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He that is not used to submit his will to the reason of others when he is young, will scarce hearken to his own reason when he is of an age to make use of it.

Locke sums up his entire theory of moral education in one sentence. The goal of moral education is to give a man the capacity to deny his own desires. The way to do this is to train a child, early on, to deny his own desires in favor of what his parents tell him to do. A child that becomes used to submitting his desires to his parents’ orders, will grow up with the capacity to submit his desires to what his own reason dictates. This capacity, Locke thinks, is the principle of virtue, the foundation and aim of all education.

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