It is extraordinary to find on talking to one and another how few people realise the pleasure that they lose by failing to observe the little wayside children. There are many persons capable of passing by without seeing the loveliest of wayside flowers, but there are more who take no heed at all of our wayside children. And yet, if the loss to the former is great, the loss to the latter is greater far. A flower can charm the eye or delight the sense of smell: it can interest the scientific observer who notes its construction and mode of growth; but that is all. There is no reflected light, no joy felt by the flower and flashed back in happy answering glance, be its eye never so bright. For most people there is no increase of knowledge from day to day, and certainly there is none of that increase of understanding between observer and observed which lends such charm to the chance meetings with the children who are about our path. [Sidenote: Self-important People.] Some people are too busy and rush along in too great a hurry. Some people are too self-important. They are grown up, and fancy that the fact that they are older has so greatly increased their value that it would be lowering themselves to take notice of children. They will assert that they cannot be bored with them. They will brush them impatiently aside if they are too closely approached by children when other people are present. There is a certain amount of insincerity in all this, for when such people fancy that they are unobserved they not infrequently yield to the natural temptation of noticing and even playing with little children. [Sidenote: Keeping the Proper Balance.] Some people, again, fancy that to let children know that they are observed is bad for their character, and, of course, it is possible to make them self-conscious and conceited by taking too much notice of them. On the other hand, there is a danger of children becoming morbid, nervous, and secret if they find themselves ignored and unappreciated. A child’s nature is essentially responsive. It opens out and expands to a show of affection just as a flower to the sunshine, and, as a bud will become withered and diseased when continuously exposed to grey skies and rain, so the character of a child will suffer irretrievable damage from a prolonged course of neglect and cold looks. Taking it, then, for granted that nothing but good is likely to follow from a habit of noticing the children whom we meet, it is interesting to remember how greatly our days have been brightened and our own enjoyment increased by this very thing. [Sidenote: The Children Under the Wall.]