“I think I shall be able to point out to you the direction of its growth,” said Mr. Midith. “I notice that you have been, and are now, growing governmentally in the same direction as we grew, and, no doubt, you will in time reach the same, or nearly the same, end that we have reached. “From what I have told you on previous occasions, you, of course, understand that we once lived in small families composed of husband and wife and their children. These families, like yours, had a family government. The husband generally considered himself the ‘boss,’ or head of the family. In a low state of civilization he maintained his authority by resorting to physical force and superstition. He often thought it necessary and even his duty to flog his wife and children when they refused to obey his orders. Sometimes he even beat them to death. It was thought then that a family could not exist successfully without some such boss. But as experience gradually taught them that such cruel course of conduct produced discord, sullenness, lies and deception, the element of physical force constantly diminished, especially toward the wife. Her wishes were more and more conceded to until she finally became the equal to the husband in the general management of the family; and still further on she managed her domestic affairs as she thought best without asking the permission of the husband. The growth of this governmental freedom and independence between husband and wife continued until both learned that each is best capable of doing their own work without interfering with the other. Each learned that non-aggressiveness produces more happiness than aggressiveness. Thus did the government begin to change. “But long after the husband and wife had learned not to interfere with each other’s course of manual labor, they deemed it still necessary to employ physical force in the training and management of their children. Both father and mother, in this later period, seemed to think that a child can not be successfully reared without an abundant application of the rod. Hence the maxim, ‘He who loves his child does not spare the rod.’ But later on the parents found that they were mistaken in this, the same as the husband had formerly been mistaken in the use of the rod on his wife. They found that they could raise a much better and a much wiser child by kindness and freedom than they could by cruelty and slavery, and that both parents and children under freedom and gentleness are much happier than they could otherwise be.