regarded with indifference, if not with aversion; and hence the equally numerous cases in which children are looked upon as inflictions.  Seeing then, as all must do, that estrangement of this kind is fatal to a salutary moral culture, it follows that parents cannot be too solicitous in avoiding occasions of direct antagonism with their children.  And therefore they cannot too anxiously avail themselves of this discipline of natural consequences; which, by relieving them from penal functions, prevents mutual exasperations and estrangements.

The method of moral culture by experience of the normal reactions, which is the divinely-ordained method alike for infancy and for adult life, we thus find to be equally applicable during the intermediate childhood and youth.  Among the advantages of this method we see:—­First:  that it gives that rational knowledge of right and wrong conduct which results from personal experience of their good and bad consequences.  Second:  that the child, suffering nothing more than the painful effects of its own wrong actions, must recognise more or less clearly the justice of the penalties.  Third:  that recognising the justice of the penalties, and receiving them through the working of things rather than at the hands of an individual, its temper is less disturbed; while the parent fulfilling the comparatively passive duty of letting the natural penalties be felt, preserves a comparative equanimity.  Fourth:  that mutual exasperations being thus prevented, a much happier, and a more influential relation, will exist between parent and child.

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“But what is to be done in cases of more serious misconduct?” some will ask.  “How is this plan to be carried out when a petty theft has been committed? or when a lie has been told? or when some younger brother or sister has been ill-used?”

Before replying to these questions, let us consider the bearings of a few illustrative facts.

Living in the family of his brother-in-law, a friend of ours had undertaken the education of his little nephew and niece.  This he had conducted, more perhaps from natural sympathy than from reasoned-out conclusions, in the spirit of the method above set forth.  The two children were in doors his pupils and out of doors his companions.  They daily joined him in walks and botanising excursions, eagerly sought plants for him, looked on while he examined and identified them, and in this and other ways were ever gaining pleasure and instruction in his society.  In short, morally considered, he stood to them much more in the position of parent than either their father or mother did.  Describing to us the results of this policy, he gave, among other instances, the following.  One evening, having need for some article lying in another part of the house, he asked his nephew to fetch it.  Interested as the boy was in some amusement of the moment, he, contrary to his wont, either exhibited