"My pupils are girls, eight and nine years old. Among them last year was one bright, attractive-looking little girl, to whom I felt drawn when she first appeared in the class. But I soon discovered that she was a difficult child. She neglected her school work, did in a careless, indifferent manner whatever she was obliged to do, and sulked at slight provocation. She had been examined by the school physician, who gave her a clean bill of health. My suspicion deepened that the child was the victim of an unfavourable home influence, and one day I suggested this to the principal of the school. "'I am sure you are wrong,' said he. 'I happen to know the family. They are first-rate people, in good circumstances.' "A little later, after I had again spoken to him of the girl's misconduct and sullenness, he told me: "'You were right and I was wrong. Outwardly, everything seemed well with that family. But I now find that the parents have for some time been on the verge of seeking a divorce. They are bitter against each other and dispute over the child, giving her contrary orders. The mother will tell her to do something, the father will tell her not to do it. No wonder she is sullen and hard to deal with. She is to be taken from them and put in a good home.' "This is an extreme instance, I have no doubt. But it is in line with what I am observing all the time. Therefore, I insist that sulkiness in children is, as a rule, a sure sign of unwise training in the home." Many parents, though wholly unappreciative of the fact, inspire sulkiness in their children by setting them an example of sulkiness. A striking instance has lately come under my personal observation, in the experience of a mother who is continually being annoyed by the whining, sulky ways of her four-year-old daughter. She scolds the girl, she spanks her, but all to no good. Not once does it seem to occur to the mother that possibly her own habit of sulking when things do not go right may be blamed for the sulkiness of her child. She is precisely the kind of woman to whom the learned Professor Paul Dubois addresses these scathing words: "You, madam, who complain of the irritability of your little girl, could you not suppress your own?... Remember the proverb, 'The fruit does not fall far from the tree.'" This factor of example in the causing of sulkiness is something that parents frequently ignore. In a general way they realise that their children are likely to imitate them, but they do not appreciate the subtle force which imitation exercises in forming the mental states and moral attitudes of the young. Time and again we see parents talking and acting as though children had no eyes or ears or memories; as though, indeed, they were beings quite insensitive to the sights and sounds of their surroundings.