7. What importance have the angry demonstrations of infants?
8. What is the relation of the control of temper to the rightly developed life?
[48] See Gow, Good Morals and Gentle Manners, chap. viii.
CHAPTER XX
DEALING WITH MORAL CRISES (Continued)
§ 1. QUARRELS
A child who never quarrels probably needs to be examined by a physician; a child who is always quarreling equally needs the physician. In the first there is a lack of sufficient energy so to move as to meet and realize some of life's oppositions; in the other there is probably some underlying cause for nervous irritability.
It is perfectly natural for healthy people to differ; in childhood's realm, where the values and proportions of life are not clearly seen, where social adjustments have not been acquired, the differences in opinions, as in possessions, lead to the expression of feeling in sharp and emphatic terms. Rivalry and conflict are natural to the young animal. Children do not wilfully enter into conflicts any more than adults; they are only less diplomatic in their language, more direct, and more likely to follow the word with attempts at force.