when asked what was under his left arm,"Counter-orders."

Parents should be well assured of the justice and wisdom of their regulations and then adhere to them; if, however, on further consideration their views are modified, or changed, there is no reason why the child should not have the benefit of the better judgment. Obstinacy in clinging to a mistaken judgment is firmness perverted.

Weak will is the ruin of as many souls as deliberate evil, and is often the road to it. The prisons, jails and reformatories are full of wellmeaning men who are there, not because they are wicked, but because they are weak. There are few persons who would not choose to do right if choosing accomplished it, but they lack the moral courage to resist the temptation at first, and the oftener they yield, the more insensible to the wrong are they likely to become.

When we begin to compromise we begin to die, and the child has learned the most valuable lesson of his life when he appreciates the advantage of not giving entrance or consideration to the thought that can lead him astray. The longer one contemplates the temptation, the more irresistible it becomes. The parents should give the child every aid in its efforts at self-control. He may desire the right course very earnestly and have no practical ideas of

how to attain it, his feelings overcoming his will constantly. This is a frequent difficulty with intense natures, and on investigation it may be found that the weakness consists in letting the mind dwell on the luring thought, and that to banish it as often as it presents itself is the only hope of success. The best aid in a struggle against temptation is to make the child capable of filling his mind with other thoughts unrelated to the tempting one.

The man who holds up his head firmly and securely through a period of poverty or undeserved disgrace is exercising his power of firmness as vigorously as the general on the battlefield, and his conflict with his shaken selfesteem and baffled hopes is as great as the conflict with the enemy. Such a man will have the sympathy of all right-minded people.

No one can guide and train a little one to his best possibilities who has not by love and right living retained his own child heart; he must become as one of them before he can wisely direct the life of a little child. Yet these little ones are subjected very often to cruelties and humiliations which are never intended, but are the result of thoughtlessness and carelessness. What can we think of a woman who nicknames her daughter, because she is a girl of slender proportions," Slim." I once knew such a one. It is no rare thing to hear mothers tease and

joke, and, I regret to say, even scold their little children about some physical peculiarity which can be in no way remedied, and of which they thus become painfully conscious. Such words are as cruel as the taunt which made Byron's mother so famous.

Again, parents after punishing a child for a misdemeanor will relate it to others in the child's presence and laugh at the naughtiness which they a short time before severely rebuked. Fathers are prone to regale their families with certain transgressions of their boyhood, with great relish for the heroic parts they took. These tales, though likely to prove very tempting to the son, are, however, supposed to excite no parallel propensities in him. All these things are done without thought of the disastrous effect they may have on the child, and only serve to show how guarded parents should be before their children.

Inconsistency is quite as frequent as thoughtlessness, though the following may be an extreme case. A child presented himself at school so often in so soiled a state that the teacher remonstrated with him, requesting him to invite his mother's inspection before leaving home in the morning. The little fellow replied: "My mother has no time for such things. She is writing a book on How to Rear a Perfect Child.''

It is also unwise to reprimand a child before others, as the hurt his pride sustains neutralizes any effect the words might otherwise have; a child's self-respect should be marred as seldom as possible, and always reinstated as soon after as possible. Self-respect is a motive so strong, that it alone is often sufficient to hold to the path of rectitude. When the child is old enough to understand, if the parent will trace back to its source the fault to which he seems most predisposed and analyze his weak point for him, the analysis will be of great assistance to him in overcoming the fault.

It is wise sometimes to overlook small faults, particularly if one has occasion already for much reproof, as too frequent censure lessens the child's sensibilities thereto; the entire influence should be levelled against the graver defects, and when they have been corrected, attention may be given to the lesser ones. Herbert Spencer's theory of discipline is most wisely suggestive of the course to pursue. He says: "Let the history of your domestic rule typify in little the history of our political rule; at the outset autocratic control where control is really needful; by and by an incipient constitutionalism, in which the liberty of the subject gains some express recognition; successive extension of this liberty of the subject gradually ending in parental abdication." The best

teacher is one who guides rather than governs, suggests rather than dogmatizes, and who inspires the listener with a desire to teach himself, for after all is said and done, a man must make himself. He can be assisted and developed to a given point only, and beyond that his inspiration must emanate from himself.