"Anyone who has practiced what is good is ashamed to turn out badly. Manliness is teachable. Even a child is taught to say and hear what he does not understand; things understood are kept in mind till age. So, in like manner, train your children well." -- Euripides, The Suppliant Women (translated by Frank William Jones)
Proverbs 22:6
Train up a child in the way he should go:
and when he is old, he will not depart from it.
Proverbs 20:11
Even a child is known by his doings,
whether his work be pure, and whether it be right.
God designed children to require training. They need to be taught where to go and how to get there. A boy who has been well-trained will learn manliness. He will see maturity while still immature and he will practice manhood in boyhood. Our boys are future men. They must be found playing the man in imaginative play if we desire them to play the man in action later. Little boys should practice wearing the costume of a man.
Our boys will one day be adults. But will they be manly? Manliness can be taught. Maturity can be learned. Growing may merely happen; maturity requires mettle.
Someone will train them to become something. God commands fathers to raise and train their sons to become men. If they don’t, someone else will aways be eager to train them to become something else.
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