e and beware, and beware of having a high ideal for
ourselves. But particularly let us beware of having an ideal for our
children. So doing, we damn them. All we can have is wisdom. And
wisdom is not a theory, it is a state of soul. It is the state wherein
we know our wholeness and the complicate, manifold nature of our
being. It is the state wherein we know the great relations which exist
between us and our near ones. And it is the state which accepts full
responsibility, first for our own souls, and then for the living
dynamic relations wherein we have our being. It is no use expecting
the other person to know. Each must know for himself. But nowadays
men have even a stunt of pretending that children and idiots alone
know best. This is a pretty piece of sophistry, and criminal
cowardice, trying to dodge the life-responsibility which no man or
woman can dodge without disaster.

The only thing is to be direct. If a child has to swallow castor-oil,
then say: "Child, you've got to swallow this castor-oil. It is
necessary for your inside. I say so because it is true. So open your
mouth." Why try coaxing and logic and tricks with children? Children
are more sagacious than we are. They twig soon enough if there is a
flaw in our own intention and our own true spontaneity. And they play
up to our bit of falsity till there is hell to pay.

"You love mother, don't you, dear?"--Just a piece of indecent trickery
of the spiritual will. The great emotions like love are unspoken.
Speaking them is a sign of an indecent bullying will.

"Poor pussy! You must love poor pussy!"

What cant! What sickening cant! An appeal to love based on false pity.
That's the way to inculcate a filthy pharisaic conceit into a
child.--If the child ill-treats the cat, say:

"Stop mauling that cat. It's got its own life to live, so let it live
it." Then if the brat persists, give tit for tat.

"What, you pull the cat's tail! Then I'll pull your nose, to see how
you like it." And give his nose a proper hard pinch.

Children _must_ pull the cat's tail a little. Children _must_ steal
the sugar sometimes. They _must_ occasionally spoil just the things
one doesn't want them to spoil. And they _must_ occasionally tell
stories--tell a lie. Circumstances and life are such that we must all
sometimes tell a lie: just as we wear trousers, because we don't
choose that everybody shall see our nakedness. Morality is a delicate
act of adjustment on the soul's part,