of
discovering whether or not the noises he heard are the regular movements of
a person coming to him or merely the irregular noises of the wind or of
moving furniture which do not concern him? Not only is the child plastic,
but too often a portion of the environment is also plastic and yielding and
usually to the lasting detriment of the child. The young mother who would
train her child to right habits must be heroic.

When the little one is old enough to sit up in his high chair at the table,
his conduct is not apt to be meek and good-mannered. He will snatch at
things and tip them over, plunge his fists into the gravy, and fill his
mouth with food, stuffing it in with both hands until he chokes. His mother
is usually ashamed and grieved at his barbarous conduct; but she need not
be, she should remember that good table manners are artificial, not
natural, and that they are by no means a racial acquirement. She must
resort, therefore, to necessary means to correct the child, even at times
to physical punishment, though she herself must leave the room to shed a
quiet tear over such seeming cruelty. Place the spoon in his hand and help
the child to make the necessary movements and punish him slightly if need
be whenever he departs too far from propriety, and it will be astonishing
how quickly the conventional habit of table manners will be acquired. The
kindest mother is the one who is brave enough to inflict some punishment
when this is the surest way to develop needed habits that are unnatural to
the child.

Soon the child learns to crawl; he does this because of the primal pleasure
he has in bodily movements and because he has reached satisfaction in
handling objects within his grasp; and since distant objects will not come
to him, he must go to them, and this he does as soon as he is able. If
objects would come to him whenever he desired, it is probable that he would
not learn to crawl for a long time. Sometimes exceedingly awkward modes of
crawling are acquired, which if noted and corrected when first attempted,
would save much labor and pains afterward.

So long as crawling answers all demands and gives full satisfaction, it
will be continued; but, usually because the child sees others walk, and
possibly also because he himself has the instinctive desire to walk,
crawling is no longer satisfactory. So he attempts to imitate the walking
of his elders and through the aid and encouragement received from them, he
ac