“Your question is an excellent one.  The answer to it is really contained in your answer to the question about obedience.  If a child obey laws not persons, and is steadily shown the reasonableness of what is required of him, he comes to trust those laws and to trust himself when he is conscious of obeying.  But in addition to this general training, it might be well to give a self-distrustful child easy work to do—­work well within his ability—­then to praise him for performing it; give him something a little harder, but still within his reach, and so on, steadily calling on him for greater and greater effort, but seeing to it that the effort is not too great and that it bears visible fruit.  He should never be allowed to be discouraged; and when he droops over his work, some strong, friendly help may well he given him.  Sensitive, conscientious children, such as I imagine you were, are sometimes overwhelmed in this way by parents, quite unconscious of the pain they are giving by assigning tasks that are beyond the strength and courage of the young toilers.

“At the same time, much might be done by training the child’s attention from product to process.  You know the St. Louis Fair does not aim to show what has been done, but how things are done.  So a child—­so you—­can find happiness and intellectual uplift in studying the laws at work under the simplest employment instead of counting the number of things finished.”

COMPANY WAYS

“A boy who is visiting us is so beset with rules and ‘nagged’ even by glances and nudges, that I wonder that he is not bewildered and rebellious.  He seems good and pleasant and obedient (12 years old), but I keep wondering why?”

“Perhaps these were company ways inspired by an over-anxiety on his mother’s part that he should appear well.  Oh, I have been so tempted in this direction!—­for of course people look at my children to see if they prove the truth of my teachings, and as they are vigorous, free and active youngsters, with decided characteristics they often do the most unexpected and uncomfortable things!  There must be good points both in the boy himself—­the boy you mention—­and in his training which offset the bad effects of the ‘nagging’ you notice—­and possibly the nagging itself may not be customary when he is at home.  And perhaps the mother knows that you are a close observer of children.”

THEORY BEFORE PRACTICE

“There is only one danger in learning about the training of children in advance of their advent, and that is the danger of being too sure of ourselves—­too systematic.  The best training is that which is most invisible—­which leaves the child most in freedom.  Almost the whole duty of mothers is to provide the right environment and then just love and enjoy the child as he moves and grows in it.  But to do this apparently easy thing requires so much simplicity and directness of vision and most of us are so complex and confused that considerable training and considerable effort are required to put us into the right attitude.