Possibly it may sound a trifle absurd to say that from the first the child should have the habit of obedience implanted, yet this is no absurdity, but a serious and important fact. At an astonishingly early age the infant endeavors to pit its small will against that of its seniors, and the initial step in revolt is promptly followed by others unless the attempt is checked at once. Neither time nor place is sufficient here to go into the reasons why the training of a child in obedience, even at the cost of suffering and punishment, is not the exercise over the weak of the tyranny of the strong, but the display of superior wisdom for the benefit of the inexperienced. It is enough to remind those who think that a child should be allowed to grow up naturally, unrestrained by rule and severity, when severity is required to enforce discipline, that all through life the human being must conform to constituted authority as exemplified in the laws of health, of the state, of teachers and employers, of morality, of religion. In view of this the sooner the child learns to defer to those in whose charge it is the better for it later on, the less cruel the lessons life holds in store for it. Apart from this there can be no doubt that the well-trained child is actually happier than the one with no law but its own whim. Also it is much pleasanter company than the self-willed, undisciplined infant who follows its own sweet will regardless of the comfort or preference of others. The same kind of regimen established for a child in babyhood should be pursued when it grows older and begins to share more actively in the life of the household. The mistaken custom of permitting a child to keep the same hours, eat the same diet, and follow practically the same life as its elders cannot be sufficiently condemned. The habit of going to bed early after a light meal, of having the heaviest repast in the middle of the day, of partaking of such food as is particularly suited to the needs of a growing child, of being debarred rich and indigestible articles of diet, of having postponed until more advanced years exciting amusements and pursuits instead of being hurried into them while hardly out of infancy, should all be enforced. A child is not a miniature man or woman, but an immature human being who must develop naturally, as plants grow, and is wronged by being forced into premature bloom or fruition, mentally or emotionally as much as physically.