longed for them. My mother didn't believe in finery for children; and
she dressed us very plainly indeed. I want my little girl to look as I
used to wish _I_ might look!"

"But she doesn't care how she looks--" I began.

"I know," the child's mother sighed. "I can _see_ how _her_ little girls
will be dressed!"

Can we not all see just that? And doubtless the little girls of this
beruffled, befurbelowed tomboy--dressed in middy blouses, and bloomers,
and aviation caps, and sweaters, and Peter Thompson coats, or their
future equivalents--will wish they had garments of a totally different
kind; and _she_ will be exclaiming, "Children are never satisfied!"

If this principle on the part of mothers in America in providing for
their children were confined to such superficialities as their clothing,
no appreciable harm--or good--would come of it. But such is not the
case; it extends to the uttermost parts of the child's home life.

Only the other day I happened to call upon a friend of mine during the
hour set aside for her little girl's piano lesson. The child was
tearfully and rebelliously playing a "piece." Her teacher, a musician of
unusual ability, guided her stumbling fingers with conscientious
patience and care. A child of the least musical talent would surely have
responded in some measure to such excellent instruction. My friend's
little girl did not. When the lesson was finished, she slipped from the
piano stool with a sigh of intense relief.

She started to run out of doors; but her mother detained her. "You may