text:  And how should it be otherwise when from the lips whence other lessons should have proceeded selfishness has been inculcated as a duty a desire for vain distinctions and the love of pelf encouraged as virtues and a splendid equipage or it may be some bodily advantage pointed out as the highest object of human ambition? To set the just value on every enjoyment to choose noble and becoming objects of pursuit are the first lessons a child should learn; and if he does not learn their rudiments on his mother's knees he will hardly acquire the knowledge of them elsewhere