they must come to us, not we to them. But in every thing that relates
to their child-like pleasures and joys, their modes of recreation and
amusement, their playful explorations of the mysteries of things, and the
various novelties around them in the strange world into which they find
themselves ushered--in all these things we must not attempt to bring them
to us, but must go to them. In this, their own sphere, the more perfectly
they are at liberty, the better; and if we join them in it at all, we must
do so by bringing our ideas and wishes into accord with theirs.

_Foolish Fears_.

The effect of our sympathy with children in winning their confidence and
love, is all the more powerful when it is exercised in cases where they are
naturally inclined not to expect sympathy--that is, in relation to feelings
which they would suppose that older persons would be inclined to condemn.
Perhaps the most striking example of this is in what is commonly called
foolish fears. Now a fear is foolish or otherwise, not according to the
absolute facts involving the supposed danger, but according to the means
which the person in question has of knowing the facts. A lady, for example,
in passing along the sidewalk of a great city comes to a place where
workmen are raising an immense and ponderous iron safe, which, slowly
rising, hangs suspended twenty feet above the walk. She is afraid to pass
under it. The foreman, however, who is engaged in directing the operation,
passing freely to and fro under the impending weight, as he has occasion,
and without the least concern, smiles, perhaps, at the lady's "foolish
fears." But the fears which might, perhaps, be foolish in him, are not so
in her, since he _knows_ the nature and the strength of the machinery
and securities above, and she does not. She only knows that accidents do
sometimes happen from want of due precaution in raising heavy weights, and
she does not know, and has no means of knowing, whether or not the due
precautions have been taken in this case. So she manifests good sense, and
not folly, in going out of her way to avoid all possibility of danger.

This is really the proper explanation of a large class of what are usually
termed foolish fears. Viewed in the light of the individual's knowledge of
the facts in the case, they are sensible fears, and not foolish ones at
all.

A girl of twelve, from the city, spending the summer in the country, wishes
to go down to the river to j