regarded as hysterical.  The impulse is then a morbid and debased impulse; in the child it is natural and, within limits, praiseworthy.  A girl of this sort, who feels that she is not likely to attract attention because of any special gifts of beauty or intellect which she may possess, becomes conscious that she can always arouse interest by the severity of her bodily sufferings.  The suggestion acts upon her unstable mind, and forthwith she becomes paralysed, or a cripple, or dumb, presenting a mimicry or travesty of some bodily ailment with which she is more or less familiar.  “Hysterical” girls will even apply caustic to the skin in order to produce some strange eruption which, while it sorely puzzles us doctors, will excite widespread interest and commiseration.  Now little children will seldom carry their desire to attract attention so far as to work upon the feelings of their parents by simulating disease.  They have not the necessary knowledge to play the part, and even if they make the attempt, complaining of this or that symptom which they notice has aroused the interest of their elders, the simulation is not likely to be so successful as to deceive even a superficial observer.  But within the limits of their own powers, children are past masters in attracting attention.  The little child is unable to take part in any sustained conversation; most of his talking, indeed, is done when he is alone, and is addressed to no one in particular.  But he knows well that by a given action he can produce a given reaction in his mother and nurse.  A great part of what is said to him—­too great a part by far—­comes under the category of reproof or repression.  He is forbidden to do this or that, coaxed, cajoled, threatened long before he is old enough to understand the meaning of the words spoken, although he knows the tone in which they are uttered and loves to produce it at will.  How he enjoys it all!  Watch him draw near the fire, the one place that is forbidden him.  He does not mean to do himself harm.  He knows that it is hot and would hurt him, but for the time being he is out of the picture and he is intent on producing the expected response, the reproof tone from his mother which he knows so well.  He approaches it warily, often anticipating his mother’s part and vigorously scolding himself.  He desires nothing more than that his mother should repeat the reproof, forbidding him a dozen times.  The mind of all little children tends easily to work in a groove.  It delights in repetition and it evoking not the unexpected but the expected.  If his sport is stopped by his mother losing patience and removing him bodily from the danger zone, his sense of impotence finds vent in passionate crying.  But if his mother takes no notice, the sport soon loses its savour.  He is conscious that somehow or other it has fallen flat, and he flits off to other employment.