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to trust implicitly every word he utters. Still more powerful will be the effect upon the child's mind of a constant adherence to exact truth on the part of elders, even at the cost of inconvenience.

Truthfulness must also be encouraged (1) by avoiding excessive punishments, which drive a child to falsehood through intense fear; (2) by invariably treating untruthfulness as a grave moral offence, even where no great inconvenience results from it. Flogged children and spoiled children compose the main body of the army of liars.

Untruthfulness is often engendered by the failure of those in authority to distinguish between grave faults and inconvenient faults. Playing with fire, for example, is a very inconvenient fault in children; and, if it has been expressly forbidden, it may become a very grave moral fault in those who are old enough to understand the force of the prohibition; but, at the worst, it is not so grave a fault as stealing, or lying, or as the use of vicious language. Now it is to inconvenient faults of this former kind that children are mainly liable. Their restlessness, their curiosity, their ignorance of natural laws, their weakness of body, and inexpertness of motion render them peculiarly likely to break, to disarrange, and generally to destroy; and it is sometimes a hard trial for the mother to see these childish characteristics produce before her eyes the destruction of some cherished ornament, and yet to keep her temper.

Yet she ought to reflect how very much more influence will be exerted upon her children by the expressions of her countenance and the hasty utterances of passion than by the formal exhortations of more sober and conventional moments. None are so ready as children to detect the discrepancies between the natural and the artificial utterances of their elders; and there is a two-fold mischief when a child is led not only to discern something like hypocrisy in his parents, but also to adopt their natural, rather than their artificial standard of morality, and to esteem falsehood as a venial offence, in comparison with the breaking of a piece of china through an act, not of disobedience, but of mere thoughtlessness.

With young children, even when well trained, and still more when they have fallen into habits of inexactness and petty approximations to untruthfulness, very great care should be taken not to drive them into a definite falsehood by too abrupt and sudden questions. Many a child will tell you the truth if you give him time, but may slip into a falsehood if you are too hasty with him, in the instinctive desire to put the best color on his actions and cut a creditable figure; and the danger is the greater, if he be impulsive, sanguine, and unusually sensitive to praise and blame.

Nowhere, therefore, is the tact of a teacher better exercised than in such cases as these, giving the pupil breathing-space for reflection, and so wording the question as not to terrify, but to induce confession, yet without leading him to gloss or extenuate his fault.

Of course, where a habit of truthfulness is established, a straightforward question is best, as being most respectful to the child questioned, and most bracing to the robust nature; but for a waverer no tact can be too great, provided it does not display want of faith. Instead of the direct question, "Did you do this?"—which may probably frighten the child into a "No" before he is aware, you say, "Now I shall certainly be vexed if you have done this, but I shall not be nearly so vexed as if you were to say what was not true. How did it happen? Tell me all about it." Sometimes it may be well to state definitely the punishment that will be inflicted. Suppose, for example, a child has broken some very valuable piece of furniture, and is trembling for fear of some quite terrible punishment proportioned to the mischief he has caused. You may say, "Well, of course you did not intend this, but I must give you some punishment for your carelessness"; and then mention what it will be, finally asking the child to "tell you how it happened."

16. SIMPLICITY.

The habit of simplicity is valuable, partly and principally because it is allied and favorable to truthfulness, partly because it helps to develop originality.

A word on the latter of these two points. Much of the quaint simplicity and apparent originality of a child arises from his endeavor to adapt his limited experience and vocabulary to the continually enlarging circle of his life. "Hence," says Preceptor, "when new things present themselves to a child, he tries to describe them by combinations of old words, calling a tarpaulin 'a big black blanket,' or cork soles 'foot-prints,' and the like. And hence also, being entirely unconventional, ignorant of metaphor, and necessarily familiar with daily change, he is sometimes amusingly consistent and thorough in his adoption of new thoughts and literal interpretations; like the boy of seven years old who, having been told that his first day's hunting was to make a man of him,' was overheard on the evening of that day praying (in defiance of all rhyme and custom) that 'Gentle Jesus, meek and mild,' would listen to a little man.'”

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Children should be allowed as long as possible to follow out their thoughts and adapt their old to their new experiences in this unconventional way; for this unbiased, fresh, and consistent manner of looking at things tends to the encouragement of the reasoning faculty. Therefore, even when no strangers are present, parents will do well not to derive too much open amusement from the quaint sayings and doings of their children. Not, of course, that they are to suppress a smile when they hear of the “big black blanket" or the "red footprints"; but they are not to "chaff" the child on these linguistic coinages, not to bring them up in joke against him time after time. "Well, it is something like a blanket, but we generally call it a tarpaulin," is the best way of dealing with the child's invention. Thus

you put the child on your own level; and while you help him to enlarge his vocabulary, you encourage him to confide to you similar childlike linguistic experiments hereafter.

But if, on the contrary, you impress upon the child that he has said or done something extremely amusing (whereas he has only been doing or saying something that is to him quite natural), and if you induce him to say or do the funny thing over and over again, and to make himself a clown for your delectation, then you must not be surprised to hear him afterwards repeating the exhibition, and making himself a clown for the delectation of the servants and others, and gradually falling into the habit of saying and doing things, not because they are natural, but because they seem to him likely to be clever or funny.

Still worse is the result when children's oddities are paraded before strangers. Many parents, sensible enough in the ordinary affairs of life, appear quite insensible to the mischief they do children in "showing them off." Covertly or openly attempted, such exhibitions are readily detected by a child, who is singularly keen to perceive from the slightest tone or expression of his elders that he is being "drawn out"; and he either resents it by retiring into the inmost recesses of shyness, or else he acquiesces and exhibits himself as an actor. The latter alternative is, perhaps, the worse of the two; but either is bad. If he rebels, he may become rude, shy, and disobedient; if he complies, he is in danger of becoming pert, affected, and insinIn either case he loses that fresh simplicity which is the greatest charm of childhood, and learns to suspect his very parents of something approaching to insincerity.

