The power and wisdom of the child are quaintly and naively brought out in the legends and folk-lore of the various races of men, not alone of the present day, but of all eras of the world's history. As an illustration of the truth contained in the words of a great child-lover, "A little child shall lead them," and their echo in those of the Quaker poet,-- "God hath his small interpreters; The child must teach the man," nothing could be more artless and natural than the following legend of the Penobscot Indians of Maine, recorded by Mr. Leland, which tells of the origin of the "crowing of babies" (488. 121):-- When Glooskap, the culture-hero of these Indians, had conquered all his enemies, giants, sorcerers, magicians, evil spirits and ghosts, witches, devils, goblins, cannibals, _et id genus omne_, pride rose within him, and he said to a certain woman, that now his work was done, for he had conquered all. But she told him that he was mistaken; there yet remained "one whom no one has ever yet conquered or got the better of in any way, and who will remain unconquered to the end of time." This was _Wasis_, "the baby," who was sitting contentedly on the floor of the wigwam chewing a piece of maple-sugar. The great Glooskap, so the story runs, "had never married or had a child; he knew nought of the way of managing children"--yet he thought he knew all about it. So he smiled graciously at baby, and, "in a voice like that of a summer bird," bade him come to him. But baby sat still and went on sucking his sugar. Then Glooskap got angry, and in a terrible voice, ordered baby to crawl to him at once. But baby merely cried out and yelled, stirring not. Then Glooskap tried his last resort, magic, "using his most awful spells, and singing the songs which raise the dead and scare the devils." Still baby only smiled, and never budged an inch. At last the great Glooskap could do no more; he gave up the attempt in despair, whereupon "baby, sitting on the floor in the sunshine, went _'goo! goo!'_ and crowed lustily." And to this day, the Indians, when they hear "a babe well-contented going _'goo! goo!'_ and crowing, and no one can tell why," know that it is because he "remembers the time when he overcame the great Master, who had conquered all things. For of all beings that have been since the beginning, baby is alone the invincible one." Manabozho, the culture-hero of the Chippeways and other Algonkian tribes of the Great Lakes, and probably identical with his eastern analogue, Gluskap, was, like the latter, discomfited by a child. This is the legend:--