d suffer for the results of his
own negligence.

Just the reverse of this system rules to-day. Mothers learn their
children's lessons, invent plays for them, read their story books to
them, arrange their rooms after them, pick up what they have let fall,
put in order the things they have left in confusion, and in this and
in other ways, by protective pampering and attention, their desire for
work, their endurance, the gifts of invention and imagination, qualities
proper to the child, become weak and passive. The home now is only a
preparation for school. In it, young people growing up, are accustomed
to receive services, without performing any on their part. They are
trained to be always receptive instead of giving something in return.
Then people are surprised at a youthful generation, selfish and
unrestrained, pressing forward shamelessly on all occasions before their
elders, crudely unresponsive in respect of those attentions, which in
earlier generations were a beautiful custom among the young.

To restore this custom, all the means usually adopted now to protect the
child from physical and psychical dangers and inconveniences, will have
to be removed. Throw the thermometer out of the window and begin with
a sensible course of toughening; teach the child to know and to bear
natural pain. Corporal punishment must be done away with not because
it is painful but because it is profoundly immoral and hopelessly
unsuitable. Repress the egoistic demands of the child when he interferes
with the work or rest of others; never let him either by caresses or by
nagging usurp the rights of grown people; take care that the servants do
not work against what the parents are trying to insist on in this and in
other matters.

We must begin in doing for the child in certain ways a thousand times
more and in others a hundred thousand times less. A beginning must be
made in the tenderest age to establish the child's feeling for nature.
Let him live year in and year out in the same country home; this is one
of the most significant and profound factors in training. It can be held
to even where it is now neglected. The same thing holds good of making
a choice library, commencing with the first years of life; so that the
child will have, at different periods of his life, suitable books for
each age; not as is now often the case, get quite spoilt by the constant
change of summer excursions, by worthless children's books, and costly
toys. T