There are great differences among children in the readiness with which they adopt suggestions or follow orders. Some children are easily dissuaded from a line of action in which they are engaged. Their attention is not very closely filed, and they are easily distracted, and may be sent from one thing to another without resenting the interruptions. Such children quickly learn to obey, and some seldom offer resistance to suggestion; but they deserve no special praise or credit for their perfect obedience, neither do their parents deserve special credit for having "trained" such children. On the other hand, there are children who set their hearts very firmly upon the objects of their desire, and who cannot easily stop in the middle of a game or in the middle of a sentence just to put some wood in the stove. Such children will appear to be "disobedient," although they are just as affectionate and as loyal and as dutiful as the others. When you see a child that is a model of obedience, you cannot conclude that he has been well trained; nor is frequent disobedience an indication of neglect on the part of the parents. But the majority of children will fall in the class of those whose obedience or disobedience is a matter of habit resulting from the firmness and consistency and considerateness of the parents. Unless a child has become altogether submissive, he will not obey all orders with equal readiness. Alice, who is not very active, does not display any great virtue if she sits still when you tell her to. On the other hand, sitting still means to Harry a supreme effort as well as a great sacrifice; to demand this of him we should have a very good reason. I know children who are models of obedience in most matters, but who scream with protest and resentment when it comes to taking medicine or even to being examined by a physician. On the other hand, a little boy I know, to whom obedience in general comes very hard, has such respect for the wisdom of physicians and for the helpfulness of medicines that he will undergo a thorough examination and will swallow the bitterest of drugs without even making a wry face. If you will look about among your acquaintances, I think you will find that those who get really intelligent obedience from their children are the ones who make the least ado about it, and perhaps never use the time-worn phrase, "Now you _must_ mind me." It is the weak person who is constantly forced to make appeals to his authority. It is the weak person who is constantly threatening the child with terrible retributions for his disobedience. Yet none are quicker to detect the weakness, none know better that the threats will not be carried out, than those very children whose obedience we desire thus to obtain.