cracy breeds revolution. It is a blind leading of the blind. For it is really the disposition of the mother in trying to have her own way, that leads the child to have his in the objectionable sense that is meant.

When the mother's sympathetic insight finds the child's "way" an excusable, tolerable and lovable way, she sees it rapidly becoming her way,— everybody's way, the way of all the world in its striving for objective excellence. The child becomes orderly, conventional, a true conformist, by the short route of his "own way." Let it be noted that the painful, obstructed, super-imposed way of another has often made him either a false rebellious conformist, or a dull and meaningless

one.

Children give without stint, the service of willing hands and feet, "in their own way.' Their way is the nucleus of the informed, intelligent, adapted way, which, later, we call useful work in the ministries of home and social fellowship. It is perilous for our future democracy, if we make the child niggardly and selfish, by refusing his requests for attention and companionship.

There are those who will say that "giving up to a child" makes him selfish. This may be true when the "giving up" means that the child has won out in a battle of wills against a selfish and

self-centered mother. In that case the giving up was a matter of weakness on her part. But when the strong make concessions to the weak, the weaker one is strengthened in unselfishness.

The child makes omnivorous demands upon all our resources of time and intelligence. That society through the parents should make large concessions to these demands is but to save its own life. Each new cell must be given a chance for itself, though its ultimate destiny is to serve the organism of which it is a part. The need that we are trying to state is that of letting the child live his own life. His exemption from the rules that govern ordinary conduct, while he is, for the time being a law unto himself, is but the hiding of the little seed in the earth, there to feed and feed, giving nothing in return for its nourishment. That which is meant for the enrichment of universal life, must have its beginnings in separateness and exclusion.

Says Prof. Henderson, "Children are submitted to the inventions devised for adult life, to the clothing, food, confinement, ceremonies, bric-abrac, rapid transit, in a word to the friction of modern complex living, and in such an environment they prove so altogether inconvenient that they must be suppressed in order to save the already tense nerves of the adult world." When

mothers shall refuse to permit this sacrifice of the eager child's joy in living, when they shall know how to guard and conserve it instead, for the energizing of a free nation, we shall have no more of "man's inhumanity to man." Says Bertrand Russell: "When a man's growth is unimpeded, his self respect remains intact, and he is not inclined to regard others as his enemies, but when, for whatever reason his growth is impeded, or he is compelled to grow into some twisted or unnatural shape, his instinct presents the environment as his enemy and he is filled with hatred. The joy of life abandons him and malevolence takes the place of friendliness. The malevolence of hunchbacks and cripples is proverbial; and a similar malevolence is to be found in those who have been crippled in less obvious ways. Real freedom if it could be brought about, would go a long way toward destroying hatred."

In his book "Why Men Fight," Bertrand Russell bases the reason for the continuance of war upon the fact that man's impulse to love, the instinct of constructiveness, and the joy of life, "are checked and enfeebled at present by the conditions under which men live." He continues: "Our economic system forces almost all men to carry out the purposes of others rather than their own, making them feel impotent in action and only able to

secure a certain modicum of passive pleasure. All these things destroy the vigor of the community, the expansive affection of individuals, and the power of viewing the world generously. All these things are unnecessary and can be ended by wisdom and courage. If they were ended, the impulsive life of man would become wholly different, and the human race might travel towards a new happiness and a new vigor."

When children are well nourished, in soul and body, when the impediments to their growth are removed from the home, outward hindrances to the progress of the race which the mind of man has projected into his environment will also be removed. Beautiful abounding life will overwhelm the desert places, where poverty and dearth prevail. The good-will and the glad courage and all compelling sympathies of the child spirit will have been nourished and cherished until they, in turn, will nourish and cherish the world.

Those whose left-over memories of Mother Goose include the story of the old woman who bought a pig with her crooked sixpence, will recall how she tried to set in motion a whole series of influences, in order to get the pig to jump over the stile, so that she might get home that night. The expedient of the dog, the stick, the fire, the water, the ox, the butcher, the rope, the rat, all

proved ineffectual. But our childish interest was led on to a thrilling climax when the saucer of milk, given to the cat, turned out to be the crucial event, that set in motion the whole chain of causes operating for the removal of the one obstacle to the old woman's getting home that night. We followed with breathless interest the conclusion of the tale!

The cat began to kill the rat;
The rat began to gnaw the rope;
The rope began to hang the butcher;
The butcher began to kill the ox;
The ox began to drink the water;
The water began to quench the fire;
The fire began to burn the stick;
The stick began to beat the dog;
The dog began to bite the pig;
The pig jumped over the stile;

And so the old woman got home that night. Applying this quaint philosophy, we may think of the whole series of social, political, moral and religious movements seeking to remove obstacles to human progress as inert and powerless, until we have touched the mainspring of action, in the unfolding life of the child.