Page:The lady or the tiger and other stories, Stockton (Scribner's 1897 ed).djvu/182

172 many brothers and sisters may have preceded it, or to what extent these may have allowed the parents to have their own way, need ever despair of assuming the control which the others have allowed to elude their grasp. It is not at all uncommon for the youngest child of a large family to be able to step to the front, and show to the others how a parent may be guided and regulated by the exercise of firm will and determined action.

If, as has been asserted, parental training is begun early enough, the child will find its task an easy one, and little advice will be needed by it, but in the case of delayed action there is one point which should be kept in mind, and that is that sudden and violent measures should, as far as possible, be avoided. In times gone by it used to be the custom of many parents, when offended by a child, to administer a box to the culprit's ear. An unexpected incident of this kind was apt to cause a sudden and tremendous change in the mental action of the young person boxed. His views of life; his recollections of the past; his aspirations for the future; his ideas of nature, of art, of the pursuit of happiness—were all merged and blended into one overwhelming sensation. For the moment he knew nothing on earth but the fact that he had been boxed. From this point the comprehension of his own status among created things; his understanding of surrounding circumstances, and of cosmic entities in general, had to begin anew. Whether he continued to be the same boy as before, or diverging one way or the other, became a better or a worse one, was a result