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A child may be said to be taught when in words we clearly convey to his mind any truth or enjoin upon his conscience any precept. He is trained when we ourselves so pass before him, in practical illustration of the truth and precept, that he is drawn along after us in the same way. The principle applies peculiarly to moral and religious instruction. Suppose you wish to instruct a child in benevolence or charity. You tell him what it inclines one to do for the needy and suffering; you dilate upon the beautiful sentiments which the exercise of it incites in one's own breast; you refer to distinguished examples of it that have blessed the world. All this is teaching. But now, again, you take your child by the hand, and lead him with you into some abode of poverty and want; you let him see with you the necessitous situation of the inmates of that cold and ill-provided dwelling; he marks the yearning of your heart towards them, and his heart swells in sympathy; the satisfaction that exhilarates your soul he shares as you freely give the needed aid; he witnesses the whole reciprocal action of a living bounty on your part and a returning gratitude on the spot. And this is training. One such scene will avail more than many lectures to make your child charitable. Or suppose, again, you would instruct your child in devotion, prayer to God. But to what purpose if the child is not moreover trained to pray? — to what purpose if the very house he lives in is a prayerless house? Would you instruct your child in that cardinal excellence of truth? You insist often, in words, on its importance. But, more than this, train it to do so. You rebuke deception. It is well. But practise not in any way what you rebuke. Would we instruct our children to be kind and gentle? How? by a command? Not so only, but more powerfully by the affectionate and pleasant bearing and tone of our own speech and person. Parents and friends often wonder that, after all the pains taken with children, the frequent counsels and admonitions, they should yet afterwards go astray. But was the child who has disappointed you trained as well as taught? Did you uniformly go before to beckon and lead him after in the way you first pointed out? But in the majority of cases the rule will hold good: your child will keep on as he has been trained. The soldier in his age might as soon forget the drill of his early discipline, or the sailor the first calculations by which, under the rolling planets, he made his way over the uncertain waves, as your child the practical guidance to which you have actually used him through a series of years. He will keep on, if you have been his leader and forerunner, when your feet stumble on the dark mountains, and will run the race after very much as you have run it before. The chief significance of the grave where you lie down will be to fix the direction in which you trained and the point at which you left your child. Your bark will disappear as it sails on over the misty horizon; but his bark shall hold the same course. Whither, whither shall it be?

(C. A. Bartol.)

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KJV: Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.

WEB: Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it.