unnatural a desire--would be often to express violent resentment yourself,
with scowling looks and fierce denunciations against those who have
offended you; so, to awaken them to sentiments of gratitude for the favors
they receive, you must gently lead them to sympathize with you in the
gratitude which _you_ feel for the favors that _you_ receive.

When a child shows some special unwillingness to comply with her mother's
desires, her mother may address to her a kind but direct and plain
expostulation on the obligations of children to their parents, and the duty
incumbent on them of being grateful for their kindness, and to be willing
to do what they can in return. Such an address would probably do no good at
all. The child would receive it simply as a scolding, no matter how mildly
and gently the reproof might be expressed, and would shut her heart against
it. It is something which she must stand still and endure, and that is all.

But let the mother say the same things precisely when the child has shown a
willingness to make some little sacrifice to aid or to gratify her mother,
so that the sentiment expressed may enter her mind in the form of approval
and not of condemnation, and the effect will be very different. The
sentiments will, at any rate, now not be rejected from the mind, but the
way will be open for them to enter, and the conversation will have a good
effect, so far as didactic teaching can have effect in such a case.

But now to bring in the element of sympathy as a means of reaching and
influencing the mind of the child: The mother, we will suppose, standing at
the door some morning before breakfast in spring, with her little daughter,
seven or eight years old, by her side, hears a bird singing on a tree near
by. She points to the tree, and says, in a half-whisper, "Hark!"

When the sound ceases, she looks to the child with an expression of