Page:Book of Etiquette, Volume 1, by Lilian Eichler.djvu/302

 which their natures revolt. The bond that should exist between parent and child is a certain understanding friendliness—an implicit faith on the part of the child, and a wise guidance on the part of the parent.

Remember that a child is like a flower. If the flower is not permitted to struggle upward towards the sun, and to gather in the tiny dewdrops, it will wither and die. If the child is not allowed to develop naturally, its tastes and ideals will be warped and shallow.

Teach your child to be well-mannered and polite, but do not disguise him with unnatural manners and speech.

There are two kinds of young girls—those who face life as some great opportunity, who consider it a splendid gift to be made the most of, and who help to create the beauty that they love to admire; and those who are butterflies of society, whose lives are mere husks, without depth, without worth-while impulses and ambitions. They are satisfied if they know how to dance gracefully, if they know how to enter a room in an impressive manner, if they know how to be charming at the dinner table. Their conversation is idle chatter; their ambitions are to be "social queens," to earn social distinction and importance.

Fortunately, the twentieth century girl is less of a butterfly than the tight-laced, hoop-skirted young miss of the latter part of the nineteenth century. Perhaps the war had something to do with it. Perhaps it is because so many new occupations have been opened up to her. Perhaps it is evolution. But the young miss of to-day is certainly more thrilled with life and its