h eagerness, and succeeded.
Surely it was not humouring this boy to let him sit down when he was
tired. If we teach a child that our assistance is to be purchased by
fretful entreaties; if we show him, that we are afraid of a storm, he
will make use of our apprehensions to accomplish his purposes. On the
contrary, if he perceives that we can steadily resist his tears and
ill humour, and especially if we show indifference upon the occasion,
he will perceive that he had better dry his tears, suspend his rage,
and try how far good humour will prevail. Children, who in every
little difficulty are assisted by others, really believe that others
are in fault whenever this assistance is not immediately offered. Look
at a humoured child, for instance, trying to push a chair along the
carpet; if a wrinkle in the carpet stops his progress, he either beats
the chair, or instantly turns with an angry appealing look to his
mother for assistance; and if she does not get up to help him, he will
cry. Another boy, who has not been humoured, will neither beat the
chair, nor angrily look round for help; but he will look immediately
to see what it is that stops the chair, and when he sees the wrinkle
in the carpet, he will either level or surmount the obstacle: during
this whole operation, he will not feel in the least inclined to cry.
Both these children might have had precisely the same original stock
of patience; but by different management, the one would become
passionate and peevish, the other both good humoured and persevering.
The pleasure of success pays children, as well as men, for long toil
and labour. Success is the proper reward of perseverance; but if we
sometimes capriciously grant, and sometimes refuse, our help, our
pupils cannot learn this important truth, and they imagine that
success depends upon the will of others, and not upon their own
efforts. A child, educated by a fairy, who sometimes came with magic
aid to perform, and who was sometimes deaf to her call, would
necessarily become ill humoured.

Several children, who were reading "Evenings at Home," observed that
in the story of Juliet and the fairy Order, "it was wrong to make the
fairy come whenever Juliet cried, and could not do her task, because
that was the way, said the children, to make the little girl ill
humoured."

We have formerly observed that children, who live much with companions
of their own age, are under but little habitual restraint as to their