upon his mind, and if the reputation that he is
jealous of the new baby becomes attached to him, he will assuredly not
fail to act up to it, and her daily conduct will appear to prove the
justness of his mother's apprehension. Fortunately, mothers are
commonly able to divest themselves of such fears as these. The older
child is brought freely to the baby to admire him, to bestow caresses
on him, and to speak to him in the very tones of his elders. In a few
days his reputation is established, that he is "so fond of the baby,"
and to this reputation too he faithfully conforms. We have seen in an
earlier chapter that constantly and ostentatiously to oppose a child's
will is to produce a counter-opposition which because of its
persistence and vigour appears to have behind it the strongest
possible concentration of mind and power of will. Yet if we cease to
oppose, the counter-opposition which appeared so formidable at once
dissolves, and the difficulty is at an end. We took as an example the
child's apparent determination to approach as near as possible to the
fire, the one place in the room which our fear of accident forbids
him. The difficulty with the new baby is but another example of the
same tendency. If he does not know that the ground is forbidden, if we
do not concentrate his attention on the prohibition, he will show no
particular desire to approach it. His apparent jealousy of his little
brother is the result not of the rivalry of sex, but of bad
management.

Again, it is occasionally a subject of complaint that children will
apparently dislike their father, that they will shrink from him or
burst into tears whenever he approaches them. There is no need to see
in this the child's jealousy of the father as a rival in the
affections of his mother, which is the explanation proffered by the
school of Freud. Every action and every occupation of the child during
the whole day can be made a pleasure or a pain to him, according to
the attitude of his nurse and mother towards it. Eating and drinking
should be pleasant and are normally pleasant. The same forces which
are sufficient to make every meal-time a signal for struggling and
tears, are sufficient to produce this dislike, apparently so
invincible, to the father of his being.

Although the nervous troubles of infancy are not commonly due, as
Freud and his numerous followers would have us believe, to suppressed
sexual desires or experiences, it is clear that in the