Parental authority never used to be called into question; neither was
the catechism, nor the Bible, nor the minister. How should parents
hope to escape the universal interrogation point leveled at everything
else? In these days of free speech it is hopeless to suppose that even
infants can be muzzled. We revel in our republican virtues; let us
accept the vices of those virtues as philosophically as possible.

A lady has been advertising in a New York paper for a German governess
"to mind a little girl three years old." The lady's English is
doubtless defective, but the fate of the governess is thereby
indicated with much greater candor than is usual.

The mother who is most apt to infringe on the rights of her child (of
course with the best intentions) is the "firm" person, afflicted with
the "lust of dominion." There is no elasticity in her firmness to
prevent it from degenerating into obstinacy. It is not the firmness of
the tree that bends without breaking, but the firmness of a certain
long-eared animal whose force of character has impressed itself on the
common mind and become proverbial.

Jean Paul says if "_Pas trop gouverner_" is the best rule in politics,
it is equally true of discipline.

But if the child is unhappy who has none of his rights respected,
equally wretched is the little despot who has more than his own
rights, who has never been taught to respect the rights of others, and
whose only conception of the universe is that of an absolute monarchy
in which he is sole ruler.

"Children rarely love those who spoil them, and never trust them.