misfortune, the bowels may remain obstinately unmoved. In children as
in adults a too great concentration of attention inhibits the action
of the bowels, and constipation, in many persons, is due to the
attempt to substitute will power for the force of habitual suggestion.
No matter what other treatment we adopt, the mother must be careful to
hide from the child that his failure is distressing to her. A cheerful
optimism which teaches him to regard himself as one who is
conspicuously regular in his habits, and who has a reputation in this
respect to live up to is sure to succeed. To talk before him of his
habitual constipation, and to worry over the difficulty, is as surely
to fail. In the same way unwise suggestion can interfere with the
passing of water at regular and suitable intervals. There are children
who constantly desire to pass water on any occasion, which is
conspicuously inappropriate, because their attention has been
concentrated on the sensations in the bladder. Often enough when at
great inconvenience opportunity has been found, the desire has passed
away, and all the trouble has proved needless. It is not too much to
say that every occupation and every action of the day can be made
delightful or hateful to the child, according to the suggestion with
which it is presented and introduced. Dressing and undressing, eating
and drinking, bathing, washing, the putting away of toys, even going
to bed, can be made matters of enthralling interest or delight, or a
subject for tears and opposition, according to the bias which is given
to the child's mind by the words, attitude, and actions of nurses and
mothers.

Here we approach very near to the heart of the subject. Stripped of
all that is not essential we see the problem of the management of
children reduced to the interplay between the adult mind and the mind
of the receptive suggestible child. That which is thought of and