Do not be afraid of anything; become his comrade, in order to have the right of remaining his friend.  Hide your paternal superiority as the commissary of police does his sash.  Ask with kindness for that which you might rightly insist upon having, and await everything from his heart if you have known how to touch it.  Carefully avoid such ugly words as discipline, passive obedience and command; let his submission be gentle to him, and his obedience resemble kindness.  Renounce the stupid pleasure of imposing your fancies upon him, and of giving orders to prove your infallibility.

Children have a keenness of judgment, and a delicacy of impression which would not be imagined, unless one has studied them.  Justice and equity are easily born in their minds, for they possess, above all things, positive logic.  Profit by all this.  There are unjust and harsh words which remain graven on a child’s heart, and which he remembers all his life.  Reflect that, in your baby, there is a man whose affection will cheer your old age; therefore respect him so that he may respect you; and be sure that there is not a single seed sown in this little heart which will not sooner or later bear fruit.

But there are, you will say, unmanageable children, rebels from the cradle.  Are you sure that the first word they heard in their lives has not been the cause of their evil propensities?  Where there has been rebellion, there has been clumsy pressure; for I will not believe in natural vice.  Among evil instincts there is always a good one, of which an arm can be made to combat the others.  This requires, I know, extreme kindness, perfect tact, and unlimited confidence, but the reward is sweet.  I think, therefore, in conclusion, that a father’s first kiss, his first look, his first caresses, have an immense influence on a child’s life.  To love is a great deal.  To know how to love is everything.

Even were one not a father, it is impossible to pass by the dear little ones without feeling touched, and without loving them.  Muddy and ragged, or carefully decked out; running in the roadway and rolling in the dust, or playing at skipping rope in the gardens of the Tuileries; dabbling among the ducklings, or building hills of sand beside well-dressed mammas—­babies are charming.  In both classes there is the same grace, the same unembarrassed movements, the same comical seriousness, the same carelessness as to the effect created, in short, the same charm; the charm that is called childhood, which one can not understand without loving—­which one finds just the same throughout nature, from the opening flower and the dawning day to the child entering upon life.

A baby is not an imperfect being, an unfinished sketch—­he is a man.  Watch him closely, follow every one of his movements; they will reveal to you a logical sequence of ideas, a marvellous power of imagination, such as will not again be found at any period of life.  There is more real poetry in the brain of these dear loves than in twenty epics.  They are surprised and unskilled, no doubt; but nothing equals the vigor of these minds, unexperienced, fresh, simple, sensible of the slightest impressions, which make their way through the midst of the unknown.