THE TRAINING OF CHILDREN. 17
passage of Holy Scriptures which is taken from
the inspired pen of the wisest of men. " Train
up a child in the way he should go, and when
he is old he will not depart from it." (Prov.
xxii, 6.)
The doctrine taught in this divine statement
is disputed on the ground of its supposed imprac¬
ticability. The objections may be reduced to the
following propositions:
a. A child, that is, every child, is born in a
polluted atmosphere in which he must always live;
breathing an immoral air, he is necessarily pol¬
luted by it.
6. All his associates at home are corrupted by
sin, therefore, he must be as bad as they, because
association begets assimilation.
c. The boys and the girls with whom he must
play, away from home, whether in the street or
in the campus, or by whom he sits in the school¬
room, are wicked, and, therefore, he can not be
better than they.
d. Therefore, they say, " the doctrine of the
text can not be realized till the millennium shall
burst upon the world, and every body shall be¬
come good." These four objections come from
two classes of people: First, from members of
the Christian Church, who profess to believe in
the Bible, and, second, from persons outside of
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