OUR RELATION TO CHILDREN/PART 4

 

Shaping the Child's Future

 

It is simply impossible to exaggerate the plasticity of these unformed vehicles. We know that the physical body of a child, if only its training be begun at a sufficiently early age, may be modified to a very considerable extent. An acrobat, for example, will take a boy of five or six years old, whose bones and muscles are not yet as hardened and firmly set as ours are, and will gradually accustom his limbs and body to take readily and with comfort all sorts of positions, which would be absolutely impossible for most of us even with any amount of training. Yet our own bodies at the same age differed in no essential respect from that boy's, and if they had been put through the same exercises they would have become as supple and elastic as his, though now that they are definitely set no efforts that we could make, however long continued, could give them the same easy flexibility.

 

Now if the physical body of a child is thus plastic and readily impressible, his astral and mental vehicles are far more so. They thrill in response to every vibration which they encounter, and are eagerly receptive with regard to all influences, whether good or evil, which emanate from those around them. And they resemble the physical body also in this other characteristic — that though in early youth they are so susceptible and so easily moulded, they very soon set and stiffen and acquire definite habits, which when once firmly established can be altered only with great difficulty.

 

When we realize this, we see at once the extreme importance of the surroundings in which a child passes his earliest years, and the heavy responsibility which rests upon every parent to see that the conditions of the child's development are as good as they can be made. The little creature is as clay in our hands, to mould almost as we will; moment by moment the germs of good or evil quality brought over from the last birth are awakening into activity; moment by moment are being built up those vehicles which will condition the whole of his after-life; and it rests with us to awaken the germ of good, to starve out the germ of evil. To a far larger extent than is ever realized by even the fondest parents, the child's future is under their control.

 

Think of all the friends whom you know so well, and try to imagine what splendid specimens of humanity they would be if all their good qualities were enormously intensified, and all the less estimable features absolutely weeded out of their characters.

 

That is the result which it is in your power to produce in your child if you do your full duty by him; such a specimen of humanity you may make him if you will but take the trouble.