Obedience is to be taught by wheedling and cajolery, which lessons the clever child will apply in later life as bribery and corruption. The author denies this in Book I, p. 130, but his denial is so curious it deserves quoting: “_You would entirely vitiate its principles if in giving this lesson you should state it to the child like this: ‘If you do not do thus and so, I will give you no candy._’” Then on the same page: “_While the thought of candy in the child’s mind causes him to obey, yet the lesson is planned in such a way that you are not buying obedience._” The “five principles of discipline” are embodied in the following story: The father of a boy sees him and two other boys throwing apples through a barn window, two of whose panes had been broken. To make a long story short, the parent, instead of reproving his offspring, says: “Good shot, Bob! Do you see that post over there? See if you can hit it two out of three times.” “It would have been unwise for that father (adds the author of “Practical Child Training”) to say, ‘I’d rather you’d not throw at that window opening—can’t you sling at something else?’ The latter remark would suggest that the window was the best target and the boys would have been dissatisfied at having to stop throwing at it.” The inference that the boys only needed the father’s objection to an act on their part to convince them that it was a desirable act would be ludicrous if it weren’t so immoral. If you ask me which disgusts me most, the Father or his sons, I should reply without a moment’s hesitation—the Author of the book! [Illustration] THE TUTTI-FRUTTI TREE When the author of the most famous Love Song ever written, cried, “There is no new thing under the sun,” cigarettes, chewing-gum, the thermos-bottle and the “snapper” for fastening ladies’ frocks—(an indispensable thing when one has several hundred wives)—were yet to be invented. Neither so far as we can learn, had Solomon who knew and could address in its own language every flower and tree in existence, ever heard of the Tutti-Frutti Tree. There is to my certain belief only one tree in existence answering to that name, and I christened it myself. I am its Godfather. In the heartmost heart of the fruitful Paradise of New Jersey stands a small but ancient stone cottage that has come to regard me as its lord, and on Squire Williams’ estate, whose verdant acres lie just outside my garden fence, grows the Tutti-Frutti Tree. Once it was a young Apple Tree. It is still young, but as the result of a series of sap transfusions it is also several other kinds of tree, and when it grows up it will bear apples, quinces, two kinds of pears, peaches and, I believe, plums—almost everything in fact except Water Melons. Some day a future Stevenson will immortalize it in verse something after this fashion,