justice in our bargaining, or are we sharp and self-considerate? Do we
practice democracy, or only talk it and wave the flag at it?

And so on with a hundred other questions as to those small repeated
acts, which, springing from base motives, may put our unconscious
influence with our children in the already over-weighted down-side of
the scale; or met bravely and nobly, at some expense of convenience,
may help to enlighten the weight of inherited evil. Sometimes I wonder
how much of what we call inherited evil is the result not of heredity
at all, but of this sort of unconscious education.




ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS




THE SELF-DISTRUSTFUL CHILD.


"Your question is an excellent one. The answer to it is really
contained in your answer to the question about obedience. If a child
obey _laws_ not persons, and is steadily shown the reasonableness of
what is required of him, he comes to trust those laws and to trust
himself when he is conscious of obeying. But in addition to this
general training, it might be well to give a self-distrustful child
easy work to do--work well within his ability--then to praise him for
performing it; give him something a little harder, but still within