The fact is, of course, that the assertion of the sex temperament starts almost with the beginning of life. For the first four or five years it is, to be sure, almost a negligible quantity, but after that the boy needs to be treated as a boy, and not as a sexless baby. Put a pair of new red shoes on a little girl’s feet and send her out among a group of misses shod in black. Then watch her plume herself and pose at the front gate and mince up and down the avenue, as proud as a peacock. Now, rig up the six-year-old boy in some new and untried kink of fashion and turn him loose on the highway--and observe what follows. Note how sheepishly he looks down the street to where his playfellows are gathered, and see how he edges toward them, faltering and keeping as close to the fence as he can. Observe how, just as he is trying to slip into their midst unostentatiously, one of them cries in a shrill voice: “Look who’s here!” and another remarks: “Oh, what a shine!” and still another exclaims: “Pipe the kelly!” meaning, observe the hat. Then perhaps there is the very rude boy who asks whether the “rags” have been “rassled,” said enquiry being gently emphasised by a push from behind. In which case the young glass of fashion, having a gloomy premonition of what may happen to him at home if he returns bearing the marks of combat, backs discreetly off the firing-line, and retreats to his own dooryard with as small loss of dignity as the exigency of the occasion will permit. And he is pretty sure to stick there the remainder of the afternoon, while occasionally other boys, in regulation woollens or corduroys, peep at him curiously through the palings, making him feel like one of those unpronounceable animals that they keep in cages and lecture about at the zoo. Do you think this characteristic of the boy really signifies that he is “notional”? Do you put it down merely as “finicality”? Then you do him a great injustice. In the true analysis it is quite the opposite. It is but one feature of a unique democracy, a splendid democracy that you will find holding sway wherever boys gather. Oh, this democracy of boyhood is a wonderful thing! To me it is the régime beautiful. There is something so inspiring about it! For here, in this quaint domain of dare-and-do, you see every sturdy little chap, regardless of clothes, creed or family position, standing on his own merits and judged by his own deeds. Why some mothers persist in Little-Lord-Fauntleroy-ing their boys within an inch of their lives is to me a profound mystery. Can any mother enlighten me on the long-curls cruelty? Is it selfish vanity? Could any mother, for the mere gratification of an egoistic desire, be so unfeeling as to send her helpless boy out into the scene of humiliation and actual physical torture of which the boy with the long curls becomes the pitiable centre as soon as he turns the corner?