Probably most parents, even very kindly ones, would be a little startled at the assertion that a child ought never to be reproved in the presence of others.  This is so constant an occurrence that nobody thinks of noticing it; nobody thinks of considering whether it be right and best, or not.  But it is a great rudeness to a child.  I am entirely sure that it ought never to be done.  Mortification is a condition as unwholesome as it is uncomfortable.  When the wound is inflicted by the hand of a parent, it is all the more certain to rankle and do harm.  Let a child see that his mother is so anxious that he should have the approbation and good-will of her friends that she will not call their attention to his faults; and that, while she never, under any circumstances, allows herself to forget to tell him afterward, alone, if he has behaved improperly, she will spare him the additional pain and mortification of public reproof; and, while that child will lay these secret reproofs to heart, he will still be happy.

I know a mother who had the insight to see this, and the patience to make it a rule; for it takes far more patience, far more time, than the common method.

She said sometimes to her little boy, after visitors had left the parlor, “Now, dear, I am going to be your little girl, and you are to be my papa.  And we will play that a gentleman has just come in to see you, and I will show you exactly how you have been behaving while this lady has been calling to see me.  And you can see if you do not feel very sorry to have your little girl behave so.”

Here is a dramatic representation at once which that boy does not need to see repeated many times before he is forever cured of interrupting, of pulling his mother’s gown, of drumming on the piano, &c.,—­of the thousand and one things which able-bodied children can do to make social visiting where they are a martyrdom and a penance.

Once I saw this same little boy behave so boisterously and rudely at the dinner-table, in the presence of guests, that I said to myself, “Surely, this time she will have to break her rule, and reprove him publicly.”  I saw several telegraphic signals of rebuke, entreaty, and warning flash from her gentle eyes to his; but nothing did any good.  Nature was too much for him; he could not at that minute force himself to be quiet.  Presently she said, in a perfectly easy and natural tone, “Oh, Charley, come here a minute; I want to tell you something.”  No one at the table supposed that it had any thing to do with his bad behavior.  She did not intend that they should.  As she whispered to him, I alone saw his cheek flush, and that he looked quickly and imploringly into her face; I alone saw that tears were almost in her eyes.  But she shook her head, and he went back to his seat with a manful but very red little face.  In a few moments he laid down his knife and fork, and said, “Mamma, will you please to excuse me?” “Certainly, my dear,”