for the commonplace book

 

 

Here is a matter which sometimes causes uneasiness to parents: they are appalled when they think of the casual circumstances and chance people that may have a lasting effect upon their children's characters.  But their part is, perhaps, to exercise ordinary prudence and not over-much direction.  They have no means of knowing what will reach a child; whether the evil which blows his way may not incline him to good, or whether the too-insistent good may not predispose him to evil.

                                                                                                Formation of Character, p. 277
                                                                                                                    Charlotte Mason