We have said that the duty of good example is incumbent upon every parent, rich or poor. But not only those broad examples which could hardly fail to strike even an idiot, such as abstaining from unseemly brawls, from excesses of language and of self-indulgence—in plain words, from swearing and drinking—or from manifest dishonesty; there are subtler things than these, and which produce indeed greater effect on the child spectator. Gross vice has often that redeeming phase of being its own antidote by disgusting those who come in daily contact with it. The principle on which the Spartans educated their children in temperance by exhibiting before them the drunken helots was (however cruel its application on the persons of their unhappy prisoners) a consummate proof of practical wisdom. That which does not carry such an antidote with it is more to be feared in the education of a child. A spirit of irritability between husband and wife; a carelessness on the part of either in entering cordially into the other’s little interests; an exhibition of temper over absurd trifles or of unamiability in small questions of self-denial—these tell gravely upon a child’s character. Observation and criticism are childhood’s natural characteristics, and very logical and very pitiless are childhood’s judgments. The old-fashioned code of a “well-behaved” child used to be never to ask questions; we are not so sure that this code was faultlessly wise. We suffer perhaps under a somewhat aggravated form of a very dissimilar one just now, and may be tempted—not unpardonably—to wish for the peace of the good old times back again. As usual, the middle course is the most rational as well as beneficial, and if it were in our power to stop the violent swayings of the social pendulum from one extreme to the other, we would gladly do our part in the work.