not to reason with them at
all, but to convince them that it is above their childish capacities;
for they will always suppose the argument in their favor unless you
can give them good cause to think otherwise. They know very well that
we are unwilling to displease them, when they are certain of our
affection; and children are seldom mistaken in this particular:
therefore, if I deny anything to my children, I never reason with
them, I never tell them why I do so and so; but I endeavor, as much as
possible, that they should find it out, and that even after the affair
is over. By these means they are accustomed to think that I never
deny them anything without a sufficient reason, tho they can not
always see it.

On the same principle it is that I never suffer my children to join in
the conversation of grown people, or foolishly imagine themselves on
an equality with them, because they are permitted to prattle. I would
have them give a short and modest answer when they are spoken to, but
never to speak of their own head, or ask impertinent questions of
persons so much older than themselves, to whom they ought to show more
respect....

What can a child think of himself when he sees a circle of sensible
people listening to, admiring, and waiting impatiently for his wit,
and breaking out in raptures at every impertinent expression? Such
false applause is enough to turn the head of a grown person; judge,
then, what effect it must have upon that of a child. It is with the
prattle of children as with the prediction in the almanac. It would be
strange if, amidst such a number of idle words, chance did not now and
then jumble some of them into sense. Imagine the effect which such
flattering exclamations must have on a simple mother, already too much
flattered by her own heart. Think not, however, that I am proof
against this error because I expose it. No, I see the fault, and yet
am guilty of it. But, if I sometimes admire the repartees of my son, I
do it at least in secret. He will not learn to become a vain prater by
hearing me applaud him, nor will flatterers have the pleasure, in
making me repeat them, of laughing at my weakness.

MADAME DE STAEL

Born in Paris, 1763, died there in 1817; daughter of Necker,
the Minister of Finance, and Susanne Courchod, the
sweetheart of Gibbon; married to the Baron of
Stael-Holstein, the Swedish ambassador to France, in 1786;
lived in Germany in 1803-04; tr