“To educate a child perfectly requires a profounder thought, greater wisdom, than to govern a state. 

 The grand work of rearing children is not surpassed by any position, profession or station in life.” 

And may I add, gives greater joy and satisfaction.

 Here’s a list of six topics that are part of good parenting and will help children live to their fullest. This isn’t intended to be another “to do” list, but rather to inspire and give greater vision. I gleaned these from a lengthy chapter written by William Ellery Channing. 

1. Morality 

 Teaching children to be moral beings is of prime importance. When a person looks into himself, he discovers two distinct kinds of principles, and comprehending them is so important. The child discovers desires, appetites, passions, which terminate in himself, which crave and seek his own interests above others. These desires focus on his own interest, gratification, and distinction. 

But he also discovers another principle, an antagonist to these, and it is impartial, unselfish, universal enjoining on him to regard the rights and happiness of other beings and laying on him obligations which must be done, cost what they may, or however they may clash with his particular pleasure or gain. 

2. Religion

When we look into ourselves, we discover powers which link us with this outward, visible, finite, ever-changing world. We have five senses to discern all the material of creation. And we also have a power which cannot stop at what we see and handle, at what exists within the bounds of space and time. There is something which seeks for the Infinite, Uncreated Cause, which cannot rest till it ascends to the Eternal, All-comprehending Mind. This we call the religious principle, and its grandeur cannot be exaggerated by human language. It is the essence of true religion to recognize and adore in God the attributes of Impartial Justice and Universal Love, and to hear Him commanding us in the conscience to become what we adore. 

3. Intellectual

We cannot look into ourselves without discovering the intellectual principle, the power which thinks, reasons, and judges, the power of seeking and acquiring truth. And to gain truth, which is the great object of the understanding, I must seek it unselfishly, I must choose to receive the truth, no matter how it bears on myself. I must follow it no matter where it leads, what interests it opposes, to what persecution or loss it lays me open, from what party it severs me, or to what party it allies.  

4. The Practical

The practical part of child rearing proposes as its chief end, to fit us for action; to make us efficient in whatever we undertake, to train us to firmness of purpose and to fruitfulness of resource in common life, and especially in emergencies, in times of difficulty, danger, and trial. 

5. Beauty

When we look at our nature we discover, among its admiral qualities, the sense or perception of Beauty. 

We see the germ of this in every human being and it should be enlarged and cherished in all. An infinite joy is lost to the world by the lack of culture and development of this spiritual endowment. Beauty in nature, and the mysterious charm found in the loveliness and grandeur of art and sculpture, in elevating literature and music.

6. The Power of Utterance

People are not made to shut up our minds to ourselves, but to give a voice and to exchange it with other minds. Speech is one of our grand distinctions from animals. 

Our power over others lies not so much in the amount of thought within us, as in the power to bring it out. 

A person who cannot open their lips without breaking a rule of grammar, without showing in his dialect or brogue or uncouth tones, his lack of cultivation; and having no clearness, grace or force of utterance or without darkening his meaning by a confused, unskillful mode of communication cannot take the place to which, perhaps, his native good sense entitles him.