The practice of spoiling a child is unjust to the little one and to the parent.  The latter suffers tenfold more than if she, day by day, inculcated the line-upon-line, protest-upon-protest system.  That she does not do this is sometimes due to mistaken kindness, but oftener to self-indulgence or dread of disagreeable scenes, that brings a harvest of misery as surely as he who sows the wind will reap the whirlwind.

A spoiled child is an undutiful child.  This must be true.  The constant humoring and considering of one’s whims will, in course of time, produce a stunted, warped and essentially selfish character, that considers the claims of gratitude and affection as nil compared with the furtherance of personal aims and desires.  Never having learned self-control or obedience, parents and their timid remonstrances must go to the wall before the passions or longings which these same parents in days gone by have fostered.  “Only mother” or “nobody but father” are phrases that are so frequent as to become habitual, while the “you yourself used to let me do this or that” is the burden of many an excuse for misdemeanors.  And after all the years of parental indulgence, what is your reward?  The spring is gone from your own being, while your children will not let you live your life over again in theirs.

We all recall AEsop’s fable of the young man about to be executed, who begged on the scaffold for a last word with his mother, and when the wish was granted, stooped to her and bit off the tip of her ear, that the pain and disfigurement might serve as a constant reminder of the hatred he felt for the over-indulgence and lack of discipline which had brought him to this shameful death.  The hurt which the mother’s heart feels at the thought of causing her child’s downfall is pain too great to be endured.

The letting-alone principle is a short-sighted one.  Even in infancy a spoiled child may make such a nuisance of himself as to produce a disagreeable impression upon all who know him,—­an impression which it takes many years of model behavior to eradicate.  It is actual cruelty to throw upon the child the work the parent should have performed.  It is easy to train the growing plant, but after the bark is tough and the fibre strong it is a terrible strain upon grain and vitality to bend it in a direction to which it is unaccustomed.

Much of the insubordination to be found in the children of the present day is due to the growing habit of entrusting the little ones to servants whose own wills and tempers are uncontrolled and untrained.  A child knows that his nurse has no right to insist upon obedience, and he takes advantage of the knowledge until he is a small tyrant who is conscious of no law beyond that of his own inclinations.

The prime rule in the training of children should be implicit obedience.  The child is happier for knowing that when a command or prohibition is stated there is no appeal from the sentence, and that coaxing avails naught.  Uncertainty is as trying to small men and women as to us who are more advanced in the school of life.