community welfare, or of social needs, or of moral advance in the
home, where Robert has a chance to hear you, he can get suggestions
toward such ideals only after he has read enough to become
acquainted with these problems and the corresponding lines of
service for himself.

Answers received from hundreds of girls and boys would seem to show
that virtue and goodness are desirable to children at a certain
stage of their development chiefly, if not solely, because they
bring material or social benefits. Virtue is rewarded not by any
internal or spiritual satisfaction, but by freer access to the candy
supply or to the skating pond. The right is that which is allowable,
or that which may be practiced with impunity. The wrong is that
which is forbidden or punishable. Of course, this attitude toward
moral values should not continue through life. We should do what we
can to establish higher ideals of right and wrong. How soon this
change will come must depend very largely on where the emphasis is
laid by those around the child. If, when you give Robert a piece of
candy, you always impress him with the idea that this is his
compensation for having been "good," he will retain this association
between virtue and material reward long past the age when he can
already appreciate the satisfaction that comes from exercising his
instinct to be helpful, or from doing what he thinks is right. If,
however, the idea in the home is that all goes well and all feel
cheerful and happy because every one is trying to do the right
thing, the various indulgences and liberties will mean to the child
merely the material manifestations of the good feeling that
prevails, and not rewards of virtue. So far as possible, rewards and
punishments should be directed toward the _deed_ and not the
child. The aim should be to make the child derive his highest