How early and insidious is the pressure upon us to conform to some type whose fitness we have not examined, but which we are forced to take strictly on authority! On the children in the family what a petty tyranny of ideas and manners is imposed! Under the guise of being brought up, how many habits of doubtful value we learned, how many moral opinions of doubtful significance we absorbed, how many strange biases that harass and perplex us in our later life we had fastened upon our minds, how many natural and beautiful tendencies we were forced to suppress! The tyranny of manners, of conventional politeness, of puritanical taboos, of superstitious religion, were all imposed upon us for no reason that our elders could devise, but simply that they in turn had had them imposed upon them. Much of our early education was as automatic and unconscious as the handing down of the immemorial traditions in a primitive savage tribe. Now I am far from saying that this household tradition of manners and morals is not an excellent thing for us to acquire. Many of the habits are so useful that it is a wise provision that we should obtain them as naturally as the air we breathe. And it is a pressure that we could not, at that age, avoid, even if we would. But this childhood influence is a sample of true pressure, for it is both unconscious and irresistible. Were we to infringe any of the rules laid down for us, the whole displeasure of the family descended upon our heads; they seemed to vie with each other in expressing their disapproval of our conduct. So, simply to retain our self-respect, we were forced into their pattern of doing things, and for no other reason than that it was their pattern.