rs and equals. None
of us who were grown-up "talked down" to the boys, and certainly none of
the boys "talked up" to us. Each one of them at home was a "dear
partner" of every other member of the family, younger and older, larger
and smaller. Inevitably, each one when away from home became quite
spontaneously an equal shareholder in whatever was to be possessed at
all.

A day or two after the Sunday of that dinner I met one of my boy guests
on the street. "I've seen 'The Blue Bird,'" I said to him; "and I'm
inclined to think that, if Mr. Maeterlinck did write the act 'The Land
of Happiness,' he wrote it long after he had written the rest of the
play. I think perhaps that is why it is so different from the other
acts."

"Why, I never thought of that!" the boy cried, with absolute
unaffectedness. He appeared to consider it for a moment, and then he
said: "I'll tell my mother; she'll be interested."

Foreign visitors of distinction not infrequently have accused American
children of being "pert," or "lacking in reverence," or "sophisticated."
Those of us who are better acquainted with the children of our own
Nation cannot concur in any of these accusations. Unhappily, there are
children in America, as there are children in every land, who _are_
pert, and lacking in reverence, and sophisticated; but they are in the
small minority, and they are not the children to whom foreigners refer
when they make their sweeping arraignments.

The most gently reared, the most carefully nurtured, of our children are
those usually seen by distinguished foreign visitors; for such
foreigners are apt to be guests of the families to which these children
belong. The spirit of frank _camaraderie_ displayed by the children they
mistake for "pertness"; the trustful freedom of their attitude toward
their elders they interpret as "lack of reverence"; and their eager
interest in subjects ostensibly beyond their years they misread as
"sophistication."

It must be admitted that American small boys have not the quaint
courtliness of French small boys; that American little girls are without
the pretty shyness of English little girls. We are compelled to grant
that in America between the nursery and the drawing-room there is no
great gulf fixed. This condition of things has its real disadvantages
and trials; but has it not also its ideal advantages and blessings?
Cooeperative living together, in spite of individual differences, is one
of these advant