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One reason, perhaps, why the children of great men hardly ever do anything worthy of their parents is because, much being expected from them, they are, from their earliest years, watched and noticed to excess.. A most necessary part of a child's training is that he should be often left alone; only thus is there any hope of developing original power.

Some may object that if you continually correct a child's droll originalities you make him prematurely sensible, and cut short nature's period of childhood. It is not so. The effect is precisely opposite. By correcting him, without laughing at him, you prevent him from being laughed at, you save him from becoming affected or shy, and although this or that particular childish word may be lost, you encourage him to retain the childish method; but by laughing at him and not correcting him you gain the repetition of a childish phrase at the complete sacrifice of the childish disposition.

Hence, even for those who like children mainly for the amusement they afford, and who use them as little better than playthings, it is a great mistake to harp upon, or exhibit, a particular specimen of their simplicity. "The big black blanket " will never be repeated a second time with the original naturalness, or enjoyed with the original zest:

if you procure its repetition, you destroy the simplicity which might have given rise to other sayings as good or better.

17. REVERENCE.

It is hardly possible for a child to feel reverence at all unless he feels it for his father and mother; and in the modern and (in the main) wise attempt to make children obey parents from love and not from fear, care must be taken that, in the absence of fear, reverence is not also banished. If, therefore, parents join sometimes in the sports of their children, a marked line should be drawn between play and earnest. Let the former be a republic; but the latter must always be a monarchy.

Reverence is naturally felt by a child for one who is stronger, wiser, and better than himself; and at first a child, in favorable circumstances, imagines his parents to be perfect in these points. As the child becomes inevitably disabused, it is important that he should feel reverence for strength, wisdom, and goodness in others besides his parents. For this purpose society, history, and poetry may be in due course utilized; but the child whom we are now considering is far too young to be impressed by history and poetry, or, in any important degree, by society. Long, however, before these influences can be felt, the child is susceptible to the feeling of awe for One above, whom he sees approached by his parents in an attitude of reverence, and whom he is taught to approach in the same spirit.

As to the influence exerted on children by the attitude of the parents towards the Father of all, the little that is to be said falls more fitly under the head of Religious Instruction, which will be found briefly discussed at the end of this book. But it may be worth while to say emphatically here that conventionality and insincerity, most dangerous to children wherever witnessed, are most dangerous of all, if witnessed in the religious acts of their parents.

Take such a simple action as saying grace." This custom, presenting itself to children before they have been made acquainted with the common worship of the congregation in church or chapel, is perhaps more impressive to them than is generally supposed, if without any parade or affectation a few simple words are uttered, as a natural expression of thanksgiving and acknowledgment. But if the parents repeat the words as a mere form, or hurry over it, or omit it in the presence of strangers, or repeat it in their presence, but in an apologetic manner as if ashamed of it,-in any of these cases it would be very much better, so far as children are concerned, that it should not be repeated at all.

"Most people," writes Preceptor, "would laugh at the assertion that grace was sometimes said in such a manner, or in such circumstances of religious training, that a child hardly knew whether the prayer was addressed to a Being above or to the creature below; yet I

well remember a child once taking note of the omission of the customary grace, and reminding his father that he had not said his prayers to the chuckies.'

Perhaps we shall not be over-subtle in saying that there is some little danger to the reverence of the rising generation when there is too wide and too early a taste for parody. It is natural that a child should love incident, stirring, startling incident; even narrations of the kind called "blood and thunder" are not (for boys, at all events) very objectionable. But although it is well that they should not be indifferent to humor, it is a bad sign when the young are attracted by mere verbal witticisms or by that kind of purposed purposelessness which is best suited to afford mere amusement, than by the impossible marvels and hairbreadth escapes of fairy stories and tales of adventure. Few stories have the art of blending plot and incident with intense humor like Thackeray's inimitable Rose and the Ring. "For the most part," says Preceptor, "even the cleverest of parodies should be locked away from children till they are past their teens. It augurs ill when a boy of nine or ten prefers Alice in Wonderland to the Seven Champions of Christendom,-ill for the promise of imagination and originality, but also, to some extent, ill for the development of still higher qualities."

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In the reaction against arbitrary or unapt punishments, some people have been led to the conclusion that, as an invariable rule, all punishment should be natural, that is, should follow naturally as the result of the offence. If, for example, a child tells a lie, he is to be punished (so it is maintained) by the distrust which naturally awaits his future statements till he has regained a character for truthfulness.

But it seems clear that this rule cannot be always adopted, either with physical or moral errors. If a child plays with fire, a natural and convenient punishment would no doubt be that he should burn his fingers in moderation. But Nature in such cases is not moderate, and may punish the child once for all by leaving no child to punish a second time, or by grievous and permanent crippling or disfigurement. In the same way with moral offences, if a boy who has told a lie is to be treated for a length of time as a liar, his self-respect may be permanently lowered or destroyed, and so he may become a moral cripple.

The best rule seems to be that parents or teachers, in punishing, should avoid all appearance of vindictive punishing, not because they are injured or inconvenienced, but because a wrong has been done, and right demands correction and amendment. Provided the child feels that the punisher has no pleasure in punishing, it will not always be necessary that he should recognize exactly that the punishment springs by a natural sequence out of the offence.

Yet in minor offences it is desirable that the connection between cause and effect should be retained as far as possible. Unpunctuality,

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