If such cases were rare or exceptional, or if the results were of a temporary nature, they might be considered as of less importance; but this is far from the case. Every physician will readily recall many cases of sick children who have died, not from the irremediable nature of the disease, but because the mother will persist in allowing the child to refuse the use of the necessary measures of relief. Darling Johnnie or Minnie will not submit to disagreeable measures, and fights and screams if any attempt is made to use them. This is extremely unpleasant, and the mother cannot endure to have her pet crossed or thwarted, or obliged to do what it does not wish to, _especially while it is ill_; and never having required obedience when the child is in health, she is entirely unable to do so, even when the greatest necessity may arise. Such cases are pitiable in the extreme, as well as highly censurable. If the mischief ended in the less grave instances, as between the child and its parents during childhood, it would be of less importance; but this is far from being true. The effects of such training, or rather lack of training, continue through life with a tendency to much suffering to both children and parents. One of the first requisites in any course of education for the young is to learn to obey. From the cradle to the grave, man is in constant danger from the effects of violated laws. He is surrounded by laws as with a wall of fire, and their infringement in any measure or degree requires that the penalty be paid to the full. Home and school education should aid the child in learning obedience to these laws while in childhood, that in later life it may constitute a part of his character. No person can become a good citizen, or useful in any considerable measure to either the State or the community in which he may live, without such an education, and is largely liable to become a nuisance, a criminal, or an invalid. If, however, it is important that the child be educated to obedience so far as his relations to others extend, it is doubly so for his own physical and mental health. I have sometimes thought that the freedom of our institutions and State and national governments greatly favored the general tendency toward lax rules as to conduct, both at home and in school, so that there exists less of self-control, both in home and social life, than under most other forms of government. But, however this may be, I regard it of the highest importance that the child should learn self-control and some self-denial, both for individual and the public good, and when this element of education is lost sight of, and the child is permitted to grow up having his own way in most things, and his every wish gratified, he has a large disadvantage when brought into contact with the friction of adult life.