] 7 2 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



ances of courtesy and the like. No trait is better marked in the 

 normal child than the impulse to subject others to his own disci- 

 plinary system. In truth, children are for the most part particu- 

 larly alert disciplinarians. With what amusing severity are they 

 wont to lay down the law to their dolls, and their animal play- 

 mates, subjecting them to precisely the same prohibitions and 

 punishments as those to which they themselves are subject ! Nor 

 do they stop here. They enforce the duties just as courageously 

 on their human elders. A mite of eighteen months went up to 

 her elder sister who was crying, and with perfect mimicry of the 

 nurse's corrective manner said, " Hush, hush ! papa ! " pointing 

 at the same time to the door. The little girl M , when twenty- 

 two months old, was disappointed because a certain Mr. G - did 



not call. In the evening she said, " Mr. D not did turn was 



very naughty. Mr. D - have to be whipped." So natural and 

 inevitable to the intelligence of a child does it seem that the sys- 

 tem of restraints, rebukes, punishments under which he lives 

 should have universal validity. 



This judicial bent of the child is a curious one, and often de- 

 velops a priggish fondness for setting others morally straight. 

 Small boys have to endure much in this way from the hands of 

 slightly older sisters proficient in matters of law and delighting 

 to enforce the moralities. But sometimes the sisters lapse into 

 naughtiness and then the small boys have their chance. They 

 too can on such occasions be priggish if not downright hypocriti- 

 cal. A little boy had been quarreling with his sister, named 

 Muriel, just before going to bed. When he was undressed he 

 knelt down to say his prayers, Muriel sitting near and listening. 

 He prayed (audibly) in this wise : " Please, God, make Muriel a 

 good girl," then looked up and said in an angry voice, "Do you 

 hear that, Muriel ? " and after this digression resumed his petition. 

 I believe fathers, on reading family prayers, have been known to 

 apply portions of Scripture in this personal manner to particular 

 members of the family ; and it is even possible that extempore 

 prayers have been invented, as by this little prig of a boy, for the 

 purpose of administering a sort of back-handed moral blow to an 

 erring neighbor. 



This mania for correction shows itself too in relation to the 

 authorities themselves. A collection of rebukes and expositions 

 of moral precept supplied by children to their erring parents 

 would be amusing and suggestive. As was illustrated above, a 

 child is especially keen to spy fault in his governors when they 

 are themselves administering authority. Here is another exam- 

 ple : A boy of two the moral instruction of parents by the child 

 begins betimes would not go to sleep when bidden to do so by 

 his father and mother. At length the father, losing patience, ad- 



