n made, particularly if they are
sometimes left to feel the inconveniences of being helpless. This
should, and can, be done, without affectation. A maid cannot be always
ready, the instant she is wanted, to attend upon them; they should not
be waited upon as being masters and misses, they should be assisted as
being helpless.[37] They will not feel their vanity flattered by this
attendance; the maid will not be suffered to amuse them, they will be
ambitious of independence, and they will soon be proud of doing every
thing for themselves.

Another circumstance which keeps children long in subjection to
servants, is their not being able to wield a knife, fork, or spoon,
with decent dexterity. Such habits are taught to them by the careless
maids who feed them, that they cannot for many years be produced even
at the side-table without much inconvenience and constant anxiety. If
this anxiety in a mother were to begin a little sooner, it need never
be intense; patient care in feeding children neatly at first, will
save many a bitter reprimand afterwards; their little mouths and hands
need not be disgusting at their meals, and their nurses had better
take care not to let them touch what is disagreeable, instead of
rubbing their lips rudely with a rough napkin, by way of making them
love to have their mouths clean. These minutiae must, in spite of
didactic dignity, be noticed, because they lead to things of greater
consequence; they are well worth the attention of a prudent mother or
governess. If children are early taught to eat with care, they will
not, from false shame, desire to dine[38] with the vulgar indulgent
nursery-maid, rather than with the fastidious company at their
mother's table. Children should first be taught to eat with a spoon
what has been neatly cut for them; afterwards they should cut a little
meat for themselves towards the end of dinner, when the rage of hunger
is appeased; they will then have "leisure to be good." The several
operations of learning to eat with a spoon, to cut and to eat with a
knife and fork, will become easy and habitual, if sufficient time be
allowed.

Several children in a family, who were early attended to in all these
little particulars, were produced at table when they were four or five
years old; they suffered no constraint, nor were they ever banished to
the nursery lest _company_ should detect their evil habits. Their eyes
and ears were at liberty during the time of dinner; a