Many children are bred to the idea that certain families are socially above them. They are taught from their cradles to consider themselves in a certain sense inferior. How few American children are taught that there is no degradation in poverty, and that a humble employment and an obscure position are entirely consistent with self-respect, under all circumstances, in whatever society. I do not mean to say that they have not heard their parents remark that they were "as good as anybody." There is enough of this talk; and it is precisely this which teaches children that they are born to what their parents consider dishonor,--inferiority to their neighbors. It is impossible for children who have been bred in this way ever to outgrow, entirely, their feeling of inferiority. The people who are entirely self-respectful never have any thing to say about their position in the presence of their children; and it is a cruel thing to teach a child, not that there is a grade of society which is actually above him, but that the persons who occupy that grade look down upon him--and, in the constitution of society, have the right to look down upon him--with contempt. To see an honest lad in humble clothing actually awed by finding himself in the presence of a well-dressed child of affluence, is very pitiful; and there are thousands of these poor boys who, having won wealth and distinction, never in their consciousness lose their early estate sufficiently to feel at home with those among whom the advance of fortune has brought them.