“I grant that. It was true—it was, indeed, very true. But that is no reason you should have said it. It was neither good nor kind of you. Did you not see how disturbed he became? He would say nothing back, perhaps because of the love he bears for us. But it pained him very much that a child should say anything so unpleasant to him. If he is unhappy to-day, the fault is yours.” Witte tells us that it was not long before Karl acquired the excellent habit of “putting himself in the other fellow’s place” before uttering censorious judgments. Similarly, and with equal success, his father endeavoured to broaden his sympathies so as to include the brute creation. It happened one day, when Karl was about three years old, that there were at his home a number of guests, who made much of the child, naturally to his great delight. While they were talking to him the family dog came into the room, and Karl, as any child might, playfully caught it by the tail and drew it to him. As he did so, his father, putting out his hand, caught Karl himself by his long hair and pulled it exactly as he was pulling the tail of the dog. Karl turned, saw his father’s indignant look, blushed crimson, and released the dog. At once his father released him, and demanded: “How did you like that?” “Not at all,” was the embarrassed answer. “Well, then, do you think the dog liked it? Now go out to the yard.” “I sent him out,” Witte says, “not only as a punishment, but because I saw that some of my guests were about to open their lips to take his part and to blame me—in his presence!—for my treatment of him. But one of them, speaking suddenly, said: “‘God bless you, dear friend. If Karl, as I believe he is certain to do, shall grow to be a good man, he will thank you heartily for this lesson. I wish to Heaven we thus and always handled our children. Then they would be sure to learn to treat animals kindly, and by so much the more to treat their fellow-men kindly!” And Witte adds, dryly: “After this, none of those present thought it well to say anything in criticism of me.” He had, in fact, taken precisely the course best calculated to impress on Karl the vitally important principle of kindness to all living creatures. For he had brought this principle home to him in a way the child’s mind could readily grasp, and without unnecessary harshness and “nagging,” which, after all, only arouse those contrariant ideas that it should be the great aim of education to suppress. And it was thus that Witte and his wife always acted in the upbringing of their boy through the critical formative period of early childhood. The moment any undesirable characteristic made its appearance they hastened to awaken in him a sense of its extreme undesirability by words and conduct that appealed forcefully both to his understanding and to his emotions.