Yet normal children are the most sensitive and the most "suggestible" of beings. Let father snarl and mother sulk, and little Johnny or Mary may be pretty confidently counted on to snarl and sulk likewise--unless by a happy chance Johnny and Mary have playmates or relatives whose lives radiate sufficiently strong suggestions of cheerfulness to offset the parents' unhappy influence. Instruction is much, but example is more. Or, as wise Pastor Witte puts it, "Instruction begins, example accomplishes." But, if the parental example is good, if the child's physical condition is excellent, and if he nevertheless is a sulker--what then? Again, it must be insisted that the trouble rests with some fault in his upbringing, some error in the parental policy. If there is more than one child in the family, it may be that the sulkiness is a symptom of jealousy. The parents should ask themselves in all seriousness whether they have given this particular child any reason to sulk, by showing greater favour, or seeming to show greater favour, to his brothers and sisters. Or, possibly, the sulkiness is indicative, not of jealousy, but of a feeling of inferiority due to the child's fear that he is not quite so bright as other children. In that case the parents may be sure that in some way, however unwittingly, they have failed to bring into their child's life enough happiness and joy to prevent the feeling of inferiority from becoming dominant in his mind. Perhaps, for the matter of that, they have themselves been instrumental in forcing on the child recognition of his inferior mental status. There are parents whose behaviour when dealing with a mentally retarded child is--often quite unconsciously--that of a censorious judge upbraiding a criminal. They nag, they harass, they urge the child to greater effort, never questioning that he can of his own accord improve his ability to learn. Perhaps he is mentally deficient, perhaps he is suffering from some remediable physical cause of retardation, perhaps the method by which he is being taught is not suited to his type of mind. To all these possibilities the parents do not give a moment's thought. The child is stupid; it must be his fault; he should be forced to mend his ways. So they pester the little unfortunate. And when to retardation he gradually adds sullenness, they are more incensed than before. But, in point of cold fact, whose is the fault? Not the child's, surely. Perpetual nagging is a first-class means of producing sulkiness in any child, whether he be mentally retarded, unusually bright, or just a plain "average" child.