What, then, is to be done? Keep out of his way, at all costs, if he be
grown up. If it be a child, labor day and night, as you would with a
tendency to paralysis, or distortion of limb, to prevent this blight on
its life.
It sounds extreme to say that a child should never be allowed to express a
dislike of any thing which cannot be helped; but I think it is true. I do
not mean that it should be positively forbidden or punished, but that it
should never pass unnoticed; his attention should be invariably called to
its uselessness, and to the annoyance it gives to other people. Children
begin by being good-natured little grumblers at every thing which goes
wrong, simply from the outspokenness of their natures. All they think they
say and act. The rudiments of good behavior have to be chiefly negative at
the outset, like Punch's advice to those about to marry,--"Don't."
The race of grumblers would soon die out if all children were so trained
that never, between the ages of five and twelve, did they utter a needless
complaint without being gently reminded that it was foolish and
disagreeable.
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