“But the evil training of your youths does not end here. For example: Nearly all your parents, teachers, preachers and other persons take the part of a child complaining against the conduct of another child. This is one of the most unholy lessons you can teach. Let me illustrate my meaning more clearly. A number of children are playing outdoors. One strikes or otherwise offends another. The offended one will begin to bawl in order to attract the attention of the mother in the house, or it will go to the mother to state its actual or imaginary grievances. The mother, who, as a rule, knows very little about human nature, immediately loses her temper and plays general havoc with the real or supposed offender; first, by asking him a series of questions which tend to make a liar out of the child, and secondly, by beating the offender, which act makes a worse despot out of the mother than the offending child was. But remember that this is not all the harmful results brought about by your method on this point. If, during the inquiry, the child believes it can escape further punishment by telling a falsehood, nine times out of ten it is tempted to do so, in order to get out of its predicament. Thus it becomes plain that the mother’s course of action offers a premium on lying.” “But what would you do with such an offender?” asked Rev. Dudley. “Would you let one child pound and abuse another without interfering? Would you let your neighbor’s child kick and beat your own?” “Let me explain, Rev. Dudley,” said Mr. Midith. “My reply to the first part of your interrogatory is that I would change the _conditions_ which produce such offenders. Then you ask, ‘Would you let one child pound and otherwise abuse another child, perhaps a younger one, without interfering?’ My reply to that is, that your very interfering made the _one_ child a ‘pounder,’ as you call him, and the other one a whining complainer. If your adults would not resort to ‘pounding,’ your children would not. Your children are only imitating your example. What a prominent part in the mind of the child the rod plays in domestic life is demonstrated by the fact that whenever your children play house, the child who represents the father or mother is generally applying the switch to the others. From what I have seen, I believe that your children are not half as cruel in many respects as your adults are. “If you would never give any encouragement or attention to a complaining tattler, there would be no such tattlers and complainers. It is the encouragement and success with which the complainer meets at your hands which make him a complainer, and the greater his success the more frequently he will resort to it. “A child, in order to become the completest person, must, from the beginning, be left free to adjust its own social affairs. All parental and governmental interference and paternalism is a hindrance in the process of attaining the highest social plane.