Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 1.djvu/576

560 that it fixes the child's attention upon its hurt, and causes it to attain that habit of self-consciousness which is in after-life found to have most pernicious effects. Now, what does the sensible and judicious nurse do? She distracts the child's attention, holding it up to the window to look at the pretty horses, or gets it a toy to look at. This excites the child's attention, and the child forgets its hurt, and in a few moments is itself again, unless the hurt has been severe. When I speak of coddling, I mean about a trifling hurt such as is forgotten in a few moments; a severe injury is a different matter. But I believe that the coddling is only next in its evil results (when followed out as a system) to the evil effects of the system of scolding; the distraction of the attention is the object to be aimed at. Well, after a time the child comes to be able to distract its own attention. It feels that it can withdraw its own mind from the sense of its pain, and can give its mind to some other object, to a picture-book or to some toy, or whatever the child feels an interest in; and that is the great secret of self- government in later life. We should not say, "I won't think of this"—some temptation, for instance; that simply fixes the attention upon the very thought that we wish to escape from; but the true method is, "I will think of something else;" that, I believe, is the great secret of self-government, the knowledge of which is laid in the earliest periods of nursery-life.

Now, just direct your attention to this diagram, as a sort of summary of the whole:



You see I put at the top the Will. The will dominates every thing else. I do not pretend to explain it, but I simply say, as Archbishop Manning said, in applying my own language to this case, that our common-sense teaches us that we have a will, that we have the power of self-government and self-direction, and that we have the power of