lves we possess. Kings have been beheaded, thrones have
been overturned, cities have been given to the flames, and countries
have suffered pillage and rapine, all to knock it into the head of that
tyrannical brute, man, that, on the whole, it is better not to force his
despotism on his fellow-creatures. Yet, human nature has not changed in
the least, and where man has full sway, he is as much a tyrant to-day as
he was five hundred years ago. Nations have been emancipated, but the
kingdom of which the small boy is a subject remains what it always was.
Nature, who is a well-meaning blunderer, has tried to set things right,
first by planting some natural affection for his small boy into the
stony heart of the parent, and, second, by making the small boy himself
an optimist. Happily, there is always a silver lining to the cloud that
hovers over the small boy, even when the cane is descending upon him.
Trifles please the poor little fellow and help him to forget the gloom
which surrounds him. Coventry Patmore, in that most touching poem, "The
Toys," tells of a father who struck his motherless son, and sent him
weeping to bed, and, being tardily remorseful, the father looked at the
sleeping boy, whose undried tears were still on his cheek, and found
that before going to sleep the stricken lad had arranged his trivial
toys, all the cherished possessions of his pocket, so that his eyes
might rest on them "to comfort his sad heart."

* * * * *

[Sidenote: But the future small boy will have still more trouble.]

The small boy does not gain much when he exchanges the tyranny of the
home for the tyranny of the school. The schoolmaster is naturally a
despot, but he is a despot, limited. To make up for any advantages
accruing from the master's limitations, the urchin has to put up with
the bullying of the big boy. Possibly there are teachers who have human
feelings, as far as the small boy is concerned. We read of such persons
in books like "Tom Brown's Schooldays," but it must not be forgotten
that these books are works of fiction. The lad who wrote that his master
was a beast, but a just beast, may not have been exceptionally lucky,
but it is sad to think that the small boy often comes under the dominion
of beasts who are not just. But even if masters were all that could be
desired, think of the amount of perfectly useless knowledge that a small
boy is expected to acquire. How happy was the small boy