is the spirit of contempt. No relation can be what it ought to be where this spirit is present. The employer must respect his workmen; the mistress her maid; the speaker his audience; the teacher his pupils; the parent his child. And this means that one must seek to be continually at his own best, and must persistently aim to get at the other's best. Any other attitude simply cultivates distrust by others and distrust of others that sap both happiness and influence.

In every child lie the possibilities of character and happiness and influence. His destiny is his own; his choices his own. Beyond a certain pretty definite limit no man can go; but far short of that lies a limit beyond which no man - not even the parent - has a right to go. One of my friends has never been able to forget the sense of personal outrage she felt as a little child, when her mother, without her consent, took the key and went through a little doll's chest of drawers that had been given her as her own. There was nothing she cared specially to hide from her mother, but she felt that her mother had unwarrantably invaded her privacies; that her consent should have been at least asked. And I suspect the child was right. Conspic

uously "capable" and strong-willed mothers are particularly likely to err here-they know so well exactly what it is best that every member of their households should wear and say and do. They are benevolent tyrants. Now, one of the inalienable rights of every living being is the right to make at least some blunders of his own. And it is better that the daughter should not always dress most becomingly than that she should never have opportunity to make decisions of her own; the decisions, indeed, must often be laid upon her, even against her desire.

And this counsel has its application in all personal relations. The strong-willed need here to be constantly on their guard. Some natures seem essentially tyrannical everywhere, even in their closest friendships. They may be very devoted, but they have no respect for the liberty or individuality of others; and they have forgotten Miss Yonge's penetrating remark: "It is a great thing to sacrifice; but it is a greater, to consent not to sacrifice in one's own way." These omniscient friends, who know so much better than one does himself what is good for him, and who insist upon his enjoying himself in the ways they have prescribed, it must be

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confessed, are something of a trial. The exploiter of souls," as Mrs. Deland deftly names this type, though often possessed of some lovely traits, is truly not altogether lovely.

Masterful races are likewise tempted, in dealing with other peoples, to overlook the peculiar individual contributions and enjoyments and points of view of those peoples, and to insist on making them happy and prosperous in the fashion of the conquerors. Star differs from star in glory; and "the white man's burden" may be undertaken in quite too conceited and contemptuous a spirit. That "certain blindness in human nature," of which Professor James speaks so effectively, shuts us out inevitably from the best relations to others.1 One may not interfere to the extent of his power in either the character or the happiness of another, however close to one the other may be. Here lies, too, the fundamental psychological error of all communistic schemes.

It is worth noticing that Paul's single counsel, as I have elsewhere pointed out,' concerning the training of children, subtly

1 Talks on Psychology, and Life's Ideals, pp. 229 ff.

The Appeal of the Child, pp. 24 ff.

grows out of this very principle, "Fathers, provoke not your children to wrath." Don't trespass on the child's personality. Respect the person.

We cannot make people enlightened, or good, or happy, by compulsion (though this does not mean that we are not to do all we can to make their environment wholesome and uplifting). So Erdmann says, with true insight, of the enlightened despotism of Frederick the Great, whose principle was that "the unenlightened must be compelled to be rational and happy": "He came to know with sorrow that those who had shaken off their prejudices at his command remained in bondage to him. The forty-six years of their greatest king furnished perhaps the main reason why the Prussian people were for so many years destitute of enthusiasm, and therefore of capacity, for selfOne must sacredly respect government. the personality of another. One must believe in other men - genuinely respect them -if he is to influence them in a finally high and wholesome way. The cynic cuts himself off, from the beginning, from the best and largest influence upon others. This

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1 History of Philosophy, Vol. II, p. 304.

deep and true estimate of others, moreover, is the only road to a genuine, not a false, humility.

Many a Friendship Is Hurt by This Lack of Respect. The delicate bloom of the grape will not bear much handling. There are limitations to all intimacies; let us not forget it. I am not to presume in my friendships; I am not to pry; I am not to scold; I am not to take away the possibility of decision or choice, even with a child. My child will best learn respect for personality from my treatment of him. I am not to insist on the explanation by my friend of every mood. Every soul must in much be alone and ought to be. One only degrades his friendships when he measures them by the number of liberties he takes, the number of privacies he rides over roughshod. In all friendship, one is to ask, not demand; the door must be opened from within, it must not be forced from without. The secrets of friendship (like those of the Lord) are always with those who fear. Those reverent of personality shall alone see either God or the best in man. A high-minded man can reveal himself only to the reverent. So Granger says: "The spirit does not entrust its deeper inspirations