An inevitable struggle between the individual and the several powers that go to make his individuality, begins in every child at his very birth, and continues so long as his life in the flesh continues. On the outcome of this struggle depends the ultimate character of him who struggles. It is, to him, bondage or mastery, defeat or triumph, failure or success, as a result of the battling that cannot be evaded. And, as a matter of fact, the issue of the life-long battle is ordinarily settled in childhood.

A child who is trained to self-control—as a child may be—is already a true man in his fitness for manly self-mastery. A man who was not trained, in childhood, to self-control, is hopelessly a child[Pg 94] in his combat with himself; and he can never regain the vantage-ground which his childhood gave to him, in the battle which then opened before him, and in the thick of which he still finds himself. It is in a child’s earlier struggles with himself that help can easiest be given to him, and that it is of greatest value for his own developing of character. Yet at that time a child has no such sense of his need in this direction as is sure to be his in maturer years; hence it is that it rests with the parent to decide, while the child is still a child, whether the child shall be a slave to himself, or a master of himself; whether his life, so far, shall be worthy or unworthy of his high possibilities of manhood.

A child’s first struggle with himself ought to be in the direction of controlling his impulse to give full play to his lungs and his muscles at the prompting of his nerves. As soon as the nerves make themselves felt, they prompt a child to cry, to thrash his arms, to kick, and to twist his body on every side, at the slightest provocation,—or at[Pg 95] none. Unless this prompting be checked, the child will exhaust himself in aimless exertion, and will increase his own discomfort by the very means of its exhibit. A control of himself at this point is possible to a child, at an age while he is yet unable to speak, or to understand what is spoken to him. If a parent realizes that the child must be induced to control himself, and seeks in loving firmness to cause the child to realize that same truth, the child will feel the parent’s conviction, and will yield to it, even though he cannot comprehend the meaning of his parent’s words as words. The way of helping the child will be found, by the parent who wills to help him. To leave a child to himself in these earliest struggles with himself, is to put him at a sad disadvantage in all the future combats of his life’s warfare; while to give him wise help in these earliest struggles, is to give him help for all the following struggles.

As soon as a child is able to understand what is said to him, he ought to be taught and trained to control his impulse to cry and writhe under the[Pg 96] pressure of physical pain. When a child has fallen and hurt himself, or has cut his finger, or has burned his hand, or has been hit by an ill-directed missile, it is natural for him to shriek with pain and fright, and it is natural for his tender-hearted mother to shrink from blaming him just then for indulging in this display of grief. But even at such a time as this, a mother has an unmistakable duty of helping her child to gain a measure of control over himself, so as to repress his cries and to moderate his exhibit of disturbed feeling.

A child can come to exercise self-control under such circumstances as these. His mother can enable him to do this. It is better for both child and mother that he should have her help accordingly. Because of the lack of help just here, many a child is a sufferer through life in his inability to control h............