During every day of that week, the chances of taming down Zack into a
reformed character grew steadily more and more hopeless. The lad's
home-position, at this period, claims a moment's serious attention.
Zack's resistance to his father's infatuated severity was now shortly
to end in results of the last importance to himself, to his family, and
to his friends.
A specimen has already been presented of Mr. Thorpe's method of
religiously educating his son, at six years old, by making him attend a
church service of two hours in length; as, also, of the manner in which
he sought to drill the child into premature discipline by dint of
Sabbath restrictions and Select Bible Texts. When that child grew to a
boy, and when the boy developed to a young man, Mr. Thorpe's
educational system still resolutely persisted in being what it had
always been from the first. His idea of Religion defined it to be a
system of prohibitions; and, by a natural consequence, his idea of
Education defined _that_ to be a system of prohibitions also.
His method of bringing up his son once settled, no earthly
consideration could move him from it an inch, one way or the other. He
had two favorite phrases to answer every form of objection, every
variety of reasoning, every citation of examples.
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