Children require guidance and sympathy far more than instruction.

The line argues that effective upbringing and teaching depend less on delivering information than on providing steady direction and humane understanding. “Guidance” implies modeling, boundaries, and help navigating choices; “sympathy” suggests empathy and responsiveness to a child’s feelings and struggles. Sullivan’s contrast with “instruction” does not reject teaching, but reorders priorities: knowledge sticks when a child feels supported and is coached through real situations. The quote also reflects a broader progressive-education insight—children are not empty vessels to be filled, but developing persons whose confidence, character, and curiosity are cultivated through relationship as much as through lessons.