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Friedrich Diesterweg: "An Educator's Little Book of Crabs" (1856)

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8. How One Destroys the Spiritual Life of a Child

1. Make them repeat sayings and phrases which they do not understand.
2. Before they are mature, make them recite confessions of faith as their own conviction.
3. Instruct them to participate in ceremonies and symbolic rituals which are impossible for children to understand.
4. Teach them that the religion in which they were brought up is the sole true religion and teach them that those who think or believe differently are in grave error, are ossified, or are even condemned to eternal damnation.
5. Implant in them a belief in things which will desert them when they grow up and come into contact with educated people, for example, a belief in miracles or other kinds of superstitions that do not harmonize with progressive culture.
6. Teach them to judge the value of people by their birth, rank, wealth, and other superficial things.
7. Separate them from each other according to their parents’ religion, send them to religious schools.
8. For reasons of faith, encourage them to have an inhuman orientation, to be intolerant and immoral, to separate the "true faith" from true love.
9. Convince them that the soul can be freed from sinful thoughts and punishment for sin by outward actions.
10. Through instruction, example, and a child's entire upbringing at home and in school, they should be taught never to free themselves from dependence upon others (authorities) in thought, belief, and action.
11. Condemn them to purely passive, receptive learning, without awakening their creative power. This robs them of all self-confidence to act independently.
12. Teach them to regard the pursuit of earthly happiness as the highest good and to abjure all idealistic goals.

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