daughter of joy, there
are dimples enough in thy cheeks to catch and hold and glorify all the
tears of grief.

Don't plant your children in long, straight rows like posts. Let them
have light and air and let them grow beautiful as palms. When I was a
little boy children went to bed when they were not sleepy, and always
got up when they were. I would like to see that changed, but they say
we are too poor, some of us, to do it. Well, all right. It is as easy
to wake a child with a kiss as with a blow; with kindness as with
curse. And, another thing; let the children eat what they want to. Let
them commence at whichever end of the dinner they desire. That is my
doctrine. They know what they want much better than you do. Nature is
a great deal smarter than you ever were.

All the advance that has been made in the science of medicine, has been
made by the recklessness of patients. I can recollect when they
wouldn't give a man water in a fever--not a drop. Now and then some
fellow would get so thirsty he would say "Well, I'll die any way, so
I'll drink it," and thereupon he would drink a gallon of water, and
thereupon he would burst into a generous perspiration, and get
well--and the next morning when the doctor would come to see him they
would tell him about the man drinking the water, and he would say:

"How much?"

"Well, he swallowed two pitchers full."

"Is he alive?"

"Yes."

So they would go into the room and the doctor would feel his pulse and
ask him:

"Did you drink two pitchers of water?"

"Yes."

"My God! what a constitution you have got."

I tell you there is something splendid in man that will not always
mind. Why, if we had done as the kings told us five hundred years ago,
we would all have been slaves. If we had done as the priests told us
we would all have been idiots. If we had done as the doctors told us
we would all have been dead. We have been saved by disobedience. We
have been saved by that splendid thing called independence, and I want
to see more of it, day after day, and I want to see children raised so
they will have it. That is my doctrine. Give the children a chance.
Be perfectly honor bright with them, and they will be your friends when
you are old. Don't try to teach them something they can never learn.
Don't insist upon their pursuing some calling they have no sort of
faculty for. Don't make that poor girl play ten years on a piano when
she has no ear for music