f parental approbation or disapprobation; but it
is the experience of those results which would ultimately flow from the
conduct in the absence of parental opinion or interference. The truly
instructive and salutary consequences are not those inflicted by
parents when they take upon themselves to be Nature's proxies; but they
are those inflicted by Nature herself. We will endeavour to make this
distinction clear by a few illustrations, which, while they show what we
mean by natural reactions as contrasted with artificial ones, will
afford some practical suggestions.

In every family where there are young children there daily occur cases
of what mothers and servants call "making a litter." A child has had out
its box of toys, and leaves them scattered about the floor. Or a handful
of flowers, brought in from a morning walk, is presently seen dispersed
over tables and chairs. Or a little girl, making doll's-clothes,
disfigures the room with shreds. In most cases the trouble of rectifying
this disorder falls anywhere but where it should. Occurring in the
nursery, the nurse herself, with many grumblings about "tiresome little
things," undertakes the task; if below-stairs, the task usually devolves
either on one of the elder children or on the housemaid: the
transgressor being visited with nothing more than a scolding. In this
very simple case, however, there are many parents wise enough to follow
out, more or less consistently, the normal course--that of making the
child itself collect the toys or shreds. The labour of putting things in
order is the true consequence of having put them in disorder. Every
trader in his office, every wife in her household, has daily experience
of this fact. And if education be a preparation for the business of
life, then every child should also, from the beginning, have daily
experience of this fact. If the natural penalty be met by refractory
behaviour (which it may perhaps be where the system of moral discipline
previously pursued has been bad), then the proper course is to let the
child feel the ulterior reaction caused by its disobedience. Having
refused or neglected to pick up and put away the things it has scattered
about, and having thereby entailed the trouble of doing this on some one
else, the child should, on subsequent occasions, be denied the means of
giving this trouble. When next it petitions for its toy-box, the reply
of its mamma should be--"The last time you had your toys you