th elderly people; and it was on such an occasion that I
heard a catchword fiend, a moderately young person, use her pet phrase
as a red lantern to stop better, if more halting, talk. "Mr. Black was
telling me to-day about Mr. White's being appointed to ---- what do you
call that office?" implored the dignified matron. "Just call it
anything, Mrs. Gray, a bandersnatch, or a buttonhook, or a
battering-ram," impertinently suggested the glib undergraduate who had
been applying these words to everybody and everything, and who continued
to do so until she had found a new catchword as the main substance of
her conversation. The infirmities of age, as well as the mellowed wisdom
of it, deserve the utmost consideration, especially from youth; and in
this instance deference in aiding the elderly woman to find her word
would have been more graceful than pleasantry, even if the pleasantry
were of a less spurious kind.

Conversation suffers from outside interruptions as much as from
interrupting directly within the conversational group. Bringing very
little children into grown-up company led Charles Lamb to propose the
health of Herod, King of the Jews! Society is no place for young
children; and if older children are permitted to be present they should
be led to listen attentively and to join the conversation modestly. If a
child ventures an opinion or asks a question concerning the topic he is
hearing discust, he should be welcomed into the conversation. His views
should, in this case, be given the same consideration, no matter how
immature, as the riper views of his elders; he should be made a
legitimate part of the conversational group. Either this, or he should
be sent entirely away. There are no half measures in a matter of this
sort. The parent's reiterated commands to "keep quiet," or "to be seen
and not heard," interrupt as much as the child's prattle. Furthermore,
many a child's natural aptitude for talking well has been crusht by
older people stifling every thought the youngster attempted to utter. A
bright young girl of my acquaintance was so supprest by her parents from
the age of seven to fifteen that she early acquired the habit of never
opening her mouth without first getting the consent of father's eyebrow,
or mother's. A child thus treated in youth grows up to be timid and
halting in speech; his individuality and spontaneity are smothered.
Either let the children talk, meanwhile teaching them _how_ to converse,
or