to reverence our tormentor is repulsive and despicable, and
since we refuse to allow man to tyrannize over man, what degradation it
is for the human race to cringe and bow down unconditionally to the
imagination in the great realm of uncertainty!

Do not hurt your child. Do not strike it. Do not cause it any
unnecessary pain. Before it is able to walk, before it is able to talk,
before it is old enough to tell of its pain and suffering, Nature makes
it endure enough.

Remember, the only language of the babe is the cry of pain.

Imagine yourself under the lash of suffering, utterly speechless and
incapable of conveying your wants and feelings to an absolutely strange
surrounding, and you will have a slight picture of the growing child in
your household. Did you ever stop to consider that the child, when born,
does not know that you are its parent? It does not know that you are its
father, or that you are its mother. It does not know what prompted its
birth, or why it must live--and above all, what it has done to be sent
to such a miserable prison place as the planet upon which we live. We
must demonstrate all this as well as we can to the child.

This much we can be sure of: kindness, tenderness and love should
forever be our guide in our dealings and contact with children.

The child is brought into this world from the insuppressible passion of
two people, and surely without its consent, and it is absolute tyranny
and barbarity to torment its mind or to punish its body, regardless of
the result its action may have upon us.

To the little children that have suffered the horrible punishment so
generally followed in that cruel and false book--the Bible--my heart
goes out in pity, since words fail me to describe those savage
characters that visit inhuman, tormenting and torturous treatment upon
their unwelcome offspring.

If we were forced to perform the thousand tyrannies that are directed
against the child during the day by cruel and thoughtless parents, the
lunatic asylum would soon be our place of refuge. Such trivial things as
a spot on the shoe, a speck of dirt upon the clothes, a mere tip of the
hat, a slight turn of the scarf often give rise to such violent
reprimand, and very often brutal punishment, that the savageness of
barbarians is mild compared to such displays of temper.

My heart again goes out to you, little children, when and wherever you
are, that must bear the brunt of brutal actions from stupid