io8 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



a lover of fun that he is pretty certain to betray his ruse in a case 

 like this, and our small flea-catcher, we are told, laughed mis- 

 chievously as he proffered his excuse. Such sly fabrications may 

 be just as naughty as the uninspired excuses of a stupidly sulky 

 child, but it is hard to be quite as much put out by them. 



These excuses often show a fine range of inventive activity. 

 How manifold, for example, are the reasons, more or less ficti- 

 tious, which a boy, when told to make less noise, is able to urge 

 in favor of noncompliance ! Here, of course, all the great matters 

 of the play world, the need of getting his " ^qq-^qq " on, of giving 

 his orders to his soldiers, and so forth, come in between the pro- 

 hibition and compliance. And disobedience in such cases has its 

 excuses ; for to the child his play- world, even though in a man- 

 ner modeled on the pattern of our common world, is apart and 

 sacred ; and the conventional restraints as to noise and such like, 

 borrowed from the every-day world, seem to him to be quite out 

 of place in this free and private domain of his own. 



We all know the child's aptness in "easing" the pressure of 

 commands and prohibitions. If, for example, he is told to keep 

 perfectly quiet because mother or father wants to sleep, he will 

 prettily plead for the reservation of whispering ever so softly. 

 If he is bidden not to ask for things at the table, he will resort to 

 sly indirect reminders of what he wants, as when a boy of five 

 years and a half whispered audibly, " I hope somebody will offer 

 me some more soup," or when a girl of three years and a half, 

 with still greater childish tact, observed on seeing the elder folk 

 eating cake, " I not asking." This last may be compared with a 

 story told by Rousseau of a little girl of six years who, having 

 eaten of all the dishes but one, artfully indicated the fact by 

 pointing in turn to all the dishes, saying, " I have eaten that," 

 but carefully passing by the untasted one.* 



When more difficult duties come to be enforced and the neo- 

 phyte in the higher morality is bidden to be considerate for 

 others, and even to sacrifice his own comfort for theirs, he is apt 

 to manifest a good deal of skill in adjusting the counsel of per- 

 fection to young weakness. Here is an amusing example: A 

 little boy, Edgar by name, aged five years and three quarters, was 

 going out to take tea with some little girls. The mother, as is 

 usual on such occasions, primed him with special directions as 

 to behavior, saying, " Remember to give way to them, like father 

 does to me." To which Edgar, after thinking a brief instant 

 replied ; " Oh, but not all at once. You have to "persuade him." 



A like astuteness will show itself in meeting accusation. The 



* Emile, livre v, quoted by Perez, L'Art et la Poesie chez I'Enfant, p. 127. Rousseau 

 uses this story in order to show that girls are more artful than boys. 



