One other illustration of this keen childish dialectic when face to face with the accuser deserves to be touched on. The sharpened faculties have something of a lawyer's quickness in detecting a flaw in the indictment. Any exaggeration into which a feeling of indignation happens to betray the accuser is instantly pounced upon. If, for example, a child is scolded for pulling kitty's ears and making her cry it is enough for the little stickler for accuracy to be able to say: "I wasn't pulling kitty's _ears_, I was only pulling _one_ of her ears". The ability to deny the charge in its initial form gives him a great advantage, and robs the accusation in its amended form of much of its sting. Whence, by the way, one may infer that wisdom in managing children shows itself in nothing more than in a scrupulous exactness in the use of words. _The Plea for Liberty._ While there are these isolated attacks on various points of the daily discipline, we see now and again a bolder line of action in the shape of a general protest against its severity. Sometimes the parental authority is contrasted unfavourably with that of some other mother. The small boy who invented a family, _viz._, a mother called Mrs. Cock and her little boys, frequently referred to this lady for the purpose of giving point to protests against the severity of the real mother. "For instance (writes the latter) when mother refuses her paint-box as a plaything, or declines to supply unlimited note-paper for 'scwibbleation,' a reproachful little voice is heard, 'Mrs. Cock always gives her paint-box and all her paper to my little boys'. A pause. Then follows suggestively: 'I fink she loves them vewy much'."[10] On the other hand, if the child accepts the mother's plea, that she has to impose restraints because she is a good mother, he is apt to wish that she were a shade less good. A boy of four had one morning to remain in bed till ten o'clock as a punishment for misbehaviour. He proceeded to address his mother in this wise: "If I had any little children I'd be a worse mother than you--I'd be quite a bad mother; I'd let the children get up directly I had done my breakfast at any rate". [10] From a published article by Mrs. Robert Jardine (compare above, pp. 16, 17). Enough has been said to illustrate the ways in which the natural child kicks against the imposition of restraints on his free activity. He begins by showing himself an open foe to authority. For a long time after, while making a certain show of submission, he harbours in his breast something of the rebel's spirit. He does his best to evade the most galling parts of the daily discipline, and displays an admirable ingenuity in devising excuses for apparent acts of insubordination. And, lastly, where candour is permitted, he is apt to prove himself an exceedingly acute critic of the system which is imposed on him.