_Difficulties_.

When under these circumstances the children come under a new charge,
whether permanently or temporarily, the task of re-form in or their
characters is more delicate and difficult than where one can begin at the
beginning; but the principles are the same, and the success is equally
certain. The difficulty is somewhat increased by the fact that the person
thus provisionally in charge has often no natural authority over the child,
and the circumstances may moreover be such as to make it necessary to
abstain carefully from any measures that would lead to difficulty or
collision, to cries, complaints to the mother, or any of those other forms
of commotion or annoyance, which ungoverned children know so well how to
employ in gaining their ends. The mother may be one of those weak-minded
women who can never see any thing unreasonable in the crying complaints
made by their children against other people. Or she may be sick, and it may
be very important to avoid every thing that could agitate or disturb her.

_George and Egbert_.

This last was the case of George, a young man of seventeen, who came to
spend some time at home after an absence of two years in the city. He found
his mother sick, and his little brother, Egbert, utterly insubordinate and
unmanageable.

"The first thing I have to do," said George to himself, when he observed
how things were, "is to get command of Egbert;" and as the first lesson
which he gave his little brother illustrates well the principle of gentle
but efficient punishment, I will give it here.