the common duties and virtues may be assured.

There must be constant practice in sustained effort and
concentration upon useful tasks, in order to fix the habit of
holding the attention upon the chosen purpose.

We must not confuse wilfulness with strength of will; and, finally,

There must be constant opportunity for making decisions that the
child may feel responsibility in making of decisions as the highest
type of conduct.




VIII.

HOW CHILDREN REASON


"Those children will not listen to reason," said a friend whom I
discovered in an agitated state of mind one afternoon, when I came
to make a call; and she was by no means the first to make this
observation. Indeed, it is one of the characteristics of children
that they will not listen to reason,--that is, _our_ reason.
Which is not, however, saying anything against the children's good
sense, for people with much more experience have refused to listen
to reason--the children's reason.

Margaret told me her troubles. Her sister had rented a farm near the