Page:The lady or the tiger and other stories, Stockton (Scribner's 1897 ed).djvu/186

176 to be careful to keep that other down. The practice of some fathers and mothers of coming frequently to the front, when their presence there is least expected or desired, must have been noticed by many children who had supposed their parents so thoroughly trained that they would not think of such a thing as causing trouble and annoyance to those above them. A parent is human, and cannot be depended upon to preserve always the same line of action; and the children who are accustomed to see their fathers and mothers perfectly obedient, docile, and inoffensive, must not expect that satisfactory conduct to continue if they are allowed to discover that a guiding and controlling hand is not always upon them. There are parents, of course, who never desire to rise, even temporarily, from the inferior positions which, at the earliest possible period, they have assumed in their families. Such persons are perfectly safe; and when a child perceives by careful observation that a parent belongs to this class, it may, without fear, relax much of the watchfulness and discipline necessary in most families, and content itself with merely indicating the path that it is desirable the elder person should pursue. Such parents are invaluable boons to an ambitious, energetic, and masterful child; and if there were more of them the anxieties, the perplexities, and the difficulties of the child-power among us would be greatly ameliorated.

Even when parents may be considered to be conducting themselves properly, and to need no increase of vigilant control, it is often well for the child to enter into their pursuits; to see what they are doing,