ay
let them go to bed--when they are sleepy and get up when they are not.
But they say that will do for the rich, but not for the poor. Well, if
the poor have to wake their children early in the morning, it is as
easy to wake them with a kiss as with a club. I believe in letting
children commence at which end of the dinner they want to.

Let them eat what they want. It is their business. They know what
they want to eat. And if they have had their liberty from the first,
they can beat any doctor in the world. All the improvement that has
ever been made in medicine has been made by the recklessness of
patients. Yes, sir. Thousands and thousands of years the doctors
wouldn't let a man have water in fever. Every now and then some fellow
got reckless and said: "I will die, I am so thirsty," and drank two or
three quarts of water and got well. And they kept that up until
finally the doctors said, "that is the best thing for a fever you can
do."

I have more confidence to agree with nature about these things than any
of the conclusions of the schools. Just let your children have
freedom, and they will fall right into your ways and do just as you do.
But you try to make them, and there is some magnificent, splendid thing
in the human heart that will not be driven. And do you know it is the
luckiest thing for this world that ever happened that people are so.
What would we have been if the people in any age of the world had done
just as the doctors told them? They would have been all dead. What
would we have done if, at any age of the world, we had followed
implicitly the direction of the church? We would have been all idiots,
every one.

It is a splendid thing that there is always some fellow who won't mind,
and will think for himself. And I believe in letting children think
for themselves. I believe in having a family like a democracy. If
there is anything splendid in this world it is a home of that kind.
They used to tell us, "Let your victuals close your mouth." We used to
eat as though it was a religious performance. I like to see the
children about, and every one telling what he has seen and heard. I
like to hear the clatter of the knives and spoons mingling with the
laughter of their voices. I had rather hear it than any opera that has
ever been put upon the boards. Let them have liberty; let them have
freedom, and I tell you your children will love you to death.

Now, I have some excuses to offe