PREFACE 
HE keeping of pets should provide the child 
with excellent training for making him respon- 
sible. To attain this he should have the entire care of 
the dependent creature. The chief advantage of 
this peculiar training and responsibility lies in the 
fact that the child loves the pet, and there is no 
training in thoughtfulness for others so educating 
as that attained through loving service. 
If the child tires of a pet, it should be given to 
someone else, or chloroformed. It is a cruel act 
to make a pet dependent upon a careless or unloving 
master, and it teaches a child cruelty and hardness 
of heart to be obliged to give unloving care. 
Pets are greatly needed in most homes these 
days, for this very purpose of developing responsi- 
bility in children, by giving them duties of real 
importance. In our present civilization there seems 
little enough to give a child the training that was 
so valuable to us who were fortunate enough to 
spend our childhood upon the farm, where a thousand 
little duties were constantly calling to us, and which, 
very early, impressed upon us the fact that this 
world did not exist for our selfish pleasure, but rather 
as an opportunity for us to exercise the helping hand; 
and that our importance in it was measured by our 
usefulness. 
The keeping of pets should also be an education 
to a child in the matter of interesting him in other 
countries, through a study of his pets in their natural 
surroundings. Thus he should be spurred on to 
the study of natural history, and come to feel that 
Til 
