But another magazine told them that Children allowed to sleep lying
on their backs grew up to be idiots. They were sad they had not read
of this before, and started the Child on its right side. The Child,
on the contrary, appeared to have a predilection for the left, the
result being that neither the parents nor the baby itself for the
next three weeks got any sleep worth speaking of.

Later on, by good fortune, they came across a treatise that said a
Child should always be allowed to choose its own position while
sleeping, and their friends persuaded them to stop at that--told them
they would never strike a better article if they searched the whole
British Museum Library. It troubled them to find that Child
sometimes sleeping curled up with its toe in its mouth, and sometimes
flat on its stomach with its head underneath the pillow. But its
health and temper were decidedly improved.

[The Parent can do no right.]

There is nothing the parent can do right. You would think that now
and then he might, if only by mere accident, blunder into sense.
But, no, there seems to be a law against it. He brings home woolly
rabbits and indiarubber elephants, and expects the Child to be
contented "forsooth" with suchlike aids to its education. As a
matter of fact, the Child is content: it bangs its own head with the
woolly rabbit and does itself no harm; it tries to swallow the
indiarubber elephant; it does not succeed, but continues to hope.
With that woolly rabbit and that indiarubber elephant it would be as
happy as the day is long if only the young gentleman from Cambridge
would leave it alone, and not put new ideas into its head. But the