should be reciprocated when they are sincere, but one's own
demonstrations should be reserved for special occasions. This
is one of the many excellent maxims of training that are
disregarded. Nor should the child be forced to express regret
in begging pardon and the like. This is excellent training for
hypocrisy. A small child once had been rude to his elder
brother and was placed upon a chair to repent his fault. When
the mother after a time asked if he was sorry, he answered,
"Yes," with emphasis, but as the mother saw a mutinous sparkle
in his eyes she felt impelled to ask, "Sorry for what?" and the
youngster broke out, "Sorry that I did not call him a liar
besides." The mother was wise enough on this occasion, and ever
after, to give up insisting on repentance.

Spontaneous penitence is full of significance, it is a deeply
felt desire for pardon. But an artificial emotion is always and
everywhere worthless. Are you not sorry? Does it make no
difference to you that your mother is ill, your brother dead,
your father away from home? Such expressions are often used as
an appeal to the emotions of children. But children have a
right to have feelings, or not have them, and to have them as
undisturbed as grown people. The same holds good of their
sympathies and antipathies. The sensitive feelings of children
are constantly injured by lack of consideration on the part of
grown people, their easily stimulated aversions are constantly
being brought out. But the sufferings of children through the
crudeness of their elders belong to an unwritten chapter of
child psychology. Just as there are few better methods of
training than to ask children, when they have behaved unjustly
to others, to consider whether it would be pleasant for them to