Sabine Baring-Gould

“ I have instanced only a few of those necessary habits which we try to impress on children at school. We endeavour to impress them on the young, because then they are open to instruction, their characters are soft and take impressions, as warm wax does from a seal. ”

“ Bad habits retain a stronger hold on man. A bad youth and a bad manhood make a vicious old age. Many an old man who had led a disorderly life retains his wicked habits, though they afford him no pleasure. He goes on in vice merely because vice has become habitual, not because it is pleasurable.
Eli, as we read in the 4th chap. ”

“ No advance will be made in anything, unless a man first applies his mind to his task, and then perseveres in it till he has fulfilled what he undertook. Nothing is more common than to begin a thing and to be disheartened at the first difficulty, and to throw it up. At school the child is given the habit of perseverance. ”

“ No work will be carried out thoroughly without order and system. You see people who work all day and work hard, but never make any way, because they work in a muddle, and with no regular plan. At school the child is given the habit of orderliness. ”

“ One would have thought that common decency would have kept him from watching the face of the poor woman who was engaged in prayer, but Eli had not acquired control over his eyes—indeed, his great amusement was peering into people's faces and guessing what was going on in their minds. Hannah wept as she prayed, "And it came to pass, as she continued praying to the Lord, that Eli marked her mouth. ”