over his work.  Such stories may be perfectly simple and even rather pointless and yet do good work; the whole object is to keep the child’s fly-away imagination turned upon the work at hand, thus lending wings to his thought, and lightness to his fingers.  Moreover, the mother who talks with her child while working is training in him the habit of bright unconscious conversation, thus giving him a most useful accomplishment.  Making a game or a play out of the work is, of course, conducive to the same good results.  When the story or the talk drags, the game with its greater dramatic power may be substituted.

[Sidenote:  Fatigue]

(2) Children should neither be allowed to work to the point of fatigue nor to stop when they please.  Fatigue, as our latest investigators in physiological psychology have conclusively proved, is productive of an actual poison in the blood and as such is peculiarly harmful to young children.  But while work—­or for that matter play either—­must never be pushed past the point of healthful fatigue, it may well be pushed past the point of spontaneous interest and desire:  the child may be happily persuaded by various hidden means to do a little more than he is quite ready to do.  By this device, which is one of the recognized devices of the Kindergarten, mothers increase by imperceptible degrees that power of attention which makes will power.

[Sidenote:  Willing Industry]

(3) Set the example of willing industry.  Neither let the child conceive of you as an impersonal necessary part of the household machinery, nor as an unwilling martyr to household necessities.  Most mothers err in one or the other of these two directions, and many of them err in both:  they either, (a) perform the innumerable services of the household so quietly and steadily that the child does not perceive the effort that the performance costs and, therefore, as far as his consciousness is concerned, is deprived of the force of his mother’s example, or (b) they groan aloud over their burdens and make their daily martyrdom vocal.  Either way is wrong, for it is a mistake not to let a child see that your steady performance of tasks, which cannot be always delightful, is a result of self-discipline; and it is equally a mistake to let him think that this discipline is one against which you rebel.  For in reality you are so far from being unwilling to bind yourself in his service that if he needed it you would promptly double and quadruple your exertions.  It is exactly what you do when he is sick or in danger; and if he dies the sorest ache of your heart is the ache of the love that can no longer be of service to the beloved.

[Sidenote:  Monotony]