All children are cruel--and there is no greater brutality than
confiding a helpless animal to the tender mercies of a young
child.
There may be a few exceptions, but they are very rare, and there
is no reason why parents should expect their particular children
to be the exceptions.
You may see a man of mature age, kind-hearted, absolutely
benevolent and just. And you may learn that when he was a baby
he bit his nurse, lied, and was cruel to animals and to other
children.
But parents are stupidly egotistical, and believe that their
pretty children ought to be born morally perfect.
This moral perfection can be obtained only as the result of
education.
Don't expect your children to be models of virtue.
Don't brutalize them by punishments and contempt because you
discover that their primitive mental life duplicates the mental
conditions of inferior animals.
Set them a good example, and by education make them what you want
them to be.
The ignorant and stupid belief that children are born naturally
good accounts for the brutality of many fathers and the ruin of
many young lives, making cowards of children, accentuating their
untruthfulness and cowardice and their cruelty through a desire
for revenge.
TWO THIN LITTLE BABIES ARE LEFT
The authorities of New York City, at this writing, have two
babies to give away.
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