By physical training, mental training, and moral training the child's
character is formed and self-discipline is developed. With the child
of neuropathic disposition and inheritance matters may not proceed so
smoothly. Reasoning and conduct may be alike faulty, and the nervous
disturbances may even cause detriment to the physical health. Not that
the nervous child requires an environment different from that of the
normal child. The difficulties which the parents will encounter and
the problems which must be solved differ not in kind but in degree. An
error of environment which is without effect in the normal child may
be sufficient to produce disastrous results in the neuropathic.

It must be granted that there are some unfortunate children in whom
the moral sense remains absent and cannot be developed--children who
steal and lie, who seem destitute of natural affection, or who appear
to delight in acts of cruelty. These moral degenerates need not be
considered here. Serious errors of conduct, however, in children who
are not degenerate or imbecile, frequently arise directly from faults
of management and can be controlled by correcting these faults.
Suppose, for example, that a child is found to have taken money not
his own. The action of the parents faced with this difficulty and
disappointment will determine to a great extent whether the incident
is productive of permanent damage to the child's character. The
peculiar circumstances of each case must be considered. For example,
the parent must bear in mind the relation in which children stand to
all property. The child possesses nothing of his own; everything
belongs in reality to his father and mother, but of all things
necessary for him he has the free and unquestioned use. Unless his
attention has been specially directed to the conception of ownership
and the nature of theft, he may not have reasoned very closely on the