an boy has no monopoly of the characteristics under
consideration. His little sister is often his equal in all
departments. Miss Marryat tells of a little girl of five who appeared
alone in the _table d'hote_ room of a large and fashionable hotel,
ordered a copious and variegated breakfast, and silenced the timorous
misgivings of the waiter with "I guess I pay my way." At another hotel
I heard a similar little minx, in a fit of infantile rage, address her
mother as "You nasty, mean, old crosspatch;" and the latter, who in
other respects seemed a very sensible and intelligent woman, yielded
to the storm, and had no words of rebuke. I am afraid it was a little
boy who in the same way called his father a "black-eyed old skunk;"
but it might just as well have been a girl.

While not asserting that all American children are of this brand, I do
maintain that the sketch is fairly typical of a very large
class--perhaps of all except those of exceptionally firm and sensible
parents. The strangest thing about the matter is, however, that the
fruit does not by any means correspond to the seed; the wind is sown,
but the whirlwind is not reaped. The unendurable child does not
necessarily become an intolerable man. By some mysterious chemistry of
the American atmosphere, social or otherwise, the horrid little minx
blossoms out into a charming and womanly girl, with just enough of
independence to make her piquant; the cross and dyspeptic little boy
becomes a courteous and amiable man. Some sort of a moral miracle
seems to take place about the age of fourteen or fifteen; a violent
dislocation interrupts the natural continuity of progress; and,
presto! out springs a new creature from the modern cauldron of Medea.

The reason--or at any rate one reason--of the normal attitude of the
American parent towards his child is not far to seek. It is almost
undoubtedly one of the direct consequences of the circumambient spirit
of democracy. The American is so accustomed to recognise the essential
equality of others that he sometimes carries a good thing to excess.
This spirit is seen in his dealings with underlings of all kinds, who
are rarely addressed with the bluntness and brusqueness of the older
civilisations. Hence the father and mother are apt to lay almost too
much stress on the separate and individual entity of their child, to
shun too scrupulously anything approaching the violent coercion of
another's will. That the results are not mor