“Don’t laugh at me, doctor; you make the whole thing too serious for a laughing matter.” To which there was no answer, and there was silence in the room for the space of fully three minutes, while the two pondered.
“You say,” in an imperious tone, “that ‘a fault left to itself must strengthen.’ What are we to do? His father and I wish, at any rate, to do our duty.” Her ruffled maternal plumage notwithstanding, Mrs. Bruce was in earnest, all her wits on the alert. “Come, I’ve scored one!” thought the doctor; and then, with respectful gravity, which should soothe any woman’s amour propre,
“You ask a question not quite easy to answer. But allow me, first, to try and make the principle plain to you: that done, the question of what to do settles itself. Fred never forgets his cricket or other pleasure engagements? No? And why not? Because his interest is excited; therefore his whole attention is fixed on the fact to be remembered. Now, as a matter of fact, what you have regarded with full attention, it is next to impossible to forget. First get Fred to fix his attention on the matter in hand, and you may be sure he won’t forget it.”
“That may be very true; but how can I make a message to Mrs. Milner as interesting to him as the affairs of his club?”
“Ah! There you have me. Had you begun with Fred at a year old the thing would have settled itself. The habit would have been formed.”
To the rescue, Mrs. Bruce’s woman’s wit:—“I see; he must have the habit of paying attention, so that he will naturally take heed to what he is told, whether he cares about the matter or not.”
“My dear madam, you’ve hit it; all except the word ‘naturally.’ At present Fred is in a delightful state of nature in this and a few other respects. But the educational use of habit is to correct nature. If parents would only see this fact, the world would become a huge reformatory, and the next generation, or, at any rate, the third, would dwell in the kingdom of heaven as a regular thing, and not by fits and starts, and here and there, which is the best that happens to us.”
“I’m not sure I see what you mean; but,” said this persistent woman, “to return to this habit of attention which is to reform my Fred—do try and tell me what to do. You gentlemen are so fond of going off into general principles, while we poor women can grasp no more than a practical hint or two to go on with. My boy would be cut up to know how little his fast friend, the doctor, thinks of him!”
“‘Poor women,’ truly! and already you have thrown me with two staggering buffets. My theories have no practical outcome, and, I think little of Fred, who has been my choice chum ever since he left off draperies! It remains for the vanquished to ‘behave pretty.’ Pray, ma’am, what would you like me to say next?”
“To ‘habit,’ doctor, to ‘habit’; and don’t talk nonsense while the precious time is going. We’ll suppose that Fred is just twelve months old to-day. Now, if you please, tell me how I’m to make him begin to pay attention. And, by the way, why in the world didn’t you talk to me about it when the child really was young?”