Page:About people (IA aboutpeople00well).pdf/48

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ABOUT PEOPLE.

Self-inflicted torture should always bring, at last, clearer vision and thankfulness for release from self.

Long before individuality has attained such lustre that it becomes an attractive rather than a repellent force does it manifest itself in the early stages of home-life. The entreaty to the child to amuse himself, or to take care of himself, is the first open declaration of the rights of the parent against those of the child. Infantile graces and motherly love quickly adjust any difference of opinion; but, as years increase, the child finds himself under the shelter of law (ineffective it often is) which guarantees his right to a certain amount of physical and mental growth before he is used as a means of support for the family. The laboring classes chiefly reap the benefit of these laws, but in other ways than caring, for which necessity is often the justification, do the rights of parent and older child conflict. The school brings the difficulty. School-hours, home-lessons,

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