PREFACE.

 

Tue development of the moral sentiments in the human
heart, im early life.—and everything in fact which relates to
the formation of character,—is determined in a far greater de-
gree by sympathy, and by the influence of example, than by
formal precepts and didactic instruction. If a boy hears his
father speaking kindly to a robin in the spring,——welcoming its
coming and offering it food,—there arises at once in his own
mind a feeling of kindness toward the bird, and toward all the
animal creation, which is produced by a sort of sympathetic
action, a power somewhat similar to what in physical philoso-
phy is called tzduction. On the other hand, if the father, in~
stead of feeding the bird, goes eagerly for a gun, in order that
he may shoot it, the boy will sympathize in that desire, and
growing up under such an influence, there will be gradually
formed within him, through the mysterious tendency of the
youthful heart to vibrate in unison with hearts that are near,
a disposition to kill and destroy all helpless beings that come
within his power. There is no need of any formal instruction
in either cage. Of a thousand children brought up under the
former of the above-described imfluences, nearly every one,
when he sees a bird, will wish to go and get crumbs to feed it ;
while in the latter case, nearly every one will just as certainly