housekeeping and farming a generation or two ago. There has, indeed,
been developed a considerable mass of exact knowledge about the
nature of the child, and about the laws of his development; but this
knowledge has been for most parents a closed book. It is not what
the scientists know, but what the people apply, that marks our
progress.

"Child-study" has been considered something with which young
normal-school students have to struggle before they begin their
_real_ struggle with bad boys. But mothers have been expected to know,
through some divine instinct, just how to handle their own children,
without any special study or preparation. That the divine instinct has
not taught them properly to feed the young infant and the growing
child we have learned but slowly and at great cost in human life and
suffering; but we _have_ learned it. Our next lesson should be to
realize that our instincts cannot be relied upon when it comes to
understanding the child's mind, the meaning of his various activities,
and how best to guide his mental and moral development.

Mistakes that parents--and teachers--make in dealing with the
child's mind are not often fatal. Nor can you always trace the evil
effects of such mistakes in the later character of the child. But
there can be no doubt that many of the heartbreaks, misunderstandings,
and estrangements between parents and children are due to mistakes
that could have been avoided by a knowledge of the nature of the
child's mind.

There are, fortunately, many parents who arrive at an understanding
of the nature of the child through sympathetic insight, through
quick observation, through the application of sound sense and the