After all, men and women are only grown-up children, and we often see people who have reached mature years behave very much as do our own little nursery folks. These men or women show plainly—by their lack of self-control and judgment, by their selfish ways and peevishness, and by numerous other traits—the fact that their early training was sadly neglected. Of course, it is not easy even to enumerate all the points at which a child's character needs watching, but one or two may be mentioned.
First, let us look out for selfishness. I suppose all of us—from Eve's first-born, down through the ages since—have had this to battle with. It appears in so many forms that it is sometimes not recognized, but is called by some other and less disagreeable name. There is the child who refuses to share cake, fruit, or playthings with his sister, who will not allow another to look at his toys or his books. This form of selfishness is usually struggled with by a father, mother, and relations generally, because it makes a child appear in so bad a light, and none of us like to have our children disliked.
Then there is another child, who will share his good things or his toys with anybody, and who is therefore thought to be a model of unselfishness; yet that same child will spend half his time in teasing and fretting some other little one, with no end in view except his own selfish amusement. "Who has not seen him slyly, and with evident delight, knock down the tower of blocks or the sand-house which his little brother was building, and laugh in glee when he had kicked over the rolling hoop or broken the kite-string! This child is usually reproved, if at all, in the lightest possible manner, and the adoring mother often laughs at what she considers his smart devices for worrying his playmates and amusing himself. "He can 't help teasing, it is born in him," is what is often said, as an excuse, when one child has, in this way, spoiled a whole morning's play for another. This is a far more deplorable phase of selfishness than the first; because it causes the child to gratify himself at the expense of the rights and feelings of others; and this, of itself, leads to all sorts of evils.
