old--into their room.