ctual world about him.
Manual training, if it can be obtained, is of the greatest advantage,
and for a very young child, the performance every day of some little
act, which demands accuracy and close attention, is necessary. For the
rest, wait; this is one of the faults that disappear with age.

[Sidenote: The Lie of Evasion]

(2.) The lie of evasion is a form of lying which seldom appears when
the relations between child and parents are absolutely friendly and
open. However, the child who is very desirous of approval may find
it difficult to own up to a fault, even when he is certain that the
consequence of his offense will not be at all terrible. This is the
more difficult, because the more subtle condition. It is obvious that
the child who lies merely to avoid punishment can be cured of that
fault by removing from him the fear of punishment. To this end, he
should be informed that there will be no punishment whatever for any
fault that he freely confesses. For the chief object of punishment
being to make him face his own fault and to see it as something ugly
and disagreeable, that object is obviously accomplished by a free and
open confession, and no further punishment is required.

But when the child in spite of such reassurance still continues to
lie, both because he cannot bear to have you think him capable of
wrong-doing, and because he is not willing to acknowledge to himself
that he is capable of wrong-doing, the situation becomes more complex.
All you can do is to urge upon him the superior beauty of frankness;
to praise him and love him, especially when he does acknowledge a
fault, thus leading him to see that the way to win your approval--that
approval which he desires so intensely--is to face his own
shortcomings with a steady eye and confess them to you unshrinkingly.

[Sidenote: The Politic Lie]

(3.) The politic lie is of course the worst form of lying, partly
because it is so unchildlike. This is the kind of fault that will grow
with age; and grow with such rapidity that the mother must set herself
against it with all the force at her command. The child who lies
for policy's sake, in order to achieve some end which is most easily
achieved by lying, is a child led into wrong-doing by his ardent
desire to get something or do something. Discover what this something
is, and help him to get it by more legitimate means. If you point out
the straight path, and show the goal well in view, at the end of it,