of the discipline is
not in the superior condition of his teeth, but in the habit of mind
that is being formed.

IMPUDENCE.

Impudence is largely due to, (1) lack of perception: (2) to bad
example and to suggestion; and (3) to a double standard of morality.

[Sidenote: Lack of Perception]

(1.) In the first place, too much must not be expected of the young
savages in the nursery. Remember that the children there are in
a state very much more nearly resembling that of savage or
half-civilized nation than resembling your own, and that, therefore,
while they will undoubtedly take kindly to showy ceremonial, they are
not ripe yet for most of the delicate observances. At best, you can
only hope to get the crude material of good manners from them. You can
hope that they will be in the main kind in intention, and as courteous
under provocation as is consistent with their stage of development. If
you secure this, you need not trouble yourself unduly over occasional
lapses into perfectly innocent and wholesome barbarism.

Good manners are in the main dependent upon quick sympathies, because
sympathies develop the perceptions. A child is much less likely to
hurt the feelings or shock the sensibilities of a person whom he loves
tenderly than of one for whom he cares very little. This is the chief
reason why all children are much more likely to be offensive in speech
and action before strangers than when alone in the bosom of their
families. They are so far from caring what a stranger thinks or
feels that they cannot even forecast his displeasure, nor imagine
its reaction upon mother or father. The more, then, that the child's
sympathies are broadened, the more he is encouraged to take an
interest in all people, even strangers, the better mannered will he
become.

[Sidenote: Bad Example]

(2.) Bad example is more common than is usually supposed. Very few
parents are consistently courteous toward their children. They permit
themselves a sharp tone of voice, and rough and abrupt habits of
speech, that would scarcely be tolerated by any adult. Even an
otherwise gentle and amiable woman is often disagreeable in her
manner toward her children, commanding them to do things in a way
well calculated to excite opposition, and rebuking wrong-doing in
unmeasured terms. She usually reserves her soft and gentle speeches
for her own friends and for her husband's, yet discourtesy cannot
begin to harm them as it harms her childre