themselves, giving them minute and special directions in regard to every
step. If her object had been to cultivate their taste and judgment, then it
would have been better to allow them to choose the flowers and determine
the arrangement for themselves; but she was teaching them _obedience_, or,
rather, beginning to form in them the _habit_ of obedience; and so, the
more numerous and minute the commands the better, provided that they were
not in them selves unreasonable, nor so numerous and minute as to be
vexatious, so as to incur any serious danger of their not being readily and
good-humoredly obeyed.

[Illustration: THE LESSON IN OBEDIENCE.]

_THE ART OF TRAINING_. 101

When the bouquets were finished Mary gave the children, severally, the
two which had been made for them; and the two which they had made for
themselves she took into the house and placed them in glasses upon the
parlor mantel-piece, and then stood back with the children in the middle of
the room to admire them.

"See how pretty they look! And how nicely the work went on while we were
making them! That was because you obeyed me so well while we were doing it.
You did exactly as I said in every thing."

_A Beginning only_.

Now this was an excellent _first lesson_ in training the children to the
habit of obedience. It is true that it was _only_ a first lesson. It was a
beginning, but it was a very good beginning. If, on the following day, Mary
had given the children a command which it would be irksome to them to obey,