It seems a simple matter to the casual observer and, perhaps, that is why no one has thought necessary to study the subject and offer a course. We remember how successfully it was done in our youth by those delightful old ladies who came for visits and taught us to knit and were almost sure to have some sort of confection concealed somewhere about their person or room. We remember how they implanted the idea that certain words were beyond the vocabulary of any lady, and that a child's whole duty in life was to be polite in such matters as "Sir" and "Ma'am", to be obedient to any of the species, Grown-People, and to be ready at all times to help in the search for spectacles. Their lot was easy enough and the very suggestion that they needed to be instructed in their capacity of aunt, would be ridiculous! It is no wonder then, with that picture in view, that I launched forth upon a visit to my small nephew and nieces with no premonitions of the shoals which lay ahead. After five days in the presence of the strenuous regime which surrounds and enfolds the modern child, I have returned once more to the quiet back waters of old-maidenhood and to contemplation. And now a sadder and a wiser aunt, I offer some suggestions which might help another unwary one before she breaks into the complicated existence of the newly developed genus, Child. In the first place, don't use that obnoxious word "DON'T". Its use you will find, or more likely be told, curbs the child's free spirit and destroys his personality. If, thereof you find him with a redpepper as a toy, don't try to take it from him, for being stronger than he you may succeed and thereby put a dent in his tender young willpower! Just trust that if he should get it into his eyes or mouth the result will not be fatal, and feel confident that thereafter he will seek some other form of toy! Or should you find him standing on a chair, before a blazing fire, reaching for something on the mantel piece, don't remove him forcibly at once and try to convince him that he should never get there again. No! Rather divert his mind to something else in the room so that he will get down of his own accord, and leave the desired object until there is nobody present to divert him! For do you not see that if you tell him that there are things in the world which he cannot do, you will bind his free and birdlike soul and sadden his little life? Be comforted, though, for, perhaps, when he does fall the fire will be out, or the chair will tip the other way!