development, can not be expected to take cognizance at once of all the
aspects of a transaction which tends in different directions to different
results. It is true, that he ought to have thought of the distress of the
boys, if we mean that he ought to be taught or trained to think of such
distress when he witnessed it; and that was exactly what his aunt was
endeavoring to do. We ourselves have learned, by long experience of life,
to perceive at once the many different aspects which an affair may present,
and the many different results which may flow in various directions from
the same action; and we often inconsiderately blame children, simply
because their minds are yet so imperfectly developed that they can not take
simultaneous cognizance of more than one or two of them. This is the true
philosophy of most of what is called heedlessness in children, and for
which, poor things, they receive so many harsh reprimands and so much
punishment.

A little girl, for example, undertakes to water her sister's plants. In her
praiseworthy desire to do her work well and thoroughly, she fills the mug
too full, and spills the water upon some books that are lying upon the
table. The explanation of the misfortune is simply that her mind was
filled, completely filled, with the thoughts of helping her sister. The
thought of the possibility of spilling the water did not come into it at
all. There was no room for it while the other thought, so engrossing, was
there; and to say that she _ought_ to have thought of both the results
which might follow her action, is only to say that she ought to be older.

_Sympathy as the Origin of childish Fears_.

The power of sympathy in the mind of a child--that is, its tendency
to imbibe the opinions or sentiments manifested by others in their
presence--may be made very effectual, not only in inculcating principles of