ingly endless
procession and abandon the task. Their endeavors are based on faint
memories of such problems in their own youth or on rule-of-thumb
proverbial philosophy about morals and children. Does not the
development of moral ability and culture deserve at least as much
attention as any other phase of the child's life? After all, what do we
most of all desire for all our children--position, fame, ease? or is it
not rather simply this, that, no matter what else they do, they may be
good and useful men and women? Then what are we doing to make them good
and useful?

A clear view of the need for moral training, a belief that is possible,
will surely lead to serious attempts to learn the art of moral training.
In this they need not be without guidance. There is a number of good
books on character development in the child.[50] The foundation for all
such training of parents ought to be laid in an understanding of what
the moral nature is, and then of the laws of its development. Later the
specific problems may be separately considered.

Sec. 3. TEASING AND BULLYING

Teasing is the child's crude method of experimentation in psychological
reactions; the teaser desires to discover just how the teased will
respond. It degenerates, by easy steps, into a thoughtless infliction of
pain in sheer enjoyment of another's misery, and then into brutal
bullying. When only two children are together mere teasing will not
last long; either the teaser will tire of his task or his teasing will
turn to that lowest of all brutalities, delight in inflicting pain on
weaker ones.

But teasing is a serious problem in many families; the whole group
sometimes lives in an atmosphere of ridicule, derision, and annoyance.
Teasing is likely to appear at its worst wherever a group is gathered,
for the guilty ones are under the stimulus of the praise of others; they
inflict mental pain for the sake of winning approbation.

Teasing has a pedagogical basis. A certain amount of ridicule acts
healthfully on most persons. Even children need sometimes to see their
weaknesses, and especially their faults of temper, in the light of other
eyes, in the aspect of the ridiculous. But children are seldom to be
trusted to discipline one another; freedom to do so is likely to develop
hardness, indifference to the sufferings of others, and arrogance from
the sense of lordship. The corrective of ridicule is safe only as it is
a kindly expression of the sense of