The world has progressed, but we still have among us the same type of unfortunate persons who are unable to put themselves in the place of others. I recently heard of a woman who, on being told of a family so poor that they had had nothing but cold potatoes for supper the night before, replied: "They may be poor, but the mother must be a very bad housekeeper, anyway. For, even if they had nothing but potatoes to eat, she might at least have fried them." Like her royal prototype, this modern woman had not the imagination to realize that a family could be so poor as to be in want of fuel. But being able to put yourself in the place of another is of importance not only from the strictly moral point of view. You can easily see how it will affect one's everyday relations, how it will be of great help in avoiding misunderstandings of all kinds--as between mother and child, between mistress and maid, etc. If parents would only realize this importance of imagination, and not look upon it as a "vain thing," they would not merely _allow_ the child's imagination to take its own course; they would actually make efforts to cultivate and encourage it. In this way they would not only aid the child in becoming a better and more sympathetic man or woman, but would also add much to the happiness of the child. Unless we have given special thought to this matter, most of us grown-ups do not appreciate how very real the child's world of make-believe is to him, and how essential to his happiness that we do not break into it rudely. When one of my boys was two and a half years old he was one day playing with an imaginary baby sister. A member of the household came into the room, whereupon he immediately broke out in wild screaming and became very much agitated. It took some time to quiet him and to find out that the cause of all his trouble was the fact that this person had inadvertently stepped upon his imaginary sister, whom he had placed upon the floor. Before him he saw his little sister crushed, and great were his horror and grief. I know from this experience and many others that if we do not enter into the child's world and try to understand the working of his mind we will often find him naughty, when he is not naughty at all. In the example given it would have been very easy to follow the first impulse to reprove the child for what seemed very unreasonable conduct on his part. And such cases arise constantly. How completely the child throws himself into an imaginary character is shown by an incident which occurred recently. A little boy of four, who had been accustomed to speak only German at home, was playing "doctor," and was so absorbed in the play that when dinner-time came he was loath to abandon the role. His mother, to avoid delay, simply said, "I think we will invite the doctor to have dinner with us," and he promptly accepted the invitation. When the maid came in, he said in English, "What is her name?"