ildren
to protect themselves from brutal parents. Supposing a man as much
larger than we are, larger than child would come at us with a
liberty-pole in his hand and would shout in tones of thunder, "Who
broke that plate?" Every one of us--including myself--would just stand
right up and swear either that we never saw that plate, or that it was
cracked when we got it. Give a child a chance; there is no other way
to have children tell the truth--tell the truth to them--keep your
contracts with your children the same as you would to your banker.

I was up at Grand Rapids, Michigan, the other day. There was a
gentleman there, and his wife, who had promised to take their little
boy for a ride every night for ten days, or every day for ten days, but
they did not do it. They slipped out to the barn and they went without
him. The day before I was there they played the same game on him again.
He is a nice little boy, an American boy, a boy with brains, one of
those boys that don't take the hatchet-story as a fact; he had his own
ideas. They fooled him again, and they came around the corner as big as
life, man and wife. The little fellow was standing on the door step
with his nurse, and he looked at them, and he made this remark: "There
go the two damndest liars in Grand Rapids." I merely tell you this
story to show you that children have level heads; they understand this
business.

Teach your children to tell you the truth--tell them the truth. If
there is one here that ever intends to whip his child I have a favor to
ask. Have your photograph taken when you are in the act, with your red
and vulgar face, your brow corrugated, pretending you would rather be
whipped yourself. Have the child's photograph taken too, with his eyes
streaming with tears, and his chin dimpled with fear, as a little sheet
of water struck by a sudden cold wind; and if your child should die I
cannot think of a sweeter way to spend an afternoon than to go to the
graveyard in the autumn, when the maples are clad in pink and gold,
when the little scarlet runners come like poems out of the breast of
the earth--go there and sit down and look at that photograph and think
of the flesh, now dust, and how you caned it to writhe in pain and
agony.

I will tell you what I am doing; I am doing what little I can to save
the flesh of children. You have no right to whip them. It is not the
way; and yet some Christians drive their children from their doors if