“That may be very true; but how can I make a message to Mrs. Milner as interesting to him as the affairs of his club?” “Ah! There you have me. Had you begun with Fred at a year old the thing would have settled itself. The _habit_ would have been formed.” To the rescue, Mrs. Bruce’s woman’s wit:--“I see; he must have the _habit_ of paying attention, so that he will naturally take heed to what he is told, whether he cares about the matter or not.” “My dear madam, you’ve hit it; all except the word ‘naturally.’ At present Fred is in a delightful state of nature in this and a few other respects. But the educational use of _habit_ is to correct nature. If parents would only see this fact, the world would become a huge reformatory, and the next generation, or, at any rate, the third, would dwell in the kingdom of heaven as a regular thing, and not by fits and starts, and here and there, which is the best that happens to us.” “I’m not sure I see what you mean; but,” said this persistent woman, “to return to this habit of attention which is to reform my Fred--do try and tell me what to do. You gentlemen are so fond of going off into general principles, while we poor women can grasp no more than a practical hint or two to go on with. My boy would be cut up to know how little his fast friend, the doctor, thinks of him!” “‘Poor women,’ truly! and already you have thrown me with two staggering buffets. My theories have no practical outcome, and, I think little of Fred, who has been my choice chum ever since he left off draperies! It remains for the vanquished to ‘behave pretty.’ Pray, ma’am, what would you like me to say next?” “To ‘habit,’ doctor, to ‘habit’; and don’t talk nonsense while the precious time is going. We’ll suppose that Fred is just twelve months old to-day. Now, if you please, tell me how I’m to make him begin to pay attention. And, by the way, why in the world didn’t you talk to me about it when the child really was young?” “I don’t remember that you asked me; and who would be pert enough to think of schooling a young mother? Not I, at any rate. Don’t I know that every mother of a first child is infallible, and knows more about children than all the old doctors in creation? But, supposing you had asked me, I should have said--Get him each day to occupy himself a little longer with one plaything than he did the day before. He plucks a daisy, gurgles over it with glee, and then in an instant it drops from the nerveless grasp. Then you take it up, and with the sweet coaxings you mothers know how to employ, get him to examine it, in his infant fashion, for a minute, two minutes, three whole minutes at a time.” “I see; fix his thoughts on one thing at a time, and for as long as you can, whether on what he sees or what he hears. You think if you go on with that sort of thing with a child from his infancy he gets accustomed to pay attention?”