Imitation by Stuart and Oakden

Imitation based on love… If we really love a person we generally try wittingly or unwittingly to be as like the beloved as possible. We long to share their experiences and their thoughts, to read the same books, to adopt their attitudes towards life. We grow to appreciate their tastes or try to make them share ours. Children learn rapidly from teachers they admire, friends acquire habits of thought and speech from in schools to present worthy objects for the children to imitate. Stories of great men will often fire a child’s imagination and make him try to resemble his hero. But it is well to select the heroes carefully, or at lease to select from their doings those which we really wish to have imitated, otherwise there is a danger that a false ideal may be formed.