had existed for several years. I soon saw that the child was
irritable, sensitive, and positive, and I was, therefore, careful to
approach her gently. The moment it was proposed to show me the leg, she
broke into a fury of rage, and no inducement I could offer enabled me to
effect my purpose. An appeal to the parents, and from them to force,
ended in a distressing battle. She bit, scratched, kicked, and at last
won a victory, and was left sullen and sobbing on the floor. Next day
the same scene was repeated. It is true that at length they were able to
undress her, but neither threats nor persuasion would keep her quiet
long enough to enable me to apply the simplest tests. The case was
obscure, and demanded the most careful study. Their time was limited, so
that at length they were obliged to take her home in despair, without
any guiding opinion from me, and with no advice, except as to her moral
education, concerning which I was sufficiently explicit. I have seen
many such illustrations of a common evil, and have watched the growth to
adult life of some of these cases of wrecked character, and observed the
unpleasant results which came as they grew older. I have used an extreme
case as a text, because I desire to fix attention on the error which
parents and some doctors are apt to commit in cases of chronic ailments
in children.

As to the miserable sufferers who pass through long illness to death I
have little to say. We naturally yield to their whims, pet and indulge
them, moved by pitiful desire to give them all they want of the little
which life affords them. In acute illness, with long convalescence, I am
pretty sure that the tender mother does no real good by over-indulgence;
but the subject is difficult, and hard to handle with justice and
charity without calling down upon me the indignation of the
unthoughtful. It is so easy and pleasant to yield to the caprices of
those we love, when they are in pain or helpless from illness,--so
doubly hard at such times to say no. Yet, if in the case of a long
convalescence, such as follows, perhaps, a typhoid or scarlet fever, we
balance for the little one the too-easily yielded joy of to-day against
the inevitable stringency of discipline, which, with recovered health,
must teach the then doubly difficult lesson of self-restraint, we shall
see, I think, that, on the whole, we do not add to the sum of happiness
to which the child is entitled.

The mother at the sick-bed